Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Lu Qian’s action stunned everyone present.

“He really was on the second floor?” the curly-haired student cried.

“Knowing that now won’t help you. He should already be on another floor.” Lu Qian gave Chen Nuo a challenging look. “Sorry. Your new plan was ruined before you could put it into action. Once again, you have no idea which floor he’s on.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the curly-haired student said. “If he’s on another floor, we can use the same method to find him again. Everyone from floors three through nine can return to their assigned floors and search a second time.”

“Wait. That would take almost ten more minutes. We can’t afford the delay,” Chen Nuo said. “Besides, her shout could be a feint. If the Mouse hasn’t moved to another floor and is still on the second, we’ll only scatter our people again.”

“That’s certainly possible,” Lu Qian admitted. “So now you’ll have to gamble. Is the Mouse still on the second floor, or has he moved somewhere else?”

“We don’t need to gamble. I know what to do,” Chen Nuo said.

Lu Qian’s expression shifted slightly. He had devised a countermeasure that quickly?

Chen Nuo turned to the others. “Everyone except me goes to the second floor. Concentrate your efforts and search every area. If you don’t find the Mouse there, send four people to guard the stairwells between floors two and three, four and five, six and seven, and eight and nine. Understand?”

Tang Ying reacted quickly and grasped his idea at once. “Right. One person can guard the stairwell between two floors. That means covering floors two through ten uses only four people. We don’t need to waste someone at every single landing.”

“Wait. One person between floors two and three, another between four and five… What happens if the Mouse goes from the third floor to the fourth? No one is guarding that level,” the curly-haired student objected.

“The person in the stairwell can see the Mouse going up or down,” Chen Nuo and Tang Ying said almost simultaneously.

They looked at each other.

“I see…” The curly-haired student understood now. “Even if no one is standing at that particular landing, the guards above and below can both see it. As soon as the Mouse appears and moves to the next floor, the guard can shout or chase him.”

“Exactly. Of the remaining people, two will search upward from the bottom. Everyone else reinforces the tenth floor,” Chen Nuo said.

“Good plan! This completely seals the elevators and stairs, leaves no floor unsearched, and concentrates most of our people on the two most complicated floors, the second and tenth,” Tang Ying said admiringly.

“Then move. Now,” Chen Nuo said.

Tang Ying and the others nodded and ran toward the stairwell to carry out the plan.

Once again, only Chen Nuo and Lu Qian remained in the lobby. Chen Nuo suddenly felt that what had begun as twenty Cats hunting one Mouse was gradually turning into a duel between Lu Qian and him.

The trouble was, his opponent still looked completely at ease. She showed not the slightest trace of panic.

Was his plan still wrong?

In theory, the strategy he had just proposed should guarantee that they caught the Mouse. They had enough time too, with almost half an hour remaining.

So why wasn’t Lu Qian worried?
What if the Mouse was not in the hotel building at all?

But they had already searched the theater on the right side of the lobby. There was no way to circle from the right side to the left. If Lv Chao had tried to reach the left side or any other part of the lobby, he would have had to pass right in front of Chen Nuo.

Chen Nuo forced his mind to work. As the guard on the first floor, he did not dare move a single step. All he could do was consider every possibility.

He began carefully reviewing every move since the contest began. Lv Chao had taken the elevator to the fifth floor, the middle of the building. He had probably done so to make it impossible for everyone to know whether he would go up or down next, forcing the Cats to scatter and search every floor.

But the first round of searches established that the Mouse was not anywhere from the third through the ninth floors. Once the others reached that conclusion, they naturally prepared to reinforce the searches on floors two and ten. At that moment, Lu Qian had shouted up the stairwell, telling Lv Chao to move to a middle floor. Wasn’t that the same as telling everyone her husband must be on one of those middle floors? If Lv Chao really followed her instruction, he would only make himself easier to catch.

Therefore, Lu Qian had to be lying. She had shouted into the stairwell to deliberately mislead them, to keep them convinced that the Mouse was somewhere in the tower.

Reverse the logic, and the conclusion was obvious: the Mouse was not in the tower at all.

The only part of the hotel that had never been searched was the area to the left of the lobby. It contained a large conference room and several offices.

An idea struck Chen Nuo. He hurried to the stairwell and shouted upward.

“One of the men searching the second floor, come down here!”

Half a minute later, the curly-haired student came running down. “What is it?”

“Take my place guarding the first-floor stairwell in case the Mouse tries to escape from the second floor. I’m going up to search.”

Chen Nuo clapped him on the shoulder and raced up the stairs.

When Tang Ying and the others saw him arrive on the second floor, they asked why he had replaced himself as the guard downstairs. Time was running out. Chen Nuo did not answer. He only called, “I’ll explain later!” and hurried past them.

He did not enter any of the recreational areas on the second floor. He ran along the corridor, searching as he went, and carefully inspected each public restroom he passed. Finding nothing, he pounded up the stairs to the third floor.

The third was a guest-room floor, with only a storage room and laundry room besides the bedrooms. Chen Nuo checked every room he could enter, then ran up to the fourth floor.

In the storage room at the end of the corridor, he noticed a window left slightly ajar. It was unusually high, more than 1.8 meters above the floor and close to the ceiling. Chen Nuo found a cardboard box, stepped onto it, and stuck his head outside.

His eyes widened.

The storage room stood at a corner of the hotel. This was an interior window. Instead of opening onto the street, it overlooked a light well inside the building. Someone could climb down from here, enter through a first-floor window, and reach one of the rooms on the left side of the lobby.

Lv Chao had definitely climbed down here.

It was not a guess. The evidence could not have been clearer.

A pipe ran along the exterior wall beside the window. A hemp rope had been tied around one of its joints. The rope had probably come from the storage room and served as a safety line.

That was precisely the sort of precaution an experienced climber would take.