Chapter 177 — The Credit Is Yours

She murmured a few perfunctory replies, told them to escort the men back to the station and promised she would return shortly, then Qiu Lingshan rang off.

There would certainly be no shortage of merit this time, and Qiu Lingshan could already picture the chief beaming at her, yet in this moment she could not feel the least bit pleased.

For no other reason: Wei Zhao had actually found the robbers, and Qiu Lingshan was left rather at a loss as to what to do with herself.

"Hey?" Qiu Lingshan had hung up the phone and waited a while without hearing a word from Wei Zhao, so she had no choice but to turn and lean down over him, staring at Wei Zhao. "The robbers are found. How did you manage it?"

"Weren't you following me the whole time?" Wei Zhao half opened his eyes and looked up at Qiu Lingshan bending over him. She was truly magnificent...

"..." Qiu Lingshan thought to herself, I was indeed following you all along, but you just wandered around aimlessly, and I still have no idea how you actually tracked down those robbers.

Besides, what made you so certain the robbers had to be below the cliff?

"Observation." Wei Zhao would of course say nothing about the jade pendant. "Careful observation and bold deduction. My earlier aimless circuit of the mountain only looked aimless. In fact it was anything but."

"Oh?" Qiu Lingshan now believed Wei Zhao, for his seemingly aimless wandering had clearly not been aimless at all, since after all Wei Zhao had found the robbers.

"I simply went through what the robbers themselves might have done." Wei Zhao said. "When the robbers first came up the mountain they must have wandered about just as I did just now, because they never studied reconnaissance or counter-reconnaissance, so they could not have searched the mountain carefully for a hiding place. They are not like you. They are not professionals."

So I tried to think from the robbers' point of view. If I were them, what would I do? So I first blundered around the mountain and found no hiding spot, and in the end I fixed my eyes on the place others would most easily overlook and least suspect. If I were a robber, I would take a desperate chance and send someone to explore along the cliff face to see if there was a cave below.

If there was, hiding inside would make them very hard to discover, and with enough food they could basically ride things out in safety for a good while, then wait until the heat died down and the checks were no longer strict before looking for a chance to escape.

"That is all?" Qiu Lingshan listened to what was in fact a theory Wei Zhao had made up on the spot, yet she found a certain sense in it, and it also happened to explain why he had been wandering about the mountain before.

"What else could there be?" Wei Zhao shrugged. "Did you see me carrying any high-tech equipment?"

"No, you did not." Qiu Lingshan nodded, accepting Wei Zhao's words. "Still, yours was a bold guess indeed."

"It is not bold. Since the robbers are not as professional as you are, and even your professionals failed to find them after such a massive search, do you think the robbers are more professional than you?" Wei Zhao countered. "So if not, then they took a desperate risk and hid in a rather dangerous place."

"Whatever you say, thank you this time." Although Qiu Lingshan felt Wei Zhao's method of searching was far too simple, almost like a joke, he had found the men, so she could say nothing more.

"No need to thank me. Mr. Gu hired me, and since these men mean harm to Ms. Gu, it was only right for me to cooperate with you to ferret them out, so you need not thank me." What Wei Zhao said this time was the honest truth.

"No wonder Captain Yang recommended you to me." Qiu Lingshan said. "But who did you learn these methods from?"

"Ha, it is only that our ways of thinking differ." Wei Zhao did not answer Qiu Lingshan's question directly. "You look at it from the police angle, I look at it from an ordinary person's angle."

"Then how much longer do you intend to look?" Qiu Lingshan suddenly changed tack. "Shall I just keep leaning over like this for your benefit? Shall I undo my collar as well?"

"Cough, cough..." Wei Zhao gave two dry coughs. Qiu Lingshan had caught the direction of his gaze, and after he had just delivered all that with such a solemn face, it left Wei Zhao rather embarrassed. "I was looking at the..."

"Then keep looking. I am leaving." Qiu Lingshan straightened up and turned to go.

"No more looking. Let's go." Wei Zhao sprang up from the ground and brushed the dust from his clothes.

The cordon at the foot of the mountain had already been removed, but the two officers on duty had not yet left and were waiting beside Qiu Lingshan's car for her to come down.

"Captain Song, you are really something. One trip up the mountain and you turned those bastards' den upside down." Clearly the two officers had already received news of the robbers' capture.

Qiu Lingshan flushed red. How was this her achievement at all? It was plainly Wei Zhao who had found them. From the corner of her eye she glanced at Wei Zhao, only to see him walking toward the car as if he had heard nothing, ready to get in...

Qiu Lingshan breathed a sigh of relief and said to the two officers, "You two pull out as well. I have something else to do, and I will be back at the station in a bit."

"Yes, Captain Song." The two officers acknowledged the order and got into their own car.

Qiu Lingshan opened the door and got into the car with Wei Zhao, quickly started the engine, and drove away from the place. What the two men had just said left her thoroughly embarrassed.

"Remember, the credit is yours. It has nothing to do with me." Wei Zhao suddenly spoke up.

"Huh?" Qiu Lingshan was slightly taken aback and looked at Wei Zhao in surprise. What did he mean by that?

"Drive properly and watch the road." Wei Zhao reminded Qiu Lingshan. "As for what happened this time, it is enough that you alone know. Do not tell anyone else. I have a lot on my plate right now and have no time to deal with anything extra."

"The station has posted a reward. Whoever provided the lead on the robbers can get a 200,000 yuan cash award. You do not want it?" Qiu Lingshan could not understand why Wei Zhao was disowning it so cleanly.

"I want it, but I do not want the trouble." Wei Zhao said. "Do you really think these few men are all the kidnappers? That there is no one behind them?"

"You mean you are afraid the people behind them will take revenge on you?" Qiu Lingshan began to grasp what Wei Zhao meant.

"Revenge is putting it too strongly, and I know well enough who is behind them." Wei Zhao shrugged indifferently. "I ruined their little scheme, so of course they know I exist. But the trouble I mean is not only that. I do not want to get mixed up in what comes next. At present I am employed solely by Gu Pengzhan, understand?"

"Just say you do not want to meddle in other people's business and do not want to help in the future. Why waste so many words." Qiu Lingshan was exasperated. It turned out all this talk from Wei Zhao had one aim, to make her bother him less in the future.

"Good that you understand." Wei Zhao said. "Unless it is something important, I will help you for Brother Jun's sake."

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