Gray Work

Bai Ge was finally discharged from the hospital. As long as he stuck to his guns, the hospital could not force him to stay.

He felt perfectly fine himself, and his physical condition seemed no different from that of a healthy person.

It was precisely this state that made him feel he could live for a long time yet. Taking advantage of it, he wanted to make as much money as possible.

In the past, earning a million yuan in a short time would have been utterly absurd.

But now that he had learned he was terminally ill, his thoughts had instead become crystal clear, and he had grown completely unfettered.

Bai Ge loved his younger sister dearly. If he was really going to die, he had to set aside a sum of money for her before he did.

For that reason, he could lower his bottom line... a little...

"Manager Chen, about that job you mentioned last time..." Bai Ge walked down the street as he made the call.

The person on the other end said, "Little Bai? Didn't you turn me down?"

"Yeah. I've thought it through. I can take it," Bai Ge said.

"Good. I'll transfer ten thousand to you now. Same terms as last time: go to Tongwen Street to pick up the equipment. Someone will receive you there." After Manager Chen finished speaking, he hung up directly.

Bai Ge put away his phone and touched the Golden Rooster Pendant around his neck. No longer hesitating, he resolutely headed for Tongwen Street.

On the way, he received a text alert. An additional ten thousand yuan had appeared in his account.

He knew he had taken that first step. Once he accepted the money, he had to get the job done.

Even if the job was not entirely legal.

As for Bai Ge's work, to put it nicely, he was a private detective. To put it bluntly, he did whatever he was paid to do.

Manager Chen had spent twenty thousand yuan, half of it as a deposit, to have him install miniature cameras and listening devices in a certain wealthy businessman's home and, incidentally... take away a document. It was not exactly legal work, but it paid quickly.

In the past, he had obeyed the law. Now... he was short of money!

Previously, he had only taken small jobs: helping people follow their wives, catch them cheating, and take photographs. Or finding someone who had gone into hiding for a client, or providing an employer with some information, and so on...

The best jobs were naturally those done in cooperation with the police—helping them locate fugitives and collecting a reward.

But such opportunities were few and far between. Small cities did not have many major cases, and even when they did, they were usually crimes committed on impulse that the police could easily solve. There were not many shrewd, premeditating criminals who needed help from anyone outside the police.

So when there was truly no work, Bai Ge would sometimes help people get into fights or put on a show of force, earning a little hard-earned money.

Gradually, he had fallen from being a private detective to running a "jack-of-all-trades" shop. He had long since abandoned the proper line of work.

He had even accepted jobs from high school students who paid him a few hundred yuan to go scare someone...

But of course, there were many things he was unwilling to do. His father had been a criminal police captain, and Bai Ge himself had studied at the Police Academy. Although he had dropped out halfway and never become a police officer, he still tried not to commit crimes, limiting himself at most to minor violations of the law.

After his father died in the line of duty, Bai Ge relied on the compensation and rent from a property owned by his family. By earning money after dropping out of school, he could still support his younger sister's studies abroad.

Even so, after working himself to the bone for a month, he could earn at most twenty thousand yuan, and sometimes less than ten thousand. His own living expenses were not a problem, but his sister's tuition and living expenses were.

Being a private detective was simply not a particularly lucrative profession.

But he had no other choice. He had studied criminal investigation, and all his skills were geared toward catching criminals. If he could not be a police officer, what else could he do?

Fortunately, he had no competitors in this line of work in a third-tier city. Otherwise, he would have earned even less.

Now that such a vast darkness had filled his mind, Bai Ge appeared calm on the surface, but inwardly he had grown frantic. He desperately wanted to make fast money.

Breaking into a private residence and secretly installing surveillance equipment was merely illegal. But taking an important business document was a crime.

The specifics would depend on the commercial losses caused by his actions. If the losses were severe, he would be sentenced to prison.

Bai Ge had long been aware of this.

The pay for this single job was equal to his income for an entire month in the past!

He no longer had time to earn money slowly.

Tongwen Street was a street of miscellaneous goods in Xiangfan City. Many assorted items could be bought there, including pinhole cameras.

Bai Ge picked up a package of equipment from an electronics specialty store and left.

The store was owned by a friend of Manager Chen, and everything he needed had already been prepared. The rest was up to him.

Bai Ge first bought two braised pork knuckles from the roadside, then took a taxi straight to Huangjia Garden, a local residential complex.

Property prices there were high and security was comprehensive. Its residents were either rich or powerful, and outsiders like Bai Ge generally could not get in.

But that was not a problem... Manager Chen lived there too!

Manager Chen had already spoken with the guards, so Bai Ge only had to register before entering.

On the surface, Bai Ge was there to visit Manager Chen. But after passing an area covered by security cameras, he suddenly turned sharply, stepped onto a flower bed, and, seeing that no one was around, hurried toward another villa.

He knew the cameras' fields of vision like the back of his hand. After taking one look at their models and mounting heights, he knew exactly where he would no longer be visible.

Having worked as a private detective for over half a year, Bai Ge had visited a place like Huangjia Garden more than once. He knew every security blind spot in the entire complex as clearly as a mirror.

He also knew everything about the mission target. Although he had not planned to accept this job at first, that did not mean he had failed to investigate the target.

Sometimes he had to find work for himself. If he uncovered something through a secret investigation, he might be able to approach one of these wealthy businessmen, introduce himself, and turn them into clients.

That was how Bai Ge had turned Manager Chen into a client. They were already old acquaintances and knew each other inside and out. Precisely because of that, Manager Chen had dared to ask Bai Ge to do something like this.

At that moment, Bai Ge moved with practiced ease through security blind spots that ordinary people would never notice, reaching the wall around a villa.

