Chapter 16
Chapter 16
Chen Nuo’s words made everyone freeze.
“What is there to determine?” the round-faced student asked. “We watched him take the elevator to the fifth floor.”
“Actually, we never saw him step inside,” Chen Nuo said. “All we saw was an elevator rise and the display stop at 5.”
“An empty elevator wouldn’t go up on its own.”
“What if Lv Chao pressed the button for the fifth floor when the doors opened but never entered? The elevator would still go up. When we arrived and saw the 5 on the display, our assumptions would make us believe he’d gone upstairs. But it could be a diversion.”
“You mean Lv Chao isn’t upstairs at all? He’s still in the lobby?” the round-faced student cried.
“I don’t know. I’m only saying we need to rule out the possibility. Otherwise, we could spend all our time devising strategies and searching the upper floors, only to discover that the Mouse has been hiding somewhere on the first floor from the beginning. Wouldn’t that be ironic?”
“We watched him run to the right. At least we know that much,” Shu Yanjun said urgently. “The conference rooms and offices are on the left. On the right, aside from the elevators and stairwell, there’s only the theater. Half of us should search it. If he isn’t inside, then he has to be upstairs. Everyone else can block this passage, and if he really is hiding in the theater and tries to rush out, you’ll catch him immediately.”
The group agreed. Shu Yanjun and his wife, Xiang Meiling, together with the three college students, Hong Long, and several others, ran into the theater. Chen Nuo, Tang Ying, and the rest stayed behind to block the passage.
Chen Nuo glanced at Lu Qian. Her face was expressionless, revealing no emotion at all. From this, he guessed that Lv Chao was not in the theater. If he were, Lu Qian could not have remained so calm.
And indeed, pretending to enter the elevator would have been an extremely risky diversion. Once exposed, it would almost guarantee Lv Chao’s death. The combined intelligence of the newlyweds had to be capable of more than that. Lv Chao must truly have gone upstairs.
Sure enough, several minutes later, Shu Yanjun and the others emerged from the theater shaking their heads.
“We searched the whole place. He isn’t in there,” Shu Yanjun said.
“All right. That wasn’t a waste of time. At least we’ve eliminated the possibility. Now we know Lv Chao must be somewhere upstairs,” Chen Nuo said.
“What do we do now? What strategy should we use to catch him?” Shu Yanjun asked.
“I thought of one while you were searching the theater,” Chen Nuo replied.
“Let’s hear it!”
Chen Nuo explained his plan.
“Only one person needs to guard the elevators and stairwell in the lobby. The stairwell is the main concern. From this moment on, the elevators may go up but not down. If any elevator comes down to the first floor, the passenger has to be Lv Chao. I’ll serve as the guard.
“That leaves nineteen people. Excluding Lu Qian, we have exactly eighteen. We’ll form nine teams of two. Each team will ride to one floor from the second through the tenth, then search simultaneously in both directions after leaving the elevator.
“If a team doesn’t find the Mouse on its assigned floor, we’ll know Lv Chao isn’t there. At that point, four people will each enter an elevator and guard it. Everyone else will immediately run downstairs through the stairwell. Once we regroup, we’ll plan our next move based on the search results.”
“All right. We’ll follow your plan. It sounds fairly reliable,” Che Dongming said. He turned to the woman who had performed the tarot reading. “Let’s pair up.”
“Why me?” the woman asked in surprise.
“Each floor should have one stronger and one weaker Cat,” Che Dongming explained. “That way, we won’t leave any vulnerable points.”
The woman gave a cold snort. “You think I’m one of the weak ones?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it. This game is a test of physical endurance, so pairing a man and a woman makes sense. Are you willing or not?”
“Fine. My name is Saisi,” the woman said. The unusual name truly did make her sound like a witch.
The other eight teams paired up according to the same principle, balancing stronger and weaker members. The nine groups agreed on their assigned floors and entered the elevators. Chen Nuo reminded them again that the elevators could only travel upward from now on. Otherwise, he would have no way to know whether a descending passenger was the Mouse.
Apart from Tina and the hotel employees, only Chen Nuo and Lu Qian remained in the lobby. Chen Nuo guarded the stairwell. Across from him, Lu Qian leaned against the wall with both hands in her pockets.
“I have to admit, you’re quite clever,” Lu Qian said, breaking the silence. “Your plan is, relatively speaking, the best one available.”
“Which means you don’t think it’s truly the best,” Chen Nuo replied.
Lu Qian smiled. “There is no best plan. I might as well tell you directly: you can’t catch my husband. No matter what plan you devise or how hard you run yourselves into the ground, it will all be pointless.”
“Really? What makes you so certain?” Chen Nuo probed, hoping she would reveal something.
“Would you like to know what I studied?”
“What?”
“Psychology. I didn’t enter the field after college, but I’ve always been good at psychological analysis, at reading what other people are thinking. I designed this game of Cat and Mouse for my husband, so naturally I had to ensure he would win. To be honest, I spent yesterday considering every possible scenario and how to respond. From the moment the contest began, every move you’ve made has been exactly what I expected.”
“The effort you’ve put into helping your husband is admirable. Emotionally, I have no desire to oppose a pair of newlyweds. But ultimately, the rest of us are only fighting so hard because we don’t want to die.” Chen Nuo shifted direction. “Still, Cat and Mouse doesn’t seem to have much to do with psychology. Isn’t it a contest of stamina and luck?”
Lu Qian smiled again. “It’s natural for you to think that. Most people would never realize this is actually a psychological game.”
A psychological game?
Alarm stirred in Chen Nuo. If Lu Qian truly excelled at psychological warfare, she could be bluffing, trying to convince him that victory was impossible so he would lose confidence and the will to fight. That in itself would be part of the psychological battle.
Or perhaps she genuinely knew they could not win and felt safe enough to show him her hand.
No matter how Chen Nuo looked at it, Cat and Mouse was a contest of stamina and luck. What did it have to do with psychology? Lv Chao had run to the right in full view of everyone. They had searched the theater on the right too. Since he was not inside, he had to be upstairs.
Even if nineteen Cats searched the hotel at random, they might still find the Mouse through sheer luck. And now they had a strategy to improve their odds.
Why, then, was Lu Qian convinced that so many Cats could never catch one Mouse?
She looked composed and utterly confident, not as if she were bluffing. Did she truly have absolute certainty?
Had Chen Nuo overlooked some crucial factor?
He sank into thought.