311 Dance of Words 2 in 1 (1/2)
When Anthony wanted to be shameless, he could be really unrivalled at it. Over the next few days, Cedrick did not give up and came for another few visits, but the result was the same—there was no progress.
Anthony insisted that he could not remember anything. No matter how he crazy acted, tried to intimidate him, or attempted to persuade him, he would act like Cedrick was the background… No, it was worse than that—he would treat him as air.
In terms of speed, Cedrick was not faster than Su Zheng; in terms of computer skill, Anthony could crush him easily with just a single finger; in terms of plotting and planning… Brother Han curled his lips into a smile, and instantly, all the plans in Cedrick's mind were exposed and neutralized.
Therefore, with no advantage on his side and the fact that he was not on his home field—with his criminal evidence was in the hands of these people—Cedrick could not use any of his tricks. He could only pray that Anthony would one day change his mind…
Even though Cedrick was reminded by Ye Shuang that he could borrow the force of another party, he was only convinced for that temporary moment. After he calmed down and gave it another thought, the more he studied, the more he felt like this choice was not a clever one.
As a famous thief, Cedrick was already on many people's radars, and many parties could not wait to get their hands on his weakness. The only reason Cedrick had survived for so long was none other than the fact that he had not exposed his weakness to anyone. However, if it was revealed that he still had close family in the world, the situation would drastically change.
If assisting the FBI to find Anthony, at most, that was a business transaction between Cedrick and the FBI. But if he surrendered to the FBI to get them to help him find his family, this was no different from handing his weakness over to those who wanted him behind bars… The most important point was, after he became famous, Cedrick would not believe that the FBI had not spent the time to go over his personal information and family history.
He had no idea why the news of his biological father and three older sisters had not been exposed. Perhaps someone helped to cover them up, or perhaps his parents were too young to register their marriage back then, so they were only married in real life but not officially. In other words, they were only living together. In any case, no matter what, since the FBI did not find out Cedrick once had a father and three old sisters, then even if he came to them with this request, the result would not have changed.
Therefore, the crucial turning point could only be on Anthony's shoulders, but the sad part was that Cedrick was powerless to move the man.
…
”Can you really not remember anything?”
Brother Shuang also could not do anything to Anthony, so Ye Shuang could only wait until she changed back to Sister Shuang before she went over to continue the interrogation. She pretended like she had just heard the gossip from others and accosted Anthony from her neighboring door, who appeared like he was going out to play.
Anthony blinked several times. After he confirmed the identity of the person who grabbed him, and his face lit up with a giant smile as he enveloped Sister Shuang in a bear hug. ”Xiao Shuang, I missed you so much!”
”Stop kidding.” Sister Shuang used her slender arm to peel off the large golden retriever easily and asked in a serious tone, ”I've heard about the incident with Cedrick, were you being serious when you said you cannot remember anything at all? I heard from Edward in France that the incident in Kansas three years ago was quite a big one. It shouldn't be something small like a random street fight, right‽”
Anthony pouted and puffed up his cheeks in indignation. ”But I really cannot remember it anymore.”
”…”
”Fine, actually, I do remember a little bit.” Seeing the disbelief on Ye Shuang's face, Anthony changed his story without a trace of hesitation and admitted proudly that he had been lying. ”How is that thief's life story related to me? Those people involved are all complicated characters.”
Ye Shuang's lips twitched slightly, and then she held her forehead powerlessly. ”Since you've already started the lie, then try not to be exposed in the future. Alright, we'll just continue to pretend that you cannot remember anything.”
Cedrick was not that important to Ye Shuang; therefore, even though it might appear selfish, Ye Shuang did not want to push Anthony for the sake of Cedrick, who currently had not clarified his stance. To put it frankly, after Anthony explained that there might be more trouble involved if they pursued this case, the choice of standing with Anthony or Cedrick could not have been clearer for Ye Shuang.
Since that's your own father, then go and look for it yourself! Since the clue appeared once, then chances are it will appear again.
There was no rule that said Anthony was the only opening that he could use. Furthermore, finding his family might not even be a good thing. After all, reality and imagination were two distinct things.
