Chapter 261

Chapter 261

Because of limited manpower and the need for shifts, Tina did not arrange for people on both sides of every vault. Instead, she chose to remove the partitions in the corridors and enclosed passages – these were just temporary boards added for privacy anyway.

This way, the three vaults shared two passages. She arranged two people in each passage, guarding in 24-hour shifts.

Let's refer to these four bodyguards as C, D, E and F for short.

Their positions were as follows:

...[Hall]....

.....Passage......[Bathroom].............

.....age.....Passage............[Waiting Room]

...........C.........Corridor.....D......

...[Vault 3]...[Vault 2]...[Vault 1]...

........E...Enclosed Passage.......F......

...........[Auction Room]............

In the order they were named, C, D, E and F recounted what happened in succession.

C said: "I remember I was playing on my phone at the time. I mean, it was the middle of the night, playing some mobile games isn't too bad right? Suddenly, I smelled a strange odor. When I looked up, I saw a lot of white smoke. I thought there was a fire so I was about to go take a look, but my head suddenly felt very dizzy, and then I didn't know anything."

D said: "It was already very late, I was extremely sleepy. In a daze, I seemed to see something swaying around over by the waiting room, so I was going to go take a look, but then I didn't remember anything."

E said: "I heard F say there was noise over there, so I went to check it out. As soon as I got to the vault, I smelled something and my head started spinning right away. When I turned my head, I was already on the ground."

F said: "I heard some movement over there, then a bang, so I told E to go see what was happening. But the same thing happened to me, I got dizzy from the smoke too."

Jian Jing asked: "Did any of you see someone?"

E said: "Blurrily, I seemed to catch a glimpse of a shadow, but I couldn't see clearly and don't remember it now."

Great, still no clues.

When they looked at the surveillance footage, the cameras had been operating diligently. But unfortunately there was something smeared over the lenses so nothing was captured.

She was racking her brains when the other guests came rushing over after catching wind of it.

Xu Gou was actually the first to arrive, her rhinestone-encrusted slippers extremely glaring under the light. "Oh my god, which one is missing?"

Jian Jing stared at her face intently. "Number 2."

"Oh! No!" Xu Gou’s face turned pale in an instant as she blurted out, "Who did it?"

"I don't know," Jian Jing asked back, "Didn't you buy Number 3?"

"Uh, yes, but still, Number 2 was stolen today, next time it could be another one." Xu Gou said awkwardly. "My violin can't be stolen."

"What? The Bronze Head was stolen?" Shen Hou had also rushed over, gasping for breath.

The old man's face was sallow, as if he had fallen gravely ill. "Who took it? Go find that bastard immediately!"

Jian Jing quickly had him take a seat. "Calm down, the person and the Bronze Head must still be on the boat."

Only then did Shen Hou settle down a little, panting heavily as he looked around.

Then, the others also arrived in succession, all expressing surprise and anxiety about the theft of the Bronze Head.

Wei Yang's expression was grave. "This is not just theft, it’s outright robbery. The culprit must be found."

Chou Niu frowned. "Was it done by the person who killed someone?"

Out of shame and compensation, Tina actively explained: "This is the safe that was installed when the yacht was built, very reliable. It's completely different from the safe room. After all, that safe was custom-made temporarily. In order not to move the collection location, it could only be sleeved from top to bottom, and there were seams at the bottom. I just looked and saw that the thief was fiddling there."

Jian Jing asked, "Was this Mr. Rat's idea?"

"Yes, the boss was worried that the collection would be unclear to trade after being moved." Tina said, "If you look closely, you will find that there are some special textures inside the safe. This is what the boss specially added so that even if someone made an identical safe, they would not be able to switch them."

"How was the collection transferred here?" She asked again.

Tina: "I don't know about this. It should have been transported here through the safe as well."

Jian Jing hmmmed and fell silent.

All of Mr. Rat's arrangements revolved around "protecting the privacy of buyers and sellers." This gave rise to two opposite possibilities: First, he was not the seller, the seller was on the boat, otherwise as an intermediary, the two sides would not have known each other in the first place; Second, he was the seller, and all this was pretentious.

She was inclined to the former.

Because if he was the seller, he could have chosen a more covert and simple way to sell out the high price anonymously. As an anonymous auction intermediary, he would inevitably garner the most attention.

If the seller was on the boat, who would it be?

"There are six safes here, how many have been used?" She asked.

Tina said, "After Mr. Wu Ma's room was robbed, Miss Xu Gou, Miss Wei Yang, Mr. Chou Niu, and Mr. Chen Long came to store things one after another."

"What did they store?"

"We don't know about that."

Jian Jing nodded and was about to take a closer look at the safes when the access control doorbell rang. Tina pressed the intercom key, and the person outside the door asked, "Is Miss Rabbit there?"

Miss Rabbit?? The corner of Jian Jing's eyes twitched.

"Yes." Tina opened the access control door and motioned for Jian Jing to go out together. She could see that the other party wanted to talk to Jian Jing, but did not want so many people to stay in the safe together.

Jian Jing followed her out and saw Xu Gou anxiously waiting: "Miss Rabbit, I have something very important to tell you." Then she said to Tina, “I want to go in and get something. Please open the door for me."

"Alright." Tina hurriedly verified her fingerprint and entered the password.

The door opened.

Xu Gou went in alone, came out five minutes later, and signaled Tina to leave.

Then she took Jian Jing to a secluded corner and said solemnly, "Miss Rabbit, I hope you can help me find the missing bronze statue."

Jian Jing raised her eyebrows: "Help you?"

"Yes, you may have discovered that I am the seller of Item 2." Xu Gou said solemnly, "I don't know if Mr. Mouse died because of this, but I can't trust anyone anymore—I'm only telling you this. Please help me find it."

Jian Jing asked, "You said you were the seller, do you have any evidence?"

"Of course." Xu Gou took out a wooden box from her arms, opened the lid, and a exquisite diamond necklace came into view, probably worth twenty to thirty thousand.

But she moved the mechanism to open the hidden second layer, took out a piece of paper from it, and whispered, "This is the letter of authorization."

Jian Jing took it and examined it carefully.

As soon as she touched the paper, she knew that this was a special kind of paper, very difficult to counterfeit, with strange patterns and notches at the corners. In addition to Mr. Rat's commitment letter, there was also a seal and signature in the lower right corner.

It should be authentic.

After Jian Jing pondered for a moment, she asked Xu Gou, "So do you have any guesses about the murderer?"

"I know nothing." The musician pressed her temples, her face showing worry, "In fact, this thing doesn't belong to me either, it's... sigh, I just wanted to sell it for some money to prepare for my concert tour. Who would have thought a murder case would happen—My God, this is too scary."

She exhorted solemnly: "You must keep it a secret for me. I don't want misfortune to befall me."

"Naturally." Jian Jing said, "I will also do my best to investigate the whereabouts of the bronze head."