Chapter 29 Clues, Hints, Are You Happy? "..." Fu Ze...

The initially relaxed and pleasant atmosphere, which was due to the fact that no one was injured or killed, took a sharp turn for the worse.

Recalling Du Yang's behavior along the way, Yuan Jianxing offered a general possibility: "If I'm not mistaken, Du Yang probably received a text message from his superior before he acted."

Fu Ze promptly added what Yuan Jianxing was hesitant to say: "As for whether the text message was sent by his boss himself, that's not hard to say."

Judging from the current situation, this text message is clearly just a trap to lure Du Yang away and never return.

The officer in charge of recording was somewhat incoherent: "But that doesn't make sense. Why would they deceive Du Yang, a student? If they really wanted to use this as leverage, they wouldn't need this insignificant hostage, would they?"

His words seemed to remind everyone present that finding Du Yang's special qualities would break the current vicious cycle of "the Calabash Brothers saving their grandfather, but one by one they disappear."

However, no matter how imaginative any L City executive was, they couldn't find a quality in Du Yang that would be widely accepted.

Yuan Jianxing suggested a possibility: "Du Yang was the first person to make contact with us, and the enemy is coming for us."

His tone was very certain, as if he had already made a decision.

The L City executives looked at each other, unable to find any rebuttal.

At the same time, they had no reason to endorse it.

Although they also felt that the punishment imposed by the V City Tribunal was a bit excessive, the die was cast, and there was no reason for Kangming Group to make things difficult for Yuan Jianxing, who had been transferred from "Chief" to "Junior" in another place. Why was they so prepared?

But Yuan Jianxing's attention was focused on Fu Ze.

The "we" in that sentence was meant for others; the focus here is always on Fu Ze.

First of all, Fu Ze was a "seed" carefully cultivated by Kangming Group with a lot of money and effort and placed into the adjudication bureau. This was beyond doubt in Yuan Jianxing's mind.

Logically speaking, this "seed" should take root and sprout within the adjudication bureau according to the needs of the Cummins Group, and rise steadily.

However, this usually obedient "seed" suddenly had its own ideas after completing an ordinary assassination mission, and even took the initiative to give up all its previous efforts and return to L City with him.

This matter is full of strange things and doesn't make sense from any perspective.

At least Yuan Jianxing himself did not believe in those reasons such as "providing help in times of need" or "following one's husband wherever he goes".

This person definitely has ulterior motives.

What Yuan Jianxing couldn't understand, Kangming Group naturally couldn't understand either.

For them, even if the seeds really grew "wrong", they would still have to retrieve them, find out the truth, and then clean house as appropriate.

Sensing Yuan Jianxing's scrutiny, Fu Ze took the initiative to ask, "Sir, do you want to go to that furniture store? Now?"

"No way!" The executive captain immediately rejected Fu Ze's suggestion. "If it were before the explosion, perhaps we could let you go and investigate disguised as ordinary customers. But now that you've attracted the attention of the Kangming Group, we can't let you take that risk again."

Just then, a voice forcefully interrupted the conversation: "Are you talking about that secondhand furniture market in the south of the city?"

The executives turned around and saw that the speaker was Cui Ya, the restaurant's manager.

After that chaotic scene, he looked a mess, covered in dust and debris, completely unlike his previous confident and carefree demeanor when he was snapping photos of diners in the restaurant.

The team leader frowned, and instead of answering, asked, "Why are you asking this?"

Cui Ya didn't seem to mind the team leader's wariness and said to himself, "That's it. If you need a very comprehensive and authentic high-definition record of that place, I should be able to provide some clues."

Before the team leader could ask any further questions, Cui Ya took the initiative to explain the source of his so-called "clues".

"I'm not very talented, but I recently took on a job to shoot a promotional documentary for a used furniture market, so I set up some equipment inside the market." Cui Ya held up the camera hanging around his neck with both hands. "Time-lapse photography technology, would you like to learn more?"

This approach is indeed ingenious and unexpected.

Due to historical reasons, this used furniture market has never been fully equipped with surveillance cameras, which is why the L City executive is in such a dilemma.

