Chapter Two: A False Diamond and Real Debt

Someone had exploited the delay between bank and auction house to create a guarantee perfect in form and worthless in fact. An alarm shrieked from the exhibition hall. On the security feed, the sealed case remained intact. Yet when the lights flickered off and on, the blue stone had vanished. Only a severed humidity cartridge remained. Luo rushed out with his team. Wancheng stayed. “You said the real stone had already been replaced. Why steal the fake?” “To destroy the only evidence that could establish when the swap occurred,” Lin Yan said. “The absent cleaner is bait. The alarm is bait. The real operation isn't in the exhibition hall.” The Ledger surfaced a message visible only to him.