Chapter 97

Chapter 97

A private room on the third floor of the teahouse on the island in the middle of the lake.

Behind the long tea table, the tea master turned her slender wrist and brewed the tea with practiced ease.

Since there was an outsider present, Old Miao could not say much. He took Mr. Liu’s teasing in stride and said boldly, “I wouldn’t go begging if it were anyone else.”

Mr. Liu was clearly very close with Old Miao and Old Dao. The three of them began reminiscing about their days in the army.

Qin Ying listened for a while and learned that Mr. Liu, Old Miao, and Old Dao had all been old comrades who had once fought in the southern border war.

“Please enjoy.”

While the three old men were chatting, a hand carrying a saucer brought a tasting cup to Qin Ying.

The golden tea swayed lightly in the plain porcelain cup, making the tea master’s wrist look even paler, without the slightest hint of color.

“Thank you.” Qin Ying tapped her fingers lightly on the tea table and raised her eyes to look at the tea master pouring the tea.

She appeared to be in her thirties, with delicate features and skin so fair it seemed she never saw the sun.

Qin Ying kept her smile in place as her gaze swept around the private room again.

From the moment she had stepped inside, she had felt that something was off about the structure of the room.

This teahouse was built on an island in the center of the lake. It should have been an excellent place to enjoy the scenery and watch the birds.

Yet this private room used to receive distinguished guests did not have a single window.

All the light in the room came from lamps. It felt extremely out of place.

Qin Ying pinched the tasting cup between two fingers and held it beneath her nose to smell the aroma. Just as thoughts were turning through her mind, a startled cry suddenly rang out beside her.

She turned her head just in time to see the tea master’s hands tremble as she flung the purple clay teapot away.

It turned out Old Miao’s Rat Scout had somehow climbed onto the tea table and was stealing peanuts.

Although Old Miao firmly insisted that Tantan was a fancy rat, most people could not easily tell the difference between a house rat and a fancy rat just by looking.

When Tantan’s pink tail brushed over the tea tray, the fact that the tea master did not scream at the top of her lungs was already a testament to her composure.

The purple clay teapot she had thrown in fright had clearly been seasoned for many years. Even plain boiled water would carry a tea fragrance in it, and it was worth quite a lot.

Just as the pot was about to hit the floor and shatter, an extremely thin hand, blue veins bulging, reached out at the last possible second and caught it.

It was Zhang Lang.

He twisted at the waist and saved the situation in a posture that looked painfully awkward.

Old Miao also snatched back the troublemaking Rat Scout and kept apologizing.

Since they were guests, there was nothing the tea master could really say. Still shaken, she left the room.

The door to the private room closed. There were no outsiders left inside now.

Old Miao gave Wen Hao a look.

Wen Hao took an instrument that looked like a walkie-talkie out of his bag and swept it around the room. Then he lowered his voice and said, “No cameras.”

Only then did Zong Li ask Zhang Lang, “Did you notice anything?”

Zhang Lang’s hair hung over his forehead. He shook his head weakly. “There are too many mixed smells here.”

Mr. Liu was obviously very interested in this and leaned in with curiosity written all over his face. “What? What is it?”

His enthusiasm gave Zhang Lang quite a fright. Zhang Lang shrank back, unable to handle it.

Only after steadying himself did he say, “This place is full of the stink of animals.”

When Mr. Liu heard that, surprise crossed his face. He twitched his nose and sniffed. “You can really smell that? Is it that mysterious?”

“I don’t smell anything.”

Old Dao, who had been sitting around the tea table, stood up. “Come on. Let’s go have a smoke.”

Qin Ying set down her teacup as well. “I’ll go take a walk too.”

The current situation was that everyone knew there was something wrong beneath this teahouse.

But they had no evidence, so they could only proceed according to their plan and investigate separately in secret.

Old Dao, Zong Li, and Wen Hao would go one way, while Zhang Lang would follow Qin Ying and Yin Minmin to protect the two women.

Yin Minmin took Qin Ying’s arm as they left the room, with Zhang Lang trailing far behind them.

Qin Ying noticed that Yin Minmin’s hand was trembling a little.

She said softly, “If you’re scared, you can stay behind.”

Yin Minmin took a shallow breath, covered her mouth, and whispered, “I’m just a little nervous.”

