My hometown is far away in Moscow.

048 Theft

"What happened?!" The three stood there dumbfounded, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over them. "A thief! They've definitely been robbed!"

Hu Yi strode to the door, bent down and carefully inspected it. The door was still swaying, but the lock and the transparent tape on the door frame were intact, and there were no signs of forced entry.

Li Baoqing opened the window and looked down. Hu Yi was furious: "Are you stupid? The window can't be opened from the outside! Besides, this is the fifth floor, who could climb up here in broad daylight?"

"What happened?!" Li Baoqing exclaimed frantically, "They came in through the door?!"

"It definitely is. This thief probably has the key." Hu Yi calmed himself down a bit. "Let's go outside and ask."

The three were in a great hurry and went to knock on the doors of the other rooms on the fifth floor to inquire. When the neighbors heard that someone had been robbed, they offered their advice, but they could not provide any valuable information.

The Chinese preparatory students who were friends with Wang Shen accompanied them to search the entire Building 6, but still found nothing. The Arab man who claimed to be a Moroccan prince suggested, "Why don't you go find the administrator?"

"I've already looked for it, but it's a holiday today and the office is locked." Hu Yi said with a worried expression.

"He doesn't live far, I'll call him." The prince seemed to be quite familiar with the building manager, and pulled out his phone to explain the situation in broken Russian: "...Yes, it's been stolen, please come over. Yes, the situation is bad, you must come. Okay, okay, thank you."

Twenty minutes later, the building manager, with a stern face, walked up to the fifth floor: "Which room was burglarized?"

"Happy New Year!" Hu Yi waved from the doorway. "We lost three suitcases; they contained money and clothes."

The building manager went inside and looked around, seemingly without a good solution, then put his hands on his hips and asked, "Who stole it?"

"How would I know?" Hu Yi was so angry he almost laughed.

Li Baoqing flew into a rage: "You're asking us? I'd like to ask you the same thing!" His Russian was already limited, and now he was so flustered that he couldn't even speak coherently. Pointing at the door lock, he roared, "This is extremely unpleasant! Others can come in! Thieves can come in too! Extremely unpleasant!"

The security guard looked down impatiently and said, "Your door is broken, of course a thief can get in."

"Yes, we submitted a repair request," Hu Yi quickly explained, "but the door can be locked, so the thief must have the key."

"Impossible." The administrator shrugged. "Besides you, I'm the only one with the key. Do you suspect I stole it?"

"Oh, right!" Zhou Dali squeezed in front of the administrator: "Someone came to fix the door this morning! We were going out, so we told him to come back in the afternoon. Could it be... could it be him?"

"That's impossible." The administrator smiled dismissively. "It's New Year's Day. No repairman would be out working on New Year's Day."

"Not a repairman?" Hu Yi was stunned for a moment, then turned to look at Zhou Dali: "Damn it, that must be a thief scouting the place!"

"Yes, it must be, it must be," Zhou Dali muttered to himself. "And it's very likely that there was more than one person, or that one person made multiple trips, otherwise it would be impossible to take three boxes in one trip."

"Damn it! Bastard! Scoundrel!" Li Baoqing pounded the wall several times. "Why did they single out our house? Why didn't anyone see the thief?"

Hu Yi closed his eyes, lowered his head, and stroked his chin, thinking for a while: "Today is New Year's Day, many people in the building will go out to play, and some people simply didn't come back to stay last night. The thief probably expected this, so he came to check the situation early this morning, and as a result..."

"I thought he was there to fix the door, so I told him we were going out and wouldn't be back until the afternoon..." Zhou Dali said listlessly.

Li Baoqing asked anxiously, "Do you remember what he looks like?"

"Black hair, so he must be Caucasian, or... or Tatar? He has a beard, and he looks... looks..." Zhou Dali tried to recall for a while, then shook his head in frustration and said, "I'm very nearsighted, and the corridor was dark in the morning. I hadn't put on my glasses when I got up, so everything was blurry."

Seeing them discussing in Chinese, the building manager turned and left the room, saying, "Alright, there's nothing I can do here. Go find the police. I'll arrange for someone to fix the door as soon as possible after the holiday. Remember to keep your valuables safe in the future. Good luck."

The Chinese preparatory students and the Arab prince who came to help also left, leaving the three of them in the room looking at each other, not knowing what to do.

"Call the police," Li Baoqing said hoarsely.

"It's useless." Hu Yi shook his head. "They can't provide any useful clues. What can the police do? Search house to house? Besides, these Moscow police... hey, you know what they're like."

Li Baoqing fell silent. Zhou Dali held his head and pondered for a moment, then said in a low voice, "I remember now. When I first came here last year, someone in Building 6 had a box stolen from them, and it happened several times in a row."

"Who did it?" Li Baoqing asked hurriedly. "Has the culprit been caught? Have the items been recovered?"

"No, not at all," Zhou Dali said. "I'm not too clear on the specifics. At the time, many people suspected that the dormitory manager colluded with outsiders to commit the crime, but there was no direct evidence, so the matter was dropped. Later, the school dismissed that manager and replaced him with the current one."

