Chapter 237: Laundered Repatriation? Did These People Give You Money

Regardless of his character, Qin Guocheng at least knew how to play by the rules once he saw what Gu Shengsheng could do.

After all, he was the one who had introduced her to Zhao Dehai.

So they were, in a way, old acquaintances.

Gu Shengsheng trusted him not to spout nonsense.

After a moment of thought, she called Qin Guocheng.

"Mr. Qin, this is Gu Shengsheng," she said.

The man on the other end laughed heartily. "Shengsheng! It’s been so long. Not since I came to Beijing City to buy that treasure box from you."

"You should come find this old man for a chat when you have some free time, Shengsheng!"

Qin Guocheng laughed cheerfully.

In his eyes, Gu Shengsheng was a young woman he had watched rise. He had always wondered what kind of methods this girl had used to become so incredibly skilled.

She seemed to be in a league of her own, leaving everyone else in the dust. Even back then, he had sensed that Gu Shengsheng’s abilities were anything but ordinary.

Now, after just a short time in Beijing City, she had already achieved such status, and her international influence was remarkable.

Now, Qin Guocheng himself had been left so far behind he could only watch her from a distance. He felt he was no match for Gu Shengsheng at all.

When faced with someone so truly outstanding, he felt a sense of calm acceptance rather than jealousy. He even hoped Gu Shengsheng would become even more successful. As a fellow native of Rui City, her success made him proud.

Gu Shengsheng’s mind cleared as she listened to him. "I actually do have something to ask you," she said. "Mr. Qin, you’re one of the top figures in Rui City. I was wondering, have you ever encountered a group of strange people who tried to kidnap you using all sorts of methods?"

"And then forced you to help with an appraisal?"

At her question, Qin Guocheng paused. "You’ve run into them?" he asked.

The moment he said that, Gu Shengsheng knew he had gone through the same thing.

She then nodded. "Yes."

Qin Guocheng sighed. "It seems like a kidnapping, but I doubt they’d dare to actually harm you or your family. In fact, they probably treated you to fine food and wine, didn’t they?"

Gu Shengsheng nodded. "Yes. I beat them up, and they told me not to feel bad about it."

Qin Guocheng nodded. "That’s how it is. It’s because they need something from you. It’s a complicated situation. You’ll have to make your own decision."

"I was taken to a small, dark room and asked to help appraise a white jade bottle, I believe."

Gu Shengsheng asked, "What period did you determine the white jade bottle was from? And what was it used for afterward?"

He shook his head. "It’s hard to say for sure. I appraised it as being from the Western Jin dynasty, which was incredible even to me. That was probably the highlight of my entire career."

Qin Guocheng sighed. "I didn’t think much of it at the time. But ever since that incident, I feel like I’ve lost my touch when it comes to appraising. I’m getting old, and I’m just not as capable anymore."

"As for what happened to it afterward? I have no idea. I never saw it again. So I don’t know what organization they are either."

Gu Shengsheng was furious. "How despicable! These people are absolute scum. Locking you up to force you to do an appraisal? Why didn’t you go to the police?"

"Did they pay you?"

"Ahem." Qin Guocheng nodded, embarrassed. "Well, that’s the thing. They paid me, and quite generously, too. When they pay you like that, you can’t really call it a kidnapping."

"Besides, as you mentioned, if they treat you well and don’t do anything out of line, it doesn’t legally count as kidnapping. It’s a murky situation, after all. They operate in a legal gray area, managing to sidestep the law."

Gu Shengsheng had to agree with that. Whether it was the incident with her grandma or this recent clumsy "tailing," it all felt like a child’s game in the end, as if they were just playing with her.

It felt like their goal wasn’t to kidnap her, but to get her to go to the Jie Gao Jade Market.

Thinking about it that way, however, made Gu Shengsheng even more uneasy.

She asked, "By the way, Mr. Qin, if you helped someone do something bad, would your conscience bother you?"

"That’s something I can’t control. I’m just a humble appraiser. I get paid to do a job. My only responsibility is to determine if an antique is authentic. Anything else really has nothing to do with me."

"I see."

Gu Shengsheng understood now. These people’s identities were difficult to trace, and they likely wielded considerable power.

Logically, getting paid to do a job was perfectly reasonable. But Gu Shengsheng hated this feeling of being coerced.

’Why should her life be controlled by others while she was kept completely in the dark?’

’Even for money, she had no interest in being spied on and manipulated, only to be paid off for her trouble.’

Gu Shengsheng felt that money earned this way wasn’t worth it.

’So why couldn’t she turn the tables and investigate them instead?’

With that thought, she carefully connected all the recent events, pieced together the clues, and finally, drew upon her memories from the parallel world. Gu Shengsheng did her best to recall every strange tale and anecdote she knew about the world of antique appraisal.

’They must be a self-organized civilian group, filled with diverse talents. Their artifacts have unknown origins and are all precious relics that are nearly impossible to unearth through normal means. They also have plenty of money and never operate out in the "sunlight"...’

With this in mind, Gu Shengsheng recalled an organization she’d heard about in the parallel world—one involved in the "repatriation" of cultural relics.

At the time, she had assumed it was just a baseless rumor, but now, it seemed everything lined up perfectly.

The so-called "repatriation" involved reselling artifacts and valuables from various places, flipping them multiple times to earn a profit.

It was tantamount to laundering illegal artifact transactions. After all, once an item had changed hands so many times, who could possibly know where it originally came from or who first acquired it?

Ultimately, even if the artifacts ended up back in museums, it would be after our own institutions had to pay a high price to reacquire our own cultural heritage.

The origin becomes untraceable, making investigation impossible. This was precisely the loophole they were exploiting.

Rui City borders a foreign country, which gave them plenty of room to operate.

Thinking about it this way, everything started to make sense to Gu Shengsheng.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

’In any case, she knew these people wouldn’t give up on her easily. Even if she returned to Beijing City, they had a million ways to get her to come back and do an appraisal.’

’The fact that they could find her and had such resources meant they had been targeting her for a long time. Perhaps they believed she was the only one who could do it.’

After this clear analysis, Gu Shengsheng was no longer afraid. Instead, she was curious. What was it they needed appraised?

After confirming that her grandmother would be safe, she arranged for Zhang Lianqing to help bring her to Beijing City. Then, Gu Shengsheng quickly returned to the alley where she had last seen the muscular men.

She had spotted them resting in a corner of the alley just a moment before.

Gu Shengsheng stared at the group of men.

The muscle-bound men were instantly stunned. They gulped nervously. "Miss... Miss Gu, what are you going to do to us? We know we were wrong, really! Did you bring the police? We swear we didn’t do anything."

"We wouldn’t dare lay a single finger on you! Please, just let us go," they begged.

Gu Shengsheng held out her wrists. "Let’s go. Take me to your boss. And tie me up."

The men: "..." They stared in disbelief, as if Gu Shengsheng had lost her mind.