Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Hong Kong

In the early morning, the rain didn't stop, and later, the rain still didn't stop.In fact, the rain showed no sign of stopping at all.For several weeks, the weather was mild and humid.The ground soaked up rain, roads in Europe caved in, migratory birds stopped migrating, and news reported insects never seen before in northern climates.The calendar shows that it is winter now, but not only can there be no snow in Oslo's parks, even the withered and yellowed plants can't be seen.The park is full of green, beckoning to people, as green as the artificial turf of Songge District Stadium.Fitness enthusiasts jog around the course in the tights favored by Norwegian cross-country skier Bjrn Dahlie because they've been waiting for ice skating on the frozen Sognesee lake and can't .There was thick fog on New Year’s Eve, and although the rumbling sound of the grand fireworks in the center of Oslo reached the suburban city of Asker, the sky was white and nothing could be seen, even if you set off fireworks in your own backyard Still can't see clearly.Consumer surveys, however, showed that every family in Norway spent 600 kroner on fireworks that night, suggesting that the number of people wishing to spend a white Christmas on Thailand's white sandy beaches had tripled in the past three years.In Southeast Asia, the climate also seems to have become haphazard, with symbols that only appear on weather maps during typhoon season now appearing in rows across the South China Sea.February in Hong Kong is usually the driest month of the year, but now it is raining heavily and the visibility is extremely low. Therefore, Cathay Pacific Flight 731 from London to Hong Kong can only continue to circle over Hong Kong International Airport.

"You should be glad that we don't have to land at the old airport," said the male passenger with Chinese facial features next to Kaya Sonis, Kaya gripped the handrail tightly, his knuckles turned white, "The old airport is in the city center, like this weather The plane will definitely go straight into the skyscraper." The plane had been flying for twelve hours before the man spoke to Kaya. Kaya took the opportunity to divert her attention from thinking about the temporary turbulence of the plane. "Thank you for saying that. It puts my mind at ease. Are you British?"

The man's face changed, as if he had been slapped.Kaya immediately realized that she had stepped on the other party's pain. "Uh...or Chinese?" The man looked at her: "I am from Hong Kong, China. What about you, Miss?" Kaya hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he should answer "Norwegian Hoxson", but said concisely: "I am Norwegian." The man pondered for a while, suddenly realized, and said: "Aha!" Then he added: "Nordic." Then he asked her what she wanted to do in Hong Kong. "I've come to find a man," Kaya said, looking down at the blue-gray clouds below, hoping that land would emerge from between them soon.

"Aha!" the man said again, "Miss, you are very beautiful. Please don't believe the saying that Chinese people only marry Chinese people." Kaya smiled wearily: "You mean Hong Kong people?" "Especially people from Hong Kong, China," the man nodded eagerly, raising his ringless hand, "I'm in the microchip business, and my family has factories in China and South Korea. What are you going to do tonight?" "I wish I could sleep." Kaya yawned. "What about tomorrow night?" "I hope the man has been found tomorrow night so I can go home."

The man frowned: "Miss, are you in such a hurry?" Kaya declined the man's offer to give her a lift, and took a double-decker bus to the city center by herself.An hour later, she stood alone in the corridor of the Imperial Hotel in Kowloon and took a deep breath.She has come to the door of the guest room assigned to her by the counter, inserted the room card into the door lock, and then only needs to open the door.She pressed the doorknob, slammed the door open, and looked in. It was empty.Of course it was empty. She went in, dragged her luggage to the bed, stood by the window and looked out.The first thing that catches the eye is the dense crowd on the street under the seventeenth floor, and then the skyscrapers, which are completely different from their sisters in Manhattan, Kuala Lumpur or Tokyo. Spectacular enough, but these skyscrapers look like termite mounds, which is both terrifying and shocking.The skyscrapers of Hong Kong stand as a grotesque testimony to the resilience of human beings, capable of finding shelter for seven million people in an area of ​​more than 1,000 square kilometers.Exhausted, Kaya kicked off her shoes and fell on the bed.Although this room is a double room, and the hotel is a four-star hotel, the 120 cm wide double bed occupies almost all the floor area in the room.It occurred to her that she must find a man among these anthills, and the evidence showed that this man did not want to be found at all.

