Published at 10th of September 2019 11:56 am

Chapter 125 - Undercover Investigation

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

Translator(s): Zryuu

Editor(s): Amalea, FistFullOfDollars, Juurensha

After Situ Ye turned off the video call, Zhou Sheng immediately took a bag and stuffed clothes into it. Once he was finished packing, he sat on the sofa for awhile in a daze, counting as the second hand on the clock ticked by, then looked at his phone. 5:40. He went downstairs to hail a cab but returned just a moment later, rummaged through to find the Golden Crow Wheel and stuffed it into his bag, then went straight to the airport and left.

At six o’clock in the morning, Yu Hao turned off his alarm and climbed up with great difficulty. His illness had miraculously cleared up again.

His vitality was like a stubborn weed -- it would always be able to withstand any violent storm it experiences. He couldn’t remember clearly what had happened last night. Yu Hao charged his phone and vaguely recall puking and saw some traces beside his bed, but it had been cleaned up.

Yu Hao, “???”

Yu Hao looked around him, then staggered away to take a bath. After he was done, he finished writing his review and sent it to Lin Ze. He turned on his phone to find that Zhou Sheng had started a video call with him last night, and there was a transfer of 20,000 to his WeChat account below.

Yu Hao, “……”

There’s money! There’s money! Yu Hao was instantly overjoyed, and his morale maxed out. What self-esteem? What stubbornness? None of it was important anymore! But where did Zhou Sheng get all this money from? His salary? Oh well, this should be enough to last him until the end of December.

Yu Hao texted Zhou Sheng, no reply. Called him, his phone was off. He was probably tired last night, so let him rest for a few days ba. There was a thick down jacket in the box for winter. Before setting off to Beijing, Yu Hao had even thought that Zhou Sheng had stuffed in too many, but it was just perfect for his trip now.

Yu Hao saw a convenience store lunch and a bottle of Vitamin C drink on the table. His roommate said, “Your friend came to visit you last night, he brought those for you.”

Yu Hao thought that Situ Ye was really too great. It wasn’t easy being a Lady Boss, he even had to help his subordinates clean up. After eating this breakfast, he came back to life.

At 8:15am, Yu Hao met up with Jin Weicheng outside the railway station.

“That jacket must be very expensive ba.” Jin Weicheng said.

“This is the only one I have.” Yu Hao answered.

Jin Weicheng casually tugged on Yu Hao’s jacket to check, “If you wear such a fashionable jacket for interviews, it’ll attract too much attention.”

Yu Hao said, “I can turn this jacket inside out to wear, it’s double-sided. The reverse side is black.”

Yu Hao thought that shouldn’t be a problem anymore ba, and Jin Weicheng had to stop commenting. They got on the train-car. Yu Hao bought a hard bunk and his Laoshi had to sleep on the lower bunk. Of course, he climbed onto the middle bunk to lie down.

“Come down for a chat.” Jin Weicheng knocked on the middle bunk, “Don’t sleep. You’re such a young chap, but you can’t even match up to the vigour of a middle-aged man like me.”

Yu Hao was texting Zhou Sheng. It seemed he actually still hadn’t woken up yet, looks like he really was very tired last night. Yu Hao wasn’t any better himself. He wanted to rest, but Jin Weicheng called him, so he had to go down and chat with the opposite bunk. Jin Weicheng’s words had hidden implications, where he used gossip in order to dig information out of the other party. He asked where the other person was getting off and how the environment was like recently. Yu Hao listened for a while and thought that Jin Weicheng was teaching him at first, but he realised that something was off because the opposite bunk was an aunt who didn’t want to talk to Jin Weicheng at all. When she saw Yu Hao, she began asking him this and that enthusiastically, asked if he was married or not, and told Yu Hao to visit her house, and she would introduce her daughter to him.

“What are you doing?” Zhou Sheng was at Beijing’s airport. As soon as his flight landed, and he got signal, he immediately called Yu Hao.

