Half an Hour, Thirty Thousand Yuan

Miao Ruolan jumped in fright...

Five thousand still wasn't enough?

The woman sprang to her feet. "Five thousand isn't enough? Five thousand can buy a dog!"

"I don't like hearing that, ma'am," Lin Xiaosu said. "Were you looking for a dog? That was your Baby! You look like a lady from a wealthy, jewel-draped family. Is your Baby worth only five thousand yuan?"

This was called using her own methods to turn the tables on her!

Miao Ruolan's teeth ached a little...

The woman choked on her words. "Then how much do you want?"

"Thirty thousand!"

"Thirty thousand?" The woman nearly jumped up.

Lin Xiaosu sat down in front of her. "What? Are you a little tight on money, ma'am? Or... do you think your Baby isn't worth those thirty thousand yuan?"

Miao Ruolan's eyes quietly rolled, and if a smile appeared on her face, it would probably be a wicked one.

This little brat was too wicked. Squeezing her like that, how was she supposed to answer?

The woman's face darkened like still water. After hesitating for a long while, she gritted her teeth. "Fine! But I have a condition!"

"Let's hear it," Lin Xiaosu said.

"Within two hours, I want to see my Baby. If I see it, I'll pay the remaining balance in full! If you can't find it, return the deposit at double the amount!"

Now it was Miao Ruolan's turn to be caught between a rock and a hard place.

Two hours?

Putting a time limit on finding something, this...

The woman also wore a smug smile. "What? Is it that you lack the ability? Or the courage?"

Lin Xiaosu raised a hand. "We'll take it!"

The contract was signed.

A deposit of five thousand yuan was to be paid first. If the dog was found before noon on May 17, Party B would pay Party A the remaining balance of twenty-five thousand yuan. If it could not be found by then, Party A would return Party B's deposit at double the amount, totaling ten thousand yuan.

The rest of the terms were standard form clauses. Only the last one was handwritten.

Miao Ruolan hesitated a little, but when Lin Xiaosu nodded, she still signed her name.

It was exactly ten o'clock.

Lin Xiaosu looked through the dog photos on the woman's phone. It was a little Teddy, appearing in all sorts of poses in the pictures—on the bed, eating, wearing flowers. Those were not the important parts. What mattered was the background behind the doghouse: a piano, a villa, luxury cars, elegant afternoon tea.

Showing off dog photos was not really about showing off the dog. It was about showing off an exquisite life, showing off one's station in life.

Lin Xiaosu swept his eyes over them once. "Let's go."

He followed the woman out the door and got into the luxury car that had appeared many times in her photos.

The car drove to a small park outside Phoenix City Tower. This was where the woman walked her dog with several close female friends. They had chatted merrily away, only to turn around and discover that the dog was gone.

Lin Xiaosu raised his face to the sky in the little park and let out a silent sigh, lamenting that his Heavenly Insight Eye had truly fallen into decline—he was actually using it to find a dog!

Then he lowered his head and activated Temporal Reversal, following the trail.

He left the park and entered an alley beside it. Ahead lay a noisy market—Phoenix City Market. The morning market had just ended, and rotten vegetable leaves, fish heads, and animal innards covered the ground.

The woman's brow creased deeply. "My Baby doesn't even walk on dirt roads. Would it really come to a place this filthy?"

Lin Xiaosu ignored her, passed through a small gate in the market, and saw a stretch of riverbank outside. Household trash lay everywhere along the bank, while several little dogs ran about, exceptionally joyful.

Lin Xiaosu smiled and gently raised his hand, pointing at one of the dogs. "Baby changed clothes. Can you still recognize it, ma'am?"

The woman stared at the little black coal ball, covered head to toe in mud until even its color could not be made out, then rubbed her eyes. "Baby, is that you?"

The little black coal ball scrambled and rolled its way over, then leaped up. A collar around its neck was revealed, and the woman's eyes lit up. "It really is you! How did you end up like this..."

The little dog stuck out its tongue and licked her face. Caught unprepared, the woman got licked full-on. Her expression immediately changed. "Pah! Why do you stink so much? What did you eat?"

Miao Ruolan wore an expression of aching teeth...

What had the dog eaten?

Did that even need asking?

Lin Xiaosu raised his phone and held it before the woman. "Ma'am, it's now 10:29. The task has been successfully completed. Please pay the remaining balance!"

The woman put the dog down, fastened its collar properly, and took the leash in hand. Slowly raising her head, she said, "You really want to charge thirty thousand for just half an hour?"

"It's written in black and white in the contract. How could I not charge it?" Lin Xiaosu said. "Besides, Sister Song, you're one of Phoenix City's wealthy ladies. Thirty thousand yuan isn't some hurdle you can't get over. If you try to welch on the payment, how will you keep showing your face if word gets out? So I can only collect it."

The woman took out her phone with a dark face and scanned Miao Ruolan's payment code.

Then she led the dog home for a bath without even looking back.

Miao Ruolan and Lin Xiaosu walked back side by side. After leaving the market, crossing the pedestrian street, returning to the detective agency, and drinking half a cup of tea, she finally let out a soft breath. "Xiao Su, isn't our price a little too high? Thirty thousand yuan for half an hour... it's really hard to imagine."

Lin Xiaosu smiled. "That's the special nature of the detective business. We have to set a threshold."

"A threshold?"

"Yes. If I charged her one or two hundred yuan, we'd have far too much work in the future, and the cost-effectiveness would be terrible. We'd be busy all day long just to scrape together a little hard-earned money. That isn't what I want."

"But if you set the threshold so high, will anyone dare come to us in the future? Won't we turn this into a one-time business?"