She hesitated, torn between two options.Do you close your eyes, or start taking action?She pulled herself together and stood up, took off her clothes and went into the bathroom.After taking a shower, she stood in front of the mirror and confirmed without a trace of complacency that the Hong Kong native was right: she was beautiful.This is not her subjective opinion, but viewed from an objective perspective, her beauty is a fact.She has high cheekbones, two beautiful black eyebrows hang above a pair of round eyes like a child, and the green eyes shine with the mature light of a young woman.The hair is honey-colored, and the mouth is slightly larger, with two full lips that seem to be kissing each other.The neck is slender, the figure is also slender, and the delicate breasts are like two small mounds, floating on the flawless white skin.Her soft buttocks and long legs once attracted two Oslo modeling agencies to send people to visit her school in Hoxon, only to get her refusal, making them shake their heads regretfully.What pleased her most was that one of them said before leaving: "Well, but my dear, please remember that your beauty is not perfect, your teeth are small and sharp, and you should not smile too much."

After that, she smiled more freely. Kaya put on khaki trousers and a light waterproof jacket, walked downstairs without a sound, and came to the restaurant counter as if weightless. "Chungking Mansions?" said the receptionist, raising an eyebrow involuntarily and pointing, "walk along Kimberley Road to Nathan Road, then turn left." Hotels and restaurants within the territory of Interpol members must register all foreign tenants by law.Kaya called the secretary of the Norwegian embassy to inquire about the last registered address of the man she was looking for, and the secretary told her that Chungking Mansions was neither a hotel, nor an apartment, nor a mansion.Chungking Mansions is a mixed building with shops, takeaway restaurants, restaurants, and more than a hundred legal and illegal hotels. Some hotels have only two rooms, and some have twenty rooms, scattered throughout Chungking Mansions in the five buildings.The rented room may be simple, clean and comfortable, or it may be small and dirty, just a one-star single room.The most important thing is that if a person has very low requirements for the quality of life, then sleeping, eating, living, working, and breeding can all be solved in Chungking Mansions without leaving this anthill.

Kaya found the entrance of Chungking Mansions on Nathan Road.Nathan Road is a busy shopping street, selling all kinds of branded goods, with bright store fronts and tall display windows everywhere.When she walked into Chungking Mansions, what greeted her was the kitchen heat from the exhaust vents of the fast food restaurant, the knocking of the cobbler, the radio broadcast of the Muslim prayer meeting, and the tired faces in the second-hand store.She smiled at a bewildered backpacker, clutching a Lonely Planet guidebook, misjudging the weather and wearing only camouflage shorts beneath a pair of pale, frozen Stiff legs.

The uniformed guard looked at the note Kaya handed over and said, "Elevator C." He pointed to the corridor. There was a long queue in front of the elevator, and she waited until the third round to squeeze into the elevator.The elevator was so small that it creaked and vibrated, and the passengers were crowded inside, making Kaya think that gypsies bury their dead vertically. The hotel owner, a turbaned Muslim man, saw Kaya enthusiastically and enthusiastically showed her a small box-like room, in which there was an incredible space for a TV on the wall at the end of the bed, and a TV above the head of the bed. A rattling air conditioner.Kaya interrupted the hotel owner's fluent salesmanship, took out a photo of the man, spelled it out according to the name on the man's passport, and asked where he was.The innkeeper's enthusiasm immediately faded.

Seeing the look on the hotel owner's face, Kaya quickly explained that she was the man's wife.Previously, the secretary of the embassy specifically told Kaya that showing his police badge at Chungking Mansions would lead to counterproductive effects.To be on the safe side, Kaya added, she bore five children to the man in the photo.After hearing this, the hotel owner changed his attitude 180 degrees.It is admirable that this pagan woman has brought so many children into the world at such a young age.The hotel owner sighed heavily, shook his head, and said in broken English in a mournful tone: "Poor, poor, miss. They came and took his passport."

