Chapter 4: Robbed on the Road (Please collect!)

  Uncle Zheng Yu washed up and changed out of his sweaty clothes, then headed out. It was already past five in the afternoon, but the sky was still very bright, with no signs of darkness. Uncle Zheng Yu was quite familiar with C City by now, and quickly found a nearby bank after walking around for a bit. He had come to withdraw some money, although he suspected the bank would be closed at this hour, but the ATM should still work.

  Just as he was approaching the bank, Tai Shu Zheng noticed something was off. There were several police cars parked around with flashing red and blue lights. Tai Shu Zheng walked slowly towards the scene, only to see a long cordon set up near the bank. He looked around at the crowd being cleared away by the police, then glanced inside the bank, thinking to himself that it couldn't be a robbery, could it? As he was pondering this, a sudden shout of surprise came from behind him, and Tai Shu Zheng instinctively turned his head to look.

  "Zheng Yu, what are you doing here?" A man in his thirties, dressed in a suit and tie, walked over from behind Uncle Zheng Yu and shouted. Uncle Zheng Yu knew this person, Cheng Kai Guo, someone from the National Security Bureau. Since arriving in C City a month ago, it was basically Cheng Kai Guo who had been in contact with Uncle Zheng Yu, so the two were quite familiar with each other. Uncle Zheng Yu smiled and said: "Brother Cheng, long time no see! What's this got to do with you guys?" He pointed inside.

  Cheng Kai Guo glanced at the civilians who had been cleared to the outside of the boundary and said in a low voice, "We can handle anything, so I have to come and take a look at such a big thing. It's already been half an hour, and there's no effect yet. I really don't know if those negotiation experts are just eating dry rice." Here, Cheng Kai Guo was obviously very dissatisfied with the so-called negotiation experts. Tai Shu Zheng Yu smiled slightly, if the negotiation experts were useful, then what would be the use of the police? What would be the use of their Blade Team? However, Tai Shu Zheng Yu had not thought about intervening in this matter, believing that the C City Police should be able to handle such a small thing.

  At this time, a man in police uniform walked over and said to the two: "Please move outside the police line, this is a police investigation." Cheng Kai Guo took out his ID and flashed it in front of the man, saying: "This is my friend." Cheng Kai Guo pointed at Tai Shu Zheng Yu and said to the man. The man saw that the ID Cheng Kai Guo took out had the words "National Security Bureau" printed on it, and suddenly didn't dare say anything more.

  After the man left, Cheng Kai Guo said to Tai Shu Zheng Yu: "Let's go in and take a look." Tai Shu Zheng Yu originally wanted to say no, but suddenly he saw someone, a woman inside the bank. Tai Shu Zheng Yu stared at her, looking at her trembling eyes, his heart moved, and nodded. "What is the identity of the robber inside? How many people are there, do you know?" Tai Shu Zheng Yu asked while following Cheng Kai Guo.

  Cheng Kai Guo loosened his tie and turned around to look at Tai Shu Zheng Yu, saying: "Not clear, I'll go ask for clarification later. I just received the news and rushed over, so I'm not very clear about the specifics either." Tai Shu Zheng Yu nodded, silently calculating in his mind.

  "Captain Cheng, you're here too." A middle-aged bald man with a big belly and wearing a police uniform, holding a loudspeaker, suddenly saw the two walking towards him and spoke up. Cheng Ke's face was serious, his brow furrowed, pointing inside and asking: "Director Jiang, what's the situation in there?" Jiang Yi'an glanced at Tai Shu Zhengyu standing behind Cheng Ke, thinking he was Cheng Ke's subordinate, so didn't pay much attention. Jiang Yi'an wiped the sweat from his forehead and said: "The robbers are holding more than a dozen hostages, we've been negotiating for half an hour but there's no progress."

  Tai Shu Zheng Yu stood quietly behind Cheng Kai Guo, listening to the conversation between the two. Cheng Kai Guo had his hands on his hips, looking inside, then turned his head to ask Jiang Yi An: "How many people do they have? What are their demands?" "According to current information, there should be seven of them, all armed with guns and grenades. They burst into the bank just before closing time, wanting to rob it. As for their demands, they want 50 million in cash, nothing else." Jiang Yi An was only the director of this regional public security bureau, and his authority was not as great as Cheng Kai Guo's. Whatever Cheng Kai Guo asked, he naturally answered, and with the help of the National Security Bureau, he had also gained many benefits.

