/
Qin Miaoru was still decked in a non-mainstream outfit. Her gang of brothers were still the same bald-headed, covered in tattoos and had gold chains around their necks. Their appearance in the police station looked more like they were there to give themselves up to the authorities than report on a crime.
However, the policemen at the police station in H Town still remember that Qin Miaoru and her gang assisted the police in cracking the MLM abduction case, and they knew that they were good people who just happened to have a non-mainstream sense of fashion.
Qin Miaoru rushed over Tao Mu and officer Yao, her gang of brothers in tow. She didn’t directly elaborate on the clues she found, but looked at Tao Mu and asked strangely: “Why is your phone turned off?”
“Huh?” Tao Mu took his phone out and saw that it was out of battery.
From the time he received the call from Da Luo, he contacted director Yun, asked for leave from the school, took a plane to H Town, went to the hospital to see brother Gou, and then finally came to the police station to ask about the situation. It took more than ten hours of barely non stop tossing around. The battery of smartphones was inherently worse than other phones. Fortunately, Tao Mu carried a charger with him.
“I’ll charge it for you.” Officer Yao took the initiative to take over the phone to help Tao Mu find power. As soon as it was turned on, “ding ding dong dong” sounded, displaying several missed calls. Among them, Qin Miaoru called the most, as well as Da Mao and Xiao Pang, and brother Meng Qi. The last call was from Li Xiaoheng.
Thinking of his agreement with Li Xiaoheng, Tao Mu quickly dialed back.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon here, and the time in country M was four o’clock in the morning. As soon as Tao Mu dialed back, he realized the time difference and was afraid that Li Xiaoheng might still be sleeping. Before he could hang up the call, Li Xiaoheng’s voice sounded from the receiver.
“Xiao Mu?”
“…..You haven’t slept yet?” After Li Xiaoheng answered the phone, Tao Mu immediately apologized: “Sorry, I didn’t notice the time difference. Did it bother your sleep?”
“I haven’t slept yet.” On the other side, Li Xiaoheng’s voice sounded wide awake with a trace of a smile: “Where are you? Was your phone out of battery?”
Tao Mu let out an “en” and explained very briefly: “My friend got in an accident. I am in H Town now.”
“I knew it. If it weren’t for an unexpected situation, you would definitely have answered my call.” Li Xiaoheng said confidently.
Tao Mu didn’t pick up on Li Xiaoheng changing the meaning of his words. In any case, in his thinking, “the phone being turned off” and “not picking up Li Xiaoheng’s calls” meant the same thing.
“Do you need my help?” Li Xiaoheng asked particularly enthusiastically on the phone.
Tao Mu knew of Li Xiaoheng’s abilities and also knew that the Li family had great status in China. If a friend around him really needed help, even if asking Li Xiaoheng for a favor would affect his weight in the eyes of his business partner, Tao Mu would still speak out. After all, there were times when asking for help could deepen the relationship between two people.
But Tao Mu felt that he could solve Gou Rixin’s problem and he didn’t want to waste this connection that Li Xiaoheng provided. So Tao Mu thanked Li Xiaoheng for his kindness very sincerely. He also explained Gou Rixin’s situation concisely. Of course, he also left himself some leeway: “When it’s confirmed that brother Gou can be transferred to Beijing’s hospital, and the surgery is finalized, if the money is not enough, I will definitely let you know.”
Most of Tao Mu’s money was in the international crude oil market, and Li Xiaoheng knew of this matter clearer than anyone else. And based on the two people’s cooperation scale which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars, borrowing a few hundred thousand yuan was not considered borrowing at all.
On the other end of the call, Li Xiaoheng could naturally pick up on the social niceties under his words of gratitude. He was a little bit disappointed but immediately cheered himself up, saying: “I also knew some medical students and professors when I was studying at Stanford. If you have a need regarding this, I can help to introduce some international experts to help with your friend’s operation.”
Tao Mu expressed his gratitude again, and immediately asked Li Xiaoheng why he had called earlier: “Is there something wrong with the international oil futures?”
“No.” Li Xiaoheng explained with a smile: “Because our cooperation has just started, so I just wanted to make a routine call and communicate with you.”
Tao Mu recalled that the time when Li Xiaoheng called him was around ten o’clock in the evening, which would have been around ten o’clock in the morning when converted to country M’s time difference. At that point in time, it was likely that Li Xiaoheng had just gotten off the plane, and shouldn’t have met with any issue yet.
