Chapter 242

Chapter 242: Heaven’s Chosen Employee

“How is this possible?” Before Manager Wen could say anything, an older employee who had come out to watch the commotion shouted first.

Everyone turned to look toward the voice and saw a middle?aged man with a somewhat sallow face standing at the back of the crowd.

Suddenly becoming the focus of everyone’s attention, the man froze for a moment, but still braced himself and said: “This is impossible. The lots in the auction house are taken out from the exhibition hall, and after the auction they are put back into the hall. The exhibition hall is guarded by special staff twenty?four hours a day. There is no way an accident like someone swapping the real item for a fake after the sale could happen.”

After listening to his explanation, Manager Wen quietly glanced at Du An Rao. Seeing only curiosity in her eyes and no anger, he then introduced him: “This is Supervisor Li, who is in charge of keeping the auction items safe.”

As soon as she heard who he was, Du An Rao understood why he was so eager to defend himself.

“Don’t panic. I never said this happened because you were careless at work.”

Supervisor Li’s face was still tense: “Then…”

“And there was no inside job either.”

Supervisor Li: “…” Was his expression really that obvious? He had not even voiced his worry yet, and the boss already knew what he was thinking!

“If that is the case, then how could the lots…”

“The person who stole the real items is not from our auction house, but an outsider.”

The internal employees who had run over to watch the drama all let out a breath together when they heard this, but they were still confused.

“An outsider? Outsiders in the auction house are the main targets our security guards keep an eye on. How could anyone swap things right under their noses without anyone knowing? Unless…”

“Unless someone covered for him.”

When they heard this, everyone looked at each other, all a bit lost: “Someone covered for him? Who?”

“Could it be that woman’s… brother?” A light flashed in Manager Wen’s mind. He lowered his head and looked at the contracts in his hand and found that most of them were from five or six years ago, and the earliest was from four years ago.

Which meant that after his cousin was arrested, this man had never found another chance to pull these tricks in their auction house.

“It is him.”

Du An Rao had not expected that with just a few small hints, this Manager Wen would guess the identity of the man who had swapped the real items for fakes.

When she was reading through Xiang Qiu Fu’s life earlier, Du An Rao had planned to focus on Xiang Si Da. At first she tried to find things about her brother but did not find anything. When she flipped further, she instead dug up a shocking piece of gossip about her oldest son.

From Xiang Qiu Fu’s memories, she saw that Xiang Si Da had used his status as a wife’s younger brother to follow Manager Wen’s cousin into the auction house several times.

Before he went, he would already have gotten the list of lots to be auctioned that day from Xiang Qiu Fu and prepared the fakes in advance to carry with him.

On the day of the auction, Xiang Qiu Fu used the excuse of asking her husband to take her brother out to “see the world,” and had Manager Wen’s cousin bring him into the auction house.

At that time the cousin worked as the auction house’s accountant. After each lot was sold, he had to personally audit it. Xiang Si Da took advantage of that gap to run off and swap the items.

He was not stupid. He knew that things like vases and calligraphy scrolls were too big to carry and easy to notice, so he mostly targeted small items like seals, jade pendants, and jewelry.

The day of the auction was the cousin’s busiest time, so he never noticed when the little tail who had been following behind him suddenly disappeared. By the time he finished his work, Xiang Si Da’s business was already done. When he came back to the cousin’s side, after a few times of this, the cousin still noticed nothing.

Because he had personally brought the man in, and because he was related to the boss’s family, the staff of the auction house did not guard against Xiang Si Da very much. That gave him his chance.

But after the cousin was reported and sent to prison, Xiang Si Da lost his guide into the auction house. Naturally, he could not sneak in to play small tricks anymore.

Because of this, Xiang Si Da had complained to Xiang Qiu Fu, blaming the two of them for spending money without restraint, which had forced his “brother?in?law” to take a risky step, fall on his face, and caused him to lose a good way to make easy money for nothing.

Manager Wen had already held a deep grudge against this brother and sister because of the cousin’s matter. Now that he had learned this man had dared to pull such stunts right under his nose, he was even more furious.

“This matter is extremely vile. My suggestion is that we report it to the police right away.”

Du An Rao had not expected Manager Wen to be so decisive, but when she thought about it, this was also a good way to cut ties with the Xiang siblings.

This way, even if Xiang Si Da was later found to have trafficked cultural relics, the auction house, as one of the victims, would not be dragged down because of this overly sensitive blood relationship.

“That works. But before that, you would better redeem these few lots first, so we do not cause extra trouble.”

A light flashed in Manager Wen’s eyes as he nodded: “You are right. We will deal with this as soon as we can. We will try to retrieve these lots within three days, no, within two days. After that, we will deal with the theft case separately and try to give you a satisfying answer within a week.”

“As long as you know what you are doing. You know more about this than I do.” Du An Rao nodded in praise and strongly agreed with Manager Wen’s hardworking attitude.

[What a truly qualified heaven’s chosen employee. The boss does not even have to say anything, and he sets the deadline for himself. A salted?fish boss like me is meant to be matched with a striver employee like him. Raise his salary. I must raise his salary.]

Xi Jing Yue: “…” Compared to you, this hands?off boss, he really does look more like the boss.

But…

Xi Jing Yue quietly glanced at the smug Du An Rao. Maybe some people are just born with the luck to lie flat whenever they want.

After figuring out the whole story, even though Du An Rao had said this matter was not due to Supervisor Li and the others being lazy at work, the fact that the lots were swapped under their noses was already a major mistake.

Seeing how uneasy Supervisor Li was, Manager Wen simply laid it out: “In the end, this is also a case of the guards being careless. Just because he was someone my cousin brought in, we let down our guard and made this mess.”

“Luckily, those guests trusted our auction house very much. They probably did not look closely after they went home. Otherwise our auction house’s reputation would have already fallen to rock bottom because of this. How do you think we should deal with it?”

As soon as he said this, Supervisor Li tensed up at once. He took a step forward and said: “Manager is right. This matter is indeed the responsibility of our whole department. We did not watch the lots properly and let the real items go missing, so the guests bought fakes from our auction house. This is a major work mistake. I am willing to take responsibility and let the company deal with me however it sees fit.”

[Tsk, tsk, tsk, why make things hard for another worker? The only reason he made this kind of mistake is because that person was someone your cousin brought in. But still, we should focus on the problem, not the person. What Manager Wen said is not wrong. Since something went wrong, someone has to take responsibility for it…]

Thinking this, Du An Rao quietly turned her gaze toward Manager Wen beside her.

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