53. The Master of Tricks

"Whoosh... whoosh... whoosh..."

"Fire! Help! Quick, neighbors, follow my orders and run that way!"

"Everyone still inside the building, evacuate immediately! The fire is getting bigger and harder to control, and it's going to spread over here in a moment!"

"Squad leader, there are still some residents living on the upper floors of this apartment. Do we need to notify them one by one?"

"Nonsense, do you even need to ask? We are police officers, and we must never abandon any citizen or the safety of their property!"

Zhou Hongyi and the other two were putting on a rehearsed performance. It was clear that Ah Gui and Fusheng were cooperating quite well. Ah Gui strictly followed Zhou Hongyi's instructions, while Fusheng's performance was practically genuine—he was truly frightened by the thick smoke.

Zhou Hongyi and his companions had tied "part-time firefighter" armbands around their arms in advance. He first had Ah Gui guard the entrance of the apartment while he walked inside to ask the first-floor administrator which apartments were still occupied so they could evacuate as quickly as possible.

The building administrator was anxious to flee for his life. If Zhou Hongyi hadn't flashed his handgun, the man wouldn't have bothered wasting any time here. Extremely reluctantly, the administrator picked up the tenant registration form, shoved it into Zhou Hongyi's arms, gave a perfunctory salute of admiration, and turned tail to run.

Zhou Hongyi scanned the list quickly and locked onto the room number of the person he was looking for. Sure enough, it matched the entry he had seen above Gu Tianbo's head the other day using his skill.

Zhou Hongyi headed upward against the flow of the crowd. Many of the tenants here were disheveled, clutching handbags, and running downstairs with panicked expressions. He was the only one walking upstairs.

"Officer, the fire has already spread! The higher you go, the more dangerous it is!"

Just as Zhou Hongyi was pushing against the current, he was grabbed by a foreign teenage girl with a high bridge of nose and brown hair who was heading downstairs. She asked with a thick Parisian accent. Could this be the person he was looking for today?

Zhou Hongyi activated his [Eye of Insight] and discovered that this brown-haired foreign girl was indeed Gu Tianbo's kept mistress.

From the girl's profile entry, he also received some additional information.

It turned out that Gu Tianbo sought out this foreign woman not merely out of lust; he also maintained an unknown business relationship with her older brother. From this, it was clear that lustful as Gu Tianbo might be, his stance on resisting the Japanese was beyond reproach. He privately traded medicine and food with foreigners in the foreign concessions and transported them to the rear base. This was a man worth befriending.

Zhou Hongyi withdrew his gaze and hurried up to the target floor. By now, the bird's nest that had thoroughly caught fire had ignited the curtains above, and the curtains in turn fueled the other fabric decorations in the room, making the blaze grow fiercer.

Not daring to delay, Zhou Hongyi walked up to the target room door, looked left and right, and kicked the old wooden door directly, breaking the lock completely.

This was the room where Gu Tianbo hid his mistress. Zhou Hongyi barged in and glanced around the room. Aside from some acrid smoke drifting in, everything else was normal. Still under the influence of the [Eye of Insight], he took the opportunity to search the girl's boudoir thoroughly.

Before long, Zhou Hongyi fished out a small box of gold and silver jewelry, which included some small gold bars. In addition, from the secret compartment under the bed, he found a handgun and a quantity of ammunition.

"It seems this foreign miss knows a thing or two about martial arts. Then I'll unceremoniously confiscate these items of yours for the public treasury."

Zhou Hongyi shoved the pocket pistol into his pocket, and the system prompt in his head finally rang out.

[Ding~ Successfully raided Gu Tianbo's mistress's boudoir, activated the skill "Trickster Master".]

[Trickster Master: Every ten days, you can activate "Trickery Construction Mode". When this mode is active, the host can briefly master abilities such as toxicology, disguise, tracking, mimicry, code-breaking, and prediction. The ability lasts for twenty-four hours, and the duration and effectiveness will gradually increase with usage proficiency.]

