It was a very ordinary cardboard box, about 30 to 60 centimeters in length and width. There were no obvious markings on the outside, just a few inconspicuous red checkmarks on the sealing tape. It wasn’t heavy—Tian Tian could lift it with both hands.
“Let me open it.”
Zhou Haoting took out a blade and cut through the sealing tape on the cardboard box. Inside, there were six shoeboxes laid flat. Given the size of the carton, there were likely another six shoeboxes underneath, making twelve in total.
But that wasn’t the main point.
The main point was that this box of shoes had fallen off Xiao Ming’s truck. Given Xiao Ming’s behavior at the auction, both of them were convinced there was something fishy about these shoes.
Tian Tian opened one of the shoeboxes. Inside was a pair of stylish wedge-heeled sandals. They were made of genuine leather with thick soles. She picked up one shoe and looked it over from every angle—left, right, top, bottom—but honestly couldn’t find anything wrong.
They were just a pair of sandals with good quality and nice style.
“Can you see any problem?” Tian Tian handed the sandal to Zhou Haoting and sat down to take a couple of sips of tea.
What could Zhou Haoting say? He took the shoe and began examining it carefully.
As it turned out, engineers do have a good eye. Even though his field was worlds apart from footwear, after inspecting several pairs, Zhou Haoting finally noticed something different.
“The weight is off!”
By then, Tian Tian was already on her third piece of mung bean cake. Upon hearing this, she blurted out instinctively, “Don’t tell me there’s gold hidden inside?”
Earlier, she had wondered if there might be white powder hidden in the sandals—after all, this was gangster-related. But after checking, she thought it seemed unlikely. Now, hearing Zhou Haoting’s comment, her mind immediately jumped to smuggling gold across the border.
But honestly, who would go through all that trouble hiding gold in shoes and smuggling it from Hong Kong? It would be easier to just bring it in by sea.
Hearing the word “gold,” Zhou Haoting shook his head. “Gold isn’t that light.”
Among these twelve boxes—twenty-four sandals in total—eighteen of them had a different weight from the remaining six. But the difference wasn’t significant enough to hide gold.
Zhou Haoting leaned more toward the idea that something valuable but small was concealed inside.
He took his blade and sliced open one of the sandals. The leather upper split open, revealing the cork sole. In a normal sandal, the sole would be solid. But in this odd one, cutting open the upper exposed a hollow heel. And inside were dazzling gemstones.
Zhou Haoting froze for a moment.
Tian Tian was absolutely stunned.
Who in their right mind would hide gemstones inside a shoe heel?
She looked at Zhou Haoting. He shook his head, then said, “There’s definitely a story behind this.”
No kidding! Under normal circumstances, even gangsters smuggling gemstones wouldn’t go through such complicated trouble. Again, smuggling was too easy these days to bother with this kind of hassle.
Zhou Haoting poured two gemstones into a stainless steel basin. Then he continued cutting open the remaining sandals.
In the end, they recovered a total of 28 gemstones in various colors and sizes. The largest was 6 cm in diameter, the smallest 9 mm. Each gemstone had been roughly polished, and their translucent sparkle was dazzling in the sunlight.
For a moment, Tian Tian was speechless.
A windfall~~~
In both of her lives combined, she had never been this rich.
After a long pause, she pointed at the gemstones in the stainless steel basin. “We split these evenly.”
Zhou Haoting had been smiling ever since they discovered the gemstones. Hearing Tian Tian’s offer, he shook his head. Then, after thinking for a moment, he picked out two evenly sized green gemstones.
“These two are for my mom. The rest are yours.”
“No way. Finders keepers—we split the loot fifty-fifty.”
Zhou Haoting leaned back in his chair and stretched. “I’m a grown man. What would I do with gemstones?”
“Then give them to your mom!” Tian Tian didn’t want to take advantage of him like that.
Zhou Haoting’s smile widened. “My mom doesn’t care about things like gemstones. If you really feel like you owe me, when you strike it rich, buy her two big gold bangles. She’d be much happier with those.”
Tian Tian was at a loss for words. Well, it was true—mothers of that generation really preferred gold. Besides, gemstone prices were quite volatile in this era.
“Alright then. Once I sell all this batch of clothes, I should be able to buy your mom two gold bangles.” And her own mom would get two as well.
Seeing that Tian Tian wasn’t going to decline further, Zhou Haoting got up and came back with a small black velvet pouch.
“These gemstones can’t be circulated for the time being. Keep them safe. I’ll bring a safe over to your place later.”
He didn’t suggest keeping them at his own place. The items were Tian Tian’s, so it was best for her to look after them herself. Besides, Granny Cui and Qian Lizhen’s mother were home every day. The chances of a thief stealing anything were extremely low. Adding a small safe would be more than enough.
Tian Tian didn’t stand on ceremony with Zhou Haoting. She only told him to remember to charge her when he brought the safe over.
“Charge you for what? Consider it a loan for now. Once you’ve made it big and have a large house, a little safe like that won’t be enough for you.”
