Chapter 244: Very Professional [2 in 1]
Translator: Lonelytree Editor: Millman97
If Han Chu was to be believed, Xu Jian actually possessed a great ability. Luo Mingxin’s acting was very good, but what kind of person was he? He was a scholar who focused on the study of human psychology, and since his entry into the entertainment business, he had acted in more than ten movies and TV programs. His experience in lying… rather, his professional experience was very deep, and even though his current results were very impressive, one could trace the reason why through his glorious career.
It was even simpler for Ye Shuang. Even though her experience in the field was not that high, with the aid of the alien DNA, she was someone who could combine both theory and application perfectly.
What about Xu Jian?
He did not have the alien DNA like Ye Shuang and did not have the talent and experience like Luo Mingxin. He had actually been dragged onto the stage by his uncle just like that. He had been tasked with focusing on acting a particular way, and to the end, he really did manage to live the character of this elite businessman successfully.
Even though, for a professional actor, Xu Jian’s expertise could not be counted as broad, if it was just used in a business setting, this type of image and persona was more than enough for him to enter most social events easily. More importantly, this was a newbie who had no working experience before, so he was someone who had practically been dropped into the water by his uncle. To be able to do so much in such a short period of time, this at least showed that Xu Jian had a surprising talent for acting.
To act pretentious and to be malleable to changes, even though these might not sound like compliments, they were incredibly practical, and that was all that mattered. Sometimes, inside a team, there had to be someone whose moral limit was lower than normal and whose actions would not draw attention. He could help the other members gather certain information or search ahead to set up the scene for the others… the scout.
In Han Chu’s eyes, Xu Jian was undoubtedly suitable for this post.
“Therefore, with the combination of all that, Xu Jian is very suitable for this job. The key problem is that I think Xu Jian has the tendency to not be satisfied with his place in life.” Han Chu used a description that was not that suitable for a man to conclude what he thought of Xu Jian. “He desires the kind of success that any normal man does, which is to become a CEO and marry a rich, fair lady. However, occasionally, he shows the tendency of betrayal or risk-seeking.”
This occasional way of thought that dislodged him from the normal state of life was the reason Xu Jian joined his uncle. Just like how every little boy dreamed of saving the world, or every little girl dreamed of having a magical item that could help them change their clothes just with a spell. No matter how unfulfilled one’s childhood was, everyone would have such an active imagination. Of course, when one grew up, such dreams would slowly be rejected from one’s mind, but it did not mean that they disappear forever. Instead, they merely morphed into occasional ‘impulses’ or ‘pa.s.sion’. This was the reason people would sometimes suddenly do something that they would not do when they were absolutely rational.
The ‘impulse’ for most people would only last a moment before it was swallowed by maturity and rationality. However, a small part of people would act on such desires due to environmental influences or personal att.i.tude. Just like how a pet that had attacked human being once would be put down with a gun, once certain rules and limitations were broken, when that bottom line was crossed, the destroyer of rule would lose their fear of rules. Perhaps they would taste the excitement and sweetness that they had not tasted before, and then, repeated rule-breaking in the future would become easier and simpler.
Xu Jian was someone who had broken the rules once already. And now, due to Ye Shuang and Han Chu, with everyone’s permission and even encouragement, he was going to break the rules a second time. He had already experienced the high from breaking the rules. Even if he returned to a normal person’s life in the future, he would accidentally or subconsciously cross the line. Therefore, even if he might not have that intention currently, Han Chu would naturally pull Xu Jian into his ranks.
Since the general moral value and societal pressure had lost its limiting factor, then they would need to depend on another type of system to control these people—he was only to utilize his ‘talent’ within the scope and permission of their cases.
And the person who handled the dog chain… or rather, the supervisor would be none other than Ye Shuang. Well, this was because Xu Jian was unfamiliar with other agents who worked under Han Chu.
…
“This is the name list that Brother Zhang came up with?” When Ye Shuang received the list of names from a girl who said that she was a member of Agent Zhang’s team, she was quite surprised.
These few days, Brother Shuang had been busy with audition and casting. To elongate the time of her appearance, she needed to wander the street to extend her evil hands toward little girls. She finished all the jobs that she needed to and managed to persuade the director to allow her to join the cast. Then she finally had time to think about other things. By then, Agent Zhang had already returned home. He had only left his a.s.sistant in Shanghai to do the follow up. The girl came over to find Sister Shuang with a name list that was already arranged.
