Treasure Hunt Tycoon - Chapter 1574: Xie Laohou
Such a big auction site would naturally have a surveillance camera, but Li Du and Zhong Dapao’s status did not qualify them to check it out. The Myanmar police would not bother inspecting the surveillance record just to find an unknown missing person.
After leaving the site, Li Du looked outside. More and more vendors came to the scene. It seemed like a market inside the site, but it was a real market outside. There were many food caravans on the street that caused a traffic jam.
It was mealtime, and these food caravans were here to earn some money from the patrons. The annual public jade auction was akin to the New Year celebration and the 11.11 big sales in Hpakant town, rolled in one. All the people who participated in the auctions were rich. They treated money like water and liked to give tips, and it was the easiest to earn money from them.
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Li Du went to the intersection of the streets to find Brother Wolf, and asked, “Did you see Da Mao anywhere here?”
Brother Wolf shook his head and said, “No, is Da Mao missing?”
Li Du said, “Yes, he was not on the site. I guess he was taken out.”
Brother Wolf whistled, called a group of bodyguards to gather up, and said, “Go and check out the surveillance camera. Boss, do you know what time exactly he went missing?”
Zhong Dapao, who was beside him, was exulted. “You even installed a surveillance camera here?”
Brother Wolf said, “We installed two surveillance cameras to collect information, just in case.”
The Markelov brothers copied the images from the car’s hard drive and transferred them into the computer, where they searched through the record carefully.
They began to look for him starting from 8.30 AM. More than 10 minutes later, Liu Zi looked, pointed at the screen and said, “Here, can you enlarge the image? This is Da Mao.”
The equipment was simple; there were only video and no other functions such as enlarging. They just slowed down the video and watched frame by frame. Fortunately, the image was considered pretty clear, and they soon determined that it was indeed Da Mao.
Da Mao did not look like himself. He was wearing a baseball cap and a wide T-shirt, and it would be hard to tell who he was from any other angle if he wasn’t sometimes looking around right in the direction of the cameras.
If the identity of Da Mao was uncertain because of the change of clothes, the person next to him still looked the same he had when he met Li Du and others, which made it easier to confirm.
Li Du’s guess was right. It was Master Dao and his men who abducted Da Mao. The two people beside Da Mao were Lu Dayou and Xiao Liao!
“F**k them!” Liu Zi was in a rage. “They can’t run away from us, damn it. Shall we go straight to their den and beat them up?”
Zhong Dapao said, “Call the men, I’ll go and look for someone to check out the situation.”
Li Du stopped him and calmly analyzed, “What do you think these people took Da Mao for? Da Mao did not have any trouble with them, did he?”
“No, why would he?”
Li Du continued, “Then it is obvious that they are trying to get back at me. I got a lot of money from them and they want it back.”
“They didn’t kidnap him to ask us for ransom. They dare not do that, or the police and you would give them a lesson.”
“Why would they dare to do that when they know that taking him away will irritate you and even put them in court? Are they not afraid of you? And what do they want to gain by taking Da Mao? They want money. Can you think of any way having Da Mao in their hands would help them earn money?”
Zhong Dapao was a little thrown aback by the questions thrown at him, but he was able to survive in Hpakant for so long not just because he was bold and not afraid of death; he was also very cunning and knew how to read through people.
Listening to Li Du’s question, he said, “They must be afraid of us. They’re just a few fraudsters, it would be easy for me to deal with them. They’ll either find their patron or they’ll run away if they have no guts to face us. I’ll kill them if I catch them!”
“As for money, Da Mao has the ability to bet on stones. They could force him to do that for them. No, this does not work, the people who were gambling on stones are now in the auction. They have to rely on bigshots to make money so they must come to the auction, rather than leaving…”
Li Du summed it up for him, “That is to say, most likely, they would kidnap Da Mao to give him to someone who would cover up for them and give them money to thank them.”
“We don’t need to go to their nest, it would be useless. T
They would not go back; they would take Da Mao directly to meet someone. Who do you think is interested in Da Mao other than the King of Hpakant?”
Zhong Dapao clenched his teeth and said, “Xie Laohou!”
Hearing this name, Li Du immediately thought of the several people they met at the reception in the morning, and said, “Xie Laohou? The man who quarreled with you this morning, was that him?”
Zhong Dapao nodded darkly. “Yes, he came to me a few days ago and asked me if he could borrow Da Mao. I shooed him off. He told me that he would get Da Mao for sure. Damn, it seems that this morning it was not a chance encounter. I wondered at the coincidence. I did not expect that I would enter the field with this fella!”
Li Du said, “He was at the auction like we were before. If the swindlers wanted to give Da Mao to him, they wouldn’t be meeting far away. Xie Laohou didn’t bring Da Mao to the meeting, which means that Da Mao may not have fallen into his hands yet.”
“The swindlers are small characters and no one pays attention to them. Xie Laohou is a big man, and someone would have noticed where he went, right? Go to the owners of the trishaws and ask about it.”
There were too many stalls around, too many people, and cars could not enter. People could only rely on their two feet or on trishaws if they wanted to go out. Therefore, Xie Laohou might have left the auction by walking or by riding a trishaw.
Zhong Dapao went and asked around a few trishaw owners, and soon learned about Xie Laohou’s whereabouts.
“KAK Hotel! Xie Laohou went to KAK Hotel. He had gone not long ago, came out less than half an hour before,” Zhong Dapao said.
They hired a few trishaws and the little caravan roared away.
On the way, Li Du asked, “What’s wrong with this Xie Laohou? He’s Chinese, right?”
Zhong Dapao shook his head. “No, he is a Burmese. That is his name, not a nickname or anything. His surname is Xielao.”
Li Du raised his eyebrows. This fella’s parents were indeed good at choosing names, given the fact that they named him Hou (monkey).
In fact, it was quite common. The monkey god was revered in countries like Myanmar. Monkeys were also common in rainforests. They represented agility, health, brilliance, and thus many children were named thus.
Zhong Dapao told Li Du that Xie Laohou was the boss of a field site. The field area was taken back by the country now, and the ownership was national. Nevertheless, the right of operation was contracted out, and a few big men were field area bosses nominally, although the actual strength and financial resources were inferior to in the past.
A field area was composed of many field sites, which were bought by the government too. The boss of a field site still could not compare with the boss of a field area, and their income was not as high.
In the past, the owners of the field site only sold the stones, but now they also engaged in their own gambling stone business. They would buy the stones from their field mouth or the field around the area.
In this process, they need expert help to identify the stone, so Da Mao’s talent would be extremely valuable to them!
