Huo Yao pressed her cap further down. She swiftly struck the two guards standing in the passage with her hand. The guards passed out a second before her signal jammer failed. She didn’t delay any further and blended into the crowd. A few minutes later, she left the exhibition hall successfully without anyone stopping her.
She could sense a murderous air hovering on the top of her head but she did not turn back to see the person.
*
The exhibition hall lights quickly went back to normal after a brief power outage, and even the alarms were turned off in a minute or so.
The hall was no longer in chaos with the security guards’ help, and order was restored. Other than the people attempting to leave via the exits at the end of the passages and the glaring hole in the jade’s glass cover, it felt as though nothing had happened in the hall.
All the visitors who had yet to leave were invited to the VIP room. Zhuo Yun saw the angry look on his boss’s face when he came to update him, so he kept his report brief.
Min Yu stood in front of the glass cover quietly as he looked at the jade inside. A few seconds later, he tilted his head a little and said, “Let everyone go.”
Zhuo Yun was stunned. “But we aren’t done investigating…”
“No need. He’s long gone,” replied Min Yu indifferently.
Yang Yi came over after he was done interrogating the two foreigners. “Boss, they confessed. They aren’t in cahoots with the person who picked up the jade initially and put it back into the display case.”
Yang Yi had not been wearing the night vision goggles when the exhibition hall plunged into darkness. However, he could sense the people nearby. The infiltrator had been surprisingly swift and nimble. It didn’t take more than 20 seconds for the series of events starting from the moment the jade was picked to being replaced in the glass cover, and finally the alarms going off.
Zhuo Yun recalled the person wearing a cap whom his boss had told him to investigate in the CCTV control room earlier. He asked his subordinate about it through the handset.
A few seconds later, Zhuo Yun told Min Yu. “Yu, we could not find any information regarding the person you asked about. It felt as though that person appeared out of thin air.”
“Who?” Yang Yi turned his head and looked at Zhuo Yun.
Zhuo Yun took out his phone and pulled out the pictures he took from the surveillance system and handed it to Yang Yi. “Here’s the guy.”
Although the picture was unclear, the person wore a cap the entire time and never once looked up. Hence, they could only see the top of the person’s head. There was not even a single frame where the person’s face could have been captured.b There was no way to figure out the person’s gender or any other detail about him.
No employees had been assigned to work in the exhibition due to the high-level surveillance equipment being used. Zhuo Yun grilled the guards at the entrance and also those who had passed out, but no one noticed that person.
The person was certainly a veteran and an expert at avoiding detection.
Yang Yi blew up the image to see an ordinary cap. He had noticed the cap when he looked at the surveillance footage previously, but did not take a close look at that time.
“Is this the same person who stole Flying Heaven two years ago?” asked Yang Yi deeply.
Zhuo Yun raised his head in shock. “How can that be? Wouldn’t the culprit have walked out with the jade if it were that guy?”
It was unlike the person’s style to cause such a huge commotion.
“I don’t know either.” Yang Yi paused before he continued with a frown. “Regardless of whether it was the same person, I don’t understand why the jade was placed back after it was taken out.”
“Did the person realize the jade was a fake?” Zhuo Yun touched his chin. This was the only possibility.
Yang Yi glanced at Zhuo Yun and said, “Impossible. Even antique experts are incapable of detecting forgery so quickly, so it is not likely that it could be done under such circumstances.”