Moreover, where there's a policy, there's a countermeasure; the Cummins Group is adept at its methods and rarely makes any basic mistakes that get caught on camera.

But the appearance of photographer Cui Ya was perfectly timed to be in a blind spot.

High-definition shooting equipment—every detail can be seen clearly.

The unconventional shooting angles perfectly compensate for the limitations of ordinary surveillance cameras.

The filming time is extremely long – any unusual changes will be recorded accurately.

This is undoubtedly a timely and effective help for the executive.

Sensing the CEO's softened attitude, Cui Ya put one hand on his hip and gestured towards a building behind him, "But I can't show you right now. You'll have to go to my studio for details."

-

The number of executive officers in L City was relatively scarce. After leaving the recorder to work with Yuan Jianxing and Fu Ze, the others left the scene.

Cui Ya's studio is not far from his restaurant, about a ten-minute walk away.

After getting away from the crowd, the recorder first briefly summarized the long-standing feud between Kangming Group and L City Tribunal, and then explained in detail to Yuan Jianxing and Fu Ze the temporary action mission that Du Yang's leader had received.

Recently, Kangming Group took on an earthwork project, which involves transporting a significant amount of cement, sand, and steel.

Because the entire project had a very tight schedule, they even requisitioned the old dock next to the furniture market as a supplement.

This doesn't sound like a problem.

One day, however, an executive officer, who was Du Yang's superior, unexpectedly discovered some clues—on days of high tide, the weights of goods transported into the old dock by water and those transported out by land did not match.

The old wharf has a long history, dating back to when L City was first designated as the capital. At that time, the overall supporting facilities were outdated by many decades, and it was a temporary requisition, so there was no possibility of using any so-called management and supervision mechanism.

After confirming that he had not made a misjudgment, Du Yang's superiors reported the situation immediately and he was ordered to continue observation.

Until one day, he finally caught a worker's operational error and took the opportunity to discover what the mismatched weights were.

It's a gun.

Crates and crates of guns.

This is a big deal! A major event that could be used to attack the Cummins Group!

The next day, the L City Adjudication Bureau dispatched plainclothes officers to secretly search the entire used furniture market.

The result was nothing.

However, this was within the executive's expectations. After all, Cummins Group was an old fox, and they would not be easily caught.

So they decided to launch a swift and decisive operation on the next high tide day, which is today, to catch the perpetrator red-handed.

However, to the court's surprise, all the executives who went to the furniture store one after the other disappeared without a trace, and even the various transmission signals on their bodies could not be detected, as if they had all vanished into thin air.

So Du Yang is probably also...

Flipping through the documents handed to him by the recorder, Yuan Jianxing suddenly asked, "Who is in charge of that area? I mean someone from the Kangming Group."

"It's Rhinoceros Horn. He's also in charge of the restaurant where the explosion just happened. This guy's new in charge, and he's incredibly ruthless."

The moment the recorder uttered the name, Yuan Jianxing turned his head to observe Fu Ze's expression.

Do you know each other?

"I've heard a little about it," Fu Ze replied with a smile.

How did you know?

"It's just hearsay." Fu Ze's smile began to stiffen.

"Who told you that?"

"..." Fu Ze's smile vanished.

He felt a pang of unease and added a new comment below the note "Don't lie to Yuan Jianxing":

Yuan Jianxing already had high suspicions about Bogdan's identity and knew he had to be careful with his words and actions.

...But what if Yuan Jianxing takes the initiative to cause trouble for me like before?

Seeing that things weren't going well, the recorder tried to smooth things over: "Fu Ze is, after all, from the Executive Officer Special Selection Team, so it's normal for him to know a little more than the average executive officer. Maybe someone just said something out of turn and he overheard it."

Fu Ze immediately seized the opportunity to back down, saying, "That's how it is."

While Fu Ze and Yuan Jianxing were locked in a fierce debate, Cui Ya listened with great interest, wishing that Yuan Jianxing and Fu Ze could continue their argument.

Previously at the restaurant, based on his experience of taking at least 8,000 portraits (if not 10,000), he quickly deduced that the relationship between the two was definitely not simple.

