Phoenix City Jewelry Store

Captain Zhang turned his gaze toward Wang Donghe.

Wang Donghe gently shook his head. "From my analysis, Phoenix Sister should be the number three figure among the Five Tiger Generals. Her status couldn't possibly be higher than Tiger Brother's!"

"Then that's puzzling. Is there a missing piece in Tiger Brother's spending ledger?" Lin Xiaosu asked.

Wang Donghe frowned slightly, unsure how to answer for the moment.

In modern society, income and status were closely linked. Within an organization, higher officials earning higher salaries was the norm.

The same was even more true for criminal syndicates. Higher status meant higher income.

There was no reason Tiger Brother should have had less than Phoenix Sister. Where was the problem?

Zhou Mei said, "Tiger Brother's assets are all laid out here, clear as day. The valuation should be more or less accurate, and the account balances are also right here—I believe those are precise. Only one thing remains opaque: the mistress he kept. No one knows how much he spent on her. The other three male Tigers among the Five Tiger Generals were the same; how much they spent keeping mistresses is unknown. Only Phoenix Sister had no male lover... Could this be why Phoenix Sister's personal spending was greater?"

Could that really be it?

Under ordinary circumstances, it really was!

Men grew poorer when they dated!

Women did not need to contribute much in a relationship—other than their bodies—so their money was freer...

Even in criminal syndicates, keeping mistresses would siphon off part of a man's assets.

Lin Xiaosu smiled faintly. "Officer Zhou's words may be the key. So it's necessary to find out how much money these four mistresses received from the four Tigers, and where they spent it."

Sun Yang was dumbfounded.

After making a huge circuit, the topic had returned to its original track.

At first, he had thought this Lin fellow truly deserved a spanking, proposing such a massive and difficult investigation. If Captain Zhang took a liking to the idea and assigned it to him, he would be doomed.

Then the path had twisted through the mountains and rivers, and it turned out Captain Zhang had assigned Wang Donghe to handle this matter three years ago.

The work had already been done, and the enormous pressure on him had vanished. Just as he was feeling fortunate, this kid started up again.

If Captain Zhang assigned this task to him, he would have to shed a layer of skin. Did this kid come specifically to torment me? I admit I was somewhat discourteous when we first dealt with each other, but you can't be this petty...

Wang Donghe's brows also drew together. "Captain Zhang, while investigations must be thorough and detailed, if there are too many branches and twigs, they will ultimately interfere with the main line of progress. Do you really think it's necessary to expand the scope further?"

Captain Zhang's thick brows shifted, and for a moment, he found it difficult to decide.

They had spent three years investigating the Five Tigers.

And now they were going to investigate four mistresses...

Lin Xiaosu said, "How about this? You don't need to fully investigate these mistresses' private lives. Just focus on the main line—find out where they mainly spent their money, and that will do."

"If that's all, then it's feasible! Donghe, Sun Yang, act immediately!"

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

The two accepted the order at the same time.

Lin Xiaosu also rose to his feet. "It's very late tonight. I'll head back first!"

"Fine, you've worked hard! Once we have news, I'll have Zhou Mei contact you." Captain Zhang stood and saw him out.

Zhou Mei wanted to accompany him, but Lin Xiaosu refused. "No need. You didn't sleep at all yesterday, so get some proper rest today. I can go back by myself."

He left.

In the reception room, Captain Zhang smiled. "Hehe... quite the considerate little warm guy!"

"A warm guy?" Zhou Mei burst out laughing. "One word from him, and Wang Donghe and Sun Yang have to work overtime all night. I'm guessing those two definitely don't find anything warm about him..."

Three days later, the endless drizzle was finally replaced by clear skies stretching ten thousand miles.

Once the rain stopped, the breath of summer came rushing straight at them.

Early in the morning, just as the Phoenix City Detective Agency opened its doors, Zhou Mei's black car pulled up by the roadside.

She got out and entered the detective agency.

With a somewhat complicated feeling in her heart, Miao Ruolan went to pour her tea.

That feeling mainly stemmed from three nights ago. When she had been settling the final payment with Sister Zhuang, Lin Xiaosu and Zhou Mei had gone shopping. That shopping trip had lasted until they returned at dawn.

She could not bring herself to ask him anything. She merely felt a little disappointed inside...

To the point that she had been depressed these past two days, inexplicably depressed...

Today, Zhou Mei had come again, and she was not wearing her police uniform. She looked like an ordinary woman going on a date with her boyfriend...

Had they really taken that step?

Zhou Mei accepted the teacup Miao Ruolan handed over and lifted her eyes. "The task you set with Captain Zhang three nights ago has already been preliminarily completed. These are the investigation results."

She handed a sheet of paper to Lin Xiaosu.

Those words made Miao Ruolan's heart suddenly race. Three nights ago?

That had been the night he went shopping with her!

The task he had set with Captain Zhang?

That night, they had not been out shopping as a couple? They had been working a case?

Was that really true?

If it was, that would be wonderful.

Miao Ruolan did not know why, but the disappointment filling her chest abruptly lessened by half.

Lin Xiaosu took the paper and swept his gaze over it. His eyes suddenly lit up...

"What did you notice?" Zhou Mei asked.

Lin Xiaosu said, "Let me ask you something. If you were given ten million, what would you do with it?"

Zhou Mei said, "I might save five million, then buy a house and a good car. With whatever was left, I'd buy luxury goods I liked and experience the life of a wealthy person."