"Who are they?" "Who? A triad of course, miss, or who else?" Kaya had heard about the triads, an underworld gang, but she thought they only existed in cartoons or kung fu movies. "Miss, please sit down." The hotel owner quickly found a chair, and Kaya slumped down on the chair. "The triads came to him, but he went out, so they took his passport away." .” "Passport? Why?" The hotel owner hesitated to speak. "Please tell me, I must know why." "Unfortunately, your husband bet on the horses." "horse?" "Happy Valley. Racetrack. It's a nasty thing." "Does he owe money? Does he owe triad money?" The innkeeper nodded, shook his head, nodded again, confirming the fact and regretting it at the same time. "So they took his passport?" "If he wants to leave Hong Kong, he has to pay off his debts." "But he can get a new passport as long as he goes to the Norwegian embassy to apply?" The turbaned hotel owner waggles: "Gee, you can buy a fake passport for $80 at Chungking Mansions, but that's beside the point. The point is that Hong Kong is an island. How did you get here?" "Come by plane." "Then how are you going to leave?" "Take a plane and leave." "There is only one airport in Hong Kong. To fly, you need to buy a ticket. Every passenger's name will appear on the computer, and there are many checkpoints. Many staff at the airport have been bribed by the triads to find people on the computer. Do you understand? " Kaya nodded slowly: "It's hard to escape from their palms." The hotel owner laughed loudly and shook his head: "You are wrong, miss, it is impossible to escape their palms. But you can hide in Hong Kong, there are seven million people here, you have to hide It's easy." Kaya lacked sleep, and at this moment exhaustion hit suddenly, so she closed her eyes.The hotel owner misunderstood her move, put his hand on her shoulder, expressed comfort, and murmured: "Don't be sad, don't be sad." The innkeeper hesitated for a moment, leaned forward, and said in a low voice, "Miss, I think he's still here." "I know he's still here." "No, I mean, he's still in Chungking Mansions, I've seen him." Kaya raised her head. "I met him twice," said the hotel owner, "at Li Yuan Restaurant, where he ate, and the price was cheap. Don't say I said it. Your husband is a good man, but he just got into trouble," he rolled his eyes, Eyeballs almost rolled into the scarf, "caused a lot of trouble." Li Yuan Restaurant has a counter-style long table and four plastic dining tables. The owner, Li Yuan, smiled hospitablely at Kaya.Six hours later, Kaya ordered two fried rice, three cups of coffee, and two liters of water.Li Yuan shook her, she woke up with a start, raised her head from the greasy dining table, and looked at Li Yuan. "Tired?" He smiled, showing his broken front teeth. Kaya yawned, ordered the fourth cup of coffee, and continued to wait.At this time, two Chinese men entered the restaurant and sat down at the long table without saying a word, ordering food, or even looking at Kaya, which pleased her.She sat on the plane for a long time, so that her body was stiff, and no matter how she changed her sitting position, her body ached.She stretched her neck from side to side to improve blood circulation, and then her neck fell back with a click.She stared at the blue-white fluorescent tubes on the ceiling for a moment before looking down.At this moment, she saw a pale and worried man's face.The man stopped in front of the closed iron rolling door in the corridor, scanned the narrow space in Li Yuan's restaurant, paused for a while on the two Chinese men in front of the long table, and then walked away quickly. Kaya stood up, but one foot was numb and sore, and she almost couldn't stand still.She grabbed her bag and limped after him. "Welcome again." She heard Li Yuan calling from behind. The man was very thin.The man she was looking for was tall and strong in the photo, and the chair he sat on in the talk show TV show looked like it was custom-made for midgets.But Kaya knew that the man was the one she was looking for, without any doubt.He has a cropped head, his hair is cut unevenly, his nose is straight and straight, his eyes are covered with spider webs of bloodshot eyes, and his eyes show the dull gaze of an alcoholic. His eyes are light blue, his jaw line is firm, and his mouth is gentle and almost beautiful. Kaya staggered onto Nathan Road, and under the flashing neon lights, she saw the man's leather jacket standing out among passers-by.He wasn't walking fast, but Kaya had to pick up her pace to keep up.The man turned from a busy shopping street to a side street with fewer pedestrians, so she followed him at a distance.She saw a sign saying "Minden Trail."She was tempted to go up and introduce herself and wrap things up, but decided to go ahead with her original plan and find out where the man lived.The rain stopped, and the clouds suddenly moved aside, revealing the black velvet-like high night sky and stars behind. After walking for 20 minutes, the man suddenly stopped at a corner. Kaya was worried that he had exposed his whereabouts, but the man did