Chapter 3393 — The Pattern of the Crimes

Shen Yushu had always been a glutton, and Yu Xiaoke rarely got anything truly fine to eat at the orphanage. Now that so many delicacies lay before them, it would be a waste not to eat—so of course she meant to feast to her heart's content.

The two of them were eating merrily when Tang Taizhong's phone suddenly rang. By reflex he wanted to decline the call, fearing it would disturb Wei Zhao and the others at their meal, but Wei Zhao stopped him: "Answer it. There may be something urgent."

"Very well, then." Tang Taizhong nodded and hurriedly picked up. He had not listened for more than a few sentences before his expression changed: "What? The gold shop in Lihuan County has been robbed? All right, I understand!"

"Elder Tang, is something the matter?" Wei Zhao set down his cutlery and asked.

"Indeed. The gold shop of our hidden Tang family in Lihuan County has been robbed. The thieves are at work right now. What do you—" Tang Taizhong looked exceedingly anxious.

"We will go over there now. Lingshan and I will go together. Xiaoshu, Xiaoke, and Xinyan, the three of you stay here and finish your meal—we have no need of you." Wei Zhao gave his orders quickly.

"I could help you," Yu Xiaoke said, setting down the plate in her hand.

"They are all capable hands of the early Heaven rank; there is no great danger," Wei Zhao said with a wave of his hand. "You have had a long journey and have not eaten; your strength will not keep up. Lingshan and I will be enough."

"All right, then." Yu Xiaoke was an obedient girl—obedient, of course, to the male thief. She knew Wei Zhao never did anything he was not sure of; if there had truly been danger, he would certainly not have refused to take her along.

Wei Zhao, Qiu Lingshan, Tang Taizhong, and the Tang leader hurried out of the banquet hall together. As they walked, Wei Zhao asked, "How far is Lihuan County from here?"

"About forty minutes by car," Tang Taizhong said after thinking it over.

"Then there is no point in going," Wei Zhao said, halting in his steps.

"Ah?" Tang Taizhong was stunned, then understood what Wei Zhao meant and smiled bitterly. "Yes—these people are quick about their robberies. The slowest of them takes no more than fifteen minutes. They come in haste and leave in haste. If we rush over now, we will not even catch a glimpse of their shadows."

""

"Elder Tang, when did you cross swords with those men? How did you manage to arrive before they left?" Wei Zhao asked.

"It was like this: the first place they robbed was a supply depot of ours at Tang Family Fort—an institution that handles the daily provisions for our hidden Tang family, where we keep certain purchased treasures of heaven and earth, as well as cash," Elder Tang said. "Because that place is rather close to here, I was able to arrive in a short time."

"I see. And after that, the places they robbed became the Tang family's shops and companies?" Wei Zhao nodded and asked.

"Yes." Elder Tang sighed. "It seems I overlooked this point before. As things stand now, to meet them in open battle would be a very difficult thing indeed."

"We will set that aside for now. What puzzles me is this: how did these robbers know what industries the Tang family owns? And how did they know which cities and which streets they are distributed in? Is that not too much of a coincidence? Could there be a traitor among you?" Wei Zhao could not help but suspect it, for this was a rather incredible thing.

"That is not it. The account books and distribution maps for these holdings were kept at the supply depot, and the depot also handled the coordination of cash flow for these shops and the like. Those thieves obtained them when they robbed the depot," Tang Taizhong explained.

"I see. Then you have been careless indeed—handing the robbers a handle against yourselves," Wei Zhao said, somewhat pained. "Do you have any backup of your family's distribution map? Bring it here and let me see."

"We do, we do!" Tang Taizhong said, and hurriedly turned to the Tang leader beside him. "Leader, go have the second and Yuyi go to the scene of the crime, and then bring me our distribution map!"

"Yes, Father," the Tang leader answered, and withdrew.

A short while later, the Tang leader returned with a distribution map of the hidden Tang family's holdings and spread it out on an empty table in the dining hall.

"Master Lin, look here." Tang Taizhong pointed to several holdings on the map. "These few have been robbed. This is Lihuan County, and this gold shop here is the one robbed today."

"Is there any record of the order in which these holdings were robbed? Mark them with numbers in sequence—let me see whether I can find the pattern behind the thieves' movements!" Wei Zhao said to Tang Taizhong.

Wei Zhao's words made Qiu Lingshan's eyes light up, and she could not help but regard him with admiration. This was, in fact, the very procedure she followed when solving cases; that Wei Zhao should be the one to say it came as something of a surprise to her.

Before this, although Qiu Lingshan admired the speed with which Wei Zhao solved cases, he had basically never followed proper procedure—as when he first tracked down those bank robbers, wandering about on the cliff for a while and then simply declaring where the kidnappers were.

It had been the same afterward, so Qiu Lingshan had assumed that Wei Zhao relied on some special ability of a cultivator to crack his cases. But today it seemed that Wei Zhao understood these investigative procedures quite well. Perhaps, with so few clues this time, he had begun to follow the normal process—whereas before, he had simply been certain enough to go straight for the suspect.

"Yes, yes!" Tang Taizhong hastily picked up a pen and began drawing on the map. But when he had finished, Wei Zhao's face was a mess of black lines.

It was a completely patternless series of crimes—here today, there tomorrow, with no route or rule to follow. Many of the crime scenes were poles apart. For the robbers, this was the most laborious way to commit robbery, yet it was also the most effective way to avoid lying in wait for them.

It seemed these thieves were not quite the fearless men they pretended to be—they still had their misgivings. But this, in turn, invisibly increased the difficulty for Wei Zhao and the others in solving the case.

"Lingshan, what do you make of it?" Wei Zhao was no professional, after all. Many of his methods were unusual, but when it came to armchair theorizing like this, he was somewhat at a loss.

"I cannot see any pattern for now. The Tang family's holdings are too scattered. Even where two are close together—look here, the thieves robbed this credit company, yet did not rob a communications warehouse only a kilometer away. That shows these men have a purpose: they take what they came for and go, and they will not strike twice in the same day," Qiu Lingshan said, pointing at the map.