Bounty for a Wanted Criminal

The next morning, Mo Qiong arrived at the library right on time.

It was the end of the month, yet strangely, he did not see Che Yun.

It was already the twenty-eighth. Normally, she would definitely come to work today.

So she really is only a part-timer. Something must have gotten in the way of her work, Mo Qiong thought.

"Magic... Ball!" Qin Ya had arrived even earlier than Mo Qiong. She had clearly dressed up carefully today and looked even prettier than yesterday.

"It's the weekend. If you're busy, you could just tell me the name of that book. I can look for it myself," Mo Qiong said.

It was the weekend, and Qin Ya had dressed up so nicely only to accompany him to the library. Mo Qiong could not help saying that.

But Qin Ya clearly did not mind. "I don't have anything to do today, so it's fine. Besides, it isn't just one book. The description is pieced together from several books. I can't even remember the titles, so we'll have to look carefully."

"Mm, then I'll leave it to you."

Mo Qiong smiled. At that moment, no one knew that he was constantly holding a small lump of air in his hand.

After understanding his ability, he had been thinking of ways to stop himself from randomly firing things off.

With men, it was fine. Even if someone of the same sex received his pheromones, they would at most feel that he was a decent person and form a favorable impression of him.

But women would be attracted by the pheromones, and the effect was obvious.

Of course, this physiological influence did not create an absolute response. If a woman hated him intensely, no matter how strong the hormonal impact was, it would be useless.

Now that he had Qin Ya, his little fangirl, Mo Qiong did not want to add several more to her ranks.

He also wanted to prevent himself from randomly firing invisible objects during his daily activities.

Mo Qiong came up with a method: he would strictly control his thoughts and constantly think about hitting the palm of his own hand.

To make it easier to lock on, he had even drawn a spiral pattern on his palm.

That way, all the dust and lumps of air that collided with his body as he walked would fly toward his palm.

The hormones emitted by his body would no longer shoot randomly along with his field of vision, but would instead gather toward his palm along with the air.

Even the air he exhaled while breathing would crash into the pattern on his palm.

His hand continuously felt the faint impacts of the air masses, so he knew that, at least for the moment, his hormones had not affected anyone else.

Of course, maintaining this thought continuously was difficult. He might briefly forget at any time.

All he could do was practice as much as possible and make it a habit, so he would not affect other people's physiology again.

Any accidental harm would be purely accidental.

"This one, this one... and this one..." After searching for a while, Qin Ya brought Mo Qiong three books.

Two of them discussed the smuggling activities of merchants during the Ming dynasty. One of them mentioned that great Pirate King, but only briefly, and from a different perspective.

The other contained even less. It was about the history of the Ryukyu Islands and mentioned that pirates had once invaded the royal palace, after which they had appealed to the Celestial Dynasty for justice.

"Look, this part mentions the lost crown..."

"And this one. Although it doesn't mention the loss of the Ryukyu Crown, it does mention that in the forty-fourth year of the Jiajing era, the Great Ming Dynasty bestowed the Ryukyu Crown and various other items upon Ryukyu. That indirectly confirms that the previous crown had been lost."

The two sat side by side. Qin Ya earnestly helped Mo Qiong find the relevant passages, thoughtfully turning the books so he could read them.

Mo Qiong focused on reading and even used his phone to take pictures.

Qin Ya kept getting up and weaving through the library, bringing over everything she remembered seeing or looking for.

She found descriptions of the crown, every record concerning the great Pirate King, and even portraits of the kings of Ryukyu throughout the ages.

After busily working for more than an hour, Qin Ya finally stopped. She sat to one side and gazed blankly at Mo Qiong's serious profile as he studied.

But Mo Qiong was clearly more concerned with the treasure. At that moment, he was staring intently at an illustration. It was a portrait of an old man wearing the Ryukyu Crown.

The girl watched him, and he watched the crown in the painting.

