Narrow road meets by chance
It's already past four in the afternoon. On weekend afternoons, many people in poor neighborhoods often spend their time in bed, as going out not only exposes them to UV radiation but also costs money; taking a nap that lasts the entire afternoon is indeed a healthy and cost-effective leisure activity.
The stairwell was empty. Yi Xiaodao led the way, and Baihe followed behind him, both of them trying to appear relaxed as they walked down from the ninth floor. According to Nanhua City's regulations, buildings with nine floors or more must be equipped with elevators, so the owner of the house had just installed one on the ninth floor.
He walked to the seventh floor and threw two ordinary black trash bags into the trash can in the stairwell, which would be taken away by the landlord to the garbage heap downstairs early next morning.
As he walked to the corner between the second and third floors, Yi Xiaodao heard the landlord speaking loudly downstairs. Normally, he wouldn't have paid attention, but this time he subconsciously leaned his head against the window of the stairwell to take a look down. Although the rain shed at the entrance of the first floor blocked part of his view, Yi Xiaodao could still clearly see that the car with its body mostly hidden was a police car.
Yi Xiaodao quickly gestured for Yurui to stop. The household registration police had already gone downstairs and should have walked far away by now, and the household registration police were not yet capable of driving a police car to register temporary residence permits.
Lily also discovered something was amiss and darted into a corner, slowly poking her head out from the window to look down.
The landlord's loud voice confirmed Yi Xiaodao's speculation.
"What are you talking about? There are all working-class people here, don't be so ruthless!" The landlord was originally speaking in Cantonese, but the police probably couldn't understand it, so he had to switch to Mandarin.
A low voice said: "Keep your voice down. We are also considering the safety of the masses, go upstairs and take a look and come back down. If you confirm that there is no criminal, you can rest assured."
But the landlord seems to be unwilling to listen: "I'm telling you, there's no killer here. If you keep talking nonsense and harm my house rental business, I'll settle accounts with you! Just over ten minutes ago, a group of police came by, now they're back again. What's wrong with the police? Can't they just disturb people at will?"
It turned out that because the house couldn't be rented out and also encountered police coming to handle affairs, the landlord was so furious.
Yi Xiao Dao didn't dare to hesitate, and quickly pulled Bai He to rush back to the ninth floor along the original path. Fortunately, the landlord was in a bad mood, otherwise he would have easily let the police in, and they would have had to meet on the stairs. No need to think, the police downstairs were definitely here to catch Bai He, and the result of the encounter would either be Bai He being beaten to death by the police or Bai He shooting the police dead. Either way, he would be hard-pressed to escape involvement.
Another police voice came from downstairs: "The police are on duty, you have an obligation to cooperate! You're blocking me in every way now, I can suspect that you're hiding a criminal and obstructing justice!"
The policeman's voice was also not loud, but as cold as steel, and the landlord immediately fell silent, then heard the sound of opening the door.
"You two stay here, you three, come with me to search the building floor by floor. I have a feeling that the killer is likely hiding in this building." The voice from just now said.
He lowered his voice, and the lily who had returned to the sixth floor did not hear a sound, but Yixiaodao heard it clearly. On the one hand, this was because his attention was focused on downstairs, and on the other hand, he also benefited from his keen hearing since birth.
The faint footsteps downstairs quickly came upstairs. Yi Xiaodao was about to head towards the seventh floor when he suddenly stopped, grabbed Yuriko's right hand, and before she could make a sound, directly reached into her pants pocket and pulled out the pistol, tossing it into the trash can in the corner of the stairs and covering it with surrounding garbage.
After closing the door, Lily lowered her voice and asked Yi Xiaodao: "Why did you throw away my gun?"
"Are you really going to have a shootout with the police?"
Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it couldn't conceal her indignation: "Are you going to watch me be captured without lifting a finger?"
"You want to die, but I don't want to die yet." Yi Xiaodao stuffed the bag in his hand under the bed, then thought for a moment and took it out again, putting it in the wardrobe. He continued, "This time they're definitely from the homicide unit, you think they're bowling pins that you can knock down with one shot? And once they discover your trail, armed helicopters will arrive within ten minutes, even if I lend you a hundred pairs of wings, you won't be able to fly away."
Lily was speechless, and she roughly understood the police force in Nanhua City. It wasn't difficult to gather a large number of armed police and helicopters within ten minutes. At that time, the only way out was to take Yixiaodao hostage, but for an assassin like her to resort to kidnapping to escape, it would be better to die instead - and besides, the police snipers might not even let her get away with the kidnapping.
"What are we going to do now? Just sit here and wait for the police to come and arrest me?" Yurika asked with a frown.
Yi Xiaodao was also thinking of a solution with his head down. The police officer who had suspected to be the leader just now had clearly ordered to search house by house, according to the usual practice of the police, they would divide the personnel into two teams, one team starting from the first floor and searching upwards, and the other team starting from the top floor and searching downwards, the rooftop would be searched first, and soon they would come down to the 9th floor. Time had passed for tens of seconds again, now the police were probably already on the rooftop.
They didn't have a chance to go out again, the building's floor area was not large, and there were only six households on one floor. Standing in the stairwell, you could see the entire corridor situation at a glance, and going out would definitely be discovered.
Finally, Yi Xiaodao gritted his teeth and decided to take a risk. Without saying another word, he pulled up Yuriko's right hand and headed towards the bathroom.
"What are you doing?" Lily flung her hand with force, but didn't shake him off. She suddenly felt a flush rise to her face and quickly grabbed the door frame with her left hand, feeling a sharp pain in her shoulder. As soon as she let go, she was pulled into the narrow bathroom by Yixiaodao.
"What do you want?" She originally wanted to ask loudly, but what came out was even softer than a mosquito's voice.
Yi Xiao Dao's face turned serious, "The next ten minutes will be the turning point of your life. If you want to stay alive, it's best not to make a single sound - if you can also put silencers on your nostrils."
Lily opened her big eyes and stared at Yi Xiaodao, wondering what he would do next.
Yi Xiaodao tilted his head to listen, his eyes scanning the surroundings before stopping at Baihe's chest: "Your heartbeat is too heavy, this isn't a killer's heartbeat."
The lily's ears were all red, she wanted to explain that she wasn't afraid, but in the end didn't say anything.
"Alright, let's go," Yixiaodao said, lifting up Hydrangea's long legs with one arm and holding her high.
……
Today's first update. I've been too tired lately, basically sleeping at 2am and waking up at 7am, feeling like sleeping as soon as I start work, yeah, need to make some changes.
No more nonsense, let's follow the old rules, everyone use their utmost efforts to support Xiao Xiao down.
