Chapter 1287: Ways to Earn Pocket Money
Brother Yu died without a doubt. In the following days, Brother Song never used his own communicator to contact anyone else. Only once did he use the communicator he used for work to contact that friend at the city government again, and learned that the communicator used by the whistleblower had been stolen two years ago. It had been crudely covered with a fake identity that didn't exist, overwriting the original holder's information, and had been used intermittently over the past two years, proving that the whistleblower was from Fresh Flower City.
Additionally, this communicator had reported more than just Brother Yu. It had subsequently reported three other players involved in kidnapping and human trafficking—the common trait among these people was that they often hung around groups of disheartened players and engaged in all kinds of swindling and shady business.
"Probably reported by a rival in the same trade," said the city government staff member. "Those lowlifes sometimes fight until brains spill out just to compete for territory. Reporting someone in the chaos is nothing... You're not involved in this, are you?"
"Is this matter serious?" Brother Song couldn't help asking.
"It's not that serious, but it's not trivial either. One of the children's fathers has some connection to a player within the Field family, and he has some status himself. He stirred up such a big incident. Although he's been detained for investigation, considering the Field family's face, he'll probably be released soon. At the same time, to give the Field family an explanation, some people will have to be dealt with." The other party paused before lowering his voice. "Even though it's only because of the Field family's influence that this blew up, it still somewhat avenges those dead children. You're really not involved, are you? If you are, we can't be friends anymore."
"Don't you know what kind of person I am? At most, I do some small reselling business," Brother Song said. "I've seen those records. Those children were pitiful."
"Indeed..."
After a few more words, they ended the call. Brother Song put down the communicator and went back to his work.
Finally, someone from the Han family found him through his work communicator. The other party was quite angry. His projection appeared in Brother Song's fairly spacious house, and he pointed at his nose and started cursing: "You actually dared to block your communicator! I've been looking for you for days, couldn't find a trace of you. Where the hell have you been?"
Brother Song stood still, his expression also somewhat grim. "Didn't I tell you? If my communicator is off, don't contact me proactively. Wait for me to contact you."
"Wait, wait, wait! I've been waiting for days. For all I know, you could be dead somewhere!" The young man's anger hadn't subsided. "What's wrong with contacting you? Are you trying to boss me around now?"
Brother Song's expression remained unchanged. "This is for your safety. If I haven't contacted you in ten days, it means I'm in grave danger. If I die, the trail is cut off, and it won't implicate you. But if you call at this time, and someone wants to use me as bait to fish you out, aren't you just handing yourself over?"
The young man calmed down a bit. "Is it that serious? Is there still a problem now?"
Brother Song said helplessly, "It's not completely safe yet. I'll contact you in a couple of days."
With that, he ignored the young man's incredulous expression and hung up directly.
Holding the communicator, he suddenly looked up and said, "Stop hiding. You've been hiding long enough. You should come out now."
He didn't look in any particular direction but stared straight ahead with certainty. "You've gone to so much trouble to follow an ordinary person like me. There's no need."
Xu Huo, who was eating at a small shop temporarily set up nearby, didn't even raise an eyebrow. He continued eating while watching the performance. After a while, when no one responded, Brother Song relaxed his vigilance and began processing the records in his communicator.
So far, he still hadn't reopened the other communicator.
His actions might not seem very clever to players, but he had achieved ten out of ten caution. A person with such patience and resilience is less susceptible to mental interference. Of course, it's not impossible to interfere, just unnecessary.
Xu Huo still needed a potential loophole to enter the underground mine.
Only the most core members of the Han family would erase all traces of themselves from the message collection terminal. Since others had shown their faces, it was possible to dig up some gossip about them.
The person contacting Brother Song was a third-generation member of the Han family, a cousin of the long-haired young man who had set off fireworks at the club earlier.
Although they were closely related by blood, their statuses were vastly different. The long-haired young man's father held a relatively important position in the family, while the one contacting Brother Song—his father was the ninth son of the current Han family head. Not counting the old man's illegitimate children, he had eight older brothers with significant age gaps and four younger brothers behind him. He was neither at the head nor the tail, and he wasn't outstanding himself. He was almost invisible in the family. As his son, naturally, he wasn't much better off.
Of course, no matter how useless, he still bore the Han surname. The family would arrange some tasks for him. The young man's father served as the export inspector for the family company, which was essentially a quality control officer. His main responsibility was to check whether exported goods met standards—no other side tasks, just inspecting product quality. The work before and after was handled by other brothers or their people.
In that case, it was perfectly normal for him to find a way to sift out some ore to earn pocket money.
Xu Huo had already checked. Although it wasn't the official mining season that occurred every few years, ore was still being shipped out of the directly administered district. It was very likely that they were dealing with lower-quality ore excavated earlier. Unless Fresh Flower City went to great lengths to move all the ore outside before selling it, it made sense that someone from the Han family was going down into the mine.
The question was whether this father and son had the authority to enter the mine.
The blockade of the directly administered district had shown signs of easing in the past couple of days, but it still wasn't a good time to enter.
Fortunately, while he couldn't get in, the Han family members could come out.
Han Ao didn't take Brother Song's words to heart. Half a day later, he left the directly administered district to seek entertainment outside. While drinking, he got into a conflict with someone and made a small appearance in the news.
He had players following him, but when he went off to have fun with a woman, he shooed everyone out of the room.
Xu Huo had no trouble entering the room. He made him drink a bit more, and after adding some potion to the alcohol, the man spilled everything.
To him, the biggest secret was seeing his father stealing ore from the mine. Then he followed suit, finding people to dig out some low-quality ore to sell. Because he was timid and the ore quality was indeed poor, he had sought out Brother Song—according to him, other family members usually handled matters through the players around them.
Another key point was that neither he nor his father had ever seen the actual mine. When ore was being extracted, his father would enter the mine once, but the work environment looked more like a huge underground parking lot. By the time he arrived, the ore was already stacked up. The workers handling it were also rotated in shifts, so they had no idea how or from where the previous batch had moved the ore.
(Chapter End)