Chapter 285 - Craftsman
Translator: Lonelytree Editor: Millman97
The youth and Yan Si’s interest in following the team had been ground to a pulp after the whole afternoon. Now that they had been given an opportunity to escape, they quickly showed themselves out. Yan Si was still recovering, so it was not convenient for him to follow people around. Even for the youth, following two girls to be the backdrop was quite tedious. Normally, the girls next to the young masters were only vases; this was the first time that they had experienced being the backdrop. It had been a huge hit to their pride.
...
After lunch, the youth and Yan Si left in a taxi. Ye Shuang and Su Zheng went to visit the address that they had gotten from Brother Cao. They found the place and rang the bell. The wooden door was opened to reveal the face of a rotund middle-aged woman. “Who are you looking for?”
“Big sister, we’re looking for Brother Zao. Is he home?” Su Zheng asked politely.
“He’s already dead!” the woman said with impatience before the door was slammed shut. The sound was so loud that part of the cement fell. Su Zheng was shocked. She looked at Ye Shuang. The plot had suddenly changed? In just a few days, the key witness died?
“Perhaps it’s couple argument?” Ye Shuang coughed.
Oh, so it’s like that... Su Zheng agreed and nodded. Then, she pressed the bell again, but no one answered. She pressed and pressed, and half a minute later, the woman finally opened the door again to yell, “I also told you the b*stard is not here. Why are you still bothering me?”
Su Zheng charged forward to yell back, “Big sister, if Brother Zao is dead, then at least let us pay our respects to his dead body!”
This time, it was the woman who was shocked. She looked at Su Zheng with widened eyes before squeezing out the following. “I have no idea where his body is. All day, he refuses to come home, and all he does is go out and drink with his b*stard friends...”
They continued to go back and forth for a few more minutes. Probably because she had a channel to vent in, the woman felt better. After a while, she stopped and studied her two guests. “Why are you looking for my Ol’ Zao?”
Su Zheng did not know what part she could reveal, so she answered carefully, “We were introduced by Brother Cao...” She was only halfway through, when the woman’s face darkened, and the door slammed shut.
Ye Shuang coughed and speculated, “Looks like Brother Cao is one of the b*stard friends.”
Su Zheng looked at Ye Shuang with a frown. “Then what should we do, Sister Shuang? If we cannot find the man, how do we ask him?”
Ye Shuang was powerless as well—she could not handle boisterous women like this. They would not listen to reason, and if they got into a fight with her... Fine, using fists might be a bit over the line, but even if they get into physical altercation, she might not even be afraid of them. If they accidentally injured her, this woman might even seek compensation from them even though it was her who started the fight.
After much contemplation, Ye Shuang finally decided to adopt a more drastic approach. “I think the neighbors of this type of old building should be close to one another. How about we go and ask around? And then, you should call Brother Cao to tell him to leave a message to this person online. Of course, if he sees the QQ message and comes home directly, that would be best.”
This was the best solution that they had. Su Zheng scratched her head and sighed. “Okay then, we’ll split up, going up and down the street. By the way, Sister Shuang, do you still remember the person’s face on the profile? I only remember that he had a thin moustache.”
“... It’s a bit hard to describe.” Ye Shuang was silent for a long time. “Nowadays, it’s rare for people to leave a style like that anymore. It’s okay, just focus on this trait.”
After that discussion, they asked the nearby neighbors. After confirming that no one knew the location of this Brother Zao, they split up. Ye Shuang exited the building and went off in one direction while Su Zheng took the other.
Perhaps Ye Shuang was lucky. She walked for less than ten minutes, and with her special hearing, she heard someone gloating by the roadside stall. “I’m the descendant of Lu Ban. I might have the surname Zao, but my mother’s surname is Lu. I got my skills from my mother’s side. I can build you the best trap. A safe is just child’s play.”
Ye Shuang was glad—things had gone much smoother than she expected! She walked over to the pair. Before the man across from the little moustache answered, Ye Shuang cut in casually. “Don’t lie to me. Lu Ban has the surname Gong Su—he’s called Lu Ban because he resided at Country Lu. Even though my history is not so good, I do know these little factoids.”
The man across from the moustache chuckled, but Moustache was not happy. He slammed the table and roared, “And who are you?”