“Crossing through a tunnel!” Yu Hao said, “No signal! I’ll call you when I get off the train. Where did you get the money from?”

Zhou Sheng, “My salary!”

Yu Hao, “So much?!”

The call got cut. Zhou Sheng looked very irritated. He hadn’t slept for more than 4 hours in total for the past two days.

Zhou Laichun called Zhou Sheng, “Why didn’t you come to work today?”

Zhou Sheng answered, “I worked like a dog for you for three months, but you still arranged a blind date for me in the end? Fuck your mother, I’m blacklisting you. We’ll walk our separate ways from now on, don’t look for me anymore. Laozi will just treat it as if I never gave birth to a bastard son like you.”

Afterwards, he blacklisted Zhou Laichun and hailed a cab. After he got in the car, he called administration.

Zhou Sheng, “Umm, Director Bai, it’s like this. I’m handing in my naked resignation today. It’s not like I signed a labour contract with the company anyway. As for the stuff on my desk, I’ll have to trouble you to find someone to collect it. I’d like to thank everyone for their care during the past few months. We’ll still be good brothers in our next life!”

On the other end of the phone, “……”

Zhou Sheng rolled down the car window and took a deep breath.

“It’s a hazy day.” Zhou Sheng said.

“It’s a hazy day.” The driver said.

Zhou Sheng, “The air in Beijing is great, I’ve never liked Beijing as much as I do now.”

Driver, “……”

Zhou Sheng extended his head out of the window and shouted, “I love you! Beijing!”

Driver, “……………………”

Two hours later, Zhou Sheng looked furiously at the traffic jam outside Third Ring road.

“Do you still love Beijing?” The driver asked.

“It’s okay.” Zhou Sheng said, “I want to run over.”

Driver, “There’s still 21km to go, it’ll be just nice for a half marathon.”

Zhou Sheng, “Forget it if I run anymore I might just collapse and die. Hurry and move aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Three hours later, Zhou Sheng kicked open the door to the big office. The entire editorial department fell silent at once and looked at Zhou Sheng together.

“Ai! What are you doing!” The aunt at the front desk came chasing after him and shouted, “I’ll call security!”

“I’m sorry I came to the wrong place.” Zhou Sheng closed the door, “Please continue with your work.”

“The investigative reporter team is over there!” The aunt said angrily.

Zhou Sheng kicked open the door to the other office again. Lin Ze was taking an afternoon nap with one arm over Situ Ye and was immediately startled awake. Situ Ye held up his camera and calmly took a photo of Zhou Sheng.

“Stop taking photos!” Zhou Sheng said angrily, “I didn’t sleep all night, just got off the plane.”

“Yo! Young lad! You came real quick.” Situ Ye said, “Would you like some cake? It’s the real deal, I don’t cheat the young or the old! I guarantee I won’t use the knife to stab you!”

Lin Ze shrugged. Situ Ye counted three notes of hundred yuan bills and placed it in Situ Ye’s hand.

Zhou Sheng, “……”

Lin Ze, “Your wife went for interviews with Jin Laoshi. Dear guest, will you be staying in our hotel? Or are you just here for a short stopover?”

Zhou Sheng stepped on the desk with one foot, “Are you guys still hiring? I’ll be a pretty good investigative reporter, consider me a little ba.”

“We’re not.” Situ Ye said, “We forbid office romances.”

Zhou Sheng, “You think I believe you?! The two of you are having an office romance yourselves!”

“We are both very serious,” Lin Ze said, “We’ve never cuddled or gotten intimate in the office!”

Zhou Sheng, “Then what did I just see? Do you think I’m blind?!”

Situ Ye, “We were in the midst of a serious discussion. We can’t do this job anymore, and it would probably be better to change professions and become pimps. Didn’t you see? We were practicing.”

Lin Ze explained patiently, “Yu Hao works in the newspaper office, and if there are any problems with interviews he can’t resolve, he would find you, and you’d definitely follow along. In that case, it’s equivalent to us hiring two people with the wages of one. With the remaining salary we save on, we can hire another editor instead. Don’t you think that’s how it works?”

