radicalducati Page 126
Page 126
She didn't intend to introduce herself.
Gu Ran didn't give up and continued with a smile, "It's fate that we met. How about we exchange QQ numbers? And maybe phone numbers?"
The woman in the black dress sneered: "You ask for another woman's contact information in front of your girlfriend? Aren't you afraid she'll get jealous?"
Gu Ran glanced at Su Xi beside him and said, "She's my senior, not my girlfriend."
Susie nodded in agreement, saying, "We actually wanted to ask if you knew that assassin from earlier?"
"I don't know him," the woman in the black dress replied coldly, then looked at Gu Ran and said, "Tell me, how did you just make the gun explode?"
Susie was also curious and stared at him with wide eyes.
"It's just a simple family skill..." Gu Ran then made up a story.
In fact, he used his Sharingan to copy Constantine's ability to command metal, and then used his Word of Power to destroy the gun barrel and the loaded bullet.
He hadn't succeeded before because he didn't have fire-attribute chakra, but after successfully unlocking fire-attribute chakra, he could now use the power of commanding metal.
"A family heirloom...that's interesting."
The woman in the black dress nodded slightly and then walked towards the black Porsche sports car parked not far away.
Just as she was about to open the car door and get into the driver's seat, Gu Ran approached at lightning speed, placing his hand on the door to prevent her from opening it.
"Sister, let's talk some more, I really mean it." Gu Ran adopted the same approach she used to coax Su Xiaoqiang, displaying an extremely bright expression.
He then asked, "Can you tell me if your surname is Zhang? Are you also helping to find my mother? What have you found out? Tell me about it!"
She remained unmoved, her face indifferent, and coldly said, "Get out of the way."
Seeing that she was unyielding, Gu Ran had no choice but to raise his hand to open the car door.
The girl in the black dress got into the car, stepped on the gas, and drove off.
After the car had driven a dozen meters, the girl in the black dress suddenly smiled, remembering how Gu Ran had acted cute earlier.
"You dare flirt with me, kid? You'll regret this later."
The black Porsche sped away, and Gu Ran watched the taillights disappear from sight without feeling annoyed.
He asked Susie, "Did you get a picture of her?"
“Mm.” Susie nodded. She had just secretly taken a few photos, which she was going to send to Norma for identification.
"That's good. We'll find out her identity someday," Gu Ran thought to himself.
This Zhang family member might be some kind of relative of mine.
……
Back at the hotel, Gu Ran told Su Qian the whole story about her mother, Zhang Qiong.
Susie had only heard about Zhang Qiong's situation before, but didn't know the details. Now that she knew the reason, she thought she must do her best to help, as a way of repaying Gu Ran for saving her life.
Seeing Gu Ran deep in thought, she assumed he was worried about his mother's safety and reassured him, "Don't worry, we will definitely rescue your mother."
"Mm." Gu Ran smiled slightly.
He's now thinking about how to get the Zhang family in Chiang Mai to talk and reveal the whereabouts of the other three households.
As it stands, the Zhang family in Chiang Mai is unaware of their mother's situation, so it's possible that it was done by the other three families.
The whereabouts of the other three families remain a mystery. They are very well hidden, and Norma has been unable to find any clues.
The old man on the phone tonight seemed to be trying to avoid trouble, and with another grandson gone, it seems there's no way to break through his defenses.
Gu Ran had previously used the assassin's information to make a deal with Zhang Lin, and was almost successful, but a phone call from that old man interrupted the transaction.
Perhaps... we can use that assassin as leverage to exchange information!
So, Gu Ran and Susie discussed it and reported the assassin incident to Siam's executive officer Xiao Shui and Johnson.
After receiving feedback from Susie, they said they would arrive in Chiang Mai the next morning to exchange information.
……
The next day, Xiao Shui and Johnson took the earliest flight to Chiang Mai.
Susie had already booked a suite with a living room at the hotel, and the four of them began discussing the assassin.
Xiao Shui told Gu Ran that they had not yet found out the killer's true identity, nor did they know why the killer wanted to kill the Bangkok senator.
Gu Ran did manage to see his face last night by rolling her eyes, but his drawing skills were too poor to capture the features of a human face at all.
Xiao Shui and Johnson, through information from the Siam Police Department, discovered that two days before the Bangkok city councilor was murdered, a cardiologist on vacation in Phuket was also killed by firing squad. The bullets matched the model of the handgun.
This doctor is a renowned cardiology professor in Siam, and his fees start at $100,000 per surgery.
After hearing this information, Susie wrote down the details of the three people on an A4 sheet of paper: "Doctor, Congressman, Zhang Minghao... What do these three have in common? Why would the assassin want to kill them?"
Chapter 155 The Assassin's Motive
"Perhaps, all three of them are lecherous?" Gu Ran began to brainstorm.
Xiao Shui shook her head: "The councilor isn't a womanizer. He has a good reputation. He loves his wife and daughter very much and is a family man."
“It’s obvious this is revenge,” Johnson said at this point. “I just don’t know how these three people offended the assassin.”
"A gangster's son, a cardiologist, a congressman..." Gu Ran suddenly had a bold idea, "Did the congressman have surgery with this doctor?"
Xiao Shui pondered for a moment: "I remember that the councilor has never had surgery. If he had, there would have been public news about it."
"His family?"
Johnson thought for a moment and said, "His wife seems to have had heart bypass surgery last month. I remember him mentioning it once during a social gathering."
