Just as Wei Hongde, having survived the ordeal, was heading home, Wu Shicai was anxiously waiting for news of Lai Huaiwu in a private room at the Wanguo Casino.
Three hundred thousand US dollars is a huge sum of money. After Lai Huaiwu received the ransom, he had to hand it over to Wu Shicai as soon as possible. However, the transaction time has long passed. Why hasn't Lai Huaiwu come to report back to him yet?
Lai Huaiwu was his trusted subordinate for many years; otherwise, he wouldn't have entrusted such an important matter to Lai Huaiwu. Naturally, he trusted him immensely, and more importantly, they knew each other inside and out. Just for the sake of his family, Lai Huaiwu wouldn't dare to do anything underhanded.
Could there have been a problem with the transaction? Did the Wei family fail to raise the full amount?
Three hundred thousand US dollars is indeed a bit much, but given Wei Hongde's family fortune, Wu Shicai believes that he can still come up with the money.
Or perhaps the Wei family was unwilling to accept such a huge loss and took action to arrest Lai Huaiwu? Yes, the Wei family has enough connections and power in the concession, so it's not impossible that they would go all out.
Thinking of this, Wu Shicai felt that since things had changed, he couldn't just wait foolishly. He immediately summoned a group of his men and set off to personally go to the tenement to find out what was going on.
Because kidnapping Wei Hongde was no small matter, Wu Shicai entrusted the task to Lai Huaiwu alone to keep it secret, and his other trusted confidants were unaware of it.
To maintain secrecy, Lai Huaiwu didn't recruit many helpers, only selecting his most trusted subordinates to participate. Therefore, apart from these participants, only Wu Shicai knew about the hiding place in the courtyard, and he had to personally go to verify it.
Like Li Zhiqun, Wu Shicai had sufficient guards when he went out to guard against assassinations and attacks at the Shanghai station. When the group arrived at the courtyard, they felt something was wrong as they looked at the dark courtyard.
It's too quiet, this is definitely not normal!
"Let's go in and take a look!"
A group of men rushed in, and the lights in the courtyard began to come on. The men quickly discovered the situation and hurriedly reported to Wu Shicai: "Captain, there's no one inside, and there's a lot of blood on the ground."
Something really happened! Wu Shicai had no more illusions and personally entered the courtyard to begin inspecting the scene.
Inside the courtyard, almost all the doors and windows of the rooms were destroyed, with broken planks and shards of glass scattered all over the ground, creating a chaotic scene.
Wei Hongde is gone, and so are the people who were guarding him. Looking at the bloodstains on the ground, it goes without saying that these people have been killed.
The perpetrator acted swiftly, even removing the body, so the exact circumstances remain unknown.
Wu Shicai's men were all former members of the Green Gang. They were good at fighting with knives and guns, but they were not good at crime scene investigation or catching criminals. They were even worse than the people in the police station. Faced with the scene in front of them, they did not find any clues.
Wu Shicai himself was not a truly rigorously trained agent. In addition, the other party was shrewd and left no trace. After checking the place, all he found was a pile of junk and nothing else.
Looking at the scene before him, Wu Shicai's temples throbbed, his head swelled, and he had a terrible headache. The kidnapping had failed, and the consequences were serious.
It wasn't that he was afraid of Wei Hongde retaliating. After all, he came from a background of thugs and gangsters, and those with nothing to lose weren't afraid of those in shoes. Even if Wei Hongde knew that he was the mastermind, he didn't believe that Wei Hongde would really be willing to risk everything and fight him to the death, denying everything. At worst, they would just have a brief encounter.
But how am I going to fill that huge hole when I haven't received the $300,000? And how am I going to explain things once the director returns?
"Let's go to Lanjiaqiao!"
Wu Shicai led his men to Lanjiaqiao, but the place was deserted. Wu Shicai knew that Lai Huaiwu would never come to collect money alone; he must have brought helpers. But the situation was the same as in the tenement: everyone had vanished without a trace!
Was it really necessary to be so ruthless? Since the other party had rescued Wei Hongde, they could have simply refused to pay the ransom. However, they even eliminated the person who was supposed to collect the ransom. These people's character and methods were truly ruthless and decisive. Clearly, they wanted to completely eliminate the kidnappers of Wei Hongde and leave no future troubles.
Wu Shicai couldn't help but feel a little uneasy. It seemed that choosing Wei Hongde as his target this time was a mistake.
It was already past midnight, the night was pitch black, and the search conditions were extremely poor. His men searched for a long time but found nothing. Wu Shicai had no choice but to order the team to call it a day and go back to figure out how to finish the job.
At the Wei Mansion in the French Concession, Wei Hongde dismissed the entire Wei family, who had recovered from their joy, and kept his eldest son, Wei Xilin, behind to inquire about the details. He wanted to find out who had saved his life.
But as Wei Xilin continued his narration, Wei Hongde became even more confused and asked in a strange tone, "You found Old Gu, but only asked him to raise US dollars so he could pay the ransom for you? Didn't you ask them to help me?"
"No, really no, I was afraid of endangering your safety, so I did everything according to the kidnappers' instructions," Wei Xilin said, shaking his head.
He was also very puzzled. According to his father's description, it was not the kidnappers who released the person on their own initiative, but an unknown force that rescued them by force. But he really did not do anything!
Wei Hongde believed Wei Xilin's words. He knew his son well; he wasn't assertive and would usually try to solve problems with money when something like this happened.
"That's really strange. Who could have made such a move? They mobilized so many people to save me, killed those kidnappers, and saved my life for no reason?"
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