As they spoke, they walked out of the long corridor.

Looking down from the railing on the third floor, they could see several display cases in the atrium.
Yin Minmin adjusted her breathing, then said to Qin Ying in a slightly exaggerated tone, “Sister, let’s go down and take a look.”

Hearing that she was so nervous she couldn’t even keep her cutesy voice steady, Qin Ying patted her hand and led her downstairs.

The items displayed in the atrium were many and varied: sets of porcelain, assorted antiques, and teapots made by famous masters.

After looking around, Yin Minmin gently tugged Qin Ying’s hand. “Sister Ying, is that chunk of wood worth a lot?”

A few steps away from them sat a dark-colored stump, placed plainly in the very center.

Yin Minmin couldn’t tell what it was, but if something could sit so brazenly in the prime spot among all these antiques, it had to be expensive.

Qin Ying followed her gaze and said, “It’s golden-thread nanmu bogwood.”

Bogwood was formed when ancient forest trees were buried in riverbed silt due to natural disasters, then slowly carbonized over an immense stretch of time.

Its grain and sheen were highly distinctive. Once you’d seen it, it wasn’t hard to recognize.

Yin Minmin had heard of bogwood’s reputation too. She clicked her tongue in amazement. “For one this big, how much would it cost?”

“And they just left it out in the open like this? Not even a glass case?”

In her surprise, her voice rose a little.

It wasn’t a big deal, but from above Qin Ying and Yin Minmin’s heads came a clear, soft laugh.

“Country bumpkins.”

The voice sounded familiar. Qin Ying looked up and saw a young man with hair slicked so neatly it looked like a dog had licked it, lounging lazily against the third-floor railing.

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “You broke up with Feng Mu just so you could dress like that and stroll around with some little country bumpkin?”

“Qin Ying.”

He hadn’t said anything particularly outrageous, but every movement of those thin lips somehow sounded viciously cutting.

What should you do when you run into your awful ex-boyfriend’s childhood buddy?

Qin Ying looked at him expressionlessly. “What the hell does it have to do with you?”

She wasn’t really cursing at him. She was stating a fact.

Her ex-boyfriend was already in the past. So what did that make her ex-boyfriend’s buddy? Not even worth a damn!

The man standing on the third floor froze for a moment, then instantly lost his composure. “Qin Ying, what are you acting so high and mighty for?”

Qin Ying withdrew her gaze and turned to look at an antique vase beside her, with absolutely no intention of acknowledging him.

That only made the man on the third floor crack even harder.

Yin Minmin wasn’t as calm as Qin Ying. Being stared at by him made her back prickle, and she couldn’t help whispering, “Sister Ying, why don’t we go back first?”

That way, they wouldn’t get into a conflict and ruin the plan.

Qin Ying, however, remained perfectly composed. She lowered her head and whispered, “It’s fine. We might even be able to use him.”

The idiot who had spoken just now was named Lin Yicheng, the young master of a pharmaceutical company.

With a capable older brother holding up the family business, all he had to do was idle around, eat, drink, and have fun. He liked extreme sports and racing, and he was fiercely competitive.

This teahouse secretly ran a beast-fighting arena underground. What was a thrill-seeker like Lin Yicheng doing here? You could figure it out with your toes.

When she reached the third flowerpot, Qin Ying heard a rush of hurried footsteps behind her, but she didn’t look back.

Only when Lin Yicheng, furious and flustered, tried to grab her wrist from behind did she suddenly pull her hand back, then catch his thumb with ruthless precision and twist it backward.

Lin Yicheng, who had come charging over with such menace, was countered in a single second. His knees slammed heavily into the floor.

Amid the sharp pain shooting through his right thumb, he looked up at Qin Ying in a sorry state.

Just as he opened his mouth to curse, he first caught the scent of supermarket shower gel. Then a fair hand enlarged in his field of vision.

Smack!

…

“I hate it when people put their hands on me.” Qin Ying looked at her palm. “Why do they never learn?”

Yin Minmin held both hands to her chest like a hamster.

She watched in horror as Lin Yicheng’s ears turned scarlet even faster than the cheek that had been slapped.

She hurriedly tugged Qin Ying back. “Sister Ying, stop hitting him!”

“I’m afraid he’ll lick your palm.”