Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
A month later, in the special investigation group office at the Feng Ping police station.
Over the past month, Zhao Yu had proven that his deduction was completely wrong through his own hard work. He and Wu Xiumin had visited the five experts’ families, friends, and colleagues and adopted many different ways of trying to get more information from them. However, the facts have proved that these five experts were good people. They were all innocent.
Of course, within the month that had passed, in addition to the interviews and investigating, Zhao Yu had done a lot of other work. However, no obvious progress had been made in any of the six investigation steps he had written up. The case seemed to have come to a hopeless dead end. In other words, it was the first time in a long time that Zhao Yu was stuck on a case. After investigating the case for so long, he had still found nothing. He hadn’t encountered such great difficulty when he investigated the Headless Female Corpses Case or the Devil Case.
The mysterious murderer seemed to have totally disappeared. Although the special investigators tried their best to have Cui Lizhu, Li Fei, and Flying Squirrel Gao recall whatever they could, none of them provided any clues about the mysterious intelligence organization and Tao Xiang’s possible accomplice.
Zhao Yu’s adventure system also seemed to be unable to provide any clues. Although he had gotten several Gen hexagrams that showed a connection to the case, Zhao Yu obtained little useful information. Sometimes, Zhao Yu’s completion rate even fell below 100%, which was a rare thing for him.
Zhao Yu finally understood the Secret Service’s difficulties. The mysterious treasure was really too hard to find. Within the latest month, he had almost memorized all the files that he had. At that time, he was still trying to analyze related information in front of the big screen. There were two treasure hunting maps displayed on the screen that had been given to him by the Secret Service. Zhao Yu couldn’t do anything about the experts’ death, so he turned his attention to the treasure.
Zhao Yu pointed to an area on the big screen with a laser pen and said to team members, “This place is all mountains, but why didn’t the experts mark this area? Why didn’t they go there to look?”
“Team leader, haven’t we discussed this before?” Li Beini asked. “There was no road there. That place is too far away from the city, and there is no way for the Japanese to transport the gold from there.”
“Yes, we have actually gone there before. The expressway is newly built. It used to be only mountains and cliffs. There is no way for the Japanese to build a road there at that time,” Ma Jichun said.
“That place is in the deep west. The Japanese can’t have built fortresses there. It’s basically of no strategic significance,” Li Beini added.
Zhao Yu shook his head. “I feel that since the treasure has not been found for such a long time, it must have been hidden in a place that no one would think of. Where we think is impossible is actually worth a try,” he said. “Have you ever thought that the Japanese have planes? Do you think they might have transported the gold there by air? That when the Japanese waiting in that place received the gold, they buried the treasure there?”
“Team leader Zhao…” Ma Jichun frowned and said, “we have thought about this. But that would be too obvious. In order to keep anyone from learning about it, the Japanese wouldn’t have done that. Besides, we have checked the region you suspected with a remote sensor. Unless the treasure had been buried in the deepest earth, we would have detected it.”
“But…” Li Beini interrupted, “That place is too far away, the Japanese could not have sent many of their people there, so it would have been impossible for them to bury the treasure deep underground. Team leader, although you believe the treasure is in an unexpected hidden place, the location should at least make sense. I don’t think it’s possible for the treasure to be hidden in that area.”
“Hey?” Zhao Yu pointed to the blue area on the map and asked, “What about the rivers? Would that be possible? Look, there are so many rivers and lakes surrounding Feng Ping. The Japanese might have sunk the treasure under the water. Did the remote sensor work underwater?”
“Well…” Ma Jichun frowned. “Group leader Zhao, I reported this to you last time. While the Secret Service was still just the Special Operations Section, we had checked all the water around Feng Ping. Later, experts also assessed the surrounding waters. The work scope was later expanded to the whole northeast region, but we didn’t find anything.”
“Thieves don’t hide their stolen goods in rivers,” Cui Lizhu said suddenly. “Fish living in the rivers means fishermen, and the treasure could be easily found. Especially for such a big treasure, the Japanese would not be stupid enough to leave the gold in a river. Unless they could build a perfect treasure hiding place underwater, after 80 years, the treasure definitely would have been found.”
“Japan’s defeat was so sudden that they couldn’t have built a secure place to hide the treasure in that short of a time,” Li Beini added.
“The point is, it says that the treasure is hidden in a secret fortress built by the Japanese. Therefore, looking for this fortress is the key to finding the treasure,” Ma Jichun said. “For a long time, we have been actively looking for the map of the Japanese Kanto army base with the Soviets, trying to find out the location of the secret fortress. But unfortunately… ” Ma Jichun said helplessly. “We have found a lot of maps, but they have been known to the public for a long time. As for the secret fortress, it has never been found.”
“No.” Zhao Yu shook his head. “Even the Japanese didn’t know the location, how could we know? Alas… How can I find the secret fortress in the wide northeast?” Thinking about this, Zhao Yu suddenly started to think about his system devices. He wondered whether it was possible to find the treasure by upgrading them. Could the Omnipotent Browser work in this case? If Zhao Yu upgraded this device to the highest level, could he get the answer that no one knew? Or the Metal Detector? Should he upgrade the Metal Detector, or use a Hacker’s Command on it?
Seeing Zhao Yu remaining silent, Wu Xiumin said Ma Jichun, “Has your side made any progress? This is not our case alone.”
Ma Jichun hastily replied, “Yes, this is for sure. Well, we are paying close attention to the abnormal activities in the northeast area according to what group leader Zhao asked us to do. More than a thousand drones have been used to monitor that area, and we are also using remote sensing satellites. Don’t worry. It’s such a large treasure. Even if the murderer really got something from the old experts and find out the location, they can’t easily dig the gold out.”
“Alas.” Hearing this, Zhao Yu suddenly sighed and said, “Even if the killer got what they wanted from the experts, they will not be able to find the treasure. If the old experts really knew something, we would have found the treasure already.”
“Yes.” Ma Jichun nodded, then said, “I don’t think the old experts really knew anything.”
“So…” As Zhao Yu thought, a wonderful idea occurred to him. “In my opinion, we can’t go on looking for a clue like this without a plan. We must find the connection between the murders and the treasure. To make a breakthrough, we must think differently…”
The others asked curiously, “Oh? What do you mean? Do you have any ideas?”
Zhao Yu opened his eyes wide. “Feng Ping! The Forbidden City of the Qing Dynasty and the film production base!” he said excitedly. The others nodded, but they were completely confused. Zhao Yu clapped the table and said, “All of you stop the work at hand. Don’t think about anything. Let’s have some fun.”