They remained silent for a long time.

It worked! Mo Qiong thought. The illustration clearly showed the crown's characteristics.

Although it was not as realistic as a photograph, with the help of the other descriptions, he could completely reconstruct the crown in his mind.

Of course, there would certainly be some differences. They might cause the GPS units to shoot somewhere else, or even straight out of Earth.

That was why he had bought so many GPS units. Failure did not matter. If he tried enough times, he would eventually succeed.

Moreover, the GPS units would certainly suffer damage along the way. They might hit a bird, break because of the weather, or even be crushed by the water pressure when entering the sea.

If the target was in a completely enclosed environment, the GPS might simply slam into a wall and shatter.

After all, Absolute Hit only guaranteed that it would hit its target. It did not care whether the projectile remained intact after being struck along the way.

Therefore, even fifty GPS units might not be enough. If he treated them as disposable supplies, he would probably need several hundred.

In fact, these fifty GPS units were meant for another purpose: using that matter to earn the funds he would need for treasure hunting in the future.

He had thought about it for a long time the previous night. He would need at least five hundred thousand yuan to search for this treasure.

Just thinking about going out to sea required preparing a great many things. If the treasure was underwater, it would be even more troublesome.

So he had to use this initial twenty thousand yuan to earn five hundred thousand first.

As for how to earn it, he already had a method: capture wanted criminals.

The China police website listed many wanted fugitives, complete with their faces, names, and identities.

Major suspects whom the police could not find were posted there with bounties. Among the Class-A wanted notices, most offered fifty thousand yuan, while some offered one hundred thousand.

Capturing one would recover his investment with money left over. Capturing several would easily bring in hundreds of thousands.

With several hundred thousand, he could set sail.

The only problem was that finding wanted criminals all over the country in a short period would make him too conspicuous within the police system.

A large number of bounty payments would be issued in a short time, and when someone finally checked, they would all have gone to the same person.

Once the files were compiled, they would discover that Mo Qiong had captured one in the south yesterday, then gone to the north and captured another today. Two days later, there would be a record of him helping the police catch a wanted criminal in the southwest, and before long, he would be doing the same thing in the northeast... Would that not be conspicuous enough? Hunter King Conan?

"Magic Ball, it's noon. Are you hungry?" Qin Ya had been sitting nearby for a long time. Seeing that Mo Qiong remained deep in thought, she finally could not help asking.

"Huh? Oh... sorry for leaving you hanging for so long," Mo Qiong said apologetically.

Qin Ya's little face was flushed pink as she said softly, "It's fine, it's fine."

Mo Qiong thought for a moment. "As for food... all right, let's go together."

Qin Ya had helped him a lot this time, so inviting her to a meal was only proper.

The two returned the books to their original places. Then Mo Qiong asked, "How did you come to read these books? If you don't specifically look for them, you normally wouldn't come across them."

Qin Ya smiled. "My father runs an antique shop, and my older brother is a graduate student in archaeology. I grew up surrounded by that sort of thing. So when I don't want to read professional books in the library, I look at miscellaneous ones. To me, these books are simply recreational reading."

Mo Qiong's heart stirred when he heard that. No wonder, when he had talked to Qin Ya about ancient shipwrecks and lost historical treasures the previous night, she had not found such dry topics boring like most girls would.

Instead, she had been even more interested. She had quickly relaxed and talked about them at length.

So her family was in this line of work. Her father ran an antique shop, where a solid foundation in history and connoisseurship was essential. It was not difficult to understand why she had treated obscure historical books as recreational reading since childhood.

Still, Mo Qiong asked, "Then why did you study foreign languages?"

Qin Ya smiled. "My older brother is going to take over the family business, so I can do whatever I want. They've never restricted what I study."

