Chunshu Hutong is not far from the newspaper's staff quarters.
Outside a courtyard wall, a clump of foxtail grass swayed incessantly, making a soft rustling sound. Upon closer inspection, a small boy emerged from within!
It turns out there was a dog hole hidden under the foxtail grass! The location was so well concealed that no one had noticed it.
The boy, Huang Zheyue, dressed in loose, dirty clothes, had bruises all over his face and looked extremely unwell.
This "ugly" refers not to his expression, but to his overall state.
Huang Zheyue clutched the spot where her ribs were and limped out of the alley.
As soon as he stepped out of the alley, he saw something and immediately found a place to crawl inside.
"Huang Gong! You're back!"
"Yeah, just got off work."
"Hey, I heard the police sent your nephew back, but I haven't seen him come out yet?"
Two men who knew each other were greeting each other at the entrance of the alley.
The man called Engineer Huang was young, only about twenty years old, with a kind and honest face. He was pushing a bicycle, and when he heard this, he looked ashamed. "This kid got into trouble outside, so I punished him by keeping him at home and not letting him go out."
"Your family has had a tough time. Your older brother went missing, leaving behind such a troublesome son..."
Engineer Huang didn't say anything, he just smiled.
Once he parted ways with the people he knew, the smile on his face immediately vanished, and he spat out a curse, "Damn it, he instigated Xiao Zhi to steal things, I'll kill that bastard sooner or later!"
Huang grumbled and cursed as he headed home.
They didn't see that Huang Zheyue, hidden in the corner, had a cold expression on her face, which was covered in bruises and not a trace of a smile.
With trembling hands clutching her ribs, Huang Zheyue emerged from the hiding place and immediately started running.
If Engineer Huang discovers he's not home, he will definitely come out again to drag him back.
If he falls into Huang's hands, he'll probably die; he needs to escape as soon as possible.
Just as Huang Zheyue had expected, he hadn't run far when he heard Engineer Huang shouting.
"Oh dear! Huang Zheyue has run away again!"
"Everyone, please help us find him! Huang Zheyue has run away again!"
Huang Zheyue immediately and skillfully turned into other alleys.
Beijing has thousands of hutongs of all sizes. Huang Zheyue may not have memorized them all, but he has memorized at least several hundred.
Taking advantage of his small size, he twisted and turned and quickly ran to the newspaper office's staff quarters. He knew the area well, so he rushed in and ran straight upstairs, climbing all the way to the top floor.
Huang Zheyue was exhausted when he reached the top floor. He had barely stood up when he collapsed to his knees, clutching his ribs, cold sweat pouring down his face. He lay there unconscious.
...
In the afternoon, Li Ailian and Cheng Huasheng came over. When Cheng Huasheng saw that Zhou Mingli and Jiang Ci had made the small two-bedroom apartment cramped but not messy, clean and tidy, his smile deepened.
"The interview will be next Wednesday morning. Wen Yun said it will be a direct test of cooking skills, and whoever cooks the best will be hired."
Cheng Huasheng and Li Ailian sat at the dining table, and Zhou Mingli poured them tea.
The tea was a gift from Tao Susu.
Zhou Mingli noted down the time, nodded, and said, "Okay, I'll be there on time."
Cheng Huasheng and Li Ailian came together this time to talk about Huang Zhiyuan.
Cheng Huasheng briefly relayed the findings of Cheng Wenyun's investigation, allowing Jiang Ci and Zhou Mingli to understand some possible conspiracies hidden behind it.
The deaths of Huang Zhiyuan and his colleagues have not been taken seriously to this day. The police have only listed them as missing persons, which has been deliberately obscured, and the truth has not yet been found.
Jiang Ci and Zhou Mingli exchanged a glance.
Jiang Ci entered the house, and Zhou Mingli said, "Before we came, we reburied Huang Zhiyuan. The burial place is still in that mountain."
“Jiang Ci also mentioned in the letter that we only found the letter after we found his body. In fact, Huang Zhiyuan first marked the location where the letter was hidden on a piece of cloth, which was right behind my house.”
“Before we discovered this, Jiang Ci had dug out the box containing the letter when she took the children out to play. We only found three gold bars inside. Later, based on the clues on the cloth, we found the letter and the photo in a hidden compartment of the box.”
Upon hearing this, Cheng Huasheng and Li Ailian both widened their eyes in surprise.
Unexpected wealth is not so easy to come by.
Every gift comes at a price.
Speaking out about this was a decision Jiang Ci and Zhou Mingli had made long ago.
If they wanted to help Huang Zhiyuan find the truth about his death and the whereabouts of the jade seal, they couldn't possibly hide the gold bars and the letter.
After Zhou Mingli explained, Jiang Ci also came out with a box.
“We also brought this piece of cloth from where we found Huang Zhiyuan, and we’ve kept it with that letter.” Jiang Ci placed the box on the table and opened it.
Three gold bars lay quietly inside. Jiang Ci took out the gold bars, pressed a certain mechanism, and heard a click. Jiang Ci took out the wooden block at the bottom, revealing the letter and the piece of cloth inside.
Cheng Huasheng and Li Ailian looked closer and saw that the writing on the cloth was very faint, and only the writing on the yellowed envelope was still legible.
When Cheng Huasheng and his wife opened the letter, Zhou Mingli said, "We have already gone to the place Huang Zhiyuan wrote down to look for it, but we have not found the jade seal at all. The clues he left behind clearly show signs of being damaged, which is why we wrote in the letter that the jade seal may have been taken away, and the person who took it is very likely someone from Beijing, just like Huang Zhiyuan."
After reading the letter, Cheng Huasheng felt quite conflicted, and then he looked at the photograph.
His gaze fell on Jiang Ci, and he hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.
He actually wanted to ask Jiang Ci, "Your paintings are really quite abstract."
How exactly does it resemble the person in this photo?
“This jade seal has never appeared in Beijing before. I have also gone to the Forbidden City, the National Museum and all the relevant places in Beijing to look at it, and there is no jade seal that is the same as this one.” Cheng Huasheng has a very good memory. After seeing the real appearance of the jade seal in the photo, he knew that there was no jade seal he had seen that was the same as this one.
This is going to be difficult.
Jiang Ci said, "Even if the other party really gets their hands on it, they will probably keep it hidden from outsiders for the next two years."
Those red armbands were just taken off. Before October, who would dare to show that thing?
Unless you're an idiot who thinks you don't have a capitalist title or are a landlord, you'd be foolish enough to openly flaunt your wealth!
"But they might not hide it anymore later," Jiang Ci said meaningfully.
Li Ailian asked in surprise, "Why?"
"Nowadays, no one dares to show off these kinds of antiques."
Jiang Ci patiently explained, "Everyone has a desire to show off. It's not allowed in China. Take a nearby place, Mr. Cheng, you used to live in Hong Kong, so you should know whether those rich and powerful people would show off or not."
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