That's so interesting.

If it weren't for the fact that these two executives couldn't easily reveal their appearances to the public, he would definitely have invited them to shoot a big-budget series themed "Cat and Mouse Game".

With her innate charisma and almost makeup-free appearance, she is the perfect model every photographer dreams of.

Unfortunately, his rented studio was too close to the restaurant; they arrived in just a few words.

-

Although Cui Ya himself doesn't seem very serious, his studio looks quite professional, with all kinds of equipment and props neatly organized and categorized.

Unfortunately, it wasn't sightseeing time, so Cui Ya led the group straight to the point, turning on his computer and pulling up the footage he had taken with the equipment he had placed in the secondhand furniture market.

After calculating the time and doing some searching, Fu Ze and Yuan Jianxing spotted Du Yang in the camera's view.

Du Yang was looking at the content on his phone while occasionally looking up, searching for something.

He didn't appear in the camera again until he turned a corner, no matter how much the group dragged the progress bar.

"That's it! The secret space!" The recorder exclaimed excitedly, immediately taking over the device's operating permissions and starting to copy data.

Cui Ya asked curiously, "Are you suspecting that there are some newly built private spaces in this furniture market? This used furniture market hasn't been renovated in recent years, so it's impossible for a passage to have been dug out out of thin air, is it?"

"Otherwise, there's no way to explain where those guns went." The recorder rubbed his face with both hands.

Actually, it can be explained.

Fu Ze and Yuan Jianxing had the same thought at the same time.

Before Cui Ya could raise another question, the recorder shrugged and said, "Of course, some people in the team have also asked, if such a space exists, why has the Kangming Group only started using it now?"

Fu Ze and Yuan Jianxing, however, knew the answer to this question perfectly well—

Because the key only appeared two months ago.

If the man's "appearance" in the restaurant today was a phenomenon that could be artificially controlled, then let alone "hiding a gun," it wouldn't be impossible for him to do something else earth-shattering.

However, they obviously couldn't tell the recorder the truth about this.

After copying Cui Ya's video footage, the recorder expressed gratitude: "Thank you for this citizen's cooperation and assistance."

"It's my pleasure." Cui Ya waved his hands repeatedly. "I should thank you. If it weren't for your help today, my family's shop would probably be completely destroyed."

After leaving Cui Ya's studio, Fu Zeyuan and the recorder also parted ways.

Watching the recorder leave, Fu Ze suddenly turned his back to Yuan Jianxing and said, "Things are going so smoothly, didn't you expect that, sir?"

"You wanted to expose the Cummins Group, but as soon as you arrived, they came knocking on your door."

He turned to look at the other person, a half-smile on his face: "They even presented a 'big gift'."

Although Fu Ze didn't say it explicitly, he knew that Yuan Jianxing must know that he was referring to the "flash" related to the [key].

Yuan Jianxing, quick to pry, immediately retorted, "Are you happy?"

"Why shouldn't I be happy about punishing evil and promoting good?" Fu Ze spread his hands. "Protecting citizens is my duty."

This perfectly politically correct answer rendered Yuan Jianxing's probing attempt futile.

In fact, Fu Ze didn't really want to protect citizens that much. After all, he wasn't well protected when he was a citizen in the past, so why should he be expected to be so benevolent in protecting others?

He's not a superhuman righteous person like Hara Mihoshi.

Fu Ze just felt that following Yuan Jianxing was indeed going to bring good things, so he had to stick closer to him.

Yuan Jianxing knew he couldn't get any useful information from Fu Ze, so he stopped talking, said "You smooth talker, go back to sleep," and started hailing a taxi.

It was the middle of the night, so Yuan Jianxing's words and actions took on a different meaning when they were heard by passersby.

Several daring teenagers grinned mischievously and made a gesture to Fu Ze and Yuan Jianxing, with their fists pressed together and their thumbs pointing at each other.

Hara Mihoshi: ...

Fu Ze: ...Uh, let's forget about this kind of good thing.

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

Author's Note: Fu Xiaozhe, how can you give up without even trying?! [Crying]