“I thought I would be meeting that superstar.” The girl looked rather disappointed. “I heard from Brother Zhang that the new mid-tier agent is the actor that played the character of big brother. I purposely came over with the name list personally because I wanted to see him in person.”
Ye Shuang’s action paused, and she could not help but chuckle to herself—no wonder they purposely sent a person over to do something that could be completed over the internet. Ye Shuang, who thought this was to prevent the possibility of hacking, realized she was too naïve.
“We’re partners, so we’re both agents.” Ye Shuang tried to lie in the calmest tone. “Brother Shuang is preparing for casting in a new movie to get close to the target, so I came to help him deal with other things.”
“A new movie!” The girl’s eyes lit up instantly, and suddenly, an iPad appeared in her palm. It was unclear where she found the news, but she started to focus on the device. “It’s a general? This set of armor looks so good on him… Big brother sure is handsome!”
Ye Shuang also extended her neck forward to look. The casting picture that had been uploaded to the group chat a few days ago… why would it be here on her iPad?
The girl very easily downloaded the series of photos and locked them up with a pa.s.sword. To prevent any accidents, she added another copy and uploaded them to the cloud storage. Then, like Doreamon, the iPad disappeared back into her s.h.i.+rt. Ye Shuang watched as the iPad, which was definitely more than two palms wide, disappeared into the girl’s clothes. From the appearance, it was definitely impossible to tell the girl was hiding anything. Then, the Doreamon looked at Ye Shuang with glistening eyes. Her hands were placed excitedly before her chest. “You said that you’re big brother’s partner? Then, can you get his signature for me?”
“Of course, I’ll mail the picture…” Before Ye Shuang could finish, the girl very happily reached into her clothes and pulled out a picture like magic. It was a picture of her and Brother Shuang. She pa.s.sed it to Ye Shuang excitedly and added her requirement. “Please tell him to sign on this! And if possible, add a few more words on the back… This was made by the photoshop expert in our team.”
“…” Ye Shuang.
It was easier to find a common language between girls, and Ye Shuang used her affection-gaining skills to their maximum. It was simple if she wanted to capture the heart of a young girl. Then, they spent time together at lunch, shopping and even going to the toilet together. Ye Shuang finally managed to obtain the girl’s information.
As Agent Zhang had said, mid-tier agents and even members of an agents’ team did not have the need to exchange personal information with other agents to avoid potential problems. Problems like the agent accidentally leaking all of their private information, so everyone had been maintaining this rule of meeting like a gentleman, not too close and not too far. However, similarly, if they to manage to gain the other person’s approval, or both parties were willing to share the risk of potential exposure, then no one would disapprove of private connection.
The girl had a very artistic name, Su Zheng, but the girl’s personality and expertise had nothing to do with art. Su Zheng was an orphan but not the kind where her parents had pa.s.sed away. Instead, she had been abandoned on the street right after she was born. Back then, there was no internet system. To find a parent that would abandon a baby, that was incredibly difficult, especially if the parents were not local.
After a physical check-up on the baby, they had realized that she had no natural or physical deficiencies. Then, the only reason Su Zheng could have been abandoned was… gender.
Perhaps her biological family was too poor, and they were unwilling to feed another female baby. Perhaps the family was not that poor, and in fact, her parents might have a good job, but due to the one-child policy, they had refused to admit the existence of this child. In any case, no matter the reason, the result was that Su Zheng was taken over to the police station. Since the police could not find her parents, one of the old police officers who did not have a partner in life carried her home to be adopted.
The old officer did not have other family members, so this meant that Su Zheng practically grew up at the police station. She would follow the police officers daily. Someone would need to watch over the child, so the officers who were off duty and stayed back at the desk job would look over her. She would tour around the station often, visiting places like the office, the detention center…
The detention center was a different place than a jail. Jail was for people who had committed a serious crime, while the detention center was for small cases like running the traffic light or ruining the peace of the city. Some detention centers like the one that adopted Su Zheng even had a library. After Su Zheng got back from work, she would study at the big office or the library.
Perhaps Su Zheng was naturally talented, or the enemy was too cunning—when the old officer was not paying attention, Su Zheng was thus led down a path of no return by the group of ruffians. And among this group of people, the majority of them were thieves. Thus, a sad story began.