What if Cedrick's biological father was a horrible person? What if he was a lousy man and would only drag his family down? What if his three sisters were like the stepsisters in Cinderella—lazy, pretentious, condescending, and ugly?
Since Cedrick's mother had chosen to divorce his father all those years ago, there had to be a reason behind it. The reason for their break up was an unknown, and the situation was so bad that the son only knew about his real father after the mother passed away. This went to show how disastrous the relationship between the couple was. Who knew, perhaps it might be lucky for Cedrick to have grown up without the man's influence?
After making the decision to continue the deception against Cedrick, Ye Shuang pretended like she had not heard the last sentence from Anthony. ”Remember, when other people ask you about it, do not change your story or else there might be plenty of trouble for us.”
She was worried about Anthony, so she added in a concerned tone, ”I don't think you will expose this to other people, but I believe when Brother Han or other girls ask you about it, you might just let slip the information from your lips… Hmm, Brother Han knows about the limitation, so there won't be any difference even if he finds out, so the problem is for you not to fall for any beauty tricks.”
”Hey, I am a man with principles,” Anthony said like his dignity was injured. ”Han would only keep this in his record and then use it as leverage later to make me work for him. I definitely will not breathe a word about this to other women, so Xiao Shuang, you are the only person who knows this.”
”Ha ha…” A faint smile appeared on Ye Shuang's lips. I'm not sure whether I should be proud of that or not.
After getting the answer to the question that she was curious about, she turned and released the golden retriever into the wild. No matter where he was going, she also had to leave the home.
…
”My uncle has gotten the carpet pulled out from underneath him.” Her date for the day, Xu Jian, arrived at the scene, and the first thing that he said once he sat down made Ye Shuang feel the wonders of this world.
”Er…” Ye Shuang blinked several times, and then she gave the reaction that she thought she should give after she recovered. ”Do you mind giving me more details?”
Xu Jian nodded. ”I was about to tell you that.”
He ordered from the waiter, and while they waited for their orders to be served, Xu Jian used the time to arrange his thoughts. He toyed with the glass and was silent for a while. ”Things happened a bit too suddenly, so temporarily, I still have no idea what is happening up there. However, from the looks of things, my uncle was completely unprepared when this happened… I'll try my best to summarize the situation.
”The Xi Hwa Organization is the base that the organization planned to use to expand its influence in our country. Its major use is to create a server for the flow of money to facilitate the laundering of money. Therefore, my uncle and a few other members that work with him had constant communication with the organization to sign the contract or enable the movement of monetary asset.
”However, about one month ago, my uncle suddenly lost contact with the middle man.”
Xu Jian spoke slowly like he was cautious and confused by the words that left his lips. He was not only explaining the situation to Ye Shuang—at the same time, he was also trying to understand the whole incident. ”Initially, none of us paid much attention to this anomaly. After all, most countries have their Financial Investigations Unit. Whenever there is an instance of moving too much money, the organization is notified that it is a high-risk transfer. Whenever that happened before, the middle man would go into hiding. That was something that was quite common. He would always show up after the wind blew over, or a new middle man would be selected.
”But normally, this kind of situation at most would last for one or two weeks…”
With a frown, Xu Jian paused for a moment. ”After all, those who join this organization definitely have some heavy desire for money, and their worldview is a bit… Cough!”
It appeared as if he just remembered that his own uncle was part of this organization, and Xu Jian quickly coughed twice to swallow back his criticism. He took a sip of the tea to skip over this sensitive topic before continuing.
”In any case, there has always been a need to maintain constant communication between the middle man and the company manager, or else how could the organization supervise the managers and ensure that they will not do anything too drastic or away from what the organization needs them to do?”
”In other words, the middle man that your uncle is supposed to deal with has been missing for a long time, right?” Ye Shuang asked.
”Yes, it feels like our system has been abandoned.” Xu Jian smiled bitterly. ”My uncle now is also caught in a conundrum. On one hand, he is worried that the disappearance of the middle man is a sign that something bad has happened and that he will be arrested and thrown into jail at any moment, but on the other hand, if something really did happen to the middle man, then he will be able to inherit the entire the Xi Hwa Organization…”