As long as everything has a beginning, it will definitely have an end, but the length of time in between is uncertain. This can be regarded as a law of the world.
On the third day after meeting Du Juan, Lu Ming finally unlocked the secret in Ziyuan's letter.
He has been thinking about it these days and has never stopped trying various methods, such as roasting it with fire, soaking it in several different developing solutions, etc., but unfortunately they all failed.
On this day, he suddenly had a whim and started fumigating with steam.
Of course this makes no sense, but since there is really no other way, I simply break the pot and try every method I can think of.
He never thought wrong or made a wrong move. Just when he was on the verge of despair and ready to give up completely, his eyes suddenly blurred and he seemed to see new ink stains appearing. When he turned back to check carefully, he found that there seemed to be writing on the back of the stamp.
He carefully opened the stamp. Sure enough, there was writing on the stamp, but it was obscured by the paste and could not be seen clearly.
He put the stamp under the steam to smoke, then carefully scraped off the paste with a knife, and all the writings were revealed.
The writing on the back of one stamp is "Shengyuan", the writing on another stamp is "Pawn Shop", and the writing on the last stamp is "The camera is here".
Lu Ming placed these three stamps side by side, and they could easily be combined into one sentence: The camera is at Shengyuan Pawn Shop.
He suddenly remembered the missing camera in Sheng Muyi's study, and immediately understood what was going on.
As the saying goes, hard work pays off. Lu Ming immediately put on his clothes, ran downstairs and drove quickly to Shengyuan Pawn Shop.
Halfway through the car on the road, he suddenly remembered, how could he get his camera back without a ticket?
If Sheng Muyi pawned the camera at a pawn shop, there should be a pawn ticket, so where is the pawn ticket?
Without the pawn ticket, the pawn shop would not give him the camera. Cameras were considered high-end consumer goods at the time.
Even if you pay double the money to buy it from a pawn shop, they probably won't agree, unless the pawn business has expired. Generally, the pawn shop's pawn business lasts for up to 6 months, and now it's less than 6 months since Sheng Muyi disappeared.
If the pawn business has not expired, the pawn shop will never sell the pawned items. This is also the rule of the pawn shop industry.
Lu Ming did not stop and continued to speed towards Shengyuan Pawnshop.
He had thought about it. If the pawnshop dared not give him the camera, he would go all out to be a rogue and ask Zhang Ziyang to find an excuse to seal up the pawnshop and conduct a thorough search to get back the camera.
Although this was a bit of a bully, in order to get Sheng Muyi's camera and find out the secrets hidden in the camera, he decided to take on this scoundrel.
When he arrived at Shengyuan Pawn Shop, Lu Ming said to the tall counter, "The pawn I'm taking is a camera."
The counter of the pawn shop is not only high, but also has a thick iron fence on it to prevent people from robbing items.
An old man with thinning hair at the counter raised his head and said: "Pawn tickets."
"There is no pawn ticket. My friend put a camera here and asked me to pick it up. She said you know about it." Lu Ming made up nonsense.
"Excuse me, sir, what's your name?" asked the ticket keeper.
"My name is Lu Ming, the road is like the road, and the birds are singing." Lu Ming said.
"Well, please sign your name on this piece of paper." The shopkeeper handed over a piece of paper and a pen from the counter.
Lu Ming didn't understand what this meant, but he still signed his name on the paper honestly.
The shopkeeper took the signature in, opened a drawer, rummaged for a long time, found another piece of paper, and compared it.
Lu Ming waited anxiously, wondering what the shopkeeper was doing and why he wanted his signature instead of paying for the ticket.
"Well, the signatures are correct. Please wait a moment, sir. I'll get you the camera." The shopkeeper walked to the back room.
Not long after, the shopkeeper came out with an iron box in his hand and handed it to Lu Ming.
"Is this enough?" Lu Ming couldn't help but asked in surprise.
"Yes, that's enough, you can't go wrong." The shopkeeper said with a smile.
