Chapter 177 — The Credit Is Yours

After a few perfunctory words, she told them to bring the men back to the station and that she would return shortly herself, then Qiu Lingshan hung up.

This time the credit was certainly hers for the taking—Qiu Lingshan could already picture the chief's smiling face turned toward her—and yet at this moment she could not feel the least bit pleased.

There was no other reason: Wei Zhao really had found the robbers, and Qiu Lingshan found herself at something of a loss as to how to handle it.

"Hello?" Qiu Lingshan had hung up the phone, and after waiting a while without hearing a word from Wei Zhao, she could only turn around, bend low, and look at him. "The robbers have been found. How did you do it?"

"Haven't you been following me all along?" Wei Zhao said, his eyes half open, looking at Qiu Lingshan as she bent halfway toward him. Truly magnificent…

"…" Qiu Lingshan thought to herself, I certainly have been following you, but you wandered about so wildly that I have no idea at all how you actually found those robbers.

And besides, what made you so certain the robbers had to be below the cliff?

"Observation." Naturally Wei Zhao would not mention the jade pendant. "Careful observation and bold reasoning. When I walked around the mountain earlier with no apparent clue, I wasn't really without a clue at all!"

"Oh?" By now Qiu Lingshan believed what Wei Zhao said, too. His seemingly aimless wandering about had not truly been aimless—after all, Wei Zhao had found the robbers.

"I simply did what the robbers might have done!" Wei Zhao said. "When the robbers first came up the mountain, they must have wandered about just like I did, because they had never studied surveillance and counter-surveillance, so they could not have searched the mountain very carefully for a hiding place. They are not you people—they are not professionals!

So I considered the problem from the robbers' point of view. If I were one of them, what would I do? So I first wandered about the mountain and found no hiding spot, and at last I turned my eyes to the place others are most likely to overlook—and the place they would least suspect. If I were a robber, I would take the risk of sending a man down the cliff face to find out whether there was a cave below.

If there was one, hiding inside would make them very hard to find. With enough food, they could basically pass a stretch of time in safety, and once that stretch of trouble had blown over and the search grew lax, they would seize their chance to slip away."

"Is that all?" Listening to this theory, which Wei Zhao had in fact fabricated on the spot, Qiu Lingshan found that it did make a certain amount of sense, and it also happened to explain why he had been wandering about the mountain earlier.

"What else could there be?" Wei Zhao shrugged. "Do you see any high-tech equipment on me?"

"No, I don't." Qiu Lingshan nodded and accepted Wei Zhao's explanation. "Still, that guess of yours was truly bold."

"It isn't boldness. Since the robbers are not as professional as you, and after a search on such a massive scale by professionals you still could not find them, do you think the robbers are more professional than you?" Wei Zhao countered. "So if it wasn't that, then they took a risk and hid somewhere rather dangerous."

"Be that as it may, thank you for this!" Although Qiu Lingshan felt Wei Zhao's method of searching was far too simple, almost like a joke, he had found them, and she could hardly say anything more.

"No need to thank me. I was hired by Mr. Gu. These men meant harm to Miss Gu, so it is only proper that I cooperated with you to flush them out. So no thanks are needed." This time, Wei Zhao was telling the truth.

"No wonder Captain Yang recommended you to me," Qiu Lingshan said. "But who did you learn these methods from?"

"Ha, it's just that our ways of thinking are different." Wei Zhao did not answer her question directly. "You start from the police's point of view; I start from an ordinary person's."

"Then how much longer do you intend to keep looking?" Qiu Lingshan suddenly changed tack. "Am I to keep bending over like this for you to look at? Shall I open my collar as well?"

"Cough, cough…" Wei Zhao cleared his throat twice. Qiu Lingshan had caught where his gaze had been fixed, and he had just been holding forth so solemnly for so long—which left him rather embarrassed. "I was looking at… at…"

"Then look all you like. I'm leaving." Qiu Lingshan straightened up and turned to go.

"No more looking. Let's go." Wei Zhao sprang up from the ground and brushed the dust off his clothes.

The cordon at the foot of the mountain had already been withdrawn, but the two officers on duty had not yet left; they were waiting by Qiu Lingshan's car for her to come down.

"Captain Song, you really are something. One trip up the mountain and you turned up the nest of those things!" Clearly the two police officers had already received word that the robbers had been caught.

Qiu Lingshan flushed. How was this her doing? Wei Zhao was the one who had found them, plain as day. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, only to see that he seemed not to have heard at all. He was walking toward the car, getting ready to climb in...

Qiu Lingshan breathed a sigh of relief and said to the two officers, "You two pull out as well. I have a bit of business to finish; I will be back at the station in a while."

"Yes, Captain Song." The two officers acknowledged the order and got into their own car.

Qiu Lingshan opened the door and got in with Wei Zhao. She started the car quickly and drove away from the place. What the two of them had said just now left her thoroughly embarrassed.

"Remember, the credit is yours, and it has nothing to do with me." Wei Zhao spoke up suddenly.

"Huh?" Qiu Lingshan was slightly taken aback and looked at Wei Zhao in surprise. What did he mean by that?

"Drive properly. Watch the road." Wei Zhao reminded Song Ling. "About this business, it is enough that you know. Do not tell anyone else. I have a great deal on my hands right now and no time to deal with anything else."

"The station has a bounty. Anyone who provides a lead on the robbers can get a reward of two hundred thousand in cash. You do not want it?" Qiu Lingshan could not understand why Wei Zhao was declining so cleanly.

"I want it, but I do not want the trouble." Wei Zhao said. "Do you really think these few men are the kidnappers? That there is no one behind them?"

"You mean you are afraid the people behind them will come after you?" Qiu Lingshan was beginning to understand what Wei Zhao was saying.

"Come after me is putting it too strongly. I know well enough who is behind them," Wei Zhao shrugged indifferently. "I spoiled their good work, so naturally they know I exist as well. But the trouble I mean is not only that. I do not want to get mixed up in what comes afterward. Right now I am employed by Gu Pengzhan and no one else. Do you understand?"

"Just say you do not want to meddle and that you will not help in future, and be done with it. Why all the blather!" Qiu Lingshan was choking with anger. So all that talk from Wei Zhao had been for the sole purpose of making sure she troubled him less from now on!

"Good that you know it." Wei Zhao said. "Unless it is something important, for Brother Jun's sake, I will help you people."