The weather was bad—the same as Li Du’s mood.
He realized that the ICE officers were here for him. But he was not in a hurry to talk to the enforcement officers yet.
He quickly released the little bug and it flew to Dog Ears Rick, resting on his shoulder.
The father and son were speaking in a low voice to each other; he couldn’t make out their conversation, but their gloating expressions was clear to see.
He had a feeling this have might been their doing.
Hans stayed by Li Du’s side, furrowing his eyebrows. "Sh*t, why are they suddenly here? I bet it must be Dog Ears who did this, that b*st*rd."
Li Du sneered, "Rick really does have some tricks up his sleeve. Since he wants to mess around with us, we should oblige and play with him too!"
Li Du had to admit: the Ricks did have a wide network of social connections. Not only was he fast, but he had a lot of experience with underhanded means as well.
Rick had been in this business for a long time after all.
The officer in shades spoke, "Sir, we received news that you are an illegal immigrant. I seek your cooperation with us while we conduct an investigation into this."
Hans spoke up for Li Du, "Pal, this must be a misunderstanding, I swear. My buddy here is definitely not an illegal immigrant. He has a student permit..."
The officer interrupted, "Let us have a look at the student permit."
Li Du did not have his student permit on him.
He kept it safely at home, as it would be a tedious process if he lost it and had to reapply for one.
Hans wanted to explain, but Li Du stopped him; he knew it would be futile as they had come for him prepared. It was not something they could easily get out of just by talking.
Li Du decided to go along with it: "My permit is at home. If you don’t mind coming to my place, I can go with you to get my permit."
"It’s my pleasure." The officer in shades had a refined, courteous attitude.
Hans got in the police car with Li Du and asked, "Buddy, you’re sure your permit’s at home, right?"
Li Du nodded. "Don’t worry, but why did you get in as well? You should attend the auction."
Hans grinned. "Well, I thought it would be better to have someone with you at a time like this."
Although Li Du always appeared to be calm and level-headed, he was actually feeling nervous and insecure inside.
Not only did he not know anyone from Immigration, he had heard that the Immigration Bureau in Arizona was held in poor regard by many migrants.
Hans’s presence helped to calm him down; it made him feel like he was not alone after all.
That was also a main reason why Li Du insisted on teaming up with Hans in the storage auction business: his friendship with Hans.
Their friendship was something that money could not buy. It had slowly built up ever since Hans tried to help Li Du out by pulling him into the storage auction business.
Hans had been there whenever Li Du needed help or support. Such a loyal friend was hard to come by.
When the police car drove out of the auction and cruised along the roads, Li Du immediately sensed that something was not quite right.
The speed of the car was very slow. For a trip that only required twenty minutes, they were using double the amount of time needed.
Hans also noticed this as well, and spoke in a low voice, "D*rn, Dog Ears must have bought them over. He wants to keep us away from the auction."
Li Du was expressionless. "Well, his plan worked."
There was no problem with the student permit. When Li Du handed the permit over, the two officers deliberately took their time to examine it. That alone took another ten minutes.
"So, is there any problem?" Hans asked.
The officer in shades shrugged his shoulders. "The permit does seem alright. Thank you for your cooperation, and have a nice day."
Godzilla had actually followed them from a distance, so the duo quickly hopped onto the Iron Knight and whizzed back to the auction.
The episode with the Immigration officers had dragged on for an hour. When they came back, two units had already been auctioned off.
Lil’ Rick folded his arms and spoke with a tone full of sarcasm: "Does the coffee taste good over at Immigration?"
Hans showed him the middle finger. "Good job b*st*rd, you won this round."
"No, no, no—it’s a home run, you fool!" Lil’ Rick laughed smugly.
Turis came over to them, concerned. "Hey, are you both okay? Li, is everything alright?"
Li Du smiled at Turis. "All’s good now, no worries."
"Next time, you might not be so lucky," said Lil’ Rick with a condescending sneer on his face. "This is just the beginning. If I were you, I would return to China and never come back again, before little pranks like this grow into something more."
Li Du looked at him without much expression. "But you are not me."
Avoiding the Ricks, they walked away with Turis and asked in a low voice, "So who got the earlier two units?"
Turis replied, "Samantha got the first unit with a bid of 2,500 dollars. Dog Ears got the second one at 2,200 dollars."
Li looked thoughtful. "Did the Ricks try to bid for the first unit?"
Turis recalled for a moment and then shook his head. "Nope, they didn’t."
Li Du nodded and looked at Unit 42, the storage unit that Dog Ears had won.
Hans asked, "What about it?"
"We talked about this earlier. Do you think Dog Ears had just wanted to teach us a lesson by getting the Immigration officers to take us for a spin?"
Hans caught on, "Sh*t—he didn’t want us to partake in the auction for the first two units."
"To be exact, he didn’t want us here for the auction of the second storage unit. They must have heard that there was something inside unit 42, so they sought help from Immigration."
"D*mn, do you think the heavyweight bikes are inside this unit?" asked an exasperated Hans.
"I don’t know about that. I didn’t notice anything unusual about it."
Rick was a careful person. Li Du knew that Rick was someone who would not bid for something that he would not be able to make a decent amount of profit off of.
So he was certain that unit 42 might have something valuable in it.
Li Du released the little bug. He needed to carry out a detailed search.
Although he had searched all five units yesterday, there was still a possibility that he might have overlooked some areas or left out some details.
When the little bug entered the unit, there was nothing that attracted its attention. That meant that there weren’t any antiques or collectibles with long histories.
He controlled the little bug to search systematically so he would not leave anything out again.
Finally, when the little bug entered an oak cabinet, there were two drawers that were locked. The little bug entered a drawer upon Li Du’s command.
There was a thick stack of medical records found bound together with a package.
On the package, Li Du saw the word "Sofosbuvir!"
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