The music was truly soft. Xiao Wu and 13 moved like two leaves drifting in a gentle breeze, looking like master dancers. Xiao Wu had taken dance lessons since childhood to cultivate her temperament, while 13 had been taught by his instructor how to dance and kill silently during assassination training. Two entirely different purposes, yet these two people from different worlds performed the best dance of the entire party.
Among the watching crowd, there were also gazes from strangers. To get closer, a stranger walked behind a lady dressed as a dinosaur.
"Dance with me!" His tone was commanding. The lady turned around, and he regretted it. Her appearance was so unsightly it practically defamed the creature she was impersonating.
"I'd love to!" The "dinosaur" almost drooled as she looked at the tall man before her.
The mission was important, so the stranger still pulled the dinosaur onto the dance floor, step by step closing in on his target.
"This must be tough on you..." 13 sighed to the assassin who danced near him.
The dinosaur was clearly not tall enough and was being completely lifted and spun in the air by him.
"Don't get cocky. In a different setting, I'd definitely kill you." If it weren't for the dim lighting, one could surely see his face had turned green with anger.
"Kill me if you can." 13 smiled and danced towards the edge of the dance floor. The spinning stranger tried to follow, but suddenly a blinding beam of light hit him.
"Congratulations to the two on the dance floor! The killer and dinosaur costumes are so imaginative! You will be tonight's Ball King and Queen! Let's hear it for them!"
"Oh... oh... oh..." The surrounding people cheered along. Just those few seconds of closing their eyes made them lose the target.
Holding Xiao Wu, 13 rushed into the men's restroom, startling a "Kennedy" who was urinating.
"Are you kidding me? How can a woman enter the men's room?" Kennedy had a Cantonese accent.
Xiao Wu's face flushed red instantly.
13 scanned the Cantonese Kennedy, who was fumbling with his belt, up and down. Gray suit, white shirt, black leather shoes.
"Let's change clothes..." 13 was smiling, but the other person felt an intense chill.
Three minutes later, a neatly dressed 13 walked out of the stall. He checked himself in the mirror; it fit quite well. Seeing 13 dressed like this, Xiao Wu's heart pounded fiercely.
"Let's go. Now we can see what your father left behind." 13 quickly opened a small, frosted window in the restroom.
In the taxi, the driver kept stealing glances at Xiao Wu through the rearview mirror. Being watched by those lecherous eyes, Xiao Wu unconsciously pulled tighter on her knee-length wool skirt. But her calves exposed outside the skirt, clad in stockings, were still being scanned. Xiao Wu tugged 13's shoulder. But he acted as if he didn't see, continuing to gaze at the constantly passing scenery outside the window.
It took a full 20 minutes to reach Xiao Wu's dormitory.
13 let Xiao Wu get out first, saying he would pay. This surprised Xiao Wu for a moment.
Through the aluminum alloy railing, 13 looked at the meter showing 40 yuan.
"What do you think will happen if I don't pay?" 13 placed his right hand on the aluminum railing.
"Are you kidding, sir?" The driver was a young man, about twenty-three or four, who hadn't been driving long and hadn't encountered such a customer before.
13 snapped off a bar of the railing with one pull. "Do I look like I'm kidding?"
The driver was terrified. "Sir, how can you do this? We're just small business owners trying to make a living..." He almost added that he had an old mother and young children to support.
"But you seemed to be enjoying the view just now, didn't you?" 13 snapped off another bar.
"I was wrong, brother. Consider this ride on me!" The driver conceded defeat.
"Smart!" Holding the two "trophies" in his hand, 13 got out of the car. The driver quickly started the engine and drove away.
"Is this how you pay?" Xiao Wu, who had been happy that 13 stood up for her, lost all her gratitude when she saw him use this to negotiate with the driver.
The taxi stopped about 40 meters away. The driver turned back and cursed, "Damn it, poor ghosts shouldn't take taxis! Don't go out on the street dressed so revealingly! Save the fare money for your coffin!"
Xiao Wu was too angry to speak. 13, however, made a backward leaning motion. The driver smugly started the engine again. Just as he was about to leave, suddenly, with a "bang," the rear window was pierced by two aluminum tubes.
13 clapped his hands and said to the stunned Xiao Wu, "Just took something from someone, now giving it back. We can go in."