“At the time, there was an old man at the detention center that others referred to as Uncle Eight. He would be brought into the center at least once almost every month. At the time, I was so naïve and innocent, and the old man probably was too bored inside the center, so he shamelessly used magic to lure the innocent ol’ me, and then, I started to study the skill of thieving and pickpocketing…”
Su Zheng continued in a weirdly proud tone. “Uncle Eight only failed twice in his life. The first time, it was when he had just entered the business, and his pinkie was chopped off. The second time, he admitted defeat to the man who later became his teacher. He voluntarily chopped off his pointing finger to ask for admission to be the man’s student. So, he has eight fingers left, and after he became famous, people referred to him as Uncle Eight.”
Ye Shuang was quite interested in her story. “But that doesn’t sound right. You said he would be brought in every month?”
“Such is the downfall of popularity.” Su Zheng giggled and pushed out her tongue. “Once Uncle Eight showed up on the street, people knew they would get a case if they just followed him. Basically, he would not be picked up instantly, but people would tail him for an entire day and approach him when he got off ‘work’. After a body search, they would definitely find some wallets and purses on him.”
The old man had also learned from these lessons. Whenever he felt like lecturing his students, or the situation outside got too dangerous and he wanted to find a safe place to hide from the storm, he would purposely plant the evidence on himself to get captured. If he did not want to be captured, he could have easily dropped the wallets halfway and go back to collect them later. Or he could just throw away the wallet and keep the money. No one could have said in full faith that the money in his pocket was stolen. If he insisted that he picked up that money on the ground and decided to keep it for himself, there was nothing that the police could do about it.
With Uncle Eight being her main teacher, and the other characters at the center giving her face and showing her their tricks, Su Zheng slowly grew up to be an expert thief. An expert hiding in the ranks of the everyday people was the perfect description for Su Zheng. In today’s day and age, who would waste so much time to perfect a skill? Most of them would use their fists and force.
“Actually, asking for the signature is not the only reason I came to find you.” Su Zheng chatted with Ye Shuang for a while and volunteered her own personal information as an attempt to get close to her. She took a sip of the milk tea and scratched her head embarra.s.sedly. “There is a hacker in our team… Hmm, he’s the one who helped me photoshop the photo and hacked into the film crew’s chat group. He heard that there is a computer expert in your team, and he wishes to have a friendly compet.i.tion with him.”
“Tony?” Ye Shuang was silent for a moment. “I cannot promise you that. You’ll have to get Tony’s own opinion on that.”
Su Zheng pretended to cry and act pitiful. “Then you have to put in a few good words for us. Ol’ K once lost to Ace on the internet before, and he has been trying to find the chance to have a rematch, but Ace has been ignoring him. On top of that, there’s the interruption from Mr. Han. Now, we’ve found out that Ace has joined an agent’s team. Ol’ K has been mumbling about this for a long time already. As long as we get the permission from the agent and Ace himself, Mr. Han will not say anything anymore.”
Ye Shuang looked at the girl with a smile and followed the conversation. “But the problem is Tony is very busy. We’re currently working on the Xi Hwa Organization’s issue, and we are already running short on hands—Tony is the main power… Cough! You understand, right?”
“Of course! Yes, of course I understand!” Su Zheng surrendered her power to Ye Shuang. “As long as Ace agrees to this rematch, both Ol’ K and I are willing to join this mission!”
Ye Shuang used the phone at the hotel and Brother Shuang’s voice to call Agent Zhang to inform him about the sudden change of team members. There were no rules banning the members of an agent from working for another agent. However, it was just that other agents would have a hard time ordering talents that did not belong to their group. This was just like an online game. The understanding and cooperation between a fixed group of people would definitely be better because they already knew about each other’s personality and quirks. If they were broken apart, it would be difficult to achieve the same level of efficiency with outsiders.
However, if someone brought their friend or partner, the team would try to accommodate them. Or if someone was called to go help with another person’s sub account or the guild or friend’s team was missing a member, then this fixed group would be temporarily separated. This was not entirely impossible as well.
After Agent Zhang got the call, he was silent for about half a minute before saying rather lazily, “No wonder I felt like Xiao Su and Ol’ K have been acting strangely recently. If they want to help you, then fine by me, but personally, I don’t think these two will be of much use.”
One of them was a professional thief—she was good at other cases, but in a battle of business, there was not much use for her. The other hacker was quite useable, but since she already had Ace, why would she need a King? Since she already had Tony, she really did not need Ol’ K.
