Chapter 99: Who Touched the Ransom?

The police had no idea that Lu Gan Da had been kidnapped. No one knew about it.

The question the kidnappers had asked was far too sensitive. Lu Gan Da didn’t dare tell anyone about his ordeal. He feared they might tear up the ticket—that is, kill him—and even more, he dreaded the suspicion that would fall on him.

He pretended that nothing had happened and returned to his temporary apartment. With three hours still before dawn, he grabbed a hasty nap before getting up to go about his business.

That morning, the police received the kidnappers’ instructions: On the morning of August 11th at 8:00 a.m., package the ransom in a plastic bag and place it in the second trash bin in front of the Maple Leaf Street Post Office. Once it was in place, leave immediately without lingering.

After preparing the ransom, the police quickly planned their personnel deployment for the surveillance and tailing operation the next day. Their goal was to track down the kidnappers’ hideout.

During the task force meeting, Lu Gan Da’s attention wandered several times. The hostage rescue operation was about to begin, but he felt no excitement—indeed, he harbored scarcely any hope at all.

Last night in that pitch-black room, he had passed out again. When he woke, he was back behind the convenience store, with those two cans of food beside him.

In his memory, that faceless figure hadn’t responded to him at all—no expression, no sound. Even the image of his mother on the screen had vanished in an instant when he blacked out, withdrawing like the faint, fragile hope he had clung to.

“Tomorrow, Group 2 will stake out from the office on the second floor of the post office. Group 1 and Team 3 will wait in vehicles nearby and move in at the first sign of activity, handing off the tail in shifts. Group 4 will provide mobile support and remain on standby throughout.”

Once Luo Lan finished her assignments, she turned to Lu Gan Da. “Tomorrow, please wait in the break room. We’ll notify you immediately of any developments. Rest easy—we’ll give it everything we’ve got!”

Lu Gan Da snapped back to attention and nodded stiffly, like a computer that had frozen up and just rebooted.

…

On the morning of August 11th at 8:00 a.m., amid the flow of pedestrians coming and going, Lu Gan Da placed the yellow plastic bag into the second trash bin.

The bag settled into the black garbage sack, nestling quietly among the other refuse.

Without lingering, he hailed a cab at the roadside and returned to his residence.

From that moment on, this “loaded with cash” trash bin became the focus of the police operation, guarded around the clock.

The post office’s supply storeroom had been commandeered. Group 2’s officers sat by the window, peering through the slats of the blinds at anyone approaching the bin.

Meanwhile, in the parking lot in front of the nearby coffee shop, Group 1’s team entered a state of high alert, passing around cups of black coffee to stay sharp and alert.

To match the post office’s color scheme, the trash bins out front were painted dark green. Unlike the cylindrical mail drop-off, they had square, wide mouths on top, with little cartoon figures on the side reminding people to dispose of their waste properly.

Pedestrians streamed by, but few stopped to throw anything away. There weren’t many residents nearby, and those who passed hurried along—either to mail a package or catch a train at the station. Even if they had trash in hand, they wouldn’t pause near the bin.

Just as Group 2 had anticipated, the bins at the entrance mainly served post office staff and customers mailing items, who tossed in unwanted packaging, paper, and such. Nearby shop owners sometimes crossed the street to dump their waste too.

Group 2 focused intently on anyone who approached to discard trash. They watched each one closely from start to finish. Most people tossed their garbage and left empty-handed, perhaps holding only a phone and earbuds.

Everything outside the blinds appeared normal. That is, until late morning, when the surveillance team spotted something unusual.

A man wearing a sun hat approached carrying a large bag of trash. After dumping it, he didn’t leave. Instead, he began rummaging around.

Group 2’s officers pressed close to the blinds and trained binoculars on him, tracking his every move.

The man had a broad back and stood facing away from the post office doors, blocking the mouth of the bin as he bent over and poked around inside.

The tension mounted among the officers. One of them already had his hand on his Bluetooth earpiece, ready to call in the team.

The man rummaged for a while, like a rat foraging for rice in a barrel. At last, he straightened up, pulling out a rectangular cardboard box—the kind used to ship a microwave or toaster oven.

Finding the box too bulky, he bent down again, tearing and stomping it into flat sheets. He stacked them neatly and tucked the pile under his arm before striding away contentedly.

Group 2’s officers kept their hands on their earpieces but held off reporting.

They had seen exactly what he’d fished out: a cardboard box, its interior fully exposed to their view—no suspicious items, no space for any.

