The Novelist Forced to Become Famous

Chapter 264

Upon hearing this, Xu Gou uncomfortably shuffled around.

Chen Long was shocked, angry, and confused. It seemed he wanted to blurt something out, but held it in.

"First, I can tell everyone that I've found the Bronze Head," Jian Jing flipped up the hanging tablecloth, revealing the ram's head that she had hidden under the table.

She held up the bronze statue and put it on the dining table, but stopped the others from going nearer.

Shen Hou asked, "Where did you find it?"

"Safe 2," Jian Jing readily revealed the answer. "The area from the lobby to auction room was originally a banquet hall. The waiting room and safe rooms were temporary additions. The Bronze Head was on top of Safe 2 the whole time, it was never lost."

Wei Yang was stunned for a moment, not understanding, "Why would he do that?"

"Because this person's goal was not to steal the Bronze Head, but to find out the seller's identity," Jian Jing said.

You Ji thought for a moment, then shook her head, "No, before boarding, no one knew if there really was a Bronze Head, much less how the auction would happen. You said the thief's equipment was very professional. Could he have foreseen all this beforehand?"

"You make a good point," Jian Jing was more respectful of the old lady now. "So the professional thief who released smoke and blocked surveillance was not the one who took the Bronze Head."

Everyone was shocked and even more confused.

"The thief who came fully prepared, let's call him 'Master Thief' considering his professionalism, did want the Bronze Head. But he didn't brazenly steal it. After all, if the item disappeared, everyone would surely search hard for it. And reporting it to the police would prevent slipping away with it.

"But coincidentally, Mr. Zi Shu died and Mr. Gu only recognizes the letter of authorization, not people. So there was a simpler way to legally take the Bronze Head."

"Letter of authorization," Shen Hou said coldly. "If the letter could be stolen, the thief could impersonate the owner and directly take the item. What a scheme! Who was it?"

Jian Jing looked at Xu Gou and shrugged.

Xu Gou yelled, "Are you crazy? How can you slander me like this?"

Even You Ji was a bit suspicious, "She's somewhat famous in France. How could she be the master thief?"

"Because she isn't that musician at all," Jian Jing said. "Although her French was decent and she showed me that musician's Instagram pictures, specifically emphasizing her cat, her order was also classic French cuisine. But I noticed some odd things, I just didn't think much of them."

"What things?"

"First, her fingers don't have calluses. I checked that musician's Twitter. There weren't many pictures of her hands, but you could still vaguely see joint deformities from diligent violin practice. Second, she previously told me her room number was 3 and gestured this."

Jian Jing held up her index, middle and ring fingers in the "3" gesture everyone was familiar with.

"I've interacted with a French fanatic before," she was referring to the ill-fated cousin who died terribly in Winterfell Castle. "Her hand gestures for numbers were a bit different from ours, like this."

She changed it to thumb, index and middle fingers.

You Ji immediately said, "Oh right, that's correct."

"I simply can't believe that because of things like this, you would accuse me of such serious crimes," Xu Gou spoke coldly without the slightest panic. "I was wrong to trust you."

"I'm not done yet, don't rush," Jian Jing said. "These details only made me suspicious. What truly confirmed she was suspicious was the real seller couldn't help it anymore - right, Mr. Chen Long? You didn't lose a jade carving, but the letter of authorization."

Chen Long's face was dark, neither admitting nor denying it.

"You shouldn't blame yourself too much either," she kindly advised. "I didn't suspect you because you came looking for me. I felt something was off very early on."

You Ji asked, "What was it this time?"

"The first one was Mr. Chou Niu reminding me. He said the auction process was very irrational. Mr. Zi Shu knew the identities of both buyer and seller, and he alone knew the bid prices. If he was bribed by someone, and switched the bid prices, wouldn't the seller suffer a huge loss? Since he didn't trust Mr. Zi Shu, how could he give him so much power?"

Jian Jing answered her own question, "Two possibilities: either Mr. Zi Shu was the seller, which has been proven false, or the seller was on the ship and would personally open the bid letters. Mr. Zi Shu deliberately mystified things to help him hide his identity. Going by this logic, Mr. Chen Long, the last one to go who only spent 10 minutes, is undoubtedly the most likely."

"Plus, he was indifferent about Mr. Zi Shu's death. He suddenly became proactive in cooperating after the Bronze Head went missing, and claimed he lost a jade carving to ask me to investigate. All of which have reasonable explanations. Am I right?"

Under everyone's eyes, Chen Long couldn't deny it and had to say, "I only hid it for safety reasons. As it turned out I was right. Mr. Zi Shu died and someone didn't want the Bronze Head sold. But I didn't expect this woman to actually be the thief who stole my letter of authorization."

Xu Gou looked away with pursed lips, still insisting, "I don't know why you're insisting it's me and not him. Unless you have evidence of me stealing, otherwise legally it won't stand, even if you say I'm not holding the letter of authorization."

"Then take out the letter of authorization," Jian Jing said. "It's my private property. If you want to search my things then where's the search warrant?" Xu Gou retorted.

"A guilty conscience makes you afraid?" Jian Jing shot back.

Xu Gou raised the corners of her lips and spoke aggressively, "If you insist on searching me, I won't stop you. But if you find nothing, I will sue you until you're penniless."

"Fine, forget it then."

No one expected Jian Jing to suddenly back down. Everyone was stunned for a moment, all looking at her.

But Jian Jing was unhurried, saying, "You're so confident because you're relying on having an accomplice." She stood up and paced around, then suddenly flashed over to grab Wu Ma's arm, "The stuff is on you, right?"

Wu Ma looked surprised and confused, "What are you talking about?"