  "Is that all you want, 500 million in cash?" Chiang Kai-shek's eyebrows furrowed instantly. This was very different from the usual robbery case. 500 million in cash was a huge amount, and even if it were all 100-yuan bills, the weight would be staggering. How could they safely transport such a large quantity of cash? In ordinary robbery cases, robbers usually tried to grab as much cash as possible, take hostages, and demand helicopters or other vehicles. No one dared to make such an outrageous demand, asking for 500 million in cash outright. Not to mention that gathering 500 million in cash would take a long time, prolonging the situation would be unfavorable for them as well.

  Jiang Yi'an nodded, looking at the negotiator standing at the bank entrance, shouting into the building with his hands raised. He nodded and said, "Indeed, there are no other demands." At this time, Uncle Zheng Yu suddenly spoke up. Uncle Zheng Yu asked Jiang Yi'an, "What if they say that if the police can't raise the money within a certain period of time, they'll kill the hostages?"

  Jiang Yi'an furrowed her brow, somewhat impatient with Tai Shu Zheng Yu's attitude. However, since Tai Shu Zheng Yu had come with Cheng Kai Guo, she couldn't say much. Jiang Yi'an said, "No, do you want them to shoot the hostages?" As she spoke these words, a hint of displeasure appeared on her face. As the police chief of this district, Jiang Yi'an was eager for the hijackers not to harm the hostages in any way. Upon hearing Tai Shu Zheng Yu's question, she naturally wouldn't give him a good expression to look at.

  Cheng Kai knew that Uncle Zheng Yu was not an ordinary person, so he didn't interrupt him. Cheng Kai said, "Uncle Zheng Yu, tell me your thoughts." The situation had come to a standstill, and the special police team hadn't arrived yet, but Cheng Kai wanted to hear Uncle Zheng Yu's ideas. Uncle Zheng Yu glanced at Jiang Yi'an, nodded, and said to Cheng Kai, "The matter is simple. These robbers are not ordinary robbers. Everyone knows that it's impossible to gather 50 million in cash within a short period of time. No bank has that much cash on hand. Even if the police agree to provide 50 million, it can't be done in a short amount of time. The longer they drag this out, the more unfavorable it is for the robbers. I believe they also know this. Before robbing the bank, they must have had some plan. Now, as soon as they opened their mouths, they asked for 50 million in cash, without caring what the experts said, without getting angry, and without harming the hostages. They just stood guard inside the bank, confronting the police. This shows that they are stalling for time!" Uncle Zheng Yu's calm explanation left Jiang Yi'an and Cheng Kai stunned. If things were as Uncle Zheng Yu said, then what was their goal? What did they want to do? Why were they doing this?

  Robbery can be considered a light or serious crime. However, they robbed an amount of 50 million and possessed weapons, hand grenades, and held hostages. Even if it's not the death penalty, they will spend their entire lives in prison. Moreover, there is only hope for no death penalty if they did not harm any hostages.

  No matter who it is, no one would keep delaying at this time, that's simply sentencing themselves. Either they are very confident and sure of safely escaping from the police's tight encirclement, or they wouldn't do such a thing. Who would be foolish enough to decide to rob a bank and then give the police plenty of time to set up an inescapable trap?

  The police are gathering here in droves, and as long as the robbers inside the bank aren't blind, they can see the situation outside through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Tai Shu Zheng is straining his eyes to observe the situation inside, and he finds that these robbers are not ordinary amateur thieves, but well-trained personnel. After a rough observation, Tai Shu Zheng discovers that at the position in front of the bank's entrance, no matter which direction, it is impossible to hit the robbers with one shot, each robber is hiding very well. All the hostages are standing in front of the bank counter, lined up in a row, completely blocking the robbers. Tai Shu Zheng doesn't need to look at other positions and knows that in other directions where you can see inside the bank, it's unlikely that the robbers' shadows will appear under the police guns.

  Uncle Zheng Yu looked up and sized up the building, which was only ten stories high. In a city of skyscrapers, it wasn't particularly tall. The bank was conveniently located on the first floor, and there was no other way to enter except through the main entrance on the first floor. On both sides of the building, the nearest house was at least ten meters away.

  "What's their purpose, after all?" Cheng Kai Guo listened to Tai Shu Zheng Yu and felt that what he said was reasonable. He had handled many cases, but really hadn't encountered such a strange group of robbers before. These robbers were inexplicable in their behavior, neither urging the police nor showing any impatience, everything seemed too calm, calm to the point of being eerie.

  At this time, Jiang Yi'an received a call. Seeing Jiang Yi'an nodding continuously, he knew it was definitely his superior who called. As expected, after Jiang Yi'an hung up the phone, he said to both of them: "The municipal bureau called me and said that we still have to wait for ten minutes before the SWAT team can arrive. We need to either kill or capture all these robbers without harming the hostages. Now we cannot make any rash moves, lest we provoke the robbers and harm the hostages."

