My Wandering Swordsman

The next day, just as dawn was breaking, I got up from the hard bed in the tin shed.

The Flower Monk and Liu Zi were still fast asleep.

I nudged the monk's bed leg: "Monk, get up."

The flowery monk rolled over, mumbling indistinctly, "Sleep a little longer...it's not even dawn yet..."

"Don't go too far these next few days. I need your help with something." I told him as I got dressed.

No one responded; the snoring continued unabated.

"Alright, you two should go to the film set and help Ruan Tang out for now. Just don't wander off."

Upon hearing the name Ruan Tang, Hua Heshang and Liu Zi instantly perked up and jumped out of bed.

"Alright, alright, leave Sister Ruan to me, Brother Ji, you can rest assured."

"We guarantee that we will take excellent care of Sister Ruan."

I couldn't be bothered with those two, so I changed into clean clothes, put my wallet in my pocket, and went out.

I hailed a taxi.

"Master, to the county town."

Someone asked, "Why are you going to the county town again?"

Of course, I'd go to the city to gather information. As the old saying goes, "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated." I won't fight a battle I'm not prepared for.

Once I got to the city, I randomly picked a breakfast stall and ate while thinking about my plans for the day.

It's not hard to find a company by Lü Guodong, but that old guy is a typical hypocrite; I doubt I'd be of much use if I worked at the head office.

If we want to find evidence of his buying and selling pirated goods, I feel we should start with the goods themselves...

So, I went to the video store, got a point-and-shoot camera, and headed straight to the company's new storage warehouse.

This is a logistics center. Many metal warehouses have signs for rent or sale hanging in front of them. People come and go, and large trucks come and go, making it quite lively.

I recalled the addresses I had requested yesterday and went to each and every one of them.

Before I could even make sense of him, I saw a middle-aged man in a suit directing a truck to back up in the distance. He looked like a refined scoundrel. It was the same man with the gold-rimmed glasses who had asked the Crown Prince for his signature yesterday.

As soon as the truck came to a stop, four or five workers emerged from beside the man with the gold-rimmed glasses. They deftly opened the cargo compartment and began unloading goods into the warehouse.

The goods were wrapped tightly in burlap sacks, but judging from their shape and size, they were undoubtedly videotapes.

A thought struck me, and I pretended to be just passing by, slowly walking over.

The man with the gold-rimmed glasses stood by, giving directions and shouting:

"Hurry, hurry, move faster, there are still two cars behind us."

"No, be careful what you do, there are valuable things inside."

I immediately understood what was going on.

It seems the cultural inspection department has been quite active lately. The gold-rimmed glasses were just signed off yesterday, and today they've already been moved in a hurry.

My eyes darted around, and I moved closer.

"Hey bro, are you guys short-handed? I'm free right now and looking for some work to do."

The man with the gold-rimmed glasses looked me up and down.

I didn't care at all; he'd never seen me before anyway. I just stood there and let him examine me.

After a moment, he spoke: "Young man, at such a young age, can you do hard labor?"

"I can do it, I can do it, I'm very strong." I patted my chest.

He glanced at the nearly one hundred burlap sacks remaining in the car, and still asked me one more question: "Where did you get these?"

"I work at the construction site next door. There's no work at the site today, so I'm looking for some odd jobs."

The man with the gold-rimmed glasses didn't think much of it this time and waved his hand: "Okay, you go inside and help carry things. Ten yuan a day, lunch included."

"Alright!"

Without saying a word, I rolled up my sleeves and got into the carriage.

I bent down and casually picked up a bag.

Hey!

It's not light at all; I estimate a bag weighs at least twenty pounds.

But I've trained before, so I didn't care about the weight at all. I picked one up in each hand and ran to put it in the warehouse.

With my help, the moving of goods went much faster.

In less than an hour, the truck was emptied. The man with the gold-rimmed glasses said, "Don't go too far, there's more work to come," and ran to the logistics gate to meet the next truck.

I saw my chance and, while the other workers were smoking, I went back to the warehouse, found a corner, pretended to tie my shoelaces, and secretly took out my point-and-shoot camera from my pocket.

No one around me was paying attention to me, so I quickly raised my camera, aimed it at the mountain of snakeskin bags piled up in the warehouse, and snapped a few photos.

That wasn't enough, so I gently cut open a snakeskin bag with a knife.

Two or three tapes with English letters printed on the sides fell out. I didn't recognize the English, but I remembered that the cover of the tapes showed a blonde, blue-eyed woman standing at the bow of the ship with her arms outstretched, and below her was the vast ocean.

My eyelids twitched. What kind of movie is this?

Without thinking twice, I snapped a few pictures of the two videotapes.

Mission accomplished.

Of course, photos alone are not enough; we need to find substantial evidence.

What constitutes substantial evidence? Well, at the very least, there are two points: first, proving that these videotapes are pirated; and second, proving that these videotapes belong to him, Lü Guodong.

I scratched the back of my head. This is a bit difficult, huh?

Just as I was worrying, the sound of a car engine came from outside the warehouse.

The delivery truck carrying the conveyor belts arrived again, and the man with the gold-rimmed glasses started yelling, "Where are you? Come and unload the goods!"

There's no other way but to keep going.

We worked like this until after 3 p.m., when the man with the gold-rimmed glasses called it a day and carefully locked the warehouse door before settling our wages.

"Get out of here, and don't come near here again."

The people in that company are all the same; they look down on everyone.

His coworkers naturally ignored him, took the money and left without looking back. I was more cautious and stayed far away behind the man with the gold-rimmed glasses.

Sure enough, instead of rushing back to the company, the guy found a newspaper on the roadside, threw a dollar at the shopkeeper, and picked up a public phone to dial a number.

I scoffed. I thought you were all that, but you didn't even get a phone call. What are you trying to prove?

The call was answered shortly afterward.

The man with the gold-rimmed glasses spoke with slightly more respect: "Mr. Lü, everything has been moved. When will you be back?"

I couldn't hear what Lü Guodong was saying on the other end.

However, as he listened, the man in gold-rimmed glasses' expression darkened. After hesitating for a moment, he finally spoke, "Mr. Lü, isn't... the price quoted too high? I think we should revise the price list and lower the price a bit?"

The voice on the other end of the phone rose an octave, and I could vaguely hear things like "the profit is too low" or "we're losing money."

The person with the gold-rimmed glasses replied again:

"Mr. Lü, as you know, the higher-ups are cracking down hard right now, and warehouse storage costs add up, so..."

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

The two chatted for a while before the man with the gold-rimmed glasses hung up the phone, hailed a taxi, and drove off.

I emerged from behind a roadside utility pole, my eyes gleaming.

It's clear that Lu Guodong's "business trip" to Hong Kong and Taiwan was probably to sell these videotapes, and the results weren't ideal. The man with the gold-rimmed glasses even suggested that Lu Guodong lower the price on the price list to ensure a quick sale.

This...so-called price list...is quite interesting, isn't it?

The substantial evidence I've been pondering all afternoon, isn't it just this thing?

The low price and large quantity made it easy to tell that the videotapes were pirated, and the company seal further secured Lü Guodong's legitimacy.

The best of both worlds.

Thinking of this, I chuckled a few times, strolled leisurely to the newspaper, and tossed out a dollar as well.

"Boss, make a phone call."

The stall owner gestured towards the telephone.

I pretended to dial a number, but actually pressed the redial button with my finger, and a string of numbers immediately appeared on the small screen of the phone.

I silently noted it down and immediately hung up.

"It didn't go through."

"No charge if it doesn't go through, right? Okay!"