“That does make sense.” Zhou Sheng nodded.

Situ Ye nodded at Zhou Sheng too, “Learn a little.”

Zhou Sheng, ““……”

Yu Hao’s head was buzzing again. As soon as the dining cart came, they bought food to eat, but he didn’t have a very good appetite. Jin Weicheng was chatting endlessly and told the opposite bunk’s aunt that Yu Hao was his nephew who was going to Guangxian and wanted to sell water purifiers along the way. As he spoke, he actually took out a water purifier with a faucet installed from his bag, and started showing everyone how to purify water on the spot. The people around them were all startled into a daze.

Yu Hao was dumbstruck, when did he prepare that? It looked like he had casually bought it from a hardware store, yet he even had various models. There were four water purifiers of varying specifications in a wooden box, making it seem much more high-end.

Jin Weicheng maxed out his firepower and talked with a glib tongue, so the aunt said, “Ai that’s good stuff, how much does one cost?”

Everyone began passing the water purifier around to take a look. Jin Weicheng asked the other party to pay for the water purifier first and leave an address behind, then he would send one to them later on. He even patted his chest to ask the rest to believe in his character and reputation, but everyone just treated him as a swindler. He couldn’t continue bluffing them, so it ended.

Yu Hao, “……”

“Where did you get these from?” Yu Hao asked Jin Weicheng.

“Picked up the box from a garbage dump at the railway station.” Jin Weicheng explained, “The two faucets were twisted off from the back of the lounge, while the other two were bought from a hardware store. It’s not like I really wanted to sell it to them, just needed to get some information out of them.”

Yu Hao had learnt a trick. At night, he picked up his bag and got off the train with Jin Weicheng. They arrived at their destination, a prefecture-level city, and now they had to take a bus to the county-level city.

“Do you remember the place they talked about?” Jin Weicheng said.

“I do.” Yu Hao said, “The area around Fuyao River suffers from the worst pollution.”

They went to the bus station, Yu Hao bought tickets. It was really too cold here; the temperature dropped to near zero degrees after night fell, and it was so cold that he started shivering uncontrollably. Jin Weicheng also shuddered as he stood. Yu Hao bought a bottle of Erguotou for him to drink and warm his body. He freed some time to look at his phone while they waited at the bus station. His portable charger and phone were almost out of battery.

Jin Weicheng’s phone with a cracked screen was practically a monster that ate up energy. As long as he went out for interviews with Jin Weicheng, his phone would be able to devour the power of at least a dozen portable chargers. Yu Hao was always on edge as he hoped that his phone would be able to hold on for just a little longer. His chargers really couldn’t stand Jin Weicheng anymore, so Situ Ye bought a portable charger for Jin Weicheng out of his own pockets.

But in the end, Yu Hao realised that Jin Weicheng was using Yu Hao’s portable charger to charge his own portable charger and finally went nuts. He decided to bring along another one for him.

This Jin Laoshi was the perfect example of the proverbs “no one is perfect” and “everyone has a defect” to Yu Hao. His professional competence was stronger than that of Lin Ze, but he could be very irritating sometimes, yet at other times, people wouldn’t even be able to get annoyed at him.

“The weather’s really too cold.” Yu Hao held a heating pad. When they arrived at the county town, it was already the afternoon of the next day, “Let’s find a place to stay at first ba.”

Jin Weicheng was slightly surprised. When they conducted interviews in Beijing, Yu Hao arranged everything pretty well, but that was in the big city. He didn’t expect that after coming to an unfamiliar place, Yu Hao seemed to still understand how to deal with people very well. When he was looking for lodgings, he surveyed the surroundings first and even took a look behind the three-storey hotel.

“Who taught you?” Jin Weicheng asked.

“Ah Ze.” Yu Hao said, “When coming out for interviews, he said to pay attention to a hotel where it would be convenient for escaping.”

