Chapter 174 Lost and Found

Dong, dong, dong—

A series of knocks on the door pulled Zuo Yan from his daze in front of the television.

He hesitated for a second, then walked to the door and, through the wooden panel, said, "Who is it?"

"Excuse me, sir, I'm a waiter from the bar." The voice outside belonged to the same waiter who had spoken with Brother Jue earlier.

"Oh… what is it?" Zuo Yan replied.

"Are you perhaps missing a cat?" the waiter asked.

Hearing this, Zuo Yan's expression changed slightly. He moved to the peephole and peered through; through the glass, he saw Victor, looking quite displeased, being held by the waiter.

In the next second, Zuo Yan opened the door without another word. He looked at the waiter and smiled awkwardly. "Heh heh… sorry, he slipped out when I wasn't looking. I was just looking for him…" As he spoke, he reached out to take the cat. "Um… where did you find him?"

"A Mr. Feng found him in the bar. Mr. Feng said you were his friend and asked me to bring the cat over." The waiter handed Victor to Zuo Yan as he spoke. "Here you go, sir. If there's nothing else, I need to get back to work."

"Okay, thank you." Zuo Yan took the cat and said politely, "Thank you for your trouble."

After a brief exchange, the door closed again, leaving the man and the cat facing each other in the room…

"Spare me the lectures." Victor stared with his dead fish eyes and spoke through telepathy, addressing Zuo Yan with this opening line.

"I haven't said anything yet…" Zuo Yan replied with a wry smile.

"Indeed, there are times when I slip up." Victor knew what the other party was going to say, so he didn't even want to listen. "However… this time, it really wasn't caused by my carelessness…"

"Oh?" Zuo Yan could tell there was something he was implying, so he simply responded with a sound, waiting for him to continue.

"Although, from an objective point of view, it seems I was just unlucky, but… I have a vague feeling that Feng Bujue, who calls himself a 'detective', is not as simple as he appears on the surface…"

…

Let's split the scene and look at the bar again.

"What's wrong? Pal." Feng Bujue examined Sam with a suspicious gaze and asked, "You don't look so good."

Since returning from the restroom, Sam's expression had become very strange; it didn't look like the expression of someone who had succeeded in a crime, nor did it look like emotions feigned for some reason.

Feng Bujue quickly saw through the truth behind this expression—an accident had occurred during Sam's planned crime.

"I…" Sam only said one word, then fell into hesitation and thought.

Clearly, some unexpected change had disrupted his original criminal plan, so all the prepared excuses and acting… had also become meaningless.

Not everyone can react and adapt as frighteningly as Feng Bujue. Sam, as an ordinary person, would naturally have to think twice and act cautiously when facing a situation where saying half a wrong word could lead to his doom…

"Could it be… the phone call… was there some bad news?" Seeing that the other party wasn't responding, Feng Bujue used leading words to try to pry Sam's mouth open.

"Uh…" Sam's eyeballs rolled halfway around in his sockets. Then he picked up the small glass of liquor on the table that he hadn't finished, tilted his head back, and drank it all in one gulp. "Hoo…" After downing half a glass of wine, he seemed to have made up his mind. "Brother Feng…" He looked at Feng Bujue and said, "Something… seems to have happened at my home."

[Current Task Completed]

At the instant Sam said these words, the system voice also rang in Brother Jue's ears.

Feng Bujue took the opportunity to open the game menu and looked at the task bar. At this time, the second sub-task under the main task, [Wait for the Case to Happen], had been checked off, and the third sub-task had been refreshed below it—[Intervene in the Investigation of the "John Herbert Murder Case"].

"What?" Feng Bujue was shocked when he saw this task. "'John Herbert Murder Case'?" He couldn't help but complain inwardly, "Shouldn't this guy be the victim?"

Through the "visits" on the island that afternoon, Feng Bujue had undoubtedly heard about the Herbert family's inheritance dispute case. It was also at that time that he had seen Sam's photo; that's why Feng Bujue was able to recognize him when he met Sam at the elevator door.

The reason why Brother Jue and Victor came to the conclusion that "Sam might be involved in some kind of criminal event" was… they both saw the money in Sam's shirt pocket.

It was a very, very thick stack of money…

So thick that it couldn't be stuffed into the inside pocket of a suit or pants pocket, so Sam could only put it in the outside pocket of his suit and try to cover it with his hand as he walked.

Under normal circumstances, this kind of cover would be enough. Apart from pickpockets, no one would really stare at other people's clothing pockets all day long.

However, in front of characters like Feng Bujue and Victor, this was bound to be revealed.

Anyone who entered their sight would become like a "reasoning sample"; this was their instinct… They had developed a habit of "observing" and "reasoning," and their proficiency had reached a level that ordinary people could hardly achieve even if they tried hard. For them, deduction was a regular sense of communication with this world, no different from breathing.

Therefore, the brand-new hat, the hurried pace, the thoughtful expression, the thick stack of cash, and the identity of "Sam Herbert" himself… these pieces of information collected in a fleeting glance, had transformed into the same conclusion in the minds of Feng Bujue and Victor in a matter of seconds—this guy was up to no good.

However, at the time, Victor had deduced more than Feng Bujue because he knew more about the inheritance case.

In the next few hours, from the time Feng Bujue entered the room until he arrived at the bar, Brother Jue also used the phone he had on him to further investigate the Herbert family's inheritance case online and ultimately came to the same conclusion as Victor, catching up with the other party's progress in terms of intelligence.

At this point, both sides had reached the same starting line and had unanimously constructed a hypothesis of "the younger brother hiring a murderer."

However, the actual development of the matter was beyond everyone's expectations… including Sam himself.

"Don't panic…" Three seconds later, Feng Bujue quickly calmed down, put on a particularly loyal and reliable look, and said to the "chance acquaintance" in front of him, "What exactly happened? Tell me about it first…"