"So buying luxury goods would only be the third priority in your allocation of funds."

"Yes!"

"What about you, Ruolan?" Lin Xiaosu turned his gaze toward Miao Ruolan.

Miao Ruolan shook her head. "I could never have ten million, so I've never thought about that question."

"It's not too late to think about it now!"

"I'd save it all... Oh, I'd leave half for my brother to marry a wife, then live off the interest from the rest," Miao Ruolan said.

"In other words, you definitely wouldn't use all your money to buy jewelry?"

Miao Ruolan's eyes widened. "Jewelry is just decoration. You can't eat it or wear it. If you have the means, buying one or two pieces is fine, but using your entire fortune to buy it... Isn't that sick?"

Lin Xiaosu smiled. "Phoenix Sister used nearly all her money to buy jewelry. These four mistresses were surprisingly the same type as her, also using nearly all their money to buy jewelry. Ruolan calls that being sick! One person being sick can be explained, but five women being sick at the same time—that isn't illness. That's a suspicious point!"

Zhou Mei's eyes shone brightly. "You think this is the chain of profit transfers?"

"Yes! There are two kinds of black-market funding chains: horizontal and vertical. A horizontal chain opens another gate right at the source. A vertical chain is more subtle—it transforms the chain to a certain degree, using legitimate forms to conceal illegal transactions."

"You suspect they were laundering money through jadeite and jade?" Zhou Mei softly exhaled.

"Yes! Do you know why? Because jadeite and jade cannot be priced in the first place. They are simply things dug out of the ground. A worthless stone and a supreme-grade jadeite worth hundreds of millions have the same cost. Therefore, their value depends on the market, not the cost."

Zhou Mei lifted her teacup and pondered for a long while. "Normal women may like jewelry and jade, but jewelry and jade are inherently a third-tier expenditure. One person can be crazily fond of jadeite jewelry, but when five people connected to the same case are all crazily fond of it, that truly is suspicious. Yet even if it is money laundering, it would be difficult to obtain evidence, because their transactions are openly displayed and reasonable. Everyone knows jadeite prices are absurd, but everyone accepts them. You can say what they bought was not worth that price, but they think it was worth it. If they sell it, perhaps someone will still buy it at a high price."

Lin Xiaosu said, "That is indeed true, but you should not overlook another chain!"

"What?"

"The transfer of benefits is not the goal itself. It is a transaction!" Lin Xiaosu said. "Since it is a transaction, there will naturally be a circulation of 'goods'!"

"Goods?" Zhou Mei's heart began pounding wildly. Those so-called goods naturally meant drugs...

"Have you been unable to discover where the goods circulating through Phoenix City's black market actually came from?"

"Yes!"

Lin Xiaosu said, "A little reminder: Phoenix City Jewelry Store operates as a one-stop chain, processing and selling raw stones. Its raw stones come from the Green-Faced Kingdom!"

The teacup in Zhou Mei's hand suddenly trembled...

Within moments, a closed loop formed in her mind.

Phoenix City stood at the junction of three provinces, with convenient transportation.

That was why it had become a gathering and dispersal point for the black market.

But where did all that contraband come from?

No one had been able to find out.

Now, she seemed to have touched upon a clear route...

Phoenix City Jewelry Store followed the route of cutting raw stones, processing them, and crafting jadeite jewelry.

The greatest advantage of this approach was that it gave customers tremendous confidence: its goods were genuine, and there was no possibility of acid washing or fakery—if you had doubts, you could even enter the jadeite processing workshop and personally watch the entire process of cutting the stone, extracting the material, crafting the piece, polishing, and buffing.

This had made its business extraordinarily prosperous.

Not only were Phoenix City's wealthy ladies enamored with it, even wealthy ladies from River City flocked there to buy.

As a business, it was highly successful.

But what if it was another kind of business?

It was convenient for that too.

The raw stones came from the Green-Faced Kingdom, which itself was a kingdom of drugs.

It ran a legitimate business, and trucks hauling raw stones drove openly across the country.

What if they carried a little private cargo as well?

As long as their methods were sophisticated enough, who could uncover it?

This solved the most difficult issue in contraband—the transportation route...

And funding was another problem when disposing of contraband. Here, it also formed a logical closed loop...

They did not use conventional bank transfers, nor did they use conspicuous cash transactions. They incorporated elements of money laundering, using legitimate jade and jadeite sales to complete profit transfers.

Originally, anyone who wanted to obtain every cent in this black market was taking a tremendous risk.

Ghost-Eyed Old Seven was no exception.

But what if he was the jewelry store?

Wouldn't he be able to easily obtain the largest share of the funds?

And the role Phoenix Sister and the four mistresses played was to send money into his account through legitimate means...

From the amounts confirmed so far, the five women had already moved close to one hundred million!

Heaven knew how many others were engaged in the same trade?

Lin Xiaosu slowly raised his gaze. "Check when it last received a shipment."

Zhou Mei said, "We just checked. A batch of raw stones was delivered to the processing plant the day before yesterday... You mean..."

"I mean, perhaps we can take a trip to this jewelry store renowned throughout Phoenix City!"

"Just the two of us?" Zhou Mei asked.

"Ruolan is coming too!" Lin Xiaosu said. "This has been one of my dreams for many years—when I finally had money someday, I'd take two beautiful women jewelry shopping..."