The postal staff had mentioned that scavengers occasionally rifled through the bins for cardboard and foam packaging. They turned them into crafts and sold them at flea markets.

This man had moved with bold confidence and practiced skill, like someone with thirty years of trash-picking experience.

Though the brim of his hat hid his face—a highly suspicious detail—his subsequent actions dispelled the officers’ doubts. He became just a pick-me-up during the long watch, not worth tailing.

More suspicious figures appeared after that: a woman who dumped her trash and then doubled back to rummage; a man who paced beside the bin while on the phone; even one upstanding citizen who carried his bag to all three bins, dithered for ages, then sorted his refuse meticulously into the appropriate receptacles.

The suspects came and went, but all were cleared in the end. No one took the yellow bag. No one pulled a bag from the bin. No one even pocketed anything.

From morning through afternoon and into the deep night, the surveillance teams rotated twice, but they found no one worth following.

The half-million in ransom lay quietly in the bin, like an abandoned orphan.

In one of the cars, even after downing two cups of coffee, an officer yawned hugely late into the night. “No word from the kidnappers yet. Looks like they haven’t picked it up.”

Another, slumped against the window with his face smushed, replied, “They’ve got some patience. Are they waiting for the grapes to go on sale at the festival before coming for the cash?”

It was meant as a joke, but it turned out prophetic.

Another night passed with no sign of the kidnappers. In the end, it was the early-morning garbage truck that hauled the bin away.

Just like the morning before, personnel in the second-floor storeroom and the street-side cars watched the collection process. The truck’s mechanical arm lifted by the bin’s handles, dumped the contents into the hopper, then compacted everything tight and slammed the lid shut, leaving the bin empty.

An officer from the car got out, tossed his coffee cup, and peered into the bin to confirm it was clean—no remnants.

“Follow that garbage truck! Maybe we got it wrong. The suspect could be inside the waste management company!”

Group 1 and Team 3 sprang into action at last. Cars and motorcycles tailed the truck in shifts. Meanwhile, Group Leader Luo Lan rushed to the processing plant with her team.

Suspecting an inside job at the plant, they bypassed standard procedures and went straight to the control room to monitor the truck’s every move once it arrived.

The screens formed a vast mosaic, tracking the vehicle’s path.

The driver pulled up to the compaction pit and dumped the non-recyclables inside. The refuse was pressed into rectangular blocks and fed onto a conveyor belt.

Luo Lan furrowed her brow and asked the staff at the screens, “What happens next? Is there any manual handling?”

“No. After that, it’s all automated assembly line. Machines sort out glass and metal; plastics go into the extruder, get pressurized and melted into liquid, then into the reactor where they’re vaporized at high heat.”

Luo Lan watched the busy conveyor belt on the screens, anxiety gnawing at her. No high heat or pressure was even needed—the shredders alone would pulverize the cash.

No one could get close during these stages; it was all computer-controlled. Sorting bills from a plastic bag was practically impossible.

At this point, there was no plausible way for a suspect to strike. It was time to halt operations.

“Please stop the processing line. We need to recover an item.”

The conveyor belts, stacked like an overpass, ground to a halt. The reactor fell silent. The processing room quieted, save for the rustle of garbage.

Luo Lan flashed her officer’s badge and enlisted the plant workers to search for the half-million ransom.

The first batch of compacted blocks sat just two meters from the shredder. Luo Lan’s hands trembled slightly as she dug through them, reluctant to imagine hundreds of thousands in cash ground to dust.

But the money wasn’t in the first block, nor the second or third. At the far end of the conveyor, in the processing pit, workers found the yellow bag.

Following orders, they touched nothing and handed it straight to Luo Lan for inspection.

The moment Luo Lan saw the yellow bag, her heart sank.

Recovering the money wasn’t good news. If the kidnappers hadn’t taken it, they might have spotted something off and aborted the plan.

But when she opened the plastic bag, an even greater shock awaited her: the money was gone!

To protect the cash inside, Lu Gan Da had double-wrapped the yellow plastic bag the day before and secured it with a rubber band.

The bag was still perfectly intact, the band in place—but the money had vanished without a trace, as if someone had reached through the plastic and plucked the bills out from afar.

Luo Lan slipped the bag into an evidence container, still struggling to process her astonishment. She wandered out of the processing room in a daze when her phone rang. It was Mo Fei.

” Officer Luo, the kidnappers just called. They say they’ve received the ransom and verified it—half a million in genuine bills.”