“The most important thing for talent is suitability. There has to be a place where I can make use of them.” Ye Shuang chuckled in her magnetic male voice. “But no matter what, I have to thank Brother Zhang.”
“You’re welcome.” Agent Zhang yawned. He sounded leisurely like an old man. “I worked out until quite late last night. If there’s nothing else, I’m going to hang up now… By the way, if there’s a budget, these talents will get ten percent of the remaining budget or the pure profit, don’t forget about that.”
The way the team earned money was different from a normal talent. A normal talent received the payment through the cases. Team members did not have case payment, but they could get the lowest guaranteed payment and commission. Mid-tier cases normally reached into tens of thousands or even millions, so if this case did not use any normal talent from the talent storage, the team members would get the percentage from the profit, and basically, a member would get ten thousand or even a hundred thousand from completing a single case.
After Ye Shuang put down the phone, she grumbled to herself before getting a headache over the budget again. Where would she find the whale who would sponsor her team? First, she needed to focus on the target who would be harmed or targeted by the Xi Hwa Organization’s movement.
Studying the name list that had been given to her by Su Zheng, Ye Shuang started to seriously study the characters on it. It was Agent Zhang’s team who had done the a.n.a.lysis, but the information that they based their a.n.a.lysis on came from Ye Shuang’s investigation. In other words, the names on the list were people that Ye Shuang had already interacted with. Even though the a.n.a.lysis was very well done, the actual use was not that big.
Yao Zhixing… to have Ye Shuang ask money from her bro, that was really hard.
Zuo Yuanhang… he had already cleaned up Chaohai on his own, so he would not need to spend this money.
Boss Mo… he was in a mutual relations.h.i.+p with Xia Cheng, and it did not bother him whether the latter was money-laundering or not as long as he could help the former to finish his movie and expand his influence.
Hmm, wait a minute. If it’s put that way, Xia Cheng and Boss Mo are standing on the same line, doesn’t this mean Xia Cheng is in an opposing team with Miao Yi?
Thinking back to how cold the artists from Miao Yi had acted at Xia Cheng’s bungalow, Ye Shuang suddenly understood something.
Miao Yi’s boss does not need the money!
But how could she get close to Miao Yi’s boss? This was a serious question. A Cinderella scenario only happened in movies. This was prevented a simple concept; their lifestyle did not match at all.
What was the lifestyle like for a normal person? Wake up, breakfast, go to the park to jog, rush for the bus, climb to their office on the 10th floor, go out for lunch… Ok! At this point, those with some budget could go to a good restaurant, go back to work, walk around the shopping market after work, and take a detour to the night market to buy some ingredients to take home.
Then what was the lifestyle for the rich and famous? Wake, breakfast, work out at personal gym at home, ferried by a driver, either at work or fly over the world for meeting, if at work, they would take the private elevator to get to the top floor. Go out for lunch? Buy ingredients? What was the purpose of an a.s.sistant? Why would they hire a chef at home? Work until tired, and if they were not busy, they could go to private club to enjoy the drink or flirt with the girls, then go home…
In these two different circles, how would a rich, single man wander to a poor man’s residential area and have a chance encounter with a Cinderella down on her luck?
Perhaps a normal rich and famous person’s life was not that strictly structured, but the frame of it would be correct. The differences of the two different lifestyles were too huge, and they did not have a proper understanding of each other’s lifestyle, so the chance of crossing paths was understandably low.
Ye Shuang scratched her head for three minutes and finally came up with a first draft. She took out her phone to call the girl who had left her number with her. “Xiao Su, it is time for you to s.h.i.+ne!”
…
“Miao Yi only leaves an agent in Shanghai to deal with the company operations—all the business tactics were discussed through the web. In other words, the real decision maker is in Xiang Jiang, and normally, their business meetings is done through video conferences. Every season, the boss will fly over to take a look. After all, the business is too big, but the man has a mistress living in Shanghai. The people in the business calls her Sister Yu. She was once an actress, so if you want to find an opening, you can try to approach her.”
Ol’ K was the one who arranged all the information inside the team. That night, he called Ye Shuang to report all this valuable information. It was fairly common for higher ups at the entertainment business to have adopted daughter. Of course, it was wrong to say everyone was dirty in this circle, but to say that everyone was pure and innocent was wrong as well.