Seeing how matter-of-fact he was, Tian Tian couldn’t help leaning in and saying quietly, “You really have that much confidence in me?”
“Of course. You’re an exceptionally smart and brilliant Comrade Tian Tian. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have fallen for you at first sight.”
“Cough, cough… I didn’t come back at the wrong time, did I?” Cai Xiaomei stood at the doorstep, watching her son leaning in close to a girl in the living room. Hearing him talk about love at first sight, she was so embarrassed she could’ve dug a hole in the floor with her toes.
Although she had been quite bold in her own youth, she was bold in action but shy with words—nothing like her smooth-talking son.
Zhou Haoting, now unfairly labeled as “smooth-talking,” looked at his mother standing in the doorway and twitched his mouth.
He stuffed the black velvet pouch directly into Tian Tian’s bag, then pulled her to her feet and introduced her. “Tian Tian, this is my mother, Comrade Cai Xiaomei. Mom, this is Tian Tian. The girl I like. She’s currently staying at Granny Cui’s place.”
Tian Tian already knew Cai Xiaomei and had crossed paths with her a few times. But this was the first time she appeared before her together with Zhou Haoting, so she felt a little at a loss.
However, her strong mental fortitude helped her regain composure quickly.
“Auntie Cai, hello. I’m Tian Tian. Sorry for intruding.”
Cai Xiaomei quickly waved her hand. “No intrusion, no intrusion at all! You’re very welcome to visit. Um… how about staying for dinner?”
With that, Cai Xiaomei rushed off saying she needed to go buy groceries. Tian Tian tried to stop her, but Zhou Haoting said, “Let her go. We still need to clean up here.”
Tian Tian looked at the pile of ruined shoes all over the floor and felt a headache coming on.
“Stuff the shoeboxes and the cardboard box into the stove later and burn them. As for the shoes, I’ll bag them up and dispose of them. You head back to your place first and wait for me. I’ll bring the safe over later and pick you up for dinner at my house.”
Although his mother’s sudden appearance had caught him off guard, Zhou Haoting had always been one to seize an opportunity. Inviting Tian Tian over for dinner was a perfect chance.
Tian Tian could see the little hint of smugness in Zhou Haoting’s eyes, but she didn’t call him out on it. True, the dinner invitation was a bit sudden. But after spending time together recently, she was sure Zhou Haoting was a good man. And although opinions about his mother, Cai Xiaomei, were polarized in the village, the negative talk all stemmed from her having married some random out-of-towner and then been abandoned.
Tian Tian knew the full story behind that. And she didn’t mind it at all.
“Alright, I’ll head back first. Ye Lifeng will probably come find us later.”
All their goods had been hauled to Ye Lifeng’s factory. He was busy sorting through them and would likely call them over once he was done.
Zhou Haoting said, “I’ll set up a time with him when I go out.”
After dinner, he could drive Tian Tian over to Ye Lifeng’s place.
They settled the plan and were about to part ways to take care of their own tasks. But before leaving, Tian Tian reminded Zhou Haoting to be careful when inquiring about the gemstones.
“Hecheng lost so many gemstones—they’re probably hopping mad.”
As it turned out, the atmosphere at Hecheng really wasn’t good. To be precise, some people were angry, while others couldn’t have cared less.
“Xiao Ming, take a look at what you’ve done!”
In an unremarkable warehouse, the floor was littered with shredded sandals. The scene was similar to the one at Zhou Haoting’s house, but ten times worse. Countless sandals had been torn apart, yet nothing was found inside.
“Xiao Ming, you worthless piece of trash. Did you hide those gemstones yourself?”
A short, pudgy middle-aged man with a dragon tattoo on his chest and a tiger on his back, a thick gold chain around his neck, and bare arms, glared furiously at Xiao Ming, who sat before him.
The dozen or so underlings behind him, hearing their boss’s words, surrounded Xiao Ming, looking as if they would tear him apart if he didn’t give an explanation.
But Xiao Ming remained completely calm. He picked up his teacup and leisurely skimmed the foam off the top, looking utterly uninterested in entertaining a fool.
Meng Ge, standing beside him, tried to mediate. “Brother Hei, that’s not fair. If our Brother Xiao were really up to something, he wouldn’t have gone to customs himself. You know, it’s pretty embarrassing to have to spend money to buy back our own goods.”
Brother Hei wasn’t one for reason. “I’m negotiating with Xiao Ming here. Who the hell are you to stick your nose in?” He raised his hand to slap Meng Ge.
That’s when Xiao Ming finally spoke. “Lao Hei, what’s the point of taking your anger out on my people? The gemstones were hidden by your own men. You can’t even control your own people—had no idea there was a traitor among them. The company’s gemstones got stolen because of that. I’ve been giving you face by not reporting this to the boss. Don’t mistake that for me being afraid of you.”
Before Lao Hei could react, the warehouse door suddenly slid open. Dozens of people carrying watermelon knives walked in.