"You released smoke in the safe room just to attract people on the ship here. Then took the chance to sneak into the safe and steal things. Although fingerprint and password were needed for the electronic lock, it wasn't difficult for you since you came prepared. You just didn't expect the Bronze Head to be missing, and for there to be a third thief on the ship besides you two."

"For caution and professionalism, neither of you would keep valuables in your room or the safe. Carrying them was the best choice."

Jian Jing adjusted her glasses and glanced at the thermal imager, blinding people.

"Did you hide it in your pants?" She rubbed her arms and said to Mr. Gu, "Whoever wants to search him, go ahead."

"I'll do it," Si She suddenly raised his hand and firmly grabbed Wu Ma's wrist. Wu Ma tried to jerk free, but didn't expect the sickly man to be so strong. His hands were pinned back.

On the other side, the elderly but sturdy Shen Hou also came over to help, directly pulling Wu Ma's pants down.

With a clang, metal fell to the floor, golden brilliance blinding people's eyes.

Mr. Gu's gaze concentrated, "The golden staff of authority?"

"Yes," although Jian Jing had long ago confirmed with the identification card that the safe held a fake staff of authority, upon seeing the real thing appear, she still breathed a sigh of relief. Looking at Xu Gou she said, "Are you going to say this is your private property too?"

Xu Gou glanced at Wu Ma pinned to the ground, "What does this have to do with me? I only said the letter of authorization belongs to me."

"That's why I asked you to take out the letter of authorization. It hasn't been washed right? Extracting fingerprints from paper is easy nowadays. Mr. Chen Long's fingerprints are definitely on it." Jian Jing was extremely calm. "Also, verifying if you're that musician can be done when we disembark. If we're lucky, there might even be a criminal record for you two."

Xu Gou's lips moved slightly, her eyeballs spun rapidly, seeming to be thinking of rebuttals.

Jian Jing added, "It made no sense for Wu Ma's safe to be broken into since he was the middleman and money transfers directly. Who would steal from him? The best explanation is he cried thief to catch the thief, wanting others to put valuables into the safe for their convenience to steal."

Wei Yang swore.

"Perhaps their original goal was only the valuable antiques. But unexpectedly, when searching the safe, they happened to discover Mr. Chen Long's letter of authorization and immediately hatched the idea of identity theft."

She said she was tired and sat down to drink coffee. She even asked, "Do you understand what identity theft means? Should I translate for you?"

The insult was extreme. Xu Gou's face turned green.

"By the way, do you know why I guessed that you two were accomplices?" She was furious, "Because I feel that you two are a couple. The reason? Your shoulder shrugging actions are exactly the same."

As she spoke, she imitated their shrug, vividly and accurately.

The atmosphere suddenly relaxed.

Only Mr. Gu was solemn: "Now that the two theft cases have been investigated clearly, shall we talk about the murder?"

"Of course, after we clarify their identities, we can continue to analyze further." Jian Jing took a deep breath, her expression gradually becoming solemn.

"First of all, we can confirm that Mr. Chen Long is the seller, he should not have a motive to kill Mr. Zi Shu. Unless he obtained the bronze head for revenge. So I want to ask clearly, where are you from, have you met the deceased before?"

Chen Long said: "I've seen him before, but we weren't very familiar. He also didn't know that I was the client."

"When did you get to know each other?"

"About three years ago."

Jian Jing said: "I can't completely rule out his suspicion, but there are other things that can prove it, I'll talk about it in a moment. Now, let's tentatively believe his testimony, the deceased was still alive when you left at 10 pm, right?"

Chen Long nodded.

She then asked Xu Gou: "Did you leave at that time thinking of taking away the replaced golden staff?"

Xu Gou: "Anyway, I didn't kill anyone, what reason would I have to kill him?!"

"Why not? Zi Shu discovered that you had swapped the items." Wei Yang reacted quickly, staring at her, "You went all out and killed him directly."

With his identity exposed, Xu Gou no longer maintained the aloofness of a musician, and refuted briskly: “I ran to the auction room, told him I stole something, and then stabbed him to death?"

"Indeed, if the deceased had discovered their behavior, he would not have died in the auction room." Jian Jing eliminated Xu Gou's suspicion.

Next, there were only two suspects left.

Yin Hu and Hai Zhu were clearly uneasy, their eyes met, full of suspicion.

Hai Zhu looked rough and careless, no one without a brain could earn so much money. He immediately found an excellent defense reason for himself.

"He said that when he went there, the door was already locked," Hai Zhu pointed at Yin Hu, eloquently, "I hadn't left the hall yet at that time, how could I have locked the door? This little bastard and I can't be accomplices, can we?"

Everyone deeply felt that he was reasonable, and looked at Yin Hu with increasingly unkind eyes.

Yin Hu said solemnly: "It wasn't me, I didn't kill Mr. Zi Shu."

"Whether it was you or not, I'll ask you a question first," said Jian Jing. "Did you bribe Zi Shu?"

Yin Hu was suddenly stunned.

"You and Hai Zhu suddenly left to ask about prices before the results were announced, I feel it's not very reasonable. Unless you were confident of persuading Zi Shu." She said, "On the day of the public auction, I happened to hear someone talking on the deck, one person's voice sounded a lot like you, was it you and Zi Shu?"

At this point, Yin Hu was obviously the biggest suspect. He did not dare to conceal it any longer and admitted: "Yes."

"You used a few million to bribe him and told him to make an exception for you?" Jian Jing thought at that time that a few million was the price to buy the bronze head, he must have bought it.

But after You Ji's explanation, she realized that even 200-300 million was considered low, so millions were obviously not right. In addition, her memory had improved, she carefully recalled the fragmentary words at that time, and finally matched Yin Hu's way of speaking.

What he wanted was not Item 1 and Item 3, so what were those millions for?

Bribery.

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