Gu Ran murmured, "Heart bypass... I'm afraid it's not heart bypass, but a heart transplant. Then everything makes sense."
Upon hearing this, the others immediately understood Gu Ran's guess.
"You mean, organ trafficking?" Susie had done her research before coming to Siam and knew that the black market for organs was rampant there.
In remote mountainous areas of Siam, you can often see unnamed mass graves where people who have had their kidneys or other organs removed are dumped in the mountains because there is nowhere else to dispose of them.
Later, they realized that throwing them into the mountains was too troublesome, and if it were made public, it would damage Siam's tourism image, and the Siamese government would cause trouble. Those with connections would then take the opportunity to find an excuse to increase protection fees.
So organ traffickers changed their methods and built crocodile ponds. After taking all the organs from a human body, they would throw the corpse directly into the crocodile pond to feed the crocodiles.
Crocodiles have a highly developed digestive system that can even dissolve bones.
Susie organized her thoughts in her notebook: "So the Zhang family in Chiang Mai is very likely involved in the human organ trade. They took the heart of one of the assassin's relatives and sold it to a member of parliament. The member of parliament then hired a doctor to perform the surgery... What did the doctor do wrong by just performing the surgery?"
“Organs of unknown origin are not permitted for heart transplantation,” Xiao Shui said. “This doctor took bribes and performed the surgery in violation of regulations.”
Johnson looked at Susie's organized thoughts and felt that this was the most reasonable guess.
He said, "It seems that this killer is just an avenger targeting a specific group of people, so we only need to monitor him and there is no need to rush to find out his identity."
“Unless… his bloodline has become uncontrollable and we need to clean it up,” Xiao Shui said.
Gu Ran understood the meaning behind their words: they were not security guards and did not need to arrest criminals; their job was simply to prevent this person from harming innocent people.
As for the rights and wrongs in this case, the enforcement department is not concerned.
But Gu Ran needed this assassin as a bargaining chip to negotiate with the Zhang family, hoping to obtain information about the whereabouts of the other three Zhang families in Southeast Asia.
It wasn't that Gu Ran was handing the assassin over to the Zhang family; he simply wanted to learn the whole story from the assassin so he could put on a show for the Zhang family.
Gu Ran said, "The basis for this speculation is that the Zhang family in Chiang Mai really did engage in organ trafficking... But according to our current intelligence, they are not involved in this kind of criminal activity."
The Zhang family of Chiang Mai has influence only within Chiang Mai, and their businesses consist of two main areas: prostitution and gambling.
These two areas alone, accumulated over many years, have allowed them to amass enormous wealth.
"Let's go check it out," Xiao Shui said. "I'll go to the local police station and ask around; we should be able to get some clues."
Gu Ran also said, "I'll go ask my informant again; he might know something."
“I’ll go with you,” Susie said.
So the four of them went about their own business and agreed to meet again that evening.
……
In the afternoon, Gu Ran and Su Xi sought out Zhang Acai to inquire about the Zhang family's businesses in Chiang Mai.
"The buying and selling of human organs... I've never heard of it." Zhang Acai took a hundred dollars and began to give his information. "If they really were involved in this business, over the years, there would have been some word of it in the local area."
The Zhang family's influence in Chiang Mai was truly confined to Chiang Mai and did not extend to other parts of Siam.
Zhang Acai thought about it seriously and said, "However, I heard that decades ago, the Zhang family in Chiang Mai also worked as assassins. They were involved in some assassination activities of the Siamese high-ranking officials. Whether they still do it now, nobody knows."
“Assassins…” Gu Ran recalled the attack on Tian Ding Mountain, “Do they have any connection with the Golden Triangle?”
“I don’t know about that, so I dare not say anything,” Zhang Acai said. “But I heard my grandfather say that the Chinese in the Golden Triangle are all unregistered militia members… well, it’s a historical legacy.”
Gu Ran knew that history. After the defeated army withdrew from Yunnan Province, they ended up in the Golden Triangle and had nowhere to go.
They originally wanted to conquer Myanmar, but Myanmar sought help from the United Nations. With international intervention, this defeated army had no choice but to wander around and eventually settled in the Golden Triangle, a no-man's-land.
Based on this, it seems that the Zhang family in Chiang Mai must have some connection with the assassin groups in the Golden Triangle.
Having obtained little information on this trip, Gu Ran and Su Xi had no choice but to return home.
Susie had been following Gu Ran closely when she suddenly noticed him stop in his tracks.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"No, I found something interesting." Gu Ran walked straight into a shop and picked up a silver leaf.
The shop owner speaks English. He explained that these are pure silver leaf bookmarks, very thin and light, made by a craftsman in his fifties. The workmanship is exquisite, with the veins of the leaves clearly visible.
Susie saw how exquisitely made the bookmark was, and then looked at the smiling face of Gu Ran as he chose it, and immediately guessed what he was thinking.
"Buying it as a gift for your girlfriend?" she asked.
"Ah."
Gu Ran thought to herself, "Su Xiaoqiang will definitely like this."
When she reads, she usually just uses a pen to make bookmarks, or sometimes she just folds a page; she rarely uses bookmarks.
This bookmark is exquisitely made and functional, killing two birds with one stone.
Without saying a word, Gu Ran bought two silver leaves and asked the shopkeeper to wrap them up for her.