The next day, Su Qing cautiously went through three disguises as he covered the area, quietly drawing a mental map. 

Over the years, it had become a habit for him to first plan a line of retreat before doing anything. Then he walked into a little alley, carrying an express delivery food box, wearing a deliveryman’s uniform with the cap brim pulled low. He walked to the very end of the little alley. In the absolute most unobtrusive corner, there was a painted little arrow with an outline around it like a chalk outline of a corpse. 

Su Qing fixed his eyes on the “deceased” little arrow and smiled. He bent and put down the box of food, stretched, stuck earbuds in his ears, put on music that would have raised the dead, and went off humming. 

The next day he came back again carrying another box of food. He found that the box he had left the day before was empty. The chicken legs inside had been gnawed clean; only a few chicken bones remained. For some reason, there was a filthy little stray dog tied to a garbage bin nearby. It was stretching its neck, struggling to get at the chicken bones. 

Su Qing, not minding the filth, lifted the stray dog. It was this dog’s habit to tuck its tail between its legs and seek survival. It fawningly wagged its listless tail at him and stuck out its nose to rub Su Qing’s palm. 

Su Qing looked down, felt around on the stray dog’s belly, and as expected pulled a small roll of paper out from its filthy long fur. There was a crooked flower drawn on it. 

Su Qing put on a cunning smile, expressing his pleasure. He kicked away the empty food box from the day before. The little dog began to bark anxiously. Su Qing patted it on the head. “Hush, you can’t eat that. If you crunch up the bones and swallow them, they might scrape your guts.” 

Then he took out a piece of pork rib from the food box and tossed it aside. He put the food box in a place where the dog couldn’t reach it and took a piece of paper from his pocket, hiding it under the dog’s belly. He took a look at the dog waving its tail like a fan, then turned and left. 

In his years of roving with Ji Pengcheng, Su Qing had become acquainted with the ways all the people who, like him, had no identities survived on the fringes of the cities. Each circle had its own rules—for example, this framed arrow was in reality a sign left by one of the city’s tramps indicating that he could sell information to the best of his ability. Eating Su Qing’s food and replying with this flower meant “we can discuss business.” 

As a “superior person,” Cheng Weizhi had instructed him in the conduct of a person with reason and conscience. Ji Pengcheng had taken him to see all the walks of life and all the conditions of the world. 

Most people in this world live within a comparatively narrow circle—students live the life of a student, office workers live the life of an office worker; they have habitual routes and lines of thought. But Su Qing and these others were different. None of them had a so-called “societal role.” They could change to fit all kinds of societal roles. They were chameleons, swindlers. 

Each day after this, Su Qing brought a box of food, and waiting for him would be the empty box from the day before. But he didn’t encounter the stray dog again. This lasted half a month. Su Qing wasn’t in a rush, though. He knew that this couldn’t be rushed, and he had more than one channel for gathering information. The other channels were in the process of arranging themselves. 

Apart from this, he also took some time to make himself a false identity. A “false identity” was different from changing clothes and becoming a different person while on the run. It required a complete conception and character. 

His current name was “Lu Dacheng.” Male, forties, a little gossipy, an easy-going and likable fat guy, a former truck driver who had had no choice put to start picking up work all over since his son had gone to university. His family background was clean. He had been born into a traditional blue-collar household and graduated from a technical college. His driving was excellent. He had always made his living on the road. 

Su Qing didn’t dare to get sloppy this time. Unlike last time, he didn’t hurriedly throw something together. He set about his disguise very diligently, even changing his speaking voice completely, putting together this Lu Dacheng’s whole life. 

Sometimes when he made a false identity, he felt he was accomplishing a work of art. Compared to the very start, when he had taken along the little baggage and gone to the internet cafe to seize his chance, bought a false ID that was full of holes, now, when he had improved his technique bit by bit with Ji Pengcheng, his present level could be called the perfection of his art. 

This imaginary person’s background and personality, all the mishaps in his life, his bad habits, his pet peeves, his distinguishing characteristics and catchphrases, his subconscious movements, what his ID and diploma looked like—he took each and every one of these things into consideration. 

He preferred coming up with fairly elderly characters, because several decades back, technology hadn’t been as developed as it was now. Many databases were incomplete, and filed records were hard to trace. 

Of course, over time, these imaginary characters had a negative impact on him. For example, if he used a single identity too long, when he had to change it again, he wouldn’t quite be able figure out who he was for a time. 

At these times, his reactions would be very slow. When someone spoke to him, it would take him an age to come around. He would constantly chew candy. It was a little like a computer crashing from an overloaded CPU. His mood would also be very bad. Most of the time he could still control himself. He would know there was a problem, so he would keep his head down in contemplation. Sometimes he really couldn’t control himself and would be a little irascible. At these times, Tu Tutu and Ji Pengcheng knew from experience to stay far away from him. 

At last, when “Lu Dacheng” had established his connections and the people around him were used to the presence of this truck driver and took him as an acquaintance, as though he had been in their circle from the start, Su Qing once again saw that stray dog tied to the garbage bin. 