Ye Shuang sat down and smiled. “I just have some questions for you, Brother Zao. I just came from your home. I came with a friend, and I got your address from Brother Cao.”
Moustache did not have a good impression of Ye Shuang, but once he heard the middle-aged man’s name, he did not say anything else—he merely looked rather annoyed. “We’ll talk about that later. I’m in the middle of a conversation with my friend.”
“Okay, then I won’t bother you anymore. I’ll go call my friend.” Ye Shuang took out her phone and moved to another table to call Su Zheng.
Su Zheng found the place ten minutes later. She looked around and sat down next to Ye Shuang. She wiped her sweat and picked up the free tea. “I’m so thirsty! The people here only know how to talk nonsense. They should have told me that they don’t know if they really don’t know. I asked ten people, and they gave me at least four different directions and locations. I wandered all over the place, and I even got to the next residential area.”
Ye Shuang looked at Su Zheng with pity. “Never mind, at least it was better than chasing you away directly. You’ve taken a larger detour, but perhaps one of them was right?”
“But reality proves that none of them were right!” Su Zheng gripped her heart in pain. “The person is at South Street, but these people at North Street all said that they have seen him before. What has happened to today’s society? Is there not even the basic honesty between people anymore?”
Ye Shuang sighed. She was not the one who was swindled, but she could put herself in Su Zheng’s shoes. Her fate was much better. No matter whether the person was lying or not, she could discern it with one glance. Therefore, even if Ye Shuang ran into the same situation as Su Zheng, she would not have been led in circles.
Su Zheng complained and sighed, then she turned to the direction of Moustache and his friend. She leaned in to ask Ye Shuang, “What kind of business are they talking about?”
historical
“They’re just gloating about their past,” Ye Shuang answered. Even at that distance, she could still hear them clearly. Then, she realized that she should not have sounded so confident, so she quickly added, “I’m guessing.”
“So boring?” Su Zheng did not believe it, but she did not challenge it. She pouted and took out her iPad to play Angry Birds. In the next half an hour, Moustache kept gloating about his skills to his friends, then his experience, and then his ancestry. His friend was barely interested. As time dragged on, the initial interest slowly dwindled, and eventually, the friend just wanted this conversation to be over.
When the man found an excuse to leave, Moustache looked quite disappointed—like he had been selling his ointment for a long time, but no one had come forth to buy some.
Ye Shuang and Su Zheng walked over. As they sat down, Moustache became energized again. He lifted his chin with arrogance and said, “You two girls are new to the field, aren’t you? Are you here to ask Brother Zao for pointers?”
Su Zheng was polite. “We are indeed here to ask Brother Zao some things.”
Then she took out her phone and showed the pictures of the safe. “This safe is in the Yan family’s study. I hear it’s modified with German lock. I wonder if you remember it...”
Before the moustache even looked at the safe, and he scanned the table and lifted his head. “Are you looking for the person who made this safe?”
“We’re looking for the person who cracked this safe,” Su Zheng corrected him with a smile. “But this doesn’t look like the work of a skilled person. This artistry is too rough, so we thought that the thief has some connection with the person who modified the safe. Er, Brother Zao, why are you looking so annoyed?”
The moustache did look annoyed, and he claimed angrily, “I’ll be honest, it was me who modified this safe when I was working at a factory. Even if Master Eight came in person, he’d need at least ten minutes to break into this safe. So, who told you it has to be someone unskilled who broke into the safe simply because they took a little longer? This was such a good and powerful lock!”
Su Zheng scratched her head and took back the phone to take a look. “That’s shouldn’t be right. Even if I was cracking this, it would not take longer than three minutes. If it was my master, then he’d probably take seconds.”
“Just who are you to make claims like that?” The moustache was seriously humiliated.
Su Zheng felt wronged. “Didn’t you mention Master Eight earlier? I’m his student.”
What the f*ck!
Ye Shuang chuckled to smooth over the atmosphere. “Brother Zao, don’t be mad. This lock is not bad, but Xiao Su has plenty of experience, and her skill is good... By the way, are you the one who cracked this safe?”
What the f*ck!
Su Zheng’s eyes widened into circles. She looked at Moustache, and when she saw the man did not counter, she was shocked.
“So, it was Brother Zao who did this!” Then she turned to worship Ye Shuang. “Sister Shuang, you’re impressive. You can even tell something like that?