He could not use the front entrance. There were electronic eyes there too.

He switched his phone to silent and checked the time. It was five twenty.

"If Hu Hanlong isn't home, he usually won't return until after ten at night. His wife usually gets home at six. I have forty minutes."

Bai Ge surveyed his surroundings, then suddenly leaped. In just a few moves, he vaulted over the wall.

The villa's wall was merely decorative. Even an ordinary person could climb over it with ease. Bai Ge's movements were simply more efficient, leaving not even a footprint on the wall.

He had already put on gloves. The moment he entered the villa's courtyard, he looked toward a doghouse.

Beside the garage stood a large doghouse, where a pitch-black vicious dog was lying.

The muscular animal, nearly half a man's height, suddenly sprang forward. Hearing that Bai Ge had broken in, it pounced straight at him.

"Woof! Woof! Woof!"

Furious barking rang out. The vicious dog looked exceptionally fierce. Anyone could tell at a glance that it was a Tibetan Mastiff. Although it was not purebred, its reckless ferocity would have left an ordinary person weak-kneed.

Bai Ge had anticipated this. Calmly, he took out the braised pork knuckle he had bought earlier and threw it over.

After all, it was a domestic animal. Hu Hanlong, despite being a wealthy businessman, had not deliberately trained the dog to preserve its wild nature. After Bai Ge tossed it some food, the dog stopped barking, sniffed the large pork knuckle, picked it up, and drooling, scurried back into its kennel.

"Heh."

Bai Ge ignored the dog. He went around the cameras at the front and climbed up to a second-floor window from the side.

Most of the villa's windows were open, so he did not even need to pick a lock.

Bai Ge timed everything perfectly. Avoiding the gaze of a team of patrolling guards, he entered the villa.

In a high-end residential area like this, with a vicious dog in the courtyard, residents would not maintain especially meticulous vigilance. Besides, someone was actually inside the house.

The weather was excellent today, so opening the windows for ventilation was normal. With careful planning against an unsuspecting target, Bai Ge entered without needing to reveal much of his skill.

He glanced at the living room. A maid was watching television, lying on the sofa as if she owned the place.

Bai Ge smiled and did not disturb her.

The vicious dog had barked so loudly outside, yet the maid had not even come to look. Clearly, she was not a responsible person.

Next, he installed the equipment with practiced ease. He discreetly placed cameras in every bedroom, as well as the study and even the bathroom.

In less than twenty minutes, he had installed a total of forty cameras and twelve listening devices throughout the villa.

They were also extraordinarily well concealed. Bai Ge believed that unless someone conducted a thorough cleaning, ordinary people would never discover them.

Throughout the entire process, Bai Ge did not make a single sound. The maid in the living room failed to notice that a stranger was walking around inside the house, installing cameras everywhere.

There was even a listening device silently hidden inside the sofa where she was lying.

"The document should be in the safe in the study."

Bai Ge searched the study and, as expected, found a safe. It required both a password and a key.

But Bai Ge did not need to go to such lengths. He directly removed the safe from the corner of the desk. He was not planning to pry it open by force; this was no ordinary safe, and breaking it open was unrealistic.

He took a box from his shoulder bag. Inside was thermite that he had asked the shopkeeper on Tongwen Street to prepare.

Thermite could instantly reach temperatures of around three thousand degrees Celsius. The back of the safe was merely cold-rolled steel plate. Before thermite, it was no different from paper and would melt directly into iron.

Bai Ge had conducted many experiments. He knew exactly how much was needed to melt open the safe without burning through the steel plate and destroying what was inside.

He placed a very small amount of thermite on the back of the safe, covered it with cotton to hold the oxidizer, then pressed a magnesium strip against it. With a crisp sound, the steel plate immediately began to spit molten iron, sparks flying everywhere. The intense reaction produced a spectacular visual effect.

Bai Ge had taken precautions long ago and emerged completely unharmed.

Once the reaction ended, the small amount of thermite had not melted through the steel plate. Taking advantage of the moment, Bai Ge pulled out a chisel and drove it in with force, piercing the back of the safe and creating a small hole.

Bai Ge widened the hole as much as possible and peered inside. He froze.

"So much money..."

Bai Ge gave a bitter laugh. By his initial estimate, there was at least three hundred thousand yuan in the safe alone.

But he steadied himself and focused only on a single agreement wrapped in a plastic bag.

Even now, despite how badly he wanted money, his bottom line was still to "earn" it rather than steal it.

Although taking the agreement would also constitute theft, he could still convince himself that this was a "job"—that he had merely been paid to handle something.

"If I wanted to take this money, I might as well become a master thief. Why bother working for someone else..." Bai Ge thought, though he knew there was no legal difference. It was merely hypocritical self-consolation.

With a grave expression, he used a bamboo skewer with adhesive on its tip to roll up the agreement and draw it out through the hole in the back.

When he saw the contents of the agreement, Bai Ge broke into a cold sweat.

He knew it was an Equity Custody Agreement, but he had not known it was worth so much.

"Forty percent of Shanhe Group's equity is worth at least tens of millions. He just left it at home?" Bai Ge did not fully understand the significance of a secret equity custody agreement, but according to the criminal law, causing someone losses on this scale would earn him at least seven years in prison if he were caught.

On the surface, stealing something worth tens of millions for twenty thousand yuan and handing it to someone else while risking prison sounded incredibly foolish.

But Bai Ge knew he could not embezzle the thing. That would be truly courting death. He would never do such a thing; it would be an insult to his profession.

"Ha... I'm going to die anyway..."

"But I have to save enough money to keep my sister safe."