Though Su Qing had completely changed his appearance, covering himself in machine oil scent, appearing entirely like a truck driver who spent all his time on the road, this little animal seemed to still recognize him as a benefactor who had given it food. As soon as it saw him, it began to wildly shake its head and wag its tail, forcing a fawning expression onto its blackened, filthy dog’s face. 

Su Qing patted the dog on the head, felt around under the dog’s belly, and again turned up a small piece of paper. This time there wasn’t a flower on it. There was a route map, with a bunch of symbols under it, incomprehensible to ordinary people, that looked something like chatspeak. But Su Qing had long ago left the category of ordinary person. He had no trouble reading it. After he scanned it, he nodded. His mood was good. He shared a piece of pork rib with this “messenger” dog, then got out another piece of paper, put it with a stack of bills, and tied it back under the dog’s belly. 

After a number of exchanges with this “arrow,” whom he had yet to meet in person, Su Qing basically understood the location and peripheral organization of the mysterious government department the “RZ Unit.” For him, this was plenty. 

There were no walls on earth that didn’t let the air in. An experienced fly could still sting an egg, no matter how seamless it was. 

Even Utopia, which kept even its name carefully hidden from others—at the very beginning, Su Qing had nearly paid with his life to pocket their base; later, he had slowly learned that this organization wasn’t completely untraceable. 

Utopia’s people used mysterious signal-blocking technology; unraveling it had made Xu Ruchong’s head swell. In fact, it seemed that it wasn’t so secret. In the final analysis, this organization was too superior, so superior they thought they had escaped the category of humanity and were about to leave Earth headed for the universe. They had forgotten that they still lived in a human society. 

Or perhaps they couldn’t understand the true meaning of the word “society.” These people with their high-tech minds—where would they find the leisure to consider dealing with the network in the cities’ sewers? 

In the final analysis, it came down to this: there were loads of people on earth whose tricks ascended to the heavens, but not so many whose tricks “ascended to the earth.” 

He lay dormant, carefully planning his itinerary. He quickly changed from a truck driver to a passenger car driver; and then from an ordinary passenger car driver, he became a driver specializing in transporting plumbers. 

This group of plumbers were the RZ Unit’s regular maintenance workers. Their work was carried out under strict supervision, and the vehicle that brought them to headquarters couldn’t come from outside. There was a fixed car responsible for picking them up and taking them away at fixed times. Su Qing was the driver privately hired with the pooled resources of a few plumbing maintenance workers who lived far away to bring them to the assembly point on time. 

At this time, Su Qing was already fairly familiar with the city’s roads. He deliberately missed an intersection and turned onto a different road, “just happening” to pass through the section of road filled with the after work rush; as anticipated, they got stuck in traffic. 

Amid the grumbling curses of his passengers, Su Qing calmly opened the car window and lit himself a cigarette to clear his head. He didn’t have an addiction, but this was how he steadied his mind. 

It took about forty-five minutes for the vehicle to get from the RZ Unit base to the assembly point; then it waited at the assembly point for about half an hour. During this time, due to safety and secrecy concerns, the driver couldn’t leave his post. Under Su Qing’s planning, the six people he was conveying arrived over forty minutes late. The driver had then been waiting close to two hours. 

An ordinary adult would probably rather want to go to the bathroom by now—especially if he would have to hold it in the whole way back if he didn’t go.

When Su Qing at last conveyed the complaining plumbers to their destination, he jumped out of the car and, tugging on his belt, made straight for the public bathroom, not even locking the car door. In “Lu Dacheng”’s loud northeastern voice, he groused, “Oh, good heavens, why so much traffic, I’m dying for a piss.”

This was a wicked move. Sometimes, even if a person could still bear it, when they saw someone acting like this, the urge to piss would come down like a mountain. 

The driver gave the guards protecting him a bitter look. There was one guard who accompanied him, and there were also a few plainclothes guards waiting at this intersection. 

Su Qing had gathered information about this setup ahead of time as well. The accompanying guard and the waiting guards could change shifts. Only the driver was irreplaceable and had to stay put. 

The guards took a look and felt sympathetic. They exchanged glances, and one of the plainclothesmen stepped up to follow him to the bathroom door, waiting for him there. 

And then… Of course, the person who came in and the person who came out weren’t the same—in the guard’s eyes, the first person who came out was the hefty northeastern man, looking contented. He went right around him and returned to his car, then drove it away. After a moment, their driver also came out. Two in, two out, one after another. There didn’t seem to be any problem. 

So the coach majestically carrying a team of plumbers to the RZ Unit continued on its way. The delinquent who had been bribed to wait in the public bathroom wearing the appropriate clothing lived up to expectations and obtained his reward—a car. 

“Lu Dacheng,” after three months of silent work, infiltrated the RZ Unit headquarters. For the rest, there was no need to worry about gathering information. Once he was inside the headquarters, he would adapt to the situation as he saw it.