"Don't worry. People have an innate baseness. Sometimes, the more outrageous your price is, the more people will come knocking. If this wealthy Sister Song shows off what happened to her on her social feed, we'll be famous among Phoenix City's wealthy ladies. Who knows—maybe the way they flaunt their wealth in the future will no longer be by drinking afternoon tea, but by being able to afford Phoenix City Detective Agency's sky-high investigation fees."

Miao Ruolan blinked. "Would Sister Song really show this off?"

In her understanding, Sister Song looked so gloomy and constipated that she clearly regarded the matter as a mute loss. Would she still show it off?

Lin Xiaosu gave a faint smile. "She will! The logic of those women with a little money but utterly shallow minds is hard for you to imagine... If you don't believe me, look at her social feed."

Miao Ruolan actually did.

She had only scrolled through a few posts when a new update popped up.

It was the new post Sister Song had just made...

Holding the dog in her arms as she sat outside her villa, she had written: "Baby got lost today. I asked Phoenix City Detective Agency for help and only got it back after spending thirty thousand yuan. Baby, one little run of yours cost you a month's food allowance. Mommy is grounding you for three days!"

Miao Ruolan was dumbstruck. "She didn't criticize us for charging too much. She was simply flaunting her wealth... What she emphasized was that thirty thousand yuan was only one month's food allowance for her dog."

"That's the logic of wealthy ladies! Money can be lost, but an opportunity to flaunt wealth cannot!"

"It really is rather ironic. Those wealthy ladies pride themselves on being out of touch with the earth, even make a point of it, but their pets are incredibly down-to-earth. Given the chance, they run off into the wild to roll around..."

"So sometimes, people really aren't as good as dogs! At least dogs live truthfully..." Lin Xiaosu stood up. "I'm going to the library to read. Call me if anything comes up."

The library was right across the street. Just lift your leg and you were there.

At the corner of the street was a black sedan. There were two people inside: the driver was a young man, while the passenger seat held a middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses that gave him a somewhat scholarly air.

"Boss, as long as he's with Miao Ruolan, there's no chance to make a move," the young man said.

"Even without a chance, you wait until one comes!" The boss let out a soft breath. "With him around, we're in great danger."

"Yes. Huang San's failed transaction should have only cost us one bag of goods, but once he got involved, seven people along the whole line went in. And I also found out that he was the one who acted last time—the child theft case at the fighting gym was solved that very day. Even that murder case hidden so deeply in a meditation room at Hidden Spirit Temple, he uncovered it. Just now, he found Song Li's dog in half an hour. This man seems to have a special ability to trace chains backward. A person like that cannot be allowed to take root in Phoenix City!"

"He knows this line of work is dangerous too, so he found Miao Ruolan as a partner!" The boss lightly pushed up his glasses.

"Is Miao Ruolan really that formidable? She looks so quiet and gentle..."

"A descendant of Ancient Martial Arts—she's no ordinary person. Remember, as long as Miao Ruolan is by his side, do not move under any circumstances. If Miao Ruolan separates from him, do not miss the opportunity. The money has already been transferred into your account, and a false identity has been prepared for you. Once you succeed, immediately flee far away!"

"Don't worry!" The young man licked his lips, a glint of viciousness in his eyes.

The black sedan started up and merged into the flow of people...

At noon, Miao Ruolan entered the library. When she saw Lin Xiaosu, he was reclining half on a sofa, looking at a screen before him. The screen rotated in front of him, displaying a map of longitude and latitude. This was another form of library reading: electronic reading.

Electronic reading connected to a database containing everything from astronomy to geography.

As long as you were interested in reading, you could search for any publicly available information and have it displayed on an electronic screen for you to read.

"What are you reading?" Miao Ruolan placed the lunchbox before him.

"Geography."

"You're interested in geography?"

"Of course. In the detective business, I'll inevitably have to travel north and south in the future... Hmm? Beef rice?" Lin Xiaosu opened the lunchbox, and the fragrance rushed up to his face.

Miao Ruolan smiled gently. "It's an auspicious first day of business. You made thirty thousand yuan in one go—couldn't I add an extra dish for you?"

"It's us! We made thirty thousand yuan!" Lin Xiaosu lightly brushed the tip of his chopsticks across Miao Ruolan's nose.

Miao Ruolan seemed to enjoy this kind of intimacy from him. She gave a radiant smile. "You eat here. I'll borrow a book too."

By the time Lin Xiaosu came out of the library and returned to the agency, he immediately saw the book in Miao Ruolan's hands: "Surveying Science"...

"You really started studying?" Lin Xiaosu said.

Miao Ruolan said, "You're so talented, yet you work so hard. What reason do I have not to work hard?"

"Working hard is good. Can you take it all in?"

Miao Ruolan scratched her head. "It definitely went in, but whether it'll stay is a huge question mark. I feel like my brain is a sieve—knowledge goes in the front and out the back..."

She spent the entire afternoon reading seriously.

She continued reading through the entire night.

By dawn, she felt as though a crack had opened in her mind for the vast discipline of detective work, yet also as though nothing had opened at all. In any case, her head was full of all sorts of terminology...

"It's raining!" Lin Xiaosu emerged from the next room.

"Nothing better happen in weather like this. Surveying Science says rain can erase traces and wash away scents."

Lin Xiaosu smiled. "Don't tell me you read all night."

He was right!

She really had read all night.

Miao Ruolan smiled lightly, went downstairs, and opened the agency's door...

She went outside to buy breakfast. Just as she came back carrying fried dough sticks and soy milk, a car raced over. A middle-aged woman got out and hurried toward the detective agency. Using the Surveying Science she had read all night, Miao Ruolan judged that this woman... was in a great hurry.