Qiming Chapter 74

Chapter 74

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It had been four hours since Fang Xing's emergency call.

"The media has already started reporting on Fang Xing's disappearance, and Zhiyin Biotech is constantly pressuring them, hoping they won't do anything to provoke the kidnappers."

"Provoke the kidnappers? They don't even know where they are, they're more worried about the impact of this news on the company's public image. After all, it just went public, its foundation is unstable, and people aren't confident. Such a sensational piece of news will cause the stock price to plummet immediately when it's released."

As soon as Gu Yunfeng entered the living room, he sat down on the sofa and began making a phone call. Zhao Chuan kept pressuring him from the other end, and it took several minutes before he could finally hang up the phone.

He leaned back on the sofa, exhausted, and watched Xu Chengyue, who had just changed his clothes, walk out of the bedroom.

"These days, what have you..." Gu Yunfeng started to ask what Xu Chengyue had been thinking these days, but he gave up before finishing the sentence. If Xu Chengyue didn't want to talk, asking wouldn't yield any results, and now wasn't the right time to discuss these matters.

He grabbed his laptop with one hand and placed it in front of Xu Chengyue, the screen displaying the database interface of the Third Public Security Bureau's surveillance system. Pulling Xu Chengyue to sit beside him, he looked around the room and then carefully examined Xu Chengyue's face. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his complexion was an unhealthy pale, he hadn't slept well for many days, though the room was spotless.

Actually, he had been quite angry when he was frantically knocking on the door outside. But upon seeing Xu Chengyue in this state, his anger dissipated, leaving only a faint ache hidden in his heart.

"You knocked for so long, what's so urgent?" Xu Chengyue rubbed his eyes, which were bloodshot.

"A kidnapping case." Gu Yunfeng glanced at the time on his phone, unable to resist reaching out and touching his nose.

"It's been four hours since the victim reported the crime."

"The victim reported it himself?" Xu Chengyue asked.

"Yes, and he's a rather special individual, the CEO of Zhiyin Biotechnology, Fang Xing." Gu Yunfeng skimmed his lips, completely oblivious to the sudden change in Xu Chengyue's expression. A fine layer of sweat appeared on his ashen face, trickling down his cheeks.

"The fact that Fang Xing was kidnapped shouldn't have been known by anyone, yet the media has gradually been publishing news about it," Gu Yunfeng frowned in thought. "This is strange, who leaked the information?"

He turned to look at Xu Chengyue, who sat motionless, staring blankly at the computer screen, neither speaking nor moving, like an empty shell whose soul had left.

"Are you feeling unwell?" Gu Yunfeng suddenly leaned in close to him and shook his arm, which finally brought Xu Chengyue back from his daze.

"No..." Xu Chengyue waved his hand. He logged into the surveillance system and said that the fact that the media knew about Fang Xing so quickly meant that it must have been deliberately leaked by the kidnappers.

"Deliberately?"

"He's been missing for two days and is still alive, even had the chance to call the police." Xu Chengyue smiled a rare smile. "The kidnappers didn't intend to kill him, nor did they demand a ransom, so, what's the purpose of kidnapping him?"

Just then, Gu Yunfeng's phone began ringing urgently again. He answered the call nervously, and while listening to Shu Pan's report, gestured at the computer screen for Xu Chengyue to quickly check the surveillance footage.

"Captain Gu, five minutes ago, the kidnapper called," Shu Pan reported, playing a recording. In the recording, the kidnapper claimed that Fang Xing was currently in his hands, and every four hours, he would expose a scandal about Zhiyin Biotech to the media.

He said he originally planned to quietly dispose of Fang Xing, but since he had already called the police, he wouldn't hide anymore.

"I've divided Fang Xing's despicable deeds into six parts." The kidnapper's voice in the recording was clearly altered. "There are twenty hours left. If the police find me, I'll automatically surrender. If they don't, Fang Xing will make the last revelation himself. If he doesn't, I'll..."

"Kill him."

"But if he confesses, I'll spare his life and let the law deal with him."

The phone call ended abruptly.

"The kidnapper has posted the first exposé online, but it was quickly handled by the PR team at Zhiyin Biotech. It's nearly impossible to find it now," reported Shu Pan.

"What was the first exposé?" Gu Yunfeng asked.

"They exposed Fang Yuejia's personal information." Shu Pan glanced at his old classmate and sighed sympathetically. "I never thought my junior would change so much over the years. He even got arrested for drink-driving a few years ago."

"... What's the point of this kind of exposé?" Gu Yunfeng said, somewhat exasperated. "Is he saving the big revelations for later?"

"Looks like he's got something big planned," Shu Pan speculated. He wanted to suggest slowing down a bit, curious to see what scandals would come out. The idea of rescuing the hostage after all the big secrets were revealed seemed appealing.

But of course, he kept these thoughts to himself.

Meanwhile, Fang Yuejia sat silently nearby, staring at the phone on the table, one hand holding his forehead.

—————

"Fang Xing last appeared in the surveillance footage two days ago in the afternoon," Xu Chengyue informed Gu Yunfeng after he hung up the phone.

"Show me."

