Chapter 9: A Fatal Invitation
At 10 o'clock in the morning, the opening ceremony was being held in an orderly manner at the entrance of the First Museum of Nanshan City. Chuyan had left the rooftop across the street and was wandering around in the crowd. The dense crowd had poor visibility, but the view from the temporary stage for the opening ceremony was exceptionally clear.
At this moment, the leaders on the podium are speaking with great enthusiasm. Behind the long table at the back of the podium, a row of invited guests are seated, among whom Wendy, with golden hair and green eyes, is sitting in the middle position. At this time, Wendy is sitting on the podium with a smile, her eyes seeming to gaze straight ahead, but Chu Yan stared at her for a few seconds and found that Wendy's line of sight was always drifting towards the CDB area on the left front side of the museum, which is one of the top commercial and entertainment centers in Nanshan City.
The lengthy opening ceremony was finally declared over an hour later, and the first ancient cold weapon exhibition was officially started. The crowd surged in after the leaders on the rostrum entered the museum.
"Xiuyao, come this way, I'll take you directly to the third floor exhibition hall." Wendi stood in front of Moyuexiao and Wancai Ni on the west side of the museum lobby, with a smile and polite demeanor, extending an invitation.
"Alright, I'd rather follow your lead." Mo Xiuyao gazed at the crowded hall on the first floor, her eyebrows furrowing slightly as she seemed to be somewhat unaccustomed to such a densely packed crowd. Wendi's invitation came just in time with what she had in mind.
"I heard that there is an exhibition hall on the third floor that is not open to ordinary tourists, and it seems that there will be an auction later. Is it true?" Wan Caoni's eyes scanned around the first-floor hall, but she didn't find anything interesting. The exhibits in the first-floor hall were all very ordinary, mostly from the Ming and Qing dynasties, with more than 90% being standard military weapons.
"Not bad, this exhibition is divided into four levels. The first level of the exhibition hall has some ordinary cold weapons on display, although there are many knives, guns, swords and halberds, they are all things with low historical value; The exhibits on the second floor are much better in terms of quality and age, mostly from the Tang and Song dynasties, and not a few from the Yuan and Ming dynasties. As for the third and fourth floors, you need to see them yourself with two beautiful ladies." Wendy smiled and explained after hearing Wancai's words, and the three people quickly followed the crowd to the second floor exhibition hall.
The entrance and exit of the exhibition hall are designed to be very interesting. For example, if the entrance is on the east side, then the exit must be on the west side, that is, as long as visitors enter the exhibition hall, they must go through the entire hall to get to the other side to leave. This pattern is similar to the design of the entrances and exits of many supermarkets in the past, forcing customers to browse the products displayed throughout the supermarket to the greatest extent.
The entrance to the second floor is on the east side of the main staircase in the hall, and the exit is designed on the west side. At this moment, there are not many people visiting the second floor because a dozen or so leaders and big shots in the cultural relics circle are strolling around, as for ordinary visitors, they have not been allowed to visit yet, they have to wait until these leaders finish their tour before opening the entrance, however, Wendy is clearly not an ordinary tourist.
"These two are my friends." Wendy said softly in English, looking at the four security guards standing at the entrance.
"Mr. Wendi, please come in." One of the security guards with a somewhat gloomy face opened the isolation belt and let Wendi, Mo Xiuyao, and Wan Caoni enter.
"Mr. Wendy, hello, come here, let me introduce you..."
"Sorry, you two take a look here first, these people will leave soon, and we'll go to the third floor later." As soon as Wendy walked into the second-floor exhibition hall, almost everyone in the crowd was greeting him. Wendy apologized to Mo Xiuyao and the others with some helplessness, then quickly walked towards the leadership group. Mo Xiuyao nodded and turned around with Wan Caoni, walking towards a corner of the exhibition hall. Since they came, they might as well take a good look around, although she and Wan Caoni didn't understand anything about antiques.
Wendi was chatting with the various leaders, while Mo Xiya and Wan Caoni were gradually attracted to the strange and ancient weapons in the exhibition hall, looking at them one by one. The four security guards who were originally standing at the entrance of the second floor exhibition hall had reduced to two. The security guard with a cold face previously swept his right hand lightly beside his ear and said in a low voice, "The target has been locked in, prepare for action."
The first floor hall, Chu Yan moved slowly with the crowd, he was the third batch of people to enter the exhibition hall. Due to the large number of visitors, the security guard at the entrance had set up a barrier and allowed a portion of the crowd to pass through every now and then. Even so, the hall was still packed with people.
"Line up, don't run around, follow me." Suddenly, a loud voice rang out at the entrance of the hall. Chu Yan looked in the direction of the sound and frowned. At the entrance was a group of primary school students, led by a young teacher who appeared to be around twenty years old. The group of over thirty people only had one teacher leading them, and among these students, Chu Yan quickly spotted a familiar figure.