not turn around, but just took something out of his coat pocket.Kaya stared at the thing in surprise, it turned out to be a feeding bottle. The man disappeared around the corner. Kaya followed and came to a large open square, which was crowded with people, mostly young people.At the other end of the square, just above the wide glass doors, there is a large billboard with words in English and Chinese.Kaya recognized it as the title of a movie that had just come out and she hadn't seen yet.Her eyes found the man's leather jacket, and she saw the man place the bottle on the low pedestal of a bronze statue of a gallows with an empty noose.The man continued to walk, passed two benches with people sitting on it, sat down on the third bench, and picked up a newspaper.About twenty seconds later, the man stood up, returned to the bronze statue, picked up the bottle, put it in his pocket, and walked back the same way. When Kaya watched the man walk into Chungking Mansions, the sky began to drizzle again.She began to prepare what she was going to say.There was no longer a queue for the elevator, but the man climbed the stairs anyway, turned right and walked through the swing doors.She hurried to follow, only to find herself in an unoccupied dilapidated stairwell that smelled of cat urine and damp cement.She held her breath, but only heard the sound of dripping water.Just when she decided to climb up, she heard the door slamming from downstairs.She rushed down the stairs, only to find that the only possible slamming door was a dented metal door.She gripped the doorknob, feeling herself start to tremble.She closed her eyes, cursing herself.Then she opened the metal door and stepped into the darkness. Something ran over her feet, but she didn't scream or move. At first she thought she had entered the elevator shaft, but when she looked up, she saw a blackened brick wall with a mess of water pipes, wires, twisted metal blocks, and collapsed rusty iron scaffolding piled up in front of the wall.She came to a patio, a space separated by only a few square meters between the two buildings, the only light coming from the stars in a small patch of night sky high above. There were no clouds in the sky, but water droplets kept falling on the asphalt road and her face. She knew it was condensation from the rusty air conditioner outside the building.She took a step back and leaned against the iron gate. She waited quietly.After a while, she heard someone in the darkness say, "What do you want?" She had never heard a man's voice, and though she'd heard him discuss serial killers on talk shows, hearing him in real life was very different.The man's voice was a little hoarse, making him sound much older than his actual age.Kaya knew that the man had just turned forty years old, but the man's voice was calm and confident, deep and warm, completely different from the worried face she saw outside Li Yuan's restaurant. "I'm Norwegian," Kaya said. The man didn't respond.Kaya swallowed.She knew that the first paragraph she said was the most important. "My name is Kaya Sounis, and I have been ordered to come here to find you, and the person who sent me is Gunner Hagen." The man did not respond to the crime swat officer's name.Is he gone? "My position is a police detective, and I'm responsible for investigating murder cases for Hagen." Kaya said in the dark. "Congratulations." "No congratulations at all, if you've read the Norwegian papers these past few months." She almost bit her own tongue.Is she trying to show humor?It must be from lack of sleep, or from nervousness. "I congratulate you on completing your mission," said the voice, "you found me, and you can go back now." "Wait!" Kaya yelled, "don't you want to hear what I have to tell you?" "I'd rather not listen." She said the words that she had drafted and practiced in advance: "Two women were killed, and the criminal forensic evidence showed that the prisoner was the same. Apart from that, we have no clues. The police Very little information has been released to the media, but the media has been shouting that yet another serial killer is on the loose, with some commentators suggesting that the killer may have been inspired by the Yeti. We have requested the assistance of Interpol experts, but so far nothing has been found on the case Progress. Pressure from the media and government authorities..." "I mean I don't want to hear it," said the voice. A door slams shut. "Hello? Hello? Are you still there?" Kaya groped forward and found a door.She opened the door, and fear came over her.She stepped into another dark stairwell.She glanced at the light upstairs and climbed the three steps in one step.The light came through the glass of a swing door.She pushed open the swing doors and walked into a bare hallway with peeling plaster that had apparently been abandoned and moisture coming out of the walls as bad as bad breath.There were two men leaning against the wall, cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths, and a sweet stench wafted towards Kaya.The two men looked at her with dull eyes, and she hoped