Release that Man

After giving Master Eight’s name, they were finally able to gain access into the room. Su Zheng’s eyes that looked at the man were filled with accusation.

“Ha ha ha… Because there is no guard, anyone can enter this building. Salesmen visit every other day, and I have become afraid because of that,” the embarrassed man explained. He greeted them and went to serve them drinks. Door-to-door salesmen were the most annoying creatures in the world in that man’s mind, and this was especially true after he married a shopaholic wife.

The worst experience was when he came back from a weeklong work assignment and returned to find that half of his savings had disappeared. Instead, he found gloves that could shield the fingers when cooking, an apple corer that could core the apple while cutting it into six slices, a transparent chopping board that could not really be used, plates in various shapes that were used to serve specific food…

Most of those purchases were trash that was used several times before being tossed away.

The youth helped Yan Si sit on the sofa, and Su Zheng sighed. “Brother Cao, you are too careful. Just don’t leave so much cash at home. In that case, if your wife wants to buy something, she has to go the bank, and by then, her interest would probably have waned.”

“I don’t think so.” The man sighed even greater, and his face looked sad. “Nowadays, the salesmen come with card readers. Even without going to the bank, you could make the payment. If it’s a cash payment, there won’t be any bad consequence, but if it’s in the bank, the personal information is stolen, then the problem will be even bigger… By the way, who are these guys?”

The man looked at Ye Shuang’s group. Ye Shuang smiled in self-introduction. “My name is Ye, and Xiao Su is now in my team.”

Then, she pointed at Yan Si and the youth. “You can ignore these two. They are here because they are too bored.”

Yan Si and the youth looked at Ye Shuang, but at the same time, they could not say that she was wrong.

The man shook Ye Shuang’s hand and smiled. “This is also my first time meeting Xiao Su, but I’ve heard her name a lot already. I also heard that she is working under a team. Is there anything that I can help with?”

Su Zheng got straight to the matter at hand. She took out her phone to show the man a few pictures. “I’m sure you have heard about the recent theft at the Yan family, right?”

The pictures on the phone were the ones that Su Zheng had snapped at the crime scene out of habit. The man took a look and frowned. “The skill is not that good. From the looks of it, this is not the job of a real professional.”

“You’re right.” Su Zheng gave the man a thumbs up. “I also realized that it’s not that professional, but I believed it was the work of several people, at least two, one to fix the alarm and another to crack the safe… However, I’m not familiar with the situation in Shanghai, so I can only hope that you can give me some leads.”

The man looked at the pictures for a long time and then stared at Yan Si. “I was wondering why he looks so familiar. Is he the young master of the Yan family?”

Yan Si nodded with a scowl, which could be counted as an unwilling admission.

Recently, he had found that his name had lost its initial luster. Before this, even though Yan Si’s reputation had not been that good, at least it had managed to garner some attention. To be able to get attention meant it had value, but after meeting Ye Shuang, Yan Si realized that he had become a normie in other people’s eyes. Regardless of whether it was Ye Shuang, Su Zheng, or even this middle-aged man who could meld into the public easily, they reacted normally around him like he was no different from a stranger on the road. This was quite a hard pill for Yan Si to swallow.

The man thought about it. “Technically, I shouldn’t have minded so much, but after all, Master Eight is an old master that is well respected in the business, and since you’re his student, then I shall tell you something in the capacity of a senior. Our internal rules state that we shouldn’t go after another colleague, especially something like this that has involved the fight of inheritance. It is of no benefit to you if you get involved with something like this.”

If this was just a technician that was hired—like someone was hired by another person to pry the safe open—this kind of work was okay. After all, it was just a working relationship. The employer hired them to steal something, they stole something, and what either party did after the case had nothing to do with the other.

But now, it was clear that Su Zheng wanted to find the culprit, and this would involve a conflict between colleagues. Ending someone’s career was like killing his colleagues’ trust in him. If he sold someone out for the sake of money once, what was to say he would not do it again?

There was competition in every field, but every field had hidden rules that governed the peace. People could be in competition, but they should not purposely harm the other party. That was the man’s meaning, and if Su Zheng really continued her investigation and even pointed out the colleagues who did the job, then she would be treated as a traitor in the eyes of her other colleagues.