When Yu Hao was revising manuscripts in the office, Lin Ze gave him a lot of advice about the troubles one would encounter when interviewing people. Yu Hao would casually write them down while he listened, but most of the situations were just theoretical. Whether or not he could smoothly solve an unexpected situation was still a problem.

“Do we eat?” Yu Hao said, “Are we going to make a move at night?”

Jin Weicheng realised that Lin Ze did intend to nurture this intern properly, so he nodded slightly.

“We’ll look around at night.” Jin Weicheng said.

Yu Hao showed Jin Weicheng a printed map, where marks had been made of the locations of the county government, battery plant, hospital, and so on. Jin Weicheng said, “We’ll go to the hospital at night. You’re in charge of taking photos, so be careful with your camera.”

Yu Hao said, “I’ll pretend to have eaten something wrong and get emergency treatment, then no one would suspect anything.”

“Alright.” Jin Weicheng said, “That’s a good idea, I’ll have to trouble you then.”

The lodging Yu Hao chose was located in the center of the county. There was a hospital and government agency nearby, as well as the largest supermarket in the county. Yu Hao and Jin Weicheng had dinner near the People’s Hospital and began complaining of a stomach ache. Jin Weicheng immediately sent Yu Hao to the hospital for emergency treatment. There was only one doctor on duty in the local hospital, who had a very strong accent when he spoke in Mandarin. Yu Hao’s face was ghastly pale, and he lay sprawled on the table as he groaned. Jin Weicheng kept rubbing his hands at one side.

“Are you two not locals?” The doctor on duty asked.

Jin Weicheng told him that this was his nephew, who was here to sell water purifiers. The doctor said, “Why did you only come after his condition deteriorated so much? There’s inflammation, get him on a drip ba.”

Yu Hao’s cold hadn’t completely recovered in the first place; he didn’t expect to get treated in passing. The doctor said, “It’s gastroenteritis caused by a cold, he’ll be fine after the inflammation is alleviated.” So he asked Yu Hao to get on an IV. Jin Weicheng looked at the medication, which was an anti-inflammatory drug. He asked Yu Hao, “You wanna get a shot?”

Yu Hao didn’t know what to do either.

“He’s already this sick! It might develop into pneumonia!” The doctor said.

Jin Weicheng said, “Are there any beds? We just arrived, so let him stay overnight? Then you can help us save on some hotel money.”

Doctor, “We only have one bed free, but the two of you have to leave tomorrow morning right after your IV. We don’t have anymore beds left.”

Yu Hao pretended to be absolutely exhausted. Jin Weicheng said, “Okay.”

Yu Hao’s fake illness had turned into a real one, so he had to obediently get a shot.

Yu Hao called Zhou Sheng, but the signal at the other side was intermittent as well.

Yu Hao, “What are you doing?”

Zhou Sheng, “Turn on the video. Wife, where are you?”

Yu Hao didn’t dare turn on the video. He was afraid that after seeing him at the hospital,

Zhou Sheng would worry for nothing, so he typed a message to say that he had already arrived at a hotel in Guangxian.

The nurse came over to get Yu Hao on an IV and asked what they were doing. Jin Weicheng answered honestly and guarded Yu Hao in the ward. As soon as the nurse left, Jin Weicheng went to flip through the medical records of the other people in the ward and took his phone out to take photos.

“I’ll go take a look.” Jin Weicheng said.

“The IV will probably be done in half an hour.” Yu Hao answered, “Laoshi go through the emergency exit. Don’t enter the lift, someone might bump into you, so pretend to go to the toilet.”

Jin Weicheng uttered an “un”. The IV was inserted into Yu Hao’s left hand. After the nurse left, he got up to go uncover the sheets of the patients in the adjacent ward. With his earphones on, he dialled Jin Weicheng’s number.

Jin Weicheng, “My phone’s running out of battery. Ring the bell to call the doctor over and stall him for fifteen minutes. I’ll go into his office to take a look.”

