*Bai Li*
"Bai Li. Is anything the problem?" Zhang Ning asked.
It was strange. I turned on an impulse. It felt as if Xin Lei was calling me.
"Nothing…Can you see Xin Lei coming?"
I heard Liao Huifang speak, "No. She is still not here."
"It has been fifteen minutes already. She just went to send a text."
Then Zhang Ning spoke, "I think she might be talking to someone on the phone?"
Still, my gut feeling was saying that something was wrong.
Why am I not feeling calm?
There was an unsettling feeling gripping my chest. Just a moment ago, I felt it in my bones that she was calling me. But, now I couldn't sense it anymore.
I felt a tug from my side. "Are you alright, Bai Li? You seem alert for some reason…" Zhang Ning's voice sounded strained.
I touched her fingertips and shook it away. "Nothing."
Then I turned towards Liao Huifang's direction. "Call Xin Lei. She shouldn't take this much time."
"Alright."
I heard some pitter-patter of her typing.
"Keep it on speaker."
I heard the call connecting, but then it got disconnected.
That uneasy feeling was intensifying.
"Try again."
Once again, the call didn't connect.
"I am unable to reach her phone."
"Liao Huifang. Take me outside to where Xin Lei is."
"I will come with you too," I heard Zhang Ning speak.
"No. Do one help. I want the CCTV footage of the last fifteen minutes where Xin Lei was."
"CCTV? Why? Don't worry, Bai Li. Xin Lei must be here only. You are taking unnecessary stress."
"I never ignore my gut feeling. Something is wrong."
"We should check outside quickly then!" I sensed the urgency in Liao Huifang's voice. She held my hand and walked down the hallway.
As we stepped out, I felt warm as the sunlight fell on me.
"Do you see Xin Lei anywhere?"
"I-I am just looking around everywhere, but I cannot see her."
"Call her again."
No response.
"Take me around."
Liao Huifang guided me outside, and we walked around the whole place, but there was no sign of her.
Suddenly, we stopped.
"What happened?"
"Bai Li! I see two guards lying here collapsed on the ground."
I quickly bent on my knees and felt my way towards them. I felt their pulse on their necks.
"Alive but unconscious."
"W-what happened?"
"Bai Li!"
I heard Zhang Ning's voice. I sensed her stop in front of me, and I heard her huffing breathlessly.
"I-I checked the CCTV."
"Somebody kidnapped Xin Lei, isn't it?"
"I don't know...the footage is all black." Her voice seemed to tremble.
"So, there is no footage?"
"No...I saw Xin Lei going outside, but then it turned black. Somebody has hacked our security! I cannot see the last fifteen minutes, and then the footage comes back from the point when Bai Li and Liao Huifang head out. But, how do you know Xin Lei is kidnapped?"
It was Liao Huifang who spoke, "Look at these guards here. Somebody has knocked them out. And I cannot reach Xin Lei's phone at all."
There was silence for a moment.
I said nothing.
Right now, I felt my mind go blank.
"Ning! What is this commotion?"
I heard Zhang Chao's voice shouting from a distance and then his hurried footsteps coming towards us.
"Ning. I heard you asked for security footage. What happened?"
"Dad! Xin Lei... somebody kidnapped her from here!"
"Say what!? Don't joke around, Ning!"
"I am not. I just saw the footage. It's blank, and the guards here are unconscious too."
"Impossible! How can somebody enter here?"
I asked, "That is my question too. Some nice security you have here, Zhang Chao. The attacker knocked out your guards and tampered with your security footage. Excellent."
"B-Bai Li…" Zhang Ning's voice sounded stressed. "I don't understand. Based on all the incidents, the target should be me. Xiulan has already attacked me three times. Why would she take Xin Lei away?"
"This is strange indeed," Zhang Chao spoke from my right. "Of course, Xiulan can recognize Ning. There cannot be a misunderstanding. She cannot mistake Xin Lei for Ning."