Indeed, Li Xiaoheng really didn’t have any problem. He had just gotten off the plane and habitually called Tao Mu to report his safe arrival. But Tao Mu’s phone was turned off automatically because of no battery. It caused Li Xiaoheng to be a little worried, not knowing what happened to Tao Mu for him not to pick up his phone. Fortunately, this was the year 2008 when the smartphone was just launched. If this happened ten years later, it was likely that with Li Xiaoheng’s rich imagination he would have called the police already.
Tao Mu smiled and said, “It’s good that nothing is wrong. You can call me whenever you have to. When I return to Beijing, I will buy a new phone and make sure my phone is open 24 hours a day. Today’s situation will absolutely not appear again.”
Although Li Xiaoheng had already stated that he had nothing important to discuss with Tao Mu. But as a competent partner, Tao Mu must review the mistakes he exposed in this matter. He should be grateful that Li Xiaoheng had nothing important that needed discussing with him this time. If there was anything important but he was unable to be found due to his phone being turned off at the critical moment, then he was definitely a failure as a business partner.
This was a low-level mistake that would never be tolerated in the workplace.
Tao Mu did not hide anything, and straightforwardly admitted to his negligence and also promised to never commit it again in the future. The attitude was very sincere and humble, but it only made Li Xiaoheng feel very depressed instead.
From the perspective of a business partner, of course Li Xiaoheng appreciated Tao Mu’s work ethic very much. In fact, Li Xiaoheng was a very strict person when it came to business. If this situation happened with any employee of Xiaoheng Capital, while Li Xiaoheng would not dismiss the other immediately, he at least would have asked the other to conduct a public review at the morning meeting, as well as deduct a month’s salary in order to make an example.
But when changed to Tao Mu, Li Xiaoheng felt that Tao Mu’s attitude was a bit distant. Although the two of them were business partners, it was not like they were superior and subordinate after all. Tao Mu had no need to apologize to him for such a small matter. Besides being business partners, they were also friends.
There were no friends who would seriously review and reflect on mistakes because of such a trivial matter.
“You being like this, I won’t dare to call you casually in the future.” Li Xiaoheng said with a smile on the other end of the phone: “I feel very guilty. It’s not like you could help it. Because your friend had an accident and so you needed to catch a plane. And on the plane, it’s not allowed to have the phone turned on.”
“Call whenever, call whenever.”
Tao Mu didn’t realize at all that his relationship with Li Xiaoheng went from a “routine work reporting relationship” to a “friend who could call casually” in just a few words. He was still immersed in the atmosphere created by Li Xiaoheng, and tried his best to appease the other: “It was originally my fault. Before I get on the plane, I should have told you in advance. Lest you can’t find me when you call.”
“I was also on the plane at that time. I wouldn’t be able to answer your call anyway.” Li Xiaoheng took the blame back onto himself in a particularly confident and justified manner. The speed and efficiency caused even Tao Mu to be speechless.
The layout of the H Town police station was similar to that of the Beijing police station. Officer Yao put Tao Mu’s mobile phone on the power strip next to his desk to charge it.
Tao Mu squatted under officer Yao’s desk and chatted with Li Xiaoheng for twenty minutes. When he finally hung up, everyone, including Qin Miaoru and officer Yao, felt a little bit full inexplicably. (TN: full of dog food. To feed others dog food is slang for showing off your lovey dovey relationship with your other half)
Taking advantage of this time, among the gang of brothers who came with Qin Miaoru, a certain brother with a shaved head, a dragon tattoo on his back and a large gold chain on his neck also elaborated on the clues he knew in detail several times.
“You mean, you accidentally discovered that Yu Mei appeared near Da Xiong’s rental house. Who is this Da Xiong?”
“I don’t know what this Da Xiong’s birth name is. Everyone calls him that. He is also one of the group extra leaders of H Town Studios. Similar to Gou Rixin, they are all martial arts extras. And I heard that this Da Xiong and Gou Rixin originally had conflict between them. It seems that the two groups of people often fight over film scenes.”
After saying this, one thing suddenly came to mind: “By the way, I heard from that group of extras. It seems that after Gou Rixin’s accident, the role of the male number two lead was replaced with Da Xiong.”