  Cheng Kai Guo didn't have the right to command here either, and with his own strength alone, he couldn't take down these robbers. He just nodded slightly, a thoughtful expression on his face as he pondered something. Tai Shu Zheng Yu heard Jiang Yi An's words and shook his head, asking Jiang Yi An: "Director Jiang, how much time has passed since the robbers entered the bank until now?"

  "It's almost forty-five minutes now." Jiang Yi'an said without hesitation, obviously she had been paying attention to the time all along, otherwise she wouldn't have answered accurately when Uncle Zheng Yu asked. Uncle Zheng Yu nodded and then said: "We can't wait any longer, if we wait any longer, the hostages might be in danger."

  Jiang Yi'an's eyebrows were about to knot into a tangled mess as she stared at Uncle Zheng Yu in confusion. Uncle Zheng Yu let out a sigh, wondering how this person had managed to become the director of the bureau, unable to think through even the smallest problem. Uncle Zheng Yu explained helplessly: "If the robbers are really stalling for time, then nearly an hour is already enough for them to do anything they want. After that, the hostages won't be safe anymore. In order to survive and make the police retreat, they might even kill someone to show their power, so we can't wait any longer."

  Cheng Kai Guo also woke up from his contemplation at this time, looking at Tai Shu Zheng Yu with a confident expression, as if he was very familiar with these robbers. If Cheng Kai Guo didn't know Tai Shu Zheng Yu's identity, he would have really thought that Tai Shu Zheng Yu was in cahoots with the robbers. Cheng Kai Guo didn't know why Tai Shu Zheng Yu had such great confidence, so he asked: "How can you be sure things will develop as you said?"

  "Intuition." Tai Shu Zheng Yu pointed to his own head and chuckled. However, Tai Shu Zheng Yu's eyes never relaxed, constantly observing the surrounding terrain and the people inside the bank. Jiang Yi An rolled her eyes, this was ridiculous, how could such a crucial matter rely on some nonsense intuition? Jiang Yi An had no intention of taking unauthorized action now, if they failed, he would be the one to get fired. So Jiang Yi An continued to wait, waiting for instructions from above, listening to orders from above, in case the rescue mission failed and the hostages were harmed, that would be a matter for those above him, nothing to do with him, he was just following orders from above, wouldn't take the blame for a huge mistake.

  Cheng Kai Guo looked at Tai Shu Zheng Yu deeply and said, "Then do you have any way to deal with it?" Cheng Kai Guo didn't know how he suddenly said such words. Looking at Tai Shu Zheng Yu's expression, Cheng Kai Guo had a hunch that this matter was something Tai Shu Zheng Yu could help with. Cheng Kai Guo shook his head inwardly, thinking he must have thought too much, and somehow the word "hunch" came to mind.

  Tai Shu Zheng Yu gazed at the trembling body inside and said faintly, "No, but I want to go get some money and eat now." "Oh, then I'll have someone drive you," Cheng Kai Guo replied, taken aback by Tai Shu Zheng Yu's response. Tai Shu Zheng Yu pointed at the bank across the way, "No, I just need to withdraw money from here."

  "You... you're crazy!" Jiang Yi'an's face suddenly turned white, and he whispered. He never thought that Uncle Zheng Yu would say such a thing in the end, almost scaring his heart out. If there was one more hostage inside, it could lead to another person being hurt, and then the position of director would be far from him. Cheng Kai Guo didn't look as shocked as Jiang Yi'an, with a hint of solemnity in his eyes, he said in a deep voice: "Do you want to go in and rescue the hostages?"

  "Hehe, I don't want to be a hero, I just want to go get the money, but I still need to borrow Brother Cheng's gun for a bit." Tai Shu Zhengyu smiled slightly, if it wasn't for the person inside, he wouldn't have made a move either. After staring at Tai Shu Zhengyu for a few seconds, Cheng Kai Guo took out his pistol from his waist and handed it over, saying: "The magazine is full, be careful." Cheng Kai Guo didn't know what state he was in, but somehow trusted Tai Shu Zhengyu's words and handed over his own pistol to him.

  Tai Shu Zheng Yu's skilled gun movements made Cheng Kai Guo feel slightly more at ease. Jiang Yi An stared wide-eyed at the two, and even the police nearby began to take notice. Tai Shu Zheng Yu gave Cheng Kai Guo a slight smile and said, "I'll go get the money, see you later."

  Tai Shu Zheng Yu strode towards the bank entrance with big steps, a gun tucked behind his back, and waved his hand backwards. As everyone watched Tai Shu Zheng Yu walk forward with big strides, their hearts were all stuck in their throats, and an unconscious cold sweat seeped out of their palms.