"Oh..." Xiao Wu came back to her senses and led 13 into the dormitory.
"Xiao Wu, who is this?" The gatekeeper auntie stopped Xiao Wu.
"Him? My classmate." Seeing the auntie's strange look, Xiao Wu felt awkward.
"Classmate? Not your boyfriend? It would be nice if he were your boyfriend. This young man is quite handsome. Say, Xiao Wu's 'classmate', what are you doing here?" The auntie didn't seem inclined to let them pass easily.
13, who was busy observing the building's structure, came back to reality. "Huh? Oh, coming to the dorm, of course, to do what lovers do!" Xiao Wu's face almost turned blue, and she forcefully pinched the flesh on his arm.
The auntie almost fainted from shock.
"Alright, Auntie, we're in a hurry. We'll chat with you later!" Xiao Wu pulled 13 and ran towards her room on the second floor.
"Young people nowadays..." The auntie was speechless.
Entering her room, Xiao Wu quickly closed the door to prevent her roommate from discovering 13's presence.
"What were you talking about?" Xiao Wu asked, blushing.
"I was planning to say that anyway, but you pinched me for no reason. Okay, where are your father's things?" 13 got down to business.
Xiao Wu sighed and pulled out a large leather suitcase from under the bed. "It's all in here."
Opening the suitcase, letters fluttered out like snowflakes.
13 carefully sifted through them.
Time passed unknowingly again. The sun set, and a crescent moon hung in the sky. The night was exceptionally quiet.
13 leaned against the edge of the bed, searching for clues page by page. Seeing her father's belongings, Xiao Wu's heart was touched again. She felt proud of her father, and also sad for him...
Li Yuntian was a famously good official. He was conscientious and responsible in his work, and warm and caring towards the public. In his 20 years as an official, he never took any income beyond his salary. Because of this, he didn't have much time to care for his wife and child. He was a good official, but not a good father. Xiao Wu's mother died during a difficult childbirth. Yuntian only took 7 days of bereavement leave before returning to work. Xiao Wu was raised single-handedly by a nanny. When she was 18, Taiwan returned, and China began to stand tall in the world, but his work only seemed to get busier. Xiao Wu got into this school in Wuhan and resolutely decided to leave Beijing to study alone. Xiao Wu had to admit she was proud of her father, but she also resented his indifference towards her. When she left Beijing for the plane, he only had the nanny give her a letter.
A year after arriving in Wuhan, she received the bad news from Beijing. Her father's health had actually been failing for a year, but he refused to take time off for hospital treatment. He finally passed away at his office desk. Xiao Wu, who loved to cry, didn't shed a single tear at her father's funeral. Because the farewell letter her father gave her said, "Even if I die, there's nothing to cry about. It's just a stage everyone must go through."
Yuntian's funeral was small, but known throughout the country. Even the Chairman attended the condolence ceremony in person.
After the first seven days of mourning, Xiao Wu returned to Wuhan with all of her father's personal belongings (all in the suitcase) and locked herself in her room for two full days.
13 carefully unrolled a calligraphy scroll. In wild cursive script, it read "Fight Corruption, Promote Integrity."
"What's this?" 13 asked.
"Before he died, Dad loved this calligraphy scroll the most. He wrote it himself." Xiao Wu "woke up" from her memories.
Upon close inspection, in a corner, a passage was written with a fine ballpoint pen...
"Corruption is like history; five thousand years of China, five thousand years of corruption. Eradication is like a joke. I only hope my meager efforts can remove some of this cancer for the country..."
"I didn't know about this sentence; Dad must have added it later," Xiao Wu said.
"A hint?" 13 pondered for a moment. "The book your father left!"
From the bottom of the suitcase, he pulled out a thick, large book titled "Five Thousand Years of History." Unlike those in bookstores, this one had a lock on the side.
"Do you have the key?" 13 asked.
"Dad never gave me one." Xiao Wu shook her head.
"Then don't blame me." 13 took a hairpin from Xiao Wu's hair. It took him only two seconds to open the book.
Before she could marvel at 13's thief-like skills, she saw that the hollowed-out book contained a thick, leather-bound notebook.
After flipping through a few pages, 13 sighed, "I understand why your father didn't give you the key. If this thing gets out, China is going to change..."