Seeing this, Lao Hei’s arrogant expression finally changed.
“You wouldn’t dare! Aren’t you afraid the boss will find out and have you dumped in the sea?”
“Why do you think I dare to do this?”
Xiao Ming gave Lao Hei a meaningful smile, set down his teacup, and stood up. He walked out with Meng Ge, but not before giving an instruction: “Make sure it’s clean.”
“Xiao Ming, the boss would never do this to me…”
Lao Hei’s shouting and cursing faded as the warehouse door closed shut.
Meng Ge cautiously observed Xiao Ming for a moment. Seeing that his expression was the same as always, he quietly asked, “Brother Xiao, now that those gemstones are lost, how are we going to explain this to the Hong Kong side?”
The gemstones had been taken from a wealthy businessman in Haicheng. The plan was to have them smuggled to headquarters in Hong Kong by courier. But a month ago, the gemstones went missing. After investigating, they found that two of Lao Hei’s underlings had stolen them.
Those two underlings were brazen. Instead of running off after stealing the gemstones, they found an opportunity to hide them inside a batch of shoes. They then stored those shoes in a smuggled goods warehouse on Renmin Road, passing them off as contraband. Their plan was to wait until the heat died down, then sneak out the shoes hiding the gemstones and flee far away.
After all, only one carton actually contained the gemstones, and the box had been marked inconspicuously. In theory, nothing should have gone wrong.
In fact, those two underlings hadn’t been caught at all. After the gemstones went missing, Lao Hei searched everywhere but found nothing. It wasn’t until Xiao Ming came over from Hong Kong recently to investigate the matter that the two were exposed.
After that came torture and interrogation, which revealed that the gemstones were hidden in a carton of sandals. But by then, the sandals had already been seized by the customs anti-smuggling unit. That was why Xiao Ming had personally gone to the customs auction to buy the shoes.
Unfortunately, after all that running around, the shoes were lost again.
“It’s all because of the ambush on the way back.” Meng Ge had been assigned to other tasks today and hadn’t been at the auction. But he knew about the truck being attacked on the return trip.
“Brother Xiao, could there have been a leak? Otherwise, how did that specific carton of shoes with the gemstones just happen to go missing?”
Xiao Ming held a cigarette between his fingers and gazed into the distance for a long while. Then he turned his head, took a drag, and smiled. He blew out a smoke ring that drifted around him. Finally, he said, “Who knows?”
An hour later, the two had returned to their base in Shenzhen City. They immediately received bad news.
“Brother Xiao, Lao Hei got away!”
Meng Ge couldn’t figure it out. In a confined space like that warehouse, with dozens of people fighting a dozen or so, how had Lao Hei managed to escape? And Lao Hei had an uncle who was the number two at Hecheng. With Lao Hei on the run, headquarters in Hong Kong was likely to become unstable.
Hearing the bad news, Xiao Ming showed no reaction. He just gave a faint “Mm.”
—
“Mm, this safe is really quite stylish.”
Meanwhile, Tian Tian was inspecting the safe Zhou Haoting had brought over. In both of her lives combined, she had never used one of these, so she found it quite novel.
Seeing how much she liked it, Zhou Haoting didn’t say much. He sat down and watched her. After she had played with it enough, he said, “No word has leaked about the gemstones. It seems they’re keeping a tight lid on it. But I heard that this afternoon, quite a few people died in one of Hecheng’s warehouses.”
Hecheng was a gangster organization, and Shenzhen naturally had its own local gangs. When something happened to Hecheng, these people were the first to know. And if they knew, it was easy for him to find out.
In short, after gathering information from several sources, Zhou Haoting learned that two factions within Hecheng had clashed. Someone from the losing side had escaped. Now Hecheng was searching everywhere.
Given the timing of the gemstones’ appearance, Zhou Haoting had reason to suspect they were connected to this conflict.
He shared the information and his analysis with Tian Tian. They talked quietly for a while and agreed that his reasoning made sense. This only strengthened Tian Tian’s resolve to hide the gemstones well. She had no use for them right now anyway. If she were to sell them, it would be in eight or ten years, when gemstone prices would certainly be much higher than they were now.
After putting the valuables in the safe and concealing it properly, the two came out of the room and prepared to head to Zhou Haoting’s house for dinner. After eating, they would go to Ye Lifeng’s factory.
Since it was her first formal dinner invitation to his home, Tian Tian bought a bag of fruit on the way. Zhou Haoting didn’t stop her but added two cans of adult formula milk.
Tian Tian didn’t refuse either.
The two of them showing up at mealtime with such armloads of gifts naturally gave the village fresh fodder for gossip. But Tian Tian didn’t mind. She had a clear conscience.
When they arrived at Zhou Haoting’s house, Tian Tian was about to greet Cai Xiaomei when she saw that the village head was also there. And he had brought some tremendous good news.
< Previous chapter | TOC | More chapters later
Leave a Reply