Yu Hao rang the bell to call the doctor. The nurses and doctor came. Yu Hao groaned, “Am I allergic to this medication……”

“That’s impossible!” The doctor said, “How could you be allergic to this?’

“I’m so cold.” Yu Hao groaned.

“It’s infusing too rapidly.” The doctor said, “Don’t touch it! Why did you adjust it to such a rapid rate? Are you crazy!”

Yu Hao, “Oh yeah……”

Doctor, “……”

There wasn’t any problem with that logic. Yu Hao kept making a ruckus and pulled on the doctor’s white coat to not let him leave.

Jin Weicheng entered the doctor’s office. The computer was still on. He immediately took out the micro camera Lin Ze distributed and began taking photos of the medical records on the monitor screen.

“If only I could record videos.” Jin Weicheng said, “But unfortunately we don’t have a video recorder.” Then he clicked on the ‘return to previous page’ button on the medical records page, and an abbreviated table popped up. There were hundreds of names on it, hospitalization times, and overviews of the patients’ conditions. He scrolled down with his left hand on the mouse while he held a camera with his right, and took more than ten pictures in a row.

“They’re going back.” Yu Hao said through his earphones.

“Stall them for a little longer.” Jin Weicheng said.

Yu Hao, “I can’t, I’ve already tried my best……”

Jin Weicheng clicked open the medical records of a few patients at random and took some pictures of the screen, then darted out. After waiting for a while, the doctor and nurses hadn’t returned. Jin Weicheng felt dissatisfied and wanted to go in again to take more pictures, but the doctor now finally came back, so he had to give up on that thought for now.

Yu Hao was on an IV for half an hour, and it was really effective. He felt much better now. He thought that it was more or less okay, so he took the needle out and went to look at the patients in front of his bed one by one without making a sound.

Most of the patients were asleep and were surrounded by a screen. Yu Hao saw an old lady with a larynx tube. He took her medical records for a look. The doctor’s words were like scrawls, but he could discern the word ‘poisoning’, and the word ‘poisoning’ was preceded by a chemical element symbol.

Yu Hao placed the medical record within the range of his lens, then took a photo of both the record and the patient together. Jin Weicheng said, I’ll go look for those undergoing kidney dialysis.”

“There shouldn’t be anyone now ba.” Yu Hao said softly and started taking photos one by one. He really wished that he had a video recorder right now.

Jin Weicheng said, “There are, they’re still queuing. Go take a look in the office and take your recording pen out.”

After Yu Hao finished a round of photo taking, he slung his bag over his shoulder and took his recording pen out, “What do I record?”

“It’s up to you.” Jin Weicheng said, “Judge for yourself.”

“Where is this……” Yu Hao ran towards the door at the end of the corridor and almost shouted ‘what the fuck is this a morgue’……and immediately hurried up the stairs. He heard a woman screaming, so he took his recording pen out and approached, oh……someone’s giving birth.

The pregnant woman was pushed across a corridor by a nurse and into the delivery room. She flung her hand everywhere to grab at anything in sight and instantly grabbed onto Yu Hao’s wrist.

“Family members wait outside!” The nurse said, “Don’t go inside!”

Yu Hao and the pregnant lady looked at each other when his wrist was grabbed by her, and he was immediately scared witless. With fear in her eyes, she clutched onto Yu Hao tightly and left a few deep, red imprints on his wrist. She shouted a few words and didn’t seem to have been speaking in the local dialect. The nurse pried her fingers open, and the pregnant lady suddenly started shouting again. She wailed as she shouted and got pushed away.

Yu Hao went downstairs again and looked for the office. He wanted to see if there was any useful information.

“Who are you looking for” The nurse asked unhappily, seeing Yu Hao peeking in and out of the office.

“Ah! I’m looking for the doctor!” Yu Hao tucked the recording pen in his sleeve, “I won’t finish the rest of the IV, I want to leave.”

