While Caroline and Jason were in another meditation session, Jianmen took the time to buy and prepare additional food to store in the fridge. He had a feeling that he will need to take off soon, but just unsure what was the best time.

Detective Chavers did not come back since he spotted them watching over his inn outside last time. Since then he had visited the different police officers each day and given them two pieces of homemade matcha cake on each visit.

Today’s visit was the same old trick for Jianmen: creeping onto the car from the blind spot when the officers were not noticing and busy paying attention to the guests that came in and out, and lightly patted on the top of the car.

“Hello officers, we meet again.” Jianmen handed out the paper bags in his hands with a smile: “Today is your third time here, right?”

“Gosh Mr. Yu. How can you always find us like this?” this time the people in the car were a young man and a young woman: “We switched our car already!”

“Well, Officer Anderson, that is because cops have a special smell. Especially new cops like you and Officer Hernandez here.” Jianmen said to the young man and lightly shook the two paper bags: “Matcha cake?”

“Okay, but don’t tell anyone.” Officer Hernandez grabbed both the bags, gave one to Officer Anderson and could not wait to open hers: “I did not get a chance to eat this morning. I am starving.”

“You are too poor at keeping yourself alive, Viviana.” Officer Anderson laughed and slowly opened his paper bag, “And thank you, Mr. Yu, you will hear from my cousin soon, he needs something romantic and delicious to apologize to his girl.”

“Where’s Detective Chaver and Detective Chaver?” Jianmen asked, “They were the first to be here and you already took 3 shifts. Did they get too fat from the cake?”

“You mean Thomas and Aimee?” Officer Anderson shook his head: “I guess you didn’t hear: they had a car accident the other day, and their father got injured.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, kind of a freak accident.” Officer Hernandez swallowed a big mouthful with a sip of coffee and said: “They were driving out of a shopping center, and some newbie driver kid on the opposite side of the road lost control of his car and T-boned them.”

“Holy … That should not have happened.” Jianmen frowned with a horrible feeling that he might have underestimated the danger posed by those traces of black smoke. 

“Yeah I know right? It was like the kid was aiming at them.” Officer Anderson was also a bit disturbed by the accident, “No brake marks, the kid did not even try to stop. Apparently he panicked.”

“How is their father?”

“He broke a leg and got whiplash and a light concussion. He just got out of hospital the day before yesterday. So Thomas and Aimee are taking turns to take care of him.” Officer Hernandez paused on her cake and sighed: “If you asked me, that is some insane luck. Their car is basically totalled and Thomas and Aimee just needed a few stitches.”

“Thank God.” Jianmen’s expression did not show any sign of relief: “Alright officers, I need to return to my shift. Please pass my good wishes to them and stay safe!”

“Of course Mr. Yu. Stay safe!”

--------------------------------------------

Back to his room, Jianmen did not even go and check on how Jason and Caroline did during their meditation session. He took out the piece of burnt paper with partial maps on it, and then he brought out a long piece of paper and a very ancient looking Chinese brush pen.

He did not even dip the brush pen in ink before he used the brush pen - he drew a straight red line from one end of the long piece of paper to the other, continuously pressing harder as he drew, leaving the line narrow on one end and wide on the other.

Then Jianmen put the small piece of paper on the narrow end of the line, and gave the piece of burnt paper a quick tap.

A shade of black occurred at the narrow end of the red line, then it started crawling towards the wide end.

Jianmen’s facial expression turned worse and more serious as the black shade crawled - it eventually stopped somewhere around the middle of the line, and the paper at the narrow end of the line also cracked up like it was partially burnt.

“Fuck.” Jianmen immediately started packing, ignoring a small burn that appeared on the back of his right hand, and he also dialed a number on his phone.

Meanwhile at the reception’s desk, Jason handed over the keys to Caroline and hopped on a rideshare to San Francisco.