"Colleagues, is it acceptable for someone to sell our national treasure?" a high-ranking police official said with grief at an internal meeting. "We absolutely cannot allow this to happen. The higher-ups have given me only 24 hours. If we cannot recover this national treasure within 24 hours, none of us should continue our work. We might as well all go back to growing pineapples!"
This high-ranking official was not joking. Within a few hours, the mayor of tB City, several higher-level executives, and even the chief officer had personally intervened, demanding that he recover the Yangping Zhidu Gong Seal at all costs.
The reason was simple: the matter had escalated.
Although Zhang Yuanxian and the Celestial Masters' sect were not doing particularly well in Taiwan, they had considerable political connections. Furthermore, they had notified the media immediately. When the reporters learned that the Yangping Zhidu Gong Seal, a treasure of the nation, had been sold, they recognized it as major news. This news instantly trended on Weibo's hot search!
It had been about a year since Weibo entered the Taiwan market, where it faced no competition and quickly dominated the online social media landscape.
Then came the speculation. Many media outlets, despite having no concrete information, began to guess.
They speculated about the identity of the buyer. In their view, the buyer was obvious: it had to be someone from the other side.
After all, foreigners had no belief in Taoism and would hardly be interested in Taoist artifacts. To foreigners, the Yangping Zhidu Gong Seal was an aberrant object; they would not spend millions of US dollars to purchase such an item.
Therefore, the only people willing to spend money to buy the Yangping Zhidu Gong Seal would be domestic individuals from Longhu Mountain. The culprit was practically self-evident, wasn't it?
As a result, all of Taiwan's media, in a short period, churned out headlines screaming about domestic thieves stealing their national treasure through despicable means, generating immense news buzz. The reports were presented with absolute certainty, devoid of any words or tones of doubt, stating unequivocally that it was done by domestic individuals.
One might wonder, why did these reporters, without any evidence and relying solely on speculation, not use words like "suspected," "possibly," or "doubtful," even if they were chasing sensationalism?
Regrettably, there was none of that. Taiwan's media was that audacious, and this audacity extended equally to their own people.
The Taiwanese media industry harbored an eternal, indelible, and foul scandal.
It dates back to 1997 when a Taiwanese actress named Bai Bingbing had a daughter. Mother and daughter raised each other, but tragedy struck when the daughter turned 17.
Because Bai Bingbing was famous and had earned a lot of money, her daughter was kidnapped. The kidnappers even severed one of the girl's fingers and sent a threatening letter demanding that Bai Bingbing not report to the police and pay a ransom of $5 million.
Bai Bingbing did not hesitate and reported it to the police immediately. The police also made a great effort to investigate. However, due to many media outlets in Taiwan having private information channels with many police officers, these officers would disclose significant cases to the media at the first opportunity in their pursuit of major news.
Consequently, the news of Bai Bingbing's daughter being kidnapped, a major story, reached the media first, just like the news of the Yangping Zhidu Gong Seal being sold this time. The media outlets were informed immediately.
Then, an unbelievable situation occurred. All the media outlets swarmed Bai Bingbing's house, eager to interview her. Within an hour, over 20 media outlets were present.
Setting aside how foul it was to rub salt in someone's wounds, Bai Bingbing, despite her anguish, managed to pull herself together for some interviews. She pleaded with the reporters repeatedly, begging them not to leak the matter and not to produce any news, promising them three days and three nights of interviews once her daughter was safely ransomed.
However, half an hour after she finished speaking, the news of Bai Bingbing's daughter's kidnapping was plastered across all media on the island. Bai Bingbing's brief interview content was also broadcasted, with the only part omitted being the footage of Bai Bingbing admonishing the reporters in front of them not to air the news.
What was even more infuriating was that these media outlets even reported on the police's actions, claiming that the police had mobilized over 800 officers for the investigation.
Later, the kidnappers contacted Bai Bingbing, asking her to deliver the ransom to certain locations. As soon as Bai Bingbing made a move, dozens of reporters' vehicles followed, documenting everything.
Consequently, at the ransom exchange location, hundreds of reporters with their long lenses were poised to capture footage of the kidnappers receiving the ransom. It would have been a miracle if they had managed to photograph the kidnappers.
The outcome was that four ransom attempts failed over 10 days, precisely because each attempt was followed by a large number of reporters.