“Brother Cao, you don’t need to worry about that.” Ye Shuang smiled. “Even if we continue the investigation, we’re not going to cause any trouble for someone who was hired. Xiao Su just wants to clarify who is currently holding the stuff that was stolen from the safe.”

“Even that is not so good.” The man shook his head with a sigh. “In ancient China, the lowest hierarchy of the society could be delineated in descending order, actors, stooge, local ruffian, general worker, travelling barber, service worker in the bathhouse, prostitutes, thieves, and sellers of drugs and cigarettes… We are one of the lowest, but those who walk the path know that the lower the status, the greater we value professional ethics. Especially for those who work with skillful jobs, the biggest taboo is to betray our client. That is even worse than having a bad skill.”

Yan Si and the youth had their worldview refreshed, like the door to a new world had been opened.

However, Su Zheng did not have the time to worry about these two. She giggled and tried to bargain with the man. “Why should you worry about other people, Brother Cao? You only need to help me find out who the person who was hired is; this is at most an exchange of information between colleagues. Even if I find the person to ask them for the name of their clients, whether they want to give or not, that is their prerogative. How is that related to you?”

The man sighed. “If you didn’t come with so many people today and just told me you were plain curious, then perhaps I might have given you the name. However, now that I now you want to find the name of another colleague, and you need to go through me, doesn’t that mean that I have become your accomplice?”

Yan Si’s eyes twitched like he wanted to say something. Ye Shuang saw this and used a normal tone to say something before Yan Si. “We just thought it would be easier to go through you, Brother Cao. We only need you to make the introduction, and what happens later will have nothing to do with you anymore. Of course, if you really do not want to say, then we will only have to waste more effort in our investigation. However, if we cannot go about this the gentle way, then we might have to use a slightly more rough-handed way to conduct our investigation…”

Is that a threat? The man was annoyed.

Noticed his displeasure, Su Zheng immediately offered the carrot. “I hear your son is currently in primary school. This is the first time that I’ve visited, so I don’t know what he likes. So, I bought some toys and snacks. Please, Brother Cao, don’t be too polite and refuse me.”

Is this bribery? The man realized the true purpose of this group of people, and the friendliness that he had shown earlier disappeared.

The youth saw the change in the atmosphere and added, “My first uncle has shares in Shanghai’s Century Primary School…”

Shanghai Century Primary School was the best school in Shanghai. They had special hobby classes and all the latest schooling amenities. Getting a spot was next to impossible; the difficulty of getting into it was harder than getting into Beijing University.

Ye Shuang looked at the youth with surprise and then tossed him an approving look. Looks like not all young masters are useless. At least they are familiar with how to use their privileged status to get things done.

The youth felt weirdly proud from gaining that approval.

The middle-aged man started to have his confidence shaken. He did not care much about the threat and the bribery, but his son’s education was of the utmost important. If he really managed to get into this top school, then his son would have a leg over others… After taking a deep breath, the man relented. “Fine, I will help you investigate who the thief was.”

After that, he probably thought that he had given in too easily, so he quickly added, “But you’d better promise to not go after our colleague with some underhanded tactic or forceful pressure. Even though you do not really belong to our community, Xiao Su, you have to take into consideration Master Eight’s name.”

“I know, I know.” Su Zheng pouted. “Just help us find the party responsible.”

The man sighed and picked up the phone again. He zoomed in on one of the pictures. “This safe is not directly from the main manufacturer… Look here, this lock was indeed made in Germany, but in reality, the lock was probably taken from the original safe, and the rest is a fake.”

Su Zheng leaned over with interest. “For real? I have not tackled this new brand of safe before, so it’s not the original model.”

The man nodded. “The thickness of the walls and material will be different from the original model. This is the model for a family-use safe, and family-use safes actually aren’t that complicated. Normally, there will only be mechanical and electronical types. There shouldn’t be multiple lock, and it won’t be fixed with an alarm… Of course, the party that did the modification should be working with a professional factory. They probably thought that the safety level of the original model was not good enough, so they bought a second hand lock from the German brand and then attached it to their model before selling it to the buyer.”

Ye Shuang cut to the chase. “Brother Cao, for you to purposely bring this up… is it because we should turn to the manufacturer that modified this safe?”

The man looked over with approval. “If I’m not mistaken, there should be a connection between the thief that broke into the safe and the person that did the modification.”