The earlier incident was a classic case of not recognizing one of their own. So when they left the cafeteria after lunch, it wasn't just Old Cui who was in a rush to tell his wife the news.
Even Dong Xinguo, who recalled Shen Weimin's connection to He Peiyin's family, made an excuse about needing to prepare some files. He cleared out of the dormitory he shared with Xu Qiguang and returned to the office building.
The dormitory was a common two-story, red-brick building. A long, faintly lit corridor linked numerous single rooms, each about ten square meters.
Xu Qiguang and Dong Xinguo's dorm was the innermost room on the left side of the second floor. The furniture in the ten-plus-square-meter room was as simple as it gets, the decor verging on shabby.
Aside from two beds separated by a cloth curtain, two red writing desks each with a row of three drawers, two chairs, and two stools, the only other thing was a coal stove sitting unused in a corner.