"What's in the box?" Lu Ming asked deliberately.
"Aren't you here to get a camera? Of course it's a camera, it can't be a human head." The shopkeeper was a bit humorous.
"Then why can I get things without pawn tickets? Aren't you afraid of being taken by someone else?" Lu Ming asked with a smile.
"No, the owner of the camera said that only if the handwriting of the signature matches, the ticket can be pawned. There is no chance of pawning the ticket." The shopkeeper tapped the counter lightly with his knuckles and said.
"Then how much should I pay you?" Lu Ming understood. Sheng Muyi had prepared this in advance.
"No, this camera is not meant to be here, but is kept here. The owner of the camera has paid a large sum of money and asked us to keep it for one year. Only a person named Lu Ming can come and pick it up and sign it.
The handwriting must match." The shopkeeper explained.
The shopkeeper actually didn’t know what was going on, but a few months ago, an elegant woman brought this box to the pawn shop, not to pawn it for money, but to ask the pawn shop to keep it for one year, and she paid a fee
The storage fee is a hundred yuan.
She made an agreement with the shopkeeper that only a person named Lu Ming could pick up this box. She also left a signed note, requiring the person who picked up the box to sign, and the handwriting must be consistent with the signature on the note.
If no one comes to pick up the box after a year, destroy everything in the box.
The shopkeeper didn't know what was in the box, but the woman said that it was a camera. If someone took the camera out of the box and sold it without permission, the pawn shop would be in big trouble.
The shopkeeper felt that something was very strange, and he was worried that he didn't want to take the job. But when he saw the one hundred ocean banknote, he couldn't refuse it.
Lu Ming didn't ask any more questions and returned to the car holding the box.
He first checked the seal on the box. It was indeed intact, indicating that no one had touched the contents inside. The seal had Zion's signature on it.
The seal is glued on and coated with wax. Once the seal is opened, it will be damaged and cannot be restored.
Lu Ming removed the seal and opened the iron box. It was indeed the camera he had seen inside.
He took out the camera, opened the back cover, and took out a box of developed film. He looked at the film carefully in the sunlight. As he looked at it, his hands were shaking a little, and the film fell onto his knees.
He breathed a long sigh of relief, calmed down, and found that there was something else inside the box, which was a stack of paper covered with writing.
He took out the stack of paper with trembling hands and saw Sheng Muyi's familiar handwriting. He endured the violent beating of his heart and read the contents on the paper. Then he collapsed on the seat, unable to move at all.
"God, earth, how could such a thing happen?" He shouted in his heart and couldn't help but shed tears.
After five or six minutes, a surge of anger arose in his heart, and he pressed his hand on the handle of the gun at his waist. He really wanted to drive to find the traitor immediately and shoot him without saying a word.
Calm down, calm down. Lu Ming forced himself to calm down and thought about this matter over and over again.
What should he do? The matter is too big and he cannot do it alone.
After Lu Ming regained consciousness, he read what Sheng Muyi wrote again to make sure that he had fully understood and remembered it.
The anger was still burning in his chest, but he had calmed down now and began to think about what to do about this matter and which step to take first.
Sheng Muyi didn't tell him what to do in the letter, she just asked him to save someone.
He regretted very much why he went to his hometown in Huzhou at that time. If he had been in Shanghai at that time, he would not have let this matter get out of hand.
Yuan Ziyuan may not be kidnapped and detained, and Sheng Muyi will not disappear. It is still unknown whether she is dead or alive.
He just kept sitting in the car, angry and regretful, his mind going cold and hot, thinking about how to solve this problem.
You can't afford to make any mistakes now. If you make a wrong step, you will regret it for the rest of your life. You must come up with a perfect strategy before you can take action.
He sat in the car from noon until evening, unaware of the passage of time and not feeling hungry.
It wasn't until he woke up and looked out the car window that he realized that it was pitch dark outside and the pawn shop had been closed long ago. There was only a light in front of the door, which was prepared for people who wanted to pawn money at night.