Main Text, Chapter 87: The First Clue

At the foot of the dormitory building, Ye Fei and Liu Yiyi stood together.

"Yiyi, what happened at Yu Han's home has something to do with me too. I want to ask a favor of you. Please don't let that kind of thing happen to her family again," Ye Fei said, looking at Liu Yiyi.

"Ye Fei, don't worry. I will protect Zhong Yuhan's family," Liu Yiyi replied with a nod.

"Then I'll head back," Ye Fei said with a smile.

"Mhm. Ye Fei, when you're on assignment... be careful," Liu Yiyi said with concern.

Ye Fei nodded.

To anyone who did not know what they were talking about, they looked like a pair of lovers gazing at each other tenderly as they parted with reluctance.

...

Chirp, chirp, chirp... chirp, chirp, chirp...

Past midnight, under the cover of darkness, only the insects could be heard. There was no moon tonight, and the lights were especially dim, so dark that one could not see one's hand before one's face.

Ye Fei had been resting and gathering his strength in the dormitory all this time. He felt the hour was now right, and the night's conditions were perfect for action. After changing into a set of black clothes, he merged into the darkness without a trace of his figure to be seen.

By now, everyone was already asleep. Ye Fei moved through the dark like an elf of the night, swift and elusive.

The security room was one of the directions Ye Fei had focused his investigation on.

He could tell these security guards were no ordinary men. Though they were supposedly the most professional personnel hired from a private security company by the school, what mattered most was their gaze and their bearing.

The look in a man's eyes and the aura he carried were things difficult to put into words, but Ye Fei could feel that these guards were unlike ordinary security staff. The way they looked at the students was like a pack eyeing its prey, and there was even a faint impression that they regarded the school as their own base of operations.

"One, two, three, four..." Ye Fei watched the security room from afar. There were only four guards inside, though by arrangement there should have been five.

"One is missing," Ye Fei thought to himself, when suddenly he heard movement from the campus side.

It sounded like the scrape of a shovel biting into the earth, as though someone were digging in the grove on campus.

After a brief consideration, Ye Fei quietly climbed down from the tree and slipped into the grove on the campus side.

When he reached there, the sound was even clearer. But because the night was so dark, Ye Fei could not make out the other person's face. He could only vaguely tell it was a burly man, though he had no idea what this fellow was digging up in the dead of night.

The other man did not notice Ye Fei. After digging for a while, it seemed he had about finished. Then he threw something in and covered it with soil.

When that was done, he once again made sure there was nothing unusual around him, and only then did he leave.

Ye Fei waited nearly half an hour after the man had gone, enduring patiently all the while. Only then did he quietly come down from the tree. But he could not possibly carry a shovel or other tools with him, so he could only pace about while thinking of a way. He wanted to see exactly what the man had buried.

"Should I go back and find a shovel?" Ye Fei muttered in frustration.

Rustle, rustle...

"Someone's coming." Hearing the movement, Ye Fei quickly climbed back into the tree and concealed himself.

The newcomer walked straight over here and stopped at the place where the object had been buried.

"Not the same person." Ye Fei could tell this man was not the one who had buried the item just now. Their builds were a little different; this man was not as tall or powerfully built.

The newcomer was clearly well prepared and very familiar with this place. Perhaps they were in the same group, and this was a regular meeting point for them. Once he arrived and confirmed there was no one nearby, he took out a shovel he had prepared and began digging.

Fortunately, Ye Fei had no shovel. Otherwise, if he had been digging and this man had suddenly appeared and discovered him, all his efforts would have been wasted.

After digging for a bit, the man switched on a dim little lamp that would not easily be noticed in the dark grove.

"Xie Dong..." Ye Fei's eyes sharpened. This man was actually one of Liu Weiming's men from the Bright Association, the same man Ye Fei had once nearly thrown from a rooftop to his death.

"Could it be that the matter I need to investigate is related to Liu Weiming? Is everything being controlled from behind by him?" Ye Fei thought.

Soon enough, Xie Dong had dug up the item, then covered the hole with soil again. After switching off the lamp, he simply picked up the object and left.

Ye Fei watched the entire process from above, but he did not impulsively jump down to defeat Xie Dong and interrogate him by force. Doing so would only alert the enemy. Xie Dong was certainly not the true mastermind, and he would certainly not reveal anything.

Ye Fei intended to let Xie Dong go and continue investigating the real mastermind in secret. Now that he had identified a target and found a direction, the matter would be much easier to probe. The only regret was that the thing Xie Dong had dug up was inside a leather case, and he had no idea what it was.

After Xie Dong left, Ye Fei was about to come down when someone else appeared.

"There's more?" Ye Fei's heart stirred, and he stayed where he was.

The person who came this time was the burly man Ye Fei had first seen burying the item. After leaving earlier, he had spent half an hour in the security room, but still felt uneasy and had come back to check.

The burly man dug the spot open again to inspect it, only to find that what had been buried there was already gone.

Because of the darkness, Ye Fei could not see the expression on the man's face, but he judged that the burly man seemed rather surprised that the item was missing.

"Weren't they in the same group? Then how did Xie Dong know something was buried here? He even brought a shovel and found the exact spot without the slightest error—he was clearly very familiar with this place! What's going on?" Ye Fei frowned. Were these two men in the same group or not?

After covering the hole, the burly man left.

Ye Fei observed in secret for a while. Seeing no further movement, he quietly made his way back to his separate dormitory room.

"Hello? Ye Fei?" Cui Yanwu's voice came over the phone.

"Cui Yanwu, I found something tonight," Ye Fei said.

Cui Yanwu was delighted. "What clue?"

"There's something unusual," Ye Fei said. After organizing his thoughts, he continued, "Tonight I went to investigate and discovered that one of the members of the security company hired by the school is suspicious. He buried something in the campus grounds, and I don't know what it was. I suspect the entire security company may be a little off, because they don't seem like a simple security firm."

"About that point you mentioned, I also felt something was wrong last time. But my current authority isn't enough to investigate their company directly. Unless you can find some major evidence, I can apply to the higher-ups to intervene," Cui Yanwu said.

"Did you notice anything else?"

Ye Fei said, "All right. I found one more thing: not long afterward, Xie Dong from the Bright Association dug the thing up and took it away."

"You suspect the Bright Association and them are in league, that they have contact?" Cui Yanwu said gravely. Just one unusual security company was already troublesome enough; add in the Bright Association, which had forces behind it, and the matter became even more complicated.

"At first I thought so too, because Xie Dong seemed very familiar with that place. But not long after he took the item away, the man who had buried it came back and discovered it was gone. He seemed very surprised," Ye Fei said.

Cui Yanwu fell silent for a moment, then said in a heavy voice, "Ye Fei, inside the private Yingde School, many influential young heirs of wealthy families and officials are studying there. If anything goes wrong, the consequences would be truly severe. This case is extremely important, and for now I can only rely on you. I hope you can uncover stronger evidence and root out the hidden hand lurking on campus. I suspect the kidnapping of Zhang Linsheng's daughter last time is closely related to this case."

"All right. I'll do my best. But I hope no one else ever learns my identity again. I don't want to disrupt the life I have now. After this case is over, I hope you won't come looking for me again," Ye Fei said.