“Hello?”
“Hey, I’ve sorted out Allen’s business connections. Where are you right now?”
“I’m standing outside the vault of Allen Artworks.”
Lin Wan: “…”
Lu Zheng chuckled. “Have you guys found any issues?”
Lin Wan said, “On the surface, nothing stands out, but they’re closely tied to a few collectors suspected of acquiring illegal artefacts, and some foreign trade orders look fishy. The Beacon Country police are planning to start there.”
She paused, then continued, “They’re also planning to pose as smuggler dealers to test the waters, but I doubt it’ll work.”
Lu Zheng nodded. “Too crude. Of course it won’t work.”
“What about you? Can you find hidden ledgers or something? But those would be on computers, right? Can you access them?” Lin Wan asked, a bit worried.
“Heh, have you forgotten what I studied at university?”
“Computer science, I know,” Lin Wan giggled. “But there’s a gap between a computer science grad and a professional hacker, right?”
“Trying to goad me now?”
“No, no, I’m just wondering if hacking skills are related to martial arts mentality and fine muscle control,” Lin Wan teased.
With Lu Zheng along, this case was practically in the bag, so Lin Wan was relaxed, even joking around.
“Exactly!” Lu Zheng nodded seriously. “You’re right. Finding flaws in their thinking and typing at lightning speed are definitely tied to martial arts mentality and muscle control.”
Lin Wan: ←_←
Lu Zheng said, “I’ll wait here until they leave for the night, then search their computers for hidden ledgers and any plans they might have.
If there’s an offline deal soon, you can get the LA police to show up, and I can slip you the USB with the hidden ledgers in the chaos.”
…
After everyone at Allen Artworks had left, Lu Zheng materialized in the CEO’s office.
He powered on the computer, tapped the keyboard, and even wrote a search plugin on the spot.
Sure enough, he found a hidden ledger, a photo database of smuggled artworks, and client information from illegal artefact auctions.
But there were no follow-up plans or details about other illegal groups.
Still, this was enough for Lin Wan to recover the Chinese artefacts.
The issue now was how to smoothly hand this over to the LA police.
Wait! Didn’t they say they’d pose as smugglers to probe?
When they leave, he could slip the evidence to them.
That way, the evidence would be “theirs,” and Lu Zheng doubted they’d pass up the credit. With no undercover or informant claiming it, the police would take the glory.
With the evidence, they could get a search warrant for the company, and the illegal artefacts in the vault would be exposed.
After that, handing over the artefacts would be out of Lin Wan’s hands, handled by the Chinese embassy and cultural relics bureau.
Then he and Lin Wan could start their Beacon Country vacation.
Perfect!
Lu Zheng rapidly typed, copying all the incriminating data onto a USB he’d nabbed from an electronics store earlier that day.
“Hm?”
As he was about to pull the USB, Lu Zheng spotted an encrypted document.
“What’s this?”
He decrypted and opened it, revealing a photo of a parchment scroll.
“The San Miguel shipwreck treasure?”
“What’s that?”
Lu Zheng scrolled down, learning the treasure’s backstory.
Centuries ago, Spain controlled the Americas, plundering over half the world’s gold and silver, making it the richest nation.
By 1712, Spain’s glory was fading, and with wars at home and the New World’s wealth at risk of falling to the British, they were strapped for cash.
So, Spain assembled the largest treasure fleet in history to ship all their New World gold, silver, and treasures back home.
This was a fleet of twenty ships, each over 500 tons, loaded with gold, silver, jewels, and other valuables.
To avoid pirates, they planned to sail in the brief window before hurricane season.
But the outcome was brutal. Seven days into the journey, a hurricane sank the entire fleet, and all the treasure went down with it.
Over centuries, scattered gold and silver washed ashore in Cuba or Beacon Country’s east coast, making a few lucky finders rich.
Treasure hunters, including the Spanish crown, salvaged seven of the ships, recovering about a third of the lost treasure.
But much remained on the ocean floor, including the San Miguel.
The San Miguel, one of the fleet’s largest treasure ships, got separated during the hurricane and didn’t sink in the known area. Surviving crew couldn’t pinpoint its location.
Centuries of salvaged treasure showed no trace of the San Miguel’s haul.
So, the San Miguel likely sank intact, its treasure still together.
The parchment map in the document was drawn by the San Miguel’s first mate.
With the captain dead, the first mate, the most educated survivor, kept quiet about the wreck’s location, secretly drawing a map and logging the ship’s route, planning to start a company to salvage it.
But fate intervened. Before he could resign from the military and begin, he died in Spain’s War of Succession, and the map and log passed down through his descendants.
Three hundred years later, they ended up with Allen Carter, the boss of Allen Artworks.
Using the map and log, Carter had narrowed down a rough area and was preparing to hire a salvage ship, form a treasure-hunting company, and start the recovery.
“A treasure worth over 300 million USD? Gold and silver artefacts in Incan and Spanish styles?”
“This treasure’s meant for me!”