"It cannot be anyone other than Xiulan. She knows our home. She knows our guards and how and where we place them. She knows about the security cameras too. It is impossible for an outsider to do this."
"Xiulan would be the death of me one day!" Zhang Chao said.
I just silently listened to their conversation.
Liao Huifang asked, "Bai Li. What will we do now? How will we find her?"
I sensed the panic in her tone.
"Let's go back. I need some time to think."
"Bai Li," Zhang Ning suddenly held my hand, "I promise I will help you look for her. We will use all our resources to find her."
I smiled and withdrew my hand. "Thanks but no need. Your security has already helped us enough. Somebody kidnapped a woman in broad daylight from an influential and powerful politician's home where the security should be the maximum and the best of all. I don't think your resources would be of any use."
"B-Bai Li…don't say it like that…I-"
"Let's go, Liao Huifang."
She held my hand, and we began to walk away, but then I stopped. I turned. "If your 'resources' do find that kidnapper, then let him or her know that if they hurt even a strand of my Xin Lei's hair, then I would personally pull out all the hair from their scalp with my bare hands."
---
Liao Huifang suddenly stopped me in the middle of the road.
"There is something wrong."
"Well, Xin Lei is kidnapped, so something is definitely wrong."
"No, I mean...why do you think Xin Lei could have been kidnapped? Isn't the target supposed to be Zhang Ning?"
I said, "She must have figured something out."
"She just went out to send a text. What could she have figured out?"
"What do you think she realized?" I asked back.
"Maybe who CrimsonInstinct is?"
I narrowed my eyes. "So, you know as well who is the boss."
There was a pause.
"Wait. What? You know it too?" Her voice sounded as if she was in disbelief.
"Just figured out in this lovely morning, which is not so lovely anymore."
"How?"
"I think our methods through which we identified the boss are different, but I would love to know your reason."
"I finally figured out what Fu Meili had drawn in the Natural Park. And I think that's what Xin Lei saw too."
"What?"
"Fu Meili's drawing. She had drawn a triangle with a line stretching from the top vertex to the base of the triangle in a diagonal direction. And then some little dots around it?"
"Yes, I remember."
"I know what that is now. No wonder I was feeling so strange today."
"Why?"
"Because I saw that design today!"
Silence.
She continued. "It's actually not a triangle."
"Then what is it?"
"It's a diamond. I mean to say that they are earrings. When I saw those earrings today, I felt that something felt oddly familiar. Then I finally recognized what it was. I remembered what Fu Meili drew in the Natural Park."
I knitted my brows. "But, Fu Meili drew a triangle."
"No. It is a diamond. What Fu Meili saw was its optical illusion. Remember, we said that Fu Meili was down while the boss was sitting on a floor above her? And there was a kind of spotlight from behind the seat?"
I nodded.
"A diamond, if seen from different angles, feels as if it is shaped like a triangle. We had a full course on drawing optical illusions. The light shone from behind the boss as a spotlight, and when Fu Meili tried to see towards that person, perhaps it was too bright that she couldn't see the lower part of the earring. You know how a diamond is generally portrayed, right? It looks like two triangles are reversed in opposite directions and merged together on their bases, one vertex pointing at the top and one vertex one-eighty degrees below."
I slowly nodded.
"From Fu Meili's angle, it looked like a triangle to her. The diagonal line is just one of the diamond's four edges that you can feel with your hand when you touch its 3D shape. Fu Meili drew the 2D version of it. And the dots around it were the sparkles. When the earring shone, it glittered, and she saw some circles around it because of the light's reflection over them."
I said, "Wait a minute. So, when Xin Lei came back, we were on the corridor a floor above, and Xin Lei was down."
"Exactly. It was the similar positions in which Fu Meili and the boss were. From Xin Lei's angle, she saw what Fu Meili saw, and she realized what that drawing meant. Xin Lei realized it is actually a diamond earring which anybody in Fu Meili's angle could have mistaken it as a triangle."
"And exactly at that time, somebody realized that Xin Lei realized something that threatened to expose its identity, so they attacked her."