Following this person's gaze, Jiang Si also looked over.
The man was sitting upright at the head of the Eight Immortals table, around fifty years old.
He had a narrow face with high cheekbones.
His eyebrows were sparse at the tails, and his build was slender.
Jiang Si recognized him immediately; this was the Wu Hongyi Chi Heng had mentioned before.
His full name was Wu Tianhongyi, a close confidant of Chi's mother, with a deep relationship between them.
Just as Jiang Si was sizing him up, Wu Tianhongyi lifted his eyelids slightly and looked over expressionlessly.
Jiang Si showed no fear at all. Right in front of Chi Heng, she proactively asked, "And this is?"
"This is my mother's friend, Mr. Wu." Chi Heng introduced him with his usual demeanor, then said to Jiang Si, "Please, have a seat. We can talk while we eat."
As he spoke, Uncle Da had already set out the bowls and chopsticks.
"Uncle Da, don't trouble yourself. I have some matters to attend to shortly and can only stay for a few minutes."
Noticing the urgency in her tone, Chi Heng asked, "What's wrong?"
"Don't even ask." Jiang Si sighed. "There's been some trouble at the unit, quite a mess. I need to rush over to handle it in a moment."
With that, she turned to Chi Heng. "By the way, the reason I came today was to tell you that I probably won't be able to manage the embassy project recently."
"You'll need to take more personal charge of the progress. If anything comes up, contact my assistant, Assistant Qi. I've already briefed her."
"That's not a problem," Chi Heng agreed readily. "But you have to tell me what happened. Otherwise, I won't know how to explain it to the higher-ups."
Hearing this, Jiang Si hesitated slightly, then glanced subtly at the man beside them.
"It's alright. You can speak directly. Mr. Wu is not an outsider."
Seeing this, Jiang Si spoke plainly. "Someone at our unit has been lining their own pockets, replacing a portion of the materials with substandard steel reinforcement. Fortunately, it was discovered in time. If that batch had actually been used, the building would have had problems within three years at most."
"Now the higher-ups are furious and demanding a thorough investigation of all steel reinforcement batches from the last six months."
At this point, Jiang Si sighed again. "He had already reached such a position, yet he still took such a risk. I really don't know what he was after."
Chi Heng frowned. "Are you talking about the Acting Director of the Materials Supply Department?"
"If it were him, I wouldn't be surprised."
Lowering her voice, Jiang Si said, "It's our unit's Deputy Minister Xu!"
The moment the words 'Deputy Minister Xu' were uttered,
Wu Tianhongyi, sitting across from Jiang Si, visibly contracted his pupils.
Chi Heng also said, "Him?"
Jiang Si took in their reactions perfectly and immediately switched into full drama mode: "You find it shocking too, right? We all do. But whether we believe it or not is irrelevant—he's already been taken away by the Ministry of Public Security!"
As these words fell,
the corner of Wu Tianhongyi's mouth opposite her clearly twitched several times.
Seeing her objective achieved, Jiang Si said no more. She quickly found an excuse and made an early exit.
Huo Tingzhou was waiting for her at the entrance of another alley.
Making sure no one was following, Jiang Si quickly opened the car door and got into the passenger seat.
"How did it go?" Huo Tingzhou asked in a low voice as he started the car.
"Not bad, quite smooth. Now it depends on whether he takes the bait."
They didn't linger. As soon as the car left the alley, they headed straight for the Beijing Telegraph Building.
In this era, international long-distance calls were strictly controlled and only available to specific groups of people.
In the entire city of Beijing, aside from the embassies and certain institutions that had special permissions, only the Telegraph Building was equipped to make international long-distance calls.
Huo Tingzhou found a discreet spot to park the car, took out two military-grade binoculars, and the two of them settled into a stakeout, waiting for their target to appear.
They waited for over three hours, but the wait proved worthwhile.
Around four in the afternoon, a familiar figure appeared in Jiang Si's line of sight. Although the person had deliberately changed into an inconspicuous workman's outfit and wore a cap,
for someone who painted year-round, such minor alterations were utterly ineffective as a disguise.
"That person is Wu Hongyi."
"So it's him."
"You know him?" Jiang Si asked, then suddenly realized something with a delayed reaction. "Was he the person you ran into at the Ministry of Construction Engineering last time?"
"Yes." Even though it had been dark that evening, Huo Tingzhou remembered this man's build and his walking posture very clearly.
Wu Hongyi was completely unaware that he was about to be exposed.
After finishing lunch, he had used his covert contacts to inquire about the situation.
To his surprise, that fool Xu Bingkun had indeed been taken away by someone.
After confirming this news, he hurried over.
Making an international long-distance call at that time required a long wait, at least several dozen minutes at the fastest.
Wu Hongyi was relatively lucky this time; it took him less than half an hour to get through to Chi's mother's phone in Gaul.
To prevent any wiretapping, they conducted their entire conversation in the Gaulish language.
Furthermore, their talk involved several coded phrases.
"The man has been taken in. The situation is unclear. I'm worried he might crack under pressure and give us away. Should I find an opportunity to..."
In contrast to his agitation and anxiety, Chi's mother on the other end of the line was noticeably much calmer.
She told Wu to keep his composure for now. "At worst, his actions could be labeled as profiteering; at best, it's merely negligence and a work error."
"He's a smart man. He knows what's at stake. He wouldn't be so foolish as to slap the label of 'enemy agent' on his own head."
That would bring him no benefit at all, only a quicker death.
"But what if he does?"
Chi's mother picked at her nails. "Then we proceed according to the usual protocol."
"Alright, I understand."
Even as he said this, thinking about all the time and money they had invested in cultivating this asset, Wu couldn't help but clench his fist.
"If we miss this opportunity, it will likely be very difficult to manipulate things again in the future."
Chi's mother was clearly aware of this as well. However, at the moment, she was more concerned about the marriage alliance with the Creusmins family.
After instructing him a few more times not to act rashly, they ended the call.
After paying the phone bill, Wu Hongyi left the Telegraph Building, his face heavy with worry.
As he walked downstairs, a slightly cool autumn breeze blew against him.
He pulled down the brim of his cap and instinctively glanced around.
With just that one look, he sensed something was wrong.
It was already past the end of the workday. Logically, there shouldn't be this many cars in front of the Telegraph Building.
This was very wrong!
Consequently, he quickly turned and ducked into a nearby alley.
The alley was very narrow, and this was his first time taking this route.
He kept walking until he turned into a dead end.
Just as he was about to turn back, the muzzle of a gun pressed directly against the back of his head.
"Mr. Koichi Takeda, please come with us—"
