A Girl Traveling Through Troubled Times

Chapter 1080 Investigating the Disappearance of Two Professors

As they left the ice cream parlor, night had fallen. The neon lights of the arcade cast dappled shadows on the ground. Lin Peishan walked ahead, deliberately keeping a two-step distance. Near the street corner, she suddenly turned back and whispered, "Let's minimize our contact while we're at school." With that, she turned and merged into the crowd, quickly disappearing around the corner.

Gui'er returned home dejectedly. Dingxiang called her for dinner, but she said she had no appetite and went straight to her room. She sat at her desk in a daze. Wu Mingqiang noticed that she looked unwell and quickly came up to ask, "Miss, what's wrong?"

Seeing his concerned look, Gui'er thought that he was very capable and might have a solution, so she told him about it.

After hearing this, Wu Mingqiang frowned and said, "I knew something was wrong. Luckily, I stopped you from coming back, otherwise you might have gotten yourself into trouble."

"But now that the two professors are missing, Brother Chen has to go into a state of silence, which will greatly affect our work. What should we do? Brother Wu, do you have a solution?"

“Oh, Miss, why can’t you listen to my advice? Can’t you see the situation now? The Japanese could attack Hong Kong at any time. Their spies are already all over Hong Kong. Look at you, you can even run into Japanese spies when you go to work at the trading company, and you run away as fast as you can to avoid suspicion. If you get involved in this matter now, isn’t that just like walking into the line of fire?” Wu Mingqiang said earnestly.

“But the two professors are living, breathing people. They’ve helped us before, and they’re our comrades. Pei-shan also said that they’re very likely under surveillance right now. She’s at the school now and is pretending not to know me. I feel like we’ll be targeted sooner or later. We might as well take care of them before they find us. We can’t just sit here and wait for disaster to strike.”

Wu Mingqiang listened in silence. He felt that Gui'er's words made sense. In fact, he had already contacted several capable detectives under Detective Long, given them some money, and asked them to investigate the matter quietly. However, he was afraid that making too big a move would alert the enemy, so he was hesitating whether to tell Gui'er.

"Brother Wu," Gui'er said, looking at him with pleading eyes.

Wu Mingqiang sighed, made a gesture of surrender, and said with a helpless smile, "Miss, I really can't do anything with you. Actually, I also think this matter will endanger us, so I have already arranged for people to secretly investigate. I'm just afraid that if you find out and tell your classmates, it will alert them."

Gui'er's eyes lit up with joy upon hearing this, and she excitedly grabbed Wu Mingqiang's sleeve, saying, "Really? That's wonderful!"

Wu Mingqiang shook his head and said with a smile, "But you can't tell anyone about this. If the news leaks out and attracts the attention of those people, we'll be in trouble too. You have to understand that they're in the shadows while we're in the open. We still don't know which force is behind this."

Gui'er happily agreed and skipped away.

Wu Mingqiang watched her retreating figure and breathed a sigh of relief. He had no intention of saving the two professors, but he had to find out the truth of the matter. After all, Gui'er had been too close to them before. With just a little investigation, he would know that if it was because they were revolutionaries, it would eventually implicate Gui'er. He had to nip the threat in the bud.

After that, Gui'er would ask Wu Mingqiang every two days if there was any progress.

Wu Mingqiang shook his head apologetically. In fact, he had already found some information. After all, Long Xing's subordinates had many years of experience in investigation and were very familiar with the ground. They quickly found the last place the two professors appeared in and the people they contacted before they disappeared.

Logically speaking, as long as you keep a close eye on these two people, you should find some clues, but...

Wu Mingqiang frowned as he looked at the informant's report on the table. Detective Long's men found out that after the meeting, Xu Jing and Meng Haoliang spoke to two men on a street corner in Central. The two men were wearing gray suits and matching felt hats, and looked like ordinary office workers.

"Have you found out? It really is someone from the bank?" He tapped the table and asked Detective A-Biao, who had come to answer.

Ah Biao nodded and handed over a stack of photos: "The two are employees of HSBC, one named Li Mo and the other Zhang Qi. They have been with the company for three years and their performance is mediocre. They usually live in a tenement building in Yau Ma Tei. The neighbors all say that they are 'very honest and only go to work and go home'."

Wu Mingqiang picked up the photo. The two people in the photo smiled awkwardly at the camera, looking like proper office workers. But the more normal they seemed, the stranger it was. What ordinary employee would have a secret conversation with two professors in the dark on the street late at night?

“Keep watching.” He threw the photo back on the table. “Investigate their background, especially their whereabouts in recent years, whether they have left Hong Kong, and who they have been associating with.”

Ah Biao accepted the order and left. Three days later, he returned with news, his voice extremely low: "Mr. Wu, something's not right with these two. They both went to Japan three years ago, supposedly to 'investigate banking business,' and then they joined HSBC. We staked out their usual teahouse and saw them meet with a woman in a kimono. That woman is a translator from the Japanese Chamber of Commerce."

Wu Mingqiang's heart sank. It wasn't surprising that there were Japanese spies hiding in HSBC, but to have them targeting Professors Xu and Meng... He suddenly remembered that the two professors often wrote articles in the school newspaper denouncing the Japanese invasion of China, and that they had organized students to go to the border area to hold banners and protest loudly during Japanese military exercises. They were probably already on the Japanese people's minds.

"Where is he? Still working at the bank?"

“Yes, and he writes poetry very regularly every day. We checked, and he doesn't actually have any connection with the two professors in their daily lives or friendships. We don't know why they met that day.” Ah Biao wiped his sweat. “By the way, Brother Qiang, Detective Long knows about this. He told us to stop. What do you think…”

Wu Mingqiang understood perfectly well that by secretly entrusting Detective Long's men to investigate this matter, he had actually been disrespecting Detective Long. He said to Ah Biao, "Ah, then you can stop here. You've worked hard lately. Here's some money for you to have a cup of tea. By the way, did Detective Long say anything else?"

"No, he just said those two people were too dangerous and told us not to touch them." Ah Biao took the money Wu Mingqiang sent him and said with a big smile, "Thank you, Brother Qiang, I'm going back now."

After watching him leave, Wu Mingqiang leaned back in his chair, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the shape of his teacup. So, it seemed the two professors were likely in grave danger. The Japanese were always ruthless; if it was to make an example of them, they wouldn't leave anyone alive. Looking out at the darkening sky, he suddenly remembered Gui'er's expectant eyes, and for a moment, he didn't know how to respond.