With a wave of unfamiliar knowledge drilling into his head, Zhou Hongyi shook his head, suppressed the excitement in his heart, walked out of the room, and ran down the apartment building against the firefighters rushing up to extinguish the fire.

When he reached the first floor, he saw Ah Gui nodding from behind the crowd. Understanding instantly, Zhou Hongyi vaulted out of another room's window into the backyard, called out to Fusheng who was keeping watch at the street corner, and quickly moved away from the scene.

This time, by utilizing the fire and his identity as a part-time firefighter, he had not only completed the check-in task but also gathered some unknown intelligence. Synthesizing these pieces of information, it could basically be confirmed that Gu Tianbo, lustful as he might be, was not muddled at all when it came to major righteousness, and had been quietly supplying medicines and grain to various anti-Japanese armed organizations. Of course, nobody is perfect; he had cheated plenty of consumers in the business world, or else he wouldn't have grown his business to such a scale.

Zhou Hongyi looked at Ah Gui and Fusheng, and smiled. "Look at the three of us. Now let's go back, take a bath, change our clothes, and I'll take you to eat something good."

Ah Gui glanced around the neighborhood, leaned in, and asked, "Boss, have you achieved your goal?"

Zhou Hongyi calmly answered "Hmm" and said, "Everything went smoothly. Next, I have an even better plan, but before we make our move, we need to use someone's blood to sacrifice our flags. After changing clothes and eating, we'll make our move."

Ah Gui's expression turned stern. He knew who Zhou Hongyi was talking about; it had to be Wei Zhe, the captain of the Third Squad, with whom he shared an irreconcilable blood feud.

The three returned to the police station, washed up in the shower room, changed into fresh clothes, and ate their fill in the cafeteria. Then, once again using the excuse of patrolling, they headed toward the northern jurisdiction.

Zhou Hongyi had already inquired in advance. Today, the police station's Third Squad would cooperate with No. 76 and the Kempeitai to encircle and suppress a suspected Nationalist Government intelligence contact point.

The combat effectiveness of the police was the weakest among these departments, so they were only responsible for the outer perimeter. Wei Zhe and his team members were tasked with guarding several intersections leading to the land and water escape routes.

At this moment, Wei Zhe cuckolded his neck, puffing on a cigarette, chatting idly. They didn't believe for a second that the targets could escape the encirclement of the Kempeitai and No. 76. Their bustling around here was, to put it bluntly, just to make up numbers; they wouldn't be required to put in any real effort.

"Captain, those Three-Castles cigarettes Young Master Zhou gave us really pack a punch. After smoking good cigarettes like these, I smoked a cheap pack yesterday and almost threw up right in the tobacco vendor's face. Heh, our palates have really been spoiled rotten by Young Master Zhou." One of the policemen exhaled a cloud of smoke with a look of intoxication.

Another agreed heartily, "That's right! Ever since Young Master Zhou came to our police station, the good cigarettes and tea have never stopped. You know, the cigarettes we smoke and the tea we drink are of the same grade as the police chief's. In a sense, we're enjoying the police chief's treatment too."

"You two stop talking nonsense here. If someone hears you and rats you out to Chief Feng, you'll be in for it." Wei Zhe glared at his subordinates, ordering them not to speak recklessly, though in his heart, he was thinking the exact same thing.

"But you guys have to admit, Young Master Zhou really has skills, and he has money too. Once Chief Feng gets promoted, I bet Young Master Zhou is the most likely to succeed him." Another older policeman walked over to join the conversation.

"Look at you, that's where you don't understand. With Young Master Zhou's background, even if he gets promoted, it won't be within our police station. He'll either go to No. 76 or enter the Special Service Section. I heard that Major Shimazu is his teacher."

Wei Zhe took another puff of his cigarette and continued, "So I'm saying we need to maintain a good relationship with Young Master Zhou right now. He's still young, and who knows what position he'll sit in the future. As long as we hold on tight to his coattails, we might just get promoted, get rich, and reap endless benefits."

While Wei Zhe was fantasizing about getting rich and promoted, he suddenly caught sight of a suspicious figure flashing past the alley entrance.

"Huh? Who's that? Who's there?!"