Chapter 445: Found
After all the police had left, Mei Ruyan let out a long sigh of relief.
Lin Tian sat across from Mei Ruyan, watching as she crossed her legs, dressed in a professional office outfit. Lin Tian swallowed hard.
She’s tempting me, Lin Tian thought.
Mei Ruyan noticed Lin Tian’s gaze but didn’t mind. Instead, she placed her crossed legs on the coffee table.
The black stockings emphasized the slender length of her legs, perfectly filling out where needed, proportionate where necessary, leaving Lin Tian staring unblinkingly.
"A guy with desires but no courage."
Mei Ruyan smiled slightly, not feeling any embarrassment in front of Lin Tian. Instead, she found Lin Tian’s ’look but can’t touch’ expression amusing.
Lin Tian was unfazed, stealing glances at her long legs clad in black stockings while voicing his doubt: "How did you pull off what was in those surveillance tapes?"
Mei Ruyan’s lips curled in a cold, smug smile. "I knew you’d ask that. Actually, the surveillance is from another teahouse. I just bought it to use."
Lin Tian was even more puzzled and asked, "Another teahouse? How’s that possible?"
"It’s simple. After clearing out the card game area yesterday, I had them find a teahouse roughly the same size as ours and renovated this place to be a spitting image of that one. So even if the police took the surveillance, without carefully comparing the seventh floor, they wouldn’t see any differences."
Lin Tian was genuinely impressed after hearing this; he had no idea Mei Ruyan had such a trick up her sleeve. Indeed, dressing in office attire makes one appear smarter.
After chatting for a while, Lin Tian withdrew his gaze from Mei Ruyan’s long legs and called Xu Ning’an.
Upon receiving Lin Tian’s call, Xu Ning’an got straight to the point: "Bai Shishi is still missing."
Hearing this news, Lin Tian couldn’t be happy. The Xianglong Tea House’s gambling den was important, but nothing was more important than Bai Shishi.
The reason Lin Tian stayed at Xianglong Tea House was so he could receive news about Bai Shishi as soon as possible.
Even though he knew this was the outcome, hearing it from Xu Ning’an still brought an inexplicable sense of loss.
"Okay, I understand. There’s another thing I wanted to ask you," Lin Tian said.
"What is it?"
"A while ago, after you captured those dozens of drug traffickers from the villa, have you been monitoring Du Dahai?"
"No, we haven’t. Du Dahai has too many people, it’s impossible to investigate thoroughly. They’re all very alert, the amount of drugs trafficked is small and we only have some evidence, but we’ll soon bust Du Dahai’s entire operation," Xu Ning’an replied.
"Do you know if Du Dahai has any contact with the Wang Family?"
"Seems like he doesn’t."
"Alright."
Lin Tian felt a bit disheartened; the feeling of being pressed down with no chance of counterattack was truly frustrating.
After hanging up, Mei Ruyan was already sitting next to Lin Tian, her legs draped in black stockings crossed. She meant no seduction, merely placed the phone in front of Lin Tian and said, "Look."
Lin Tian took the phone. On the screen was a webpage with the headline "Officials Collude with Business, Corrupt Bai Family Officials Fall Overnight."
The glaring headline gave Lin Tian a bad feeling, and he couldn’t wait to read on.
The article mainly criticized the Bai Family’s scandal revealed yesterday. Real or not, there was widespread condemnation. It then introduced seven officials who were all removed from their posts last night.
The details noted that these high-ranking officials were all implicated by the Bai Family scandal, charged mainly with bribery and corruption.
"Are these people really connected to the Bai Family?" Lin Tian asked, handing the phone back.
Mei Ruyan shook her head, "I just inquired with the Bai Family; they say only two of them entered due to the Bai Family, the other five were framed."
Lin Tian let out a deep sigh. Even if this was true, no one would listen to the Bai Family’s explanation. The Bai Family was now like rats crossing the street, shouted by everyone.
"Bai Tianlong just held a press conference, clarifying and assuring. I think, with his personality, making such statements implies he’s ready to fortify defenses, not just empty words."
After hearing this, Lin Tian shook his head and said, "He’s only saying pleasant things on the surface. We’ve worked hard overnight to change our card game area so much; the Bai Family was hit with over a dozen deadly scandals all at once. Is there really any defense?"
Mei Ruyan fell silent because everything Lin Tian said was true, leaving her no room to argue.
Suddenly, Lin Tian’s phone rang again; it was Wu Yong calling.
As soon as the call connected, Wu Yong said, "Tian, there’s news about Miss Bai."
Lin Tian jumped up from the sofa, asking hastily, "Where is she?"
"In a villa on the outskirts, I checked the location; it’s remote, probably quite far from you," Wu Yong replied.
Mei Ruyan also heard the voice on the phone and anxiously asked, "How did you find her?"
She’s aware of Wu Yong and his team’s strength, mainly a few special forces operatives, hardly enough people. She dispatched nearly a thousand people to no avail, yet Wu Yong found her.
It made her worried about the authenticity of the information.
"When contacting Pang Yu yesterday, we borrowed an expert hacker from them, tapped into surveillance along the route, and discovered Miss Bai’s incident near Anping Road. She vanished after reaching a surveillance blind spot."
"However, this is a residential area; we offered a high reward for information, and later someone reported seeing a woman in white—very much like Miss Bai—being taken into a vehicle and left."
"The person couldn’t recall the license plate but knew it was a white Jetta. After further surveillance investigations, we found the plate was obscured, traveling toward the villa I mentioned."
"I’ve already sent a few skilled brothers there. They’ll assess the situation first, and if there’s an opportunity, they’ll rescue Shishi immediately."
Upon hearing this, both Lin Tian and Mei Ruyan were relieved.
Lin Tian didn’t pause for a moment, setting down the phone and striding out.
Mei Ruyan hurriedly followed, saying, "I’ll go with you."
"No way. Someone needs to maintain order in the tea house," Lin Tian refused without hesitation.
But Mei Ruyan’s stubborn nature wouldn’t heed Lin Tian’s words, merely saying, "There are no other matters in the tea house now; I must go."
After speaking, Mei Ruyan stepped in front of Lin Tian.