Chapter 836: To Play Dumb
It was really a coincidence. Apparently, right after Grandma Su arrived at Dong Shan City, she saw a one of the Happy Science seminars and a long queue of people waiting to listen to the lecture before she even went to Film City to look for clues about her granddaughter’s disappearance.
Although they were calling it a Happy Science Seminar, but on the faces of those lined up “members”, Grandma Su concluded that they were carrying out suspicious religious activities. Before the liberation, Grandma Su saw people at her village preaching for evil cults and gathering believers.
“Maybe my granddaughter’s disappearance could be related to the evil cult. I remember that those evil cult leaders love to trick young girls…”
With those thoughts in mind, Grandma Su mixed into the queue and pretended to be curious as she chatted with the believers.
“The ‘Happy Science Seminar’ flat out denied that it was a religion. It avoided the use of words like ‘leader’ and ‘believer’, but replaced them with the terms ‘wise man’ and ‘members’. At first I was a bit skeptical, maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t a cult and I wouldn’t be able to find any information related to my granddaughter, it might have been a waste of time.”
Grandma Su said to me while looking over the free coupons given to us by McDonald’s.
“However, the teacher with a surname of Hu, who was lined up in front of me praised their ‘wise man’, Professor Bai as if he was a G.o.d. He said Professor Bai calculated that he would definitely be trapped if he bought the stocks. In the end, the solar energy company he was planning to buy stocks from did indeed have a scandal. The boss left the company behind and eloped with the secretary and the stock price plummeted…”
Eh, this teacher Hu sounds like Gong CaiCai’s summer cram school teacher. Since he had the same cell phone as mines, he was always under Professor Bai’s surveillance. They recorded all of the stocks he wanted to buy, so of course, it will be “calculated”.
As for the stock price plunge prediction, honestly there wasn’t even a need for a prediction. How many retail investors can even make any money in the Chinese stock market? Back then when Chiang Kai-shek invested in the Shanghai stock exchange, he lost six hundred thousand in only three years.
“I noticed that teacher Hu had fallen quite far and that there was an eighty percent chance Happy Science was an evil cult.” Grandma Su continued, “Also, there was a delicate young girl next to teacher Hu. She was really young but looked like she had breast implants, I guess she watched too many Korean dramas…”
Hey, Grandma Su, are you talking about Gong CaiCai? Gong CaiCai’s b.r.e.a.s.t.s are natural, she’s still worried about how to make them a little bit smaller! Also, don’t blame everything on Korean dramas! Aren’t you also watching “Full House”? Korean actresses only like plastic surgery, breast augmentation and so on are only supplementary.
Regardless of what biases Grandma Su had against Gong CaiCai, basically after a brief conversation, she confirmed that Happy Science, the so-called evil cult, was trying to trick people out of their money and also trick young girls. Grandma Su felt that Gong CaiCai was definitely one of their targets because she was a young and good-looking girl (since you couldn’t tell Gong CaiCai was rich based on her attire). She thought if she kept an eye on Gong CaiCai, she may be able to find clues relating to her granddaughter.
Grandma Su actually miscalculated because she didn’t expect there to be an evil cult that doesn’t use violence and only tricks people out of their money without also tricking young girls. Professor Bai and Fang Xin brainwashed others for fun, so even if they obtained other people’s bank accounts with pa.s.swords from their phones, they won’t be in a rush to take out all the money like other criminals. They would only consider it impressive if they could make other people consciously and voluntarily give their money away to them.
The Happy Science Seminars were free of charge and welcomes everyone to attend, so Grandma Su lined up behind Teacher Hu and Gong CaiCai. She asked them about the situation in Dong Shan City and gathered information while pretending to be an ignorant old woman from the countryside who had entered the city for the first time. She played dumb to let members from Happy Science to come and trick her.
In the end, she actually succeeded. Professor Bai’s a.s.sistant, a guy who used to be the backbone of another cult, thought that the wrinkled white-haired old lady was easy to trick, so he took the initiative to talk to Grandma Su and wanted to trick her into getting on board with only a few words.
The methods the a.s.sistant used were the same ones from the previous cult. It was incomparable to Professor Bai, who uses all kinds of scientific principles in his lectures. The more Grandma Su listened, the the more she wanted to laugh.
Grandma Su intentionally changed the topic to Gong CaiCai, because she wanted to see if the a.s.sistant was a lecher and if they would kidnap young girls.
This a.s.sistant used to be active in the rural areas of the Northeast as the backbone figure in a certain “Korean Christianity” group. He was an expert at deceiving others and at every gathering he would cry or scream as he showed off the Christ’s “miracles”. Afterward, the cult was shutdown by the public security bureau. He happened to get the news in advance and ran away to Dong Shan City. He was able to sniff out the Happy Science Cult and recommend himself to Professor Bai.
At that time, the Happy Science Cult was still in its infancy and very short of manpower, so Professor Bai appointed him as an a.s.sistant.
Since he was once a key member of a cult, he had to change his name to avoid being caught by the public security department. He, who now calls himself Chen, was deeply dissatisfied with Professor Bai for not giving him access to the core secrets of the cult. He always wanted to show off by pulling in more people into the cult, so that he could gain Professor Bai’s trust.