“You weren’t even on the IV for that long.” The nurse said, “You haven’t finished a bottle yet.”

Yu Hao said, “I’m much better now.”

The doctor came out too, “No, go back and finish it!”

Yu Hao said, “I’m scared! What if someone suddenly dies in that ward……”

Doctor, “You……”

Yu Hao said, “The one on the bed beside me was too scary, what happened to him? Did he get poisoned? Why was his complexion so green?”

The doctor said roughly, “It’s none of your business!”

Yu Hao repeatedly said that he wouldn’t continue with his IV, so the doctor couldn’t force him. Yu Hao carried his bag as he left and waited for Jin Weicheng at the hospital entrance. He didn’t know why he had a nagging sensation that something was wrong. Jin Weicheng came down, Yu Hao said, “Give me a moment……there’s something else I need to do.”

As he spoke, he ran to the obstetrics and gynecology department and saw a family waiting outside. The doctor and midwives on duty in the office went into the delivery room to help deliver the baby. Yu Hao flipped through the half written medical records on the table and took a photo of the pregnant lady’s name and her home address while his heart thumped wildly.

“Are you done?” Jin Weicheng said through his earphones.

Yu Hao, “Hold on.” Then he began rummaging through the files in the folder. He found a form with an inch-long photo, looked down, and it was a village in the outskirts of Guangxian. He took another photo. After verifying the name, just as he was about to put the form back, he was silent for a moment before he folded the paper and took it away.

“I’ll go to the public bath to wash up.” Jin Weicheng rubbed his fingers to signal to Yu Hao to give him some money, “And get some information along the way. Will you go?”

Yu Hao waved his hand, “I’ll go back to the hotel.”

He needed to hurry back to sort out the photos on hand and charge everything. When he returned to the hotel, Yu Hao passed by a small shop and an idea struck him. He then bought six meat floss buns and stuffed them into his bag.

After returning to his room, Yu Hao took a bath and came out to check all his electronic devices. Apple phones would automatically shut down whenever it was too hot or too cold, that was one of its really annoying points.

Zhou Sheng:【Sleeping?】

Yu Hao:【I’m in the hotel.】

Zhou Sheng turned on the video. While Yu Hao turned on his camera to send pictures to his phone through Bluetooth, he transferred it to the cloud for a backup as well to avoid any problems. That was something Situ Ye taught him. Boss taught him how to interview and fool people, while Lady Boss taught him composition techniques, taking sneak shots, and other photography skills. Yu Hao had unknowingly obtained the teachings handed down by both Lin Ze and Situ Ye.

“I was so nervous just now……” Yu Hao was really incredibly nervous when he took photos in the hospital, but after he started talking he immediately stopped. “Where are you?”

Zhou Sheng had really bad signal on his side, it was intermittent, like he was on some car.

“Where are you going tomorrow?” Zhou Sheng asked.

“We’ll be investigating around the periphery of the plant tomorrow.” Yu Hao said, “Laoshi went to the public bath.”

Zhou Sheng, “Oh? He went to get a massage?’

Yu Hao said, “You don’t need to care about other people’s affairs so much.”

Zhou Sheng asked, “Which plant?”

Yu Hao said, “Guangxian battery plant.”

Zhou Sheng’s voice carried a hint of a smile, “My baby’s pretty high-spirited ah.”

Yu Hao, “You too ba? You’re in a good mood right?"

Zhou Sheng whistled, “Of course I am.”

Yu Hao, “Why are you in such a good mood?"

Zhou Sheng said, “Young Master won’t tell you.”

Yu Hao laughed. It was pitch dark on the other side, and all he could see was the blurred outline of Zhou Sheng’s side profile. He was probably on a car after work, “Go back earlier and take a bath. We’ll meet in a few days.”

“Un.” Zhou Sheng answered, “You sleep earlier too.”

Translator's Note:

Juurensha: Yaaay, Haohao gets to be a real reporter now. Also ZS interacting with STY and LZ was great.

Share