The Mirage Heist: Stealing the Golden Key

Chapter 4 "Targeting the Innocent"

"Do commit suicide after unlocking the door of the office. Otherwise, people will get annoyed by the bad smell in a few days."

"I beg of you. I will talk to his employees myself. Just do their profiling for me," he quickly typed the message.

"First, apologize to me," came the instant reply.

"How?"

"Write it on paper: 'Mirage is the greatest scam investigator in the world, and I will never disagree with him again.' By the time you finish writing this, I’ll have the profiling ready."

Kaelen Tang hastily pulled the notepad and pen toward himself.

"Done. I wrote it."

"Now write it five hundred and fifty times," he growled, and the call went dead.

Kaelen Tang took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, and hurriedly began dragging the pen across the paper.

"I have no idea what kind of sick ego trip he gets out of doing stuff like this," he muttered under his breath, fuming with irritation.

Who knows how many times it was written. He rested his head on the table and began looking at the mug filled with pens and pencils with blank eyes. His head was aching as if his brain was about to burst.

When the phone rang, Kaelen Tang jumped up. He picked up the phone hurriedly. Mirage's email had arrived. Every organ of his body became eyes.

After some time, he sat with several papers spread out in front of him.

"Jay Gatsby's driver!" He raised a paper in front of his face, narrowed his eyes, and read the details. "Ugh. Serving Jay Gatsby for years, sitting jobless, addicted to gambling, he cannot speak." He put the paper back and picked up another printout.

"Bungler..." Placing his folded fist on his lips, he read the details written on it for a few moments. "This is not it at all. His criminal background is not his weakness—it is his strength. What was Mirage thinking, making the profile of such a stubborn man? He will blow me away."

He crumpled the paper and set it aside. Now it was the personal assistant's turn. Seeing his face, Kaelen Tang made a face.

"He is older than I in age and far ahead in capability. An educated, hardworking, and capable young man from America. I won't even be able to talk in front of him." He didn't even touch that paper.

Then, when he looked at the next one, his eyes froze. Slowly, he brought the paper in front of his eyes. Among all those profiles, it was the first female profile.

"Florence Blackwood..." he muttered while reading the name.

In the corner of the page was her photo—taken earlier today, as if captured from the roof of a house while she was walking down the street. She was wearing a long, local-style frock, carrying a woven basket filled with flowers. Her head was tilted as she pulled something from the bag slung over her shoulder. A beautiful white hat rested on her forehead, from under which long black hair spilled onto her shoulders. Because of the tilted hat, her face was partially obscured, but her fair, clear complexion was unmistakable.

Kaelen Tang's eyes fell on the typed words that Mirage had recorded in her profile:

"Florence Blackwood. She belongs to Kashmir. She has been an employee of Jay Gatsby for three months... Not highly educated, but speaks English and the local language well. A very talkative girl, quite foolish and hasty. Half the day she works for Jay Gatsby, and in the evening, she works as a waitress in a restaurant. She supports a large family in Kashmir, sending whatever she earns directly to them. She goes about her days happily in ordinary clothes and wearing shoes. Florence makes fools out of people, acts recklessly, and after causing a mess, screams and cries—aside from crying, she knows nothing else. She is among those girls who possess nothing beyond a pretty face and a tall stature—no special characteristics or abilities. Neither intelligence nor education. Despite this, whether it is Gatsby or the soup parlor people, everyone loves Florence. I was very surprised to see this; why does everyone trust a girl with low intelligence, low knowledge, and a simple nature so much? But the reason for this is that she is honest, speaks the truth, and is a caring girl. Good-mannered and cheerful. Because of these flaws, she can never progress in life and can never grow."

It was a ruthless assessment. Lines of regret appeared on Kaelen's forehead.

"Mirage writes heartlessly and ruthlessly. Or maybe materialistically." He was about to make another comment, but as his eyes scanned the last paragraph of the page, he gasped…