The first time I followed Gong CaiCai to listen to Professor Bai’s lecture, the a.s.sistant Professor Chen thought he was clever by using methods of his former cult like writing “Anyone who doesn’t believe in the Happy Science is my son” on the back of Professor Bai’s pet tortoise and let it crawl over to let me see it.
It was a very childish method and it’s no wonder Professor Bai despises his methods. That’s why his att.i.tude towards a.s.sistant Professor Chen was basically similar to that of a handyman.
a.s.sistant Professor Chen, who wasn’t that smart, tried to trick Grandma Su into enrolling. In the midst of the conversation, Grandma Su was able to gain quite a bit of information, but there wasn’t a single piece of information that seemed to be related to Su Qiao’s disappearance. Grandma Su felt like she may be going down the wrong path, so she prepared to leave the seminar.
a.s.sistant Professor Chen saw the old lady wanted to leave, so he was very frustrated and tried all kinds of things to make her stay. He also brought up the Karma Calculator and said Happy Science can calculate other people’s futures, which caught Grandma Su’s interest.
“Cough cough… is it really that amazing. A family from our village had their daughter go missing for more than two months, can you calculate her location?”
“We can.” a.s.sistant Professor Chen promised irresponsibly, “What’s the missing girl’s name. We can calculate it if we have her name.”
The cult that a.s.sistant Professor Chen was in back then was very fond of tricking young girls into joining the cult, so when he heard Grandma Su say “someone’s daughter was missing”, he subconsciously interpreted it as a young girl.
It also made Grandma Su very concerned, so Grandma Su decided to see if she could dig anything up.
“Wu MengYuan, Fang Han, and Zhen MeiLi… Those girls all disappeared when they went out for work…”
Grandma Su said the names of the girls who were suspected to have been abducted and sold in the middle of the Shijiazhuang human trafficking case. She wanted to see a.s.sistant Professor Chen’s reaction, but he had a blank look on his face and only said, “That’s a lot of missing people from your village…”
“Oh, and there was another girl named Su Qiao.”
Grandma Su added her granddaughter’s name as if she had just remembered it.
a.s.sistant Chen’s face suddenly changed, of course, it was impossible to escape Grandma Su’s eyes. Grandma Su didn’t act impatiently. She said she was diabetic and had to go eat, so she would be back tomorrow to listen to the lecture. a.s.sistant Chen couldn’t really retain her in that case and could only hope that she would really come back tomorrow.
As it turned out, he didn’t even have to wait until tomorrow. On the same day, the seminar ended after Professor Bai gave a 4 hour lecture with only 5 minutes of rest in the middle. Everyone went back to their homes and a.s.sistant Professor Chen also had nothing to do but get off work.
a.s.sistant Professor Chen was followed by Grandma Su all the way home. It was not until he opened the door to change into his slippers that he realized that the “silly rural old lady” had followed him inside.
“Don’t move.” Grandma Su smacked her cane onto a.s.sistant Professor Chen’s shin bone. a.s.sistant Professor Chen squatted down from the pain and wanted to yell, but was gagged by Grandma Su with half an apple.
Grandma Su bought the apple from a fruit stall while she was tracking him, so it seems like it really was an easy task for her.
Grandma Su didn’t tell me exactly how she coerced a confession from a.s.sistant Professor Chen, but she was an expert in weapons, and definitely wouldn’t hold back in order to find out the whereabouts of her granddaughter. a.s.sistant Professor Chen must have been subjected to horrible abuse.
a.s.sistant Professor Chen realized that he would lose his life if he did not tell the truth, so he could only desperately beg for mercy and told Grandma Su everything he knew.
Unexpectedly, a.s.sistant Professor Chen was actually the spy that Ai ShuQiao had planted inside Happy Science.
However, saying that he was a spy was a bit of an exaggeration, at most he was considered a money-grubbing traitor.
He had never been trusted by Professor Bai, nor did Ai ShuQiao treat him as an important p.a.w.n, he only took Ai ShuQiao’s money and gave her information.
It was definitely impossible for someone with his intelligence to gain Professor Bai and Fang Xin’s trust, and steal the karma calculation program, that’s why Ai ShuQiao gave that task to me.
However, a.s.sistant Professor Chen didn’t think he was dumb. In order to “know yourself and know your enemy to win a hundred battles”, he thought he was clever by looking up information about Ai ShuQiao. It was disorganized and some information was wrong, but he was able to find some information, including the fact that Su Qiao was detained by Ai ShuQiao.
Grandma Su had a fierce look on her face and beat him badly, so he couldn’t help but suspect that Ai Shu Qiao thought he was a nuisance and sent her to kill and silence him, or maybe Professor Bai knew that he was a mole and sent someone to kill and silence him. Regardless, he spat out all the information he had and only begged Grandma Su to spare his life.
Thus, that’s how Grandma Su believed there was a good chance her granddaughter had fallen into Ai ShuQiao’s hands. Happy Science and Ai ShuQiao were constantly trying to outwit each other, and I, as Ai ShuQiao’s son, had now become the object of Happy Science and Ai ShuQiao’s fight.