that they were too slow to move.She analyzed the smaller man as black African-American, and the larger man as white with a pyramid-shaped scar on his forehead, like a warning triangle.She had read in Police magazine that with nearly 30,000 police officers on the streets of Hong Kong, it was considered the safest metropolis in the world, but the safety was limited to the streets. "Miss, are you looking for Hashish?" Kaya shook her head, trying to put on a confident smile, and also trying to embody the way she advised young girls to react in situations like this when she went to school to speak: to look like she knew exactly where she was going, not like Is lost, like prey. The two men smiled back.The exit at the other end of the corridor has been blocked with bricks.They pulled their hands out of their pockets and squeezed their cigarettes. "So you're here to have fun?" "I just went in the wrong direction." Kaya said, turning around, intending to go out.A hand grabbed her wrist.The fear in her mouth tasted like tinfoil.In theory, she knows how to get out of the situation, having done exercises on rubber mats in a brightly lit gym surrounded by coaches and colleagues. "You're on the right track, miss, you're on the right track, and here's the fun." The breath in her face stinks of fish, onions, and marijuana.The situation she practiced in the gym was dealing with only one gangster. "No thanks," she said, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible. The black man approached quietly, grabbed her other wrist, and said in a voice mixed with real and false, "We'll take you to have fun." "There's no fun to be had here, is there?" The three of them looked towards the door at the same time. She knew that the man's passport stated that he was 1.92 meters tall, but standing at the Hong Kong-sized doorway, he looked at least 2.1 meters tall, and he looked twice as tall as he was an hour ago, with his arms hanging down his side , slightly away from the body.The man didn't move, stare, or snarl, just looked at the white man calmly, and said again: "Is it? Something?" Kaya felt the white man's fingers tighten and relax on her wrist, and she also noticed the black man's changing positions. "No." The man at the door said.Kaya felt the hands of the two hesitantly let go. "Let's go." The man at the door said, gently grabbing her arm. The two walked out the door, and Kaya felt her cheeks heat up from tension and shame.She was ashamed because she breathed a sigh of relief, because her head reacted very slowly in the situation just now, because she was very willing to let the man get rid of the two harmless drug dealers who only slightly disturbed her. The man accompanied her up two flights of stairs, through a swing door, took her to the elevator, pressed the down button, and stood beside her staring at the shiny panel above the elevator door that read "11." "They are foreign workers," the man said, "just lonely and bored." "I know." Kaya said stubbornly. "Press G to go to the first floor, turn right after exiting the elevator door, and then go straight to Nathan Road." "Please listen to me, you are the only one in the criminal SWAT team who has the professional ability to hunt down serial killers. After all, you are the policeman who arrested the Yeti." "Indeed." The man said.Kaya saw the man's eyes change slightly, and his fingers slid across the chin below the right ear. "And then I resigned." "Resign? You mean vacation?" "Resignation means the end." Only then did Kaya notice that the man's right jawbone protruded unnaturally. "Ganner Hagen said that when you left Oslo, he agreed to put you on leave until further notice." The man smiled slightly.Kaya saw the smile completely change the man's face. "That's because Hagen doesn't understand what I mean..." The man paused, his smile disappeared, and he stared at the panel above the elevator, which now displayed "5", "Anyway, I don't work for the police anymore. " "We need you..." Kaya took a breath, knowing that she was walking on thin ice, she had to be careful with her words, but she also had to take action to prevent the man from disappearing from her sight again, "You need us too." The man's eyes returned to her. "Why do you say that?" "You owe money to triads, buy drugs in bottles on the street, and you live in..." Kaya grimaced, "...here, and you don't have a passport with you." "I'm free and easy here, why do I need a passport?" The elevator made a "ding" sound, the elevator door opened and creaked, and the body odor of the passengers inside wafted out. "I'm not leaving!" Kaya said, louder than she expected.She saw the eyes of the elevator passengers shooting at her, with a mixture of impatience and curiosity on their faces. "You have to go." The man said, put his hand on the middle of Kaya's back, and gently but firmly pushed her into the elevator.She was immediately surrounded by elevator passengers, unable to move, even having difficulty turning around.She turned her head, only to see the elevator doors closing. "Harry!" she yelled, but the man had disappeared from her sight.