Xu Chengyue selected a few frames and played them back. "I tracked Fang Xing's movements over the last three days. He was last seen on the day of Zhiyin Biotech's executive meeting, leaving the building alone and getting into his car."

"That car, have you contacted his driver?" Xu Chengyue asked.

"We did, but no one could reach him." Gu Yunfeng's eyes were fixed on the somewhat blurry footage, his finger hovering over the car's licence plate before letting it go. "It looks like the driver disappeared along with Fang Xing. What about the car's movements?"

"The car didn't go to any of his usual places but headed straight to a scrapyard." After the car entered a street in the city, it vanished from the footage. The area was relatively desolate, with few surveillance cameras, and was largely an undeveloped plot of land. There was a scrapyard there, the vehicles sent there were dismantled into pieces, and the car Fang Xing was in had disappeared.

"The scrapyard is located in Dong'an District." Xu Chengyue looked at him. "What should we do?"

"We're heading there now." Gu Yunfeng closed his laptop, unplugged the power cord, and patted his creased jacket before heading to the door. After taking a few steps and realising that Xu Chengyue hadn't moved, he turned back, grabbed Xu Chengyue by the arm, and pulled him off the sofa.

"You're coming with me, no slacking off."

Meanwhile, Qin Wei stood on the street, squinting up at a building with a red-and-blue exterior.

Taking a deep drag on his cigarette, Qin Wei scanned the surrounding buildings. In Nanpu City, there weren't many buildings with a red exterior; most were residential, with only a dozen modern structures that stood out. 

The small number made it easier to narrow the scope of their investigation. The building in front of him was the last one he needed to check, and after that, he could finally report back and finish the job.

Ten minutes ago, the kidnapper released a second exposé, revealing that Lin Xiangrong, the wife of Ronghua Biotech's second son, was actually the head of a secret department at Zhiyin Biotech. After Ronghua Biotech ran into trouble, she disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

The kidnapper's first exposé could be considered old news, many people already knew about it, so it wasn't anything new. However, the second revelation was extraordinary.

Even a seasoned middle-aged man like Qin Wei was quite shocked hearing this. Jiang Ronghua's previous claims of industrial espionage finally had some basis, proving they weren't entirely baseless accusations. Lin Xiangrong, who had long presented herself as a housewife, was actually working for a competitor in a critical position, providing core technology.

A piece of sensitive, potentially lawsuit-worthy leak of business information had been turned into something completely legitimate by Zhiyin Biotech's manoeuvring, presenting it as nothing more than an ordinary job position. 

Clever indeed. They didn't care about appearing honourable, only about securing real, tangible benefits.

Qin Wei stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and tossed it into a trash bin. The modern building in front of him was an art gallery in the city. The red façade spanned the ninth to the fifteenth floors, which meant Fang Xing's location should be somewhere within that range.

The buildings around... His gaze then fixed on an apartment building only twenty metres away from the gallery. The tenth to sixteenth floors of this building provided a clear view of the gallery's red exterior. The building was old, dating back to the early 2000s, with a diverse mix of residents, making it an easy place to hide suspicious individuals.

"Have you seen this person?" Qin Wei showed a photo of Fang Xing, taken from a news article, to the apartment's property manager. The elderly man, who was in his sixties, put on his reading glasses, nearly pressing his eyes to the picture. After a moment, he regretfully shook his head, saying he didn't recall seeing him.

"Is this building residential or commercial?" Qin Wei asked.

"Both, both," the property manager replied, wiping dust from his reading glasses and pointing to the directory in the lobby. "Floors one to ten are offices, eleven to fifteen are a hotel, and above that are private residences."

"The eleventh to fifteenth floors are a hotel?" Qin Wei scanned the directory again, noting that, for superstitious reasons, the thirteenth and fourteenth floors were skipped, so the hotel actually occupied only three floors.

"Do you have any guest registration information?" Qin Wei inquired.

"What's that?" The elderly man, whose eyesight and hearing were not very good, leaned in closer with a puzzled expression.

"The hotel's registration records!" Qin Wei raised his voice several notches, flashing his credentials. "We need to check the hotel's registration records!"

"Ah, registration records." The old man finally understood but shook his head apologetically. "I don't have those here. The hotel's front desk is on the eleventh floor, you'll need to ask them."

He then added, "But this hotel, something strange has been going on recently, it seems like some people who shouldn't be here have shown up."

People who shouldn't be here?

Hearing this, Qin Wei quickly offered the old man a cigarette and sat down beside him. "What do you mean by 'people who shouldn't be here'?"

"Yesterday, two young men came," the old man explained. "Well, not exactly young, but younger than me, and anyone younger than me is young in my book. Anyway, usually it's a man and a woman who go to that hotel, but yesterday, two men showed up."

Seeing Qin Wei's puzzled expression, the old man elaborated, "The thing is, one of them wasn't conscious. I suspect he might have been robbed or kidnapped."

"Which floor did they go to?"

"The eleventh floor," the old man whispered in his ear. "You should hurry up there, rescuing the person is the most important thing."

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: August 28, 2024 by Angel

Edited: November 26, 2024 by Angel