Chapter 123: Who owns the cat?
Chen Shanhe put the evidence aside and he smiled eager to hear more and Mei Mei did not disappoint. On top of the well preserved dollar bills, she had a tiny note book in which she had written the different dates on which Mo Chenyu had crossed paths with her, acting all shady.
"What crime was he arrested for by the way? The more I know the better I can help." She looked around for a chair and she sat down.
This prompted the lawyers and everyone else to sit down and listen. The eager reporters were disappointed and surprised when the doors to the station were closed again.
"Smuggling ivory and antiques." Chen Shanhe said.
"I knew it!" Mei Mei’s voice was as loud a thunderclap. "You should check and see how many watermelons he imported into the country under the guise of business. I mean, who imports watermelon!!!!! On his twenty third birthday, I was relegated to kitchen duty as usual and I found something strange in one of the watermelons."
She opened her bag and pulled out a tiny bronze cat with ruby eyes also in an evidence bag. "I was too afraid to get it appraised because I was worried that it would be traced back to me but this was inside a watermelon."
Pi Lejun grabbed the evidence bag with the cat quickly and held it up. "Does anyone know what this cat is."
"I believe that it is the lost Bastet, a gift that was given by an Egyptian king to Emperor Li Chen in the thirteenth century. If it is real, it is worth about...."
"One hundred sixty nine million yuan." Another voice called out eagerly. The police officer who shared this was on his computer looking up images of bronze cats with red eyes.
"Actually three hundred sixty million yuan or Thirty seven, six hundred twenty thousand pounds." Jingzhe contributed to the topic. "This was the price suggested at the last appraisal of the Bastet cat in the British empire six years ago at the Manchester Museum. A private owner was looking to sell it. But before the sale could be concluded, the cat was stolen again." He looked at Mei Mei and said, "The Bastet cat is our empire’s antique which has been stolen the most in history."
"I am not going to ask how you know that." Chen Shanhe said. "Can we get an expert here to verify if this cat is real." He told the police chief.