Occasionally, there would be salacious scandals on the internet, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, Ol’ K also attached a picture of this Sister Ye. Ye Shuang combed her memory to see whether she had any memory of this person. She also managed to find more information on her from the internet.
One small budget indie film, background actor in several advertis.e.m.e.nts, a few p.o.r.n flicks, and then she disappeared from the spotlight. She looked rather pretty and s.e.xy, but her acting was really only so-so. The really sad part was Sister Ye’s ability at memorizing lines. Ye Shuang watched a period drama a few years ago and was already impressed when she heard a foreign accent from the lips of one of the girls. However, today, she realized that there was truly unlimited potential to human. Behind the mountain, there was always another one higher.
A foreign accent was nothing compared to Sister Yu who could read her lines like she was rapping.
“What about her daily schedule?” Ye Shuang typed on the computer while she talked on the phone.
A young man who sounded like he had a chewing gum in his mouth asked, “You mean what kind of places does this Sister Yu normally go?
“The spa center, hot spring, the mall.” Ol’ K rattled off a few locations and then explained, “I cannot hack into the street cameras and her car records. I can only start by her credit card expenses. The amount of money she has spent at these few places were the highest, so she should visit these places every few days.”
Ye Shuang thanked the man and ended the call. Ol’ K’s investigation was very nice. Even though Anthony was better in terms of skills, he was not as experienced as Ol’ K at snooping. Therefore, skill was sometimes not that important—it depended on how much someone could utilize their skill.
After she communicated with Ol’ K, she contacted Su Zheng. The latter was still shopping madly in Shanghai like she wanted to make of this opportunity to fill up her closet. When Ye Shuang called, she was still at the night market. Even though she had stopped shopping, she was eating.
Her cheeks were full, and she used an unclear voice to chew and answer, “Hmm, Sister Shuang, no problem. You want me to tail her? That’s simple.”
Ye Shuang sighed silently. “It’s not that, I just need you to approach the target silently. If Sister Yu goes shopping, can you clear out her bag?”
“That depends on what kind of bag it is.” Su Zheng thought about it and said, “If it’s a large bag, it might be difficult because I need to replace the items that I stole.”
Nowadays, girls carried bigger bags compared to before. Before this, girls carried a purse and a phone, and that was mostly it. But now, other than these important things, girls needed to carry creamer, lip gloss and various make-up, tissues, an umbrella, and so on. One time, Su Zheng had been on her mission, and like a mouse, she had siphoned out the items in the target’s bag. She had to buy a few packs of biscuits to replace the stuff or else the weight difference would have been too difficult. After the mission was concluded, out of curiosity, Su Zheng had weighed the contents of the bag, and the result had been eight kilograms.
Eight kilograms!
After that, Su Zheng had stayed away from big bags.
Ye Shuang thought about it. “I can find you a helper.”
Su Zheng was so touched until she had tears. “Sister Shuang, that would be best. If you want to help me, then come by tomorrow with ten kilograms worth of stuff.”
“…” Ye Shuang.
The next day, Sister Yu’s credit card showed activity again. The record showed that she was at a hot spring. Based on Ol’ K’s investigation, it was Sister Yu’s habit to go shopping after going to a spa or for a swim.
With that important, Ye Shuang hailed a cab and left the hotel. She grabbed Su Zheng, who was staying at the same hotel, and rushed to the mall that Sister Yu usually visited. When they arrived, they found a place to sit and ordered two milk teas. Each girl held a cup as they shared the pictures on the phone.
Ye Shuang pointed out Sister Yu’s picture to Su Zheng. “This is the woman, listen…”
She was about to introduce Sister Yu when Su Zheng gasped in surprise. “Oh, I know her. There were a few fiery videos about her on the net not too long ago. It was a private video of a group of female stars. Ol’ K received the mission to delete the source of those video. In the video, she was the most provocative. Her cowgirl position was so professional!”
“… Haha.”
What the actual f*ck! No wonder Ol’ K could come up with the information so quickly—it was an old client. Ye Shuang’s lips twitched slightly, and she coughed to pull the topic back. “In any case, our target is her this time. I will help you pay attention to the camera.”
Su Zheng sucked heavily on the straw, and her big eyes looked at Ye Shuang. “Then, can you give me her phone?”
Why do you need her phone? What is your plan? Those videos wouldn’t be saved on her phone!