"you mean…?"

"If that administrator was really involved back then, maybe he secretly made copies of the dormitory keys. Or maybe... maybe the current administrator is too... sigh, who knows?" Zhou Dali sighed, "Who knows? It's all just speculation. There's no point in talking about things without evidence."

"Embezzlement by their own comrades!" Hu Yi was furious. "They're completely in cahoots!"

Li Baoqing blinked with a worried expression: "What do you mean by 'disappointed'?"

"They're just in cahoots!" Hu Yi slumped heavily onto the bed. "Uncultured!"

Although they knew the police were unlikely to do much, they still filed a report with a glimmer of hope. The young police officer on duty registered their information. Apart from some clothing, personal belongings, and a small amount of RMB, Hu Yi's suitcase contained $1,800, Li Baoqing lost $1,300, and Zhou Dali suffered the most significant loss, with a full $3,400 remaining in his suitcase.

It was already dark when they left the police station. The three of them returned to their room dejectedly, sitting on the bed like wilted eggplants, their minds blank.

"How much money do you have left?" Hu Yi asked listlessly, pulling out his wallet to check. "I only have four hundred rubles left."

Li Baoqing and Zhou Dali emptied all their pockets and found less than 700 rubles and 20 US dollars in total.

"These three measly people can't last more than a few days eating instant noodles and bread every day." Hu Yi sat there blankly, took a drag on his cigarette, got up, and put on his coat. "I'm going to go borrow some money."

Li Baoqing asked, "Whom should we borrow it from?"

Hu Yi hesitated for a moment: "Let's find... Fei Fei. There's no other acquaintance we can ask her."

"Don't go yet. Feifei needs to buy a plane ticket to go back to China for winter break, so she definitely won't have much money left." Li Baoqing reached out and unbuckled his belt, pulled open a thin zipper on the inside, and took out a folded banknote from a hidden pocket: "I have a hundred dollars here, which should be enough for us to get by for a while."

"Holy crap? You had a backup plan?" Hu Yi was both surprised and delighted. "That's a very clever trick. Who would have thought someone would hide money in their belt!"

Li Baoqing smiled helplessly: "My dad said that I should hide some money in a safe place just in case when I'm traveling abroad, so he bought me this belt before I left the country. I never thought I would actually need it now."

"Your old man is amazing!" Hu Yi gave a thumbs up: "One hundred dollars, plus what we have on hand, well... it'll be enough for us to hold out until they wire money home."

Li Baoqing gently smoothed out the banknotes: "I'll exchange them for rubles tomorrow, and the three of us can make do for a while."

Zhou Dali hesitated for a moment, then shifted his body slightly: "Actually, I've kept some money for emergencies, but I'm going home in a few days, so I'll use yours for now and pay you back as soon as I get back from my vacation."

Li Baoqing was greatly surprised: "Your belt has pockets too?"

"It's not the belt, it's here." Zhou Dali patted his lower abdomen: "There's a hidden pocket in these underwear. I put five hundred dollars in there, just enough to buy a plane ticket."

"Underpants?!" Hu Yi exclaimed with a laugh, "That's really something! Aren't you worried about the hassle? Aren't you afraid you'll forget to take your money out when you wash your underwear?"

"Yeah, I rarely see you wash your underwear." Li Baoqing said thoughtfully, "Is it because you're worried about losing money that you never change them?"

"How could that be! All the underwear I brought has pockets, and I change them frequently! I really do!" Zhou Dali exclaimed, his face flushed. "I'm not going to argue with you guys anymore. I need to call my dad and ask him to exchange some dollars for me. You should tell your families too."

During those years, the country's foreign exchange reserves were at a low level. The amount of foreign exchange that ordinary residents could obtain from banks each year was far from enough to meet the needs of studying abroad, so they had to resort to black market currency exchange. However, black market currency exchange could not guarantee a stable supply and price, especially around the Spring Festival when the demand for US dollars was high. It often required several transactions to obtain a sufficient amount, so families had to make plans in advance.

Zhou Dali's reminder immediately made Hu Yi anxious again. He sighed and his carefree smile vanished. Li Baoqing put on his coat with a bitter face: "Sigh, I'm doomed this time. My dad is definitely going to scold me to death."

Around dinnertime is peak time for Indians and Africans to make phone calls, and only one public phone in the lobby on the first floor is idle. Hu Yi slowed his pace and said, "You guys make your calls first, let me think about how to tell my family."

Li Baoqing hesitated and wouldn't go forward. Zhou Dali picked up the receiver, hesitated for a moment, and dialed home. He spoke to his family in the dialect of Xinzhou, Shanxi, very quickly, which Hu Yi and Li Baoqing could barely understand. Zhou's father roared angrily on the phone, while Zhou Dali seemed even more subdued than usual in front of his father, not daring to say much, only listlessly agreeing with his head down.

The other two kept staring at Zhou Dali's facial expression. After he hung up the phone, Li Baoqing asked in a low voice, "Did your dad scold you?"