Puzzle Madness

Chapter 14 Ink Stains
John Dou walked upstairs: it was already afternoon, and the smell of food lingered in the air; most residents in the community turned on the fans for their lunch break, and apart from the humming of machinery, it was very quiet.

There was an old woman wearing a white floral shirt, washing dishes at the sink in the hallway, mumbling in Vietnamese. Two steps behind her was a row of public concrete stoves. For the tall John Dou, he had to turn sideways to squeeze through the crowded corridor.

The sound of muffled conversations, accompanied by varying string music and bursts of laughter - in the farthest room, there were children watching cartoons.

This is a small hotel in a residential building, with only one floor and a dozen rooms. The price is low, and there is not even a peephole on the door. But again, there is no need for any strict identity registration or proof.

The client is here, staying in room 323. According to the intelligence, she's unarmed: at least not with firearms. Losing her employment status with the Asia-Europe Post, acquiring these items in Jiaozhi Autonomous Prefecture wouldn't be easy.
-
John Dou did not go any further. The room closest to the staircase was wide open, seemingly used as a hotel reception desk; behind the mottled desk sat an old man in a vest, rolling his eyes, snoring like a broken tractor, his neck half covered in saliva.

John Dou strode in. The air in the reception room was a mixture of the stench of plant gum and human sweat. He picked up the open register on the table and said:

There was a large light blue stain on the register, covering up the name and room number of the person who checked in today. This was a perfect damage that hadn't completely dried yet, coming from the empty ink bottle beside the table. The stain had crawled along the table leg and onto the unpaved cement floor.

It seems someone accidentally knocked over the ink bottle.

John Dou flipped forward in the register and saw the alias of the client. She had checked in yesterday and booked a room for three days. The room number was exactly 323, as the intelligence had said.

He picked up the register, held it to his face and smelled it—the smell of ink was fresh and strong. John Dou tore off the ink-damaged registration form and held it against the light bulb hanging from the ceiling; through the light, he could barely make out some words, but the name and room number were still unclear and blurred.

However, the number of lines with handwriting still showed that there were several new check-ins today. John Dou opened the registration form from a few days ago and compared them - the number of new guests checking in today was twice that of usual days.

Now, John Dou could confirm that the ink spill wasn't an accident. The client had indeed checked into the hotel and had destroyed their check-in information.

A classic mistake by the Analysis Department—the intelligence was correct, but not entirely: [The client] had rented at least two rooms, perhaps even more, under an alias. One was used for observation and rest, while the others were a maze of disguises.

For a temporary stay of two or three days, it is a pretty good protection measure.
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When I came out, my wife was still washing dishes. She half turned her head and glanced at the strange foreigner.

John Dou stood on tiptoe, his hairy fingers gripping the edge of the narrow air vent in the hallway. He pushed his legs against the wall, his leather shoes adding another layer of stains to the already dirty wall - and just like that, he climbed to the top of the hallway and hid himself in the tangled network of pipes.

The old woman raised her head and stared blankly at John Dou, who was clinging to the iron pipe like a spider. Her wrinkled hands were still soaked in water, scrubbing the iron chopsticks.

John Dou pulled a fifty-yuan note, a replica police badge, and an A4 sheet of paper with the client's portrait from his windbreaker pocket with one hand, and waved them toward his wife. His palms were large, his arms long, and even while suspended in mid-air, he could still practically shove the items into her face.

The metallic clink of chopsticks slowed, then stopped. With a snap, my wife raised her wet hand, snatched the banknote, and stuffed it into her apron pocket. Her drooping eyelids narrowed, a gleam of light gleaming in them.

She stared at the somewhat blurry ink photograph on the A4 paper, her cheeks jiggling thoughtfully like a Shar-Pei's. Then the wife raised a foam-covered finger and pointed to the door marked [325]: not the one the intelligence had mentioned. John Dou, like a large gecko, swam through the pipes and crawled to the spot the old man had pointed to; the hem of his trench coat brushed against the rust of the pipes, scraping off small, dark red leaves.

He pulled Richard's service pistol from its holster, pointed the muzzle at the door, and confirmed with his wife.

Seeing the black pistol suddenly appear in John Dou's hand, Po Tai grabbed the banknote from her pocket and confirmed its authenticity in the sunlight outside the corridor - she looked at it back and forth several times before turning around and nodding reluctantly.

John Dou raised his hand and bent down, knocking on the iron door from top to bottom, making a "dong dong" sound.

squeak-
After a while, the iron door opened a crack, but there was no sound of questioning. John Dou climbed just above the door, his feet stuck on the wall, and the pistol in his palm.

boom.

Not far away, the door of the reception room where the drooling old man was still sleeping was closed; my wife also disappeared without a trace.

Tap, pounce.

There was a muffled thud on the ground. No one looked out to inquire: instead, something was thrown out from the crack in the door and slammed against the wall.

John Dou was high above and could see everything clearly.

It was a round thing, a cylindrical paper core left over from used toilet paper, wrapped in two circles of electrical tape: the hollow middle part was stuffed full, sealed with hard plastic at the front and back; at one end was a fuse wrapped in a cotton ball, burning brightly.

Hiss--hiss!
Thick smoke billowed out of the cylinder like a spirit from an oil lamp, billowing in all directions. This was certainly not the ghosts left behind by the use of all the toilet paper, but rather a homemade smoke bomb assembled with various paste-like fillings and smoke powder.

The smell of chili, mustard, and pepper exploded; it stung the eyes and left a spicy taste on the tip of the tongue. The corridor was suddenly filled with a dark smoke of yellow, red, and green, sticky and occupying the entire corridor.
-
BANG! The iron door was driven open, crashing against the wall along its axis, knocking off a small piece of white paint that turned gray.

Puff—the bullet from John Dou's pistol followed the sound of the door being rushed open and shot into the swirling and expanding smoke. He didn't hit the target he wanted, only the dull sound of metal hitting concrete.

A hole was torn in the cloud of smoke: a slender figure rushed out, accompanied by a symphony of pots and pans crashing and falling along the way.

John Dou covered his face with his windbreaker and landed heavily on the ground. The wind he brought swept away a circle of smoke, but it hit the wall and was wrapped back again. He didn't open his eyes, holding his breath fiercely. He just ran in the direction of the sound, his hard heels making a clicking sound.

(End of this chapter)