Caesar, this little boy had a look of disdain on his face, with earplugs in his ears that had no logo on them, and his head was shaking slightly, obviously not paying attention to what the young female teacher was saying.
"Li Xiaodong, if you don't behave and line up properly, I'll make sure to give you a good evaluation at the parent-teacher conference! Hmph!" The female teacher was furious and directly used her killer move. It was indeed very effective, except for Caesar, almost all the students had a serious expression, staring hard at the back of their own heads, afraid that if they lined up crookedly, the female teacher would call them out by name at the parent-teacher conference.
"Come on, I've hired an interpreter for you. Take a look around the hall to see who has an interpreter, that is, Teacher. I'm willing to spend money to hire one for you. Follow me closely and hurry up." The female teacher said, shaking her newly permed hair, and walked towards the entrance of the first floor exhibition hall.
Around her, six well-dressed successful individuals, four men and two women, followed the student into the exhibition hall without being noticed.
"The six golden shields of the Xuanwu elite, Mo Xi Yao this woman, really knows how to spend money." Chu Yan's line of sight first caught these six figures, and through their positions and the fact that they never left Caesar's side, he confirmed the identities of the six people, who were indeed the ones who had always been inseparable from protecting Caesar.
Behind them, the three members of Huang's team from the Nanshan City Serious Crimes Unit were also scattered among the crowd, focusing on the group of young students who had just entered. At this moment, Huang Kai's face was extremely ugly because the kidnapping case that originally belonged to him was transferred to the Seventh Serious Crimes Unit last night, and even the evidence clues he had found with great effort were also transferred together. This made Huang Kai furious on the spot, almost beating up the director of the Nanshan City Public Security Bureau, but fortunately, someone stopped him. The director was so angry that he suspended his job, and Huang Kai, who was furious and had nowhere to vent, brought his three brothers here, with bloodshot eyes wanting to catch the suspect in the kidnapping case.
"Huang Zu, look, that kid is also here." Da Li followed closely behind Huang Kai, his eyes gleaming with a fierce light as he stared at the crowd, and naturally, Chu Yan's figure had also caught his eye.
"I saw it." Huang Kai actually discovered Chu Yan's presence as soon as he entered the first floor exhibition hall, and Chu Yan also took a glance at Huang Kai, smiled and nodded in greeting. Afterwards, he continued to wander around the crowd. Chu Yan had a special fondness for cold weapons, and this kind of exhibition was really to his taste.
"Get the big dog to follow him, if this kid has anything abnormal, catch him immediately!" In response to Chu Yan's greeting, Huang Kai didn't have the mind to care about it. He now had only one thought in his mind, which was to crack the kidnapping case and kill those ruthless bastards!
Chu Yan quickly arrived at the entrance of the second floor exhibition hall in the crowd, but the entrance was not open. Two security guards stood there with expressionless faces. When Chu Yan walked over, one of the security guards stretched out his hand to stop him: "The second floor exhibition hall will be open 30 minutes later, please wait."
The security guard stopped Chu Yan and gave an explanation, while Chu Yan smiled and nodded, glanced at the security guard's wrist and turned to leave.
"A drop of blood, a green scorpion runs to be a security guard, it's interesting." The security guard's wrist, in the direction of his forearm, faintly revealed a green scorpion tail, and on the scorpion tail hung a red blood droplet the size of a bean. Ordinary people might not understand what was special about this somewhat eerie tattoo, but Chu Yan was very clear: the scorpion tail dripping with blood was a tattoo that only belonged to the Drop of Blood Green Scorpion Mercenary Group, a group of thugs who would stop at nothing for money!
Thirty minutes is neither long nor short, the leaders in the second-floor exhibition hall finally finished their visit and went downstairs to the hotel through the VIP passage. Wendy sent away this group of pot-bellied leaders and then turned back to enter the exhibition hall, looking at Wang Caimei who was inseparable from Mo Xiya, a pair of eyes flickered for a moment, and then a gloomy smile appeared at the corner of her mouth.
"Sorry to keep you two waiting." Wendy said with some apology as she approached Mo Xiuyao and Wan Caoni.
"No rush, this is quite interesting." Mo Xiuyao didn't speak up, but Wan Caoni was indeed very enthusiastic. This woman who was passionate about firearms also took an interest in these cold weapons.
"Who is it?" Just as Mo Xiuyao was about to say something, Wendi suddenly shouted in a cold voice. A black figure darted out from behind a platform towards the exhibition hall exit, holding what seemed to be a gleaming blade that emitted a chill light.
"Thief! Where are you going?!" Wan Cai Ni also discovered the figure at the same time, and instantly flashed her body to chase after him. In an instant, only Mo Xi Yao and Wen Di were left in the exhibition hall.
"Let's go, Interpol is after the thief, I believe he won't get far. You and I should go to the third floor first." Wendy said, stretching out her hand to grab Mo Xiuyao's wrist, her warm smile had faded away, leaving only icy coldness.