"By the way, I can see that you like these things too. I actually know about many ancient treasures that can't be found in the library. I can tell you about them. My father, my brother, and even my grandfather have all studied these things. We have a lot of relevant documents organized at home. History has recorded who knows how many shipwrecks, but later generations have never found their remains. And it isn't just at sea. There are also countless lost artifacts on land. My brother dreams of finding them, and he plans to devote his entire life to it."

"I've heard bits and pieces since I was little. If you're interested, I can tell you all the stories I know."

Mo Qiong's eyes widened as he looked at Qin Ya as if she were a treasure.

Even with his treasure-hunting ability, he needed to know the target's details.

Without Qin Ya, he had no idea how long it would have taken him to search through the library before discovering anything about that great Pirate King.

If he did not know about it, he would have no leads and no way to begin investigating.

And after finding this one, what about the next? What should he search for? Many obscure records could not be found in ordinary libraries.

Yet Qin Ya had just said that her family possessed a great deal of material on ancient lost artifacts, many of which were accompanied by gold and silver treasures.

"I'm interested! I'm very interested. You can tell me those stories right now." Mo Qiong stared at her in delight.

Qin Ya was frightened by his gaze and said softly, "Right now? Aren't we going to eat?"

"Ah, right. Let's go. We can talk while we eat." Mo Qiong grabbed her hand and rushed straight out of the library.

Qin Ya initially wanted to pull her hand free, but when she saw that Mo Qiong seemed completely unaware of it, she gave up.

Mo Qiong led her straight toward the cafeteria...

Halfway there, Mo Qiong suddenly stopped and turned toward the outside of the campus.

Mo Qiong was used to eating at the cafeteria, and only then remembered that if he took Qin Ya there, his classmates would definitely see them.

They would certainly ask all sorts of annoying questions. It would be better to find somewhere quiet outside where they could eat and chat.

Soon, the two arrived at a restaurant. He had never been there before and had never ordered any of its dishes.

In a private room, he let Qin Ya order while he watched from the side.

Qin Ya asked happily, "What do you want to eat?"

"I eat anything," Mo Qiong said.

"Your favorite!" Qin Ya pressed.

Mo Qiong knew that saying "whatever" at a time like this would be too impolite.

So he said, "Fish. I like fish the most."

Sure enough, Qin Ya quickly ordered a grilled fish, a bowl of fish soup, and a serving of greens.

Looking at Qin Ya's smile, Mo Qiong became slightly dazed. He had never experienced a scene like this before.

That feeling drew Mo Qiong in. Before he knew it, he and Qin Ya had chatted about all sorts of idle things.

By the time the meal was over, he had not even asked about the clues to the other lost treasures he had originally wanted to learn about.

It was not that he had forgotten. Rather, when he saw Qin Ya sitting happily across from him, he did not want to bring up such questions and ruin the atmosphere. Otherwise, it would seem as if he had invited her to dinner not to thank her, but because he wanted something from her family.

I haven't even started gathering the funds for going out to sea. Why am I thinking so far ahead?

What I need to think about more right now is how to avoid drawing too much attention by taking too much bounty money in a short time.

Mo Qiong chatted with Qin Ya as he thought.

Before he knew it, they had started talking about their childhoods.

He had experienced a great deal as a child, growing up with a childhood that city children could hardly imagine.

Qin Ya listened with great fascination, but gradually, she became depressed.

When Mo Qiong saw her staring blankly, he knew she must have thought of something sad.

"Uh... did I say something wrong?"

Qin Ya shook her head. "It's not your fault. I just thought of my younger cousin. He was abducted when he was two. Our entire extended family went crazy with worry. We searched everywhere and asked everywhere. We searched the whole country for four years, but found nothing."

"My second uncle even quit his job because of it. He still hasn't stopped searching."

She lowered her head as she spoke. Usually, at a time like this, people beside her would comfort her by saying things like, "You'll definitely find him."

But she did not hear Mo Qiong say anything like that.

She raised her head and found Mo Qiong staring at her blankly, his face filled with sudden realization.