Bai Bingbing repeatedly appealed through public channels, urging them to pay the ransom and return her daughter. The reporters, however, shouted that they were reporting the truth and that the audience had the right to know the truth.
Even more shamelessly, some reporters claimed they were saving Bai Bingbing's daughter and that Bai Bingbing should not be ungrateful!
Ultimately, 10 days later, the police found Bai Bingbing's daughter's body in a ditch. Autopsy results proved that the poor child had been killed by the kidnappers on the third day of her abduction, around the time the news was extensively reported!
Later, the kidnappers were apprehended. During their interrogation, it was revealed that upon seeing the kidnapping case and Bai Bingbing's interview in the news, along with the mobilization of 800 police officers, they were stunned.
Enraged, the kidnappers immediately killed the poor child because they knew they could not contact the ransom through any channel and thus could not possibly receive it.
Furthermore, they had become the target of countless police officers and reporters, and they expected to be caught soon. Therefore, the kidnappers' malice turned into fury, and in their anger, they directly killed Bai Bingbing's daughter. The subsequent 10 days of transactions were actually the kidnappers playing games, seeking revenge on Bai Bingbing, the police, and the reporters.
They had no intention of showing themselves from the beginning; they simply wanted to keep these people living in fear and busy, running around at their whim, as a form of retribution.
After the news of the death broke, all the media outlets immediately fell silent, pretending as if nothing had happened, leaving the poor mother to bear her grief alone.
This, in essence, was the characteristic behavior of Taiwan's media. Even BBC reporters were vastly better than Taiwan's media. Therefore, the extent to which Taiwan's reporters were sensational and intrusive when the news of the Yangping Zhidu Gong Seal being sold broke can be well imagined.
For Taiwan's provincial government, which relied on votes, actual political achievements were less important than their image in the media reports. At the very least, they needed to appear very reliable in the news.
Thus, almost all the major figures began issuing orders layer by layer, culminating in all the pressure being placed on the police. This led to a large-scale investigation by the entire tB police force, determined to find out where the sold Yangping Zhidu Gong Seal had gone.
The police's initial investigative direction naturally focused on the person involved in the transaction. Through Zhang Meiliang, who had been apprehended, they learned that although Zhang Meiliang did not know the person he transacted with, he did know the petty hoodlum, He Bao Zai, who had brought the person along.
Therefore, He Bao Zai was immediately arrested. Initially, He Bao Zai, being loyal, refused to reveal the identity of the other party. However, after several hours of "persuasion," He Bao Zai finally told the truth, stating that it was a mission assigned by his elder brother, and he did not know the other person's identity. He then spilled all the beans about his elder brother. xxs壹贰
Later, He Bao Zai was released, but his elder brother was also taken in. Thus, He Bao Zai's remaining life was accompanied by a cane. In a way, Zhang Meiliang had also gotten his revenge.
On the other side, after the elder brother was also apprehended by the anxious police, he lacked He Bao Zai's loyalty. Before the police could even question him, he had spilled everything.
He said he didn't know the person either, but he was introduced by a good friend.
When the elder brother revealed the identity of this old friend, all the police officers were stunned because this old friend was actually a high-ranking police official, and a powerful one at that. How could the investigation have led to one of their own?
So, they cautiously approached that old friend. This old friend was also bewildered. He was actually entrusted by someone, and this client was none other than the Deputy Chief!
Considering it inconvenient for police personnel to be directly involved, he had requested a subordinate whom he managed to act on his behalf. He hadn't even asked what the task entailed, so he had no idea that the target was the Yangping Zhidu Gong Seal. Otherwise, he would have taken action himself during the citywide search by the police.
This high-ranking official could only inform the Deputy Chief by phone. The Deputy Chief was also flabbergasted. His situation was similar. It was just a favor done at the request of an old friend, and he hadn't inquired about the underlying matters. How could he have imagined such a convoluted situation?
Thus, the police's investigative path was completely blocked. Even related investigation records were entirely deleted. In short, this path was unviable; pursuing it was a dead end.
Helplessly, the police had to resort to investigating bank transfers. They discovered that the account was in a Swiss bank, making it impossible to trace the person behind it. At this point, all leads seemed to have been severed.
Thousands of police officers found that their overnight investigation had yielded nothing. It wasn't until the next morning that a message came from above: stop investigating, go home and sleep!