The black bear left a name and address, but when Qi and Zhang Pei arrived at the place, they found that it was a fake address. After they circled around a lake for half a circle, they didn't feel like wasting time: the girl was very happy that she could have time to talk to her idol, and Cheng Qi was also very proud to hold the soft of such a beautiful girl and led her for a long way.

It seemed that for a moment, he had named himself and Zhang Pei's children.

"Well, I must have been single for too long." Cheng Qi bit his tongue to sober himself up: "It's not the time to go crazy yet." ”

Zhang Pei suddenly pointed to a small courtyard in front of him: "That's Teacher Huang Yong's home, let's go to his house to see if we can make any new discoveries." ”

Entering the courtyard, Cheng Qi and Zhang Pei were surprised: they saw a middle-aged teacher on the bench, holding a towel in one hand and putting it on the door of his head, and a middle-aged woman standing beside him, sighing uncontrollably.

Zhang Pei picked up his skirt and ran over: "Teacher Huang, Mrs., what's wrong?" ”

Huang Yong snorted twice: "This is simply no royal law......

It turned out that just a quarter of an hour before they came, a bearded man came to Huang Yong's house, saying that he had an academic problem to ask. Huang Yong is a scholar and is not afraid of fraud. Xinran invited the bearded man in, but the bearded man entered the study, he didn't say a word at all, and he didn't know what to take out and slammed it on Huang Yong's head, vaguely, Huang Yong seemed to see him rummaging through the cabinets in his bookcase to find something......

"What is it, you know?" Zhang Pei squatted beside Huang Yong and asked.

"It's the Law of the Eastern Roman Empire." Huang Yong snorted and chirped: "The one I told you last time...... It's strange, this book is not very precious, why did he rob this. ”

As he spoke, he put down the towel and handed it to his wife beside him: "And I have two copies of this book, one is the old edition signed by the author, and the other is the new edition that I bought yesterday." In terms of value, it is also more expensive than the signed version......"

Cheng Qi subconsciously touched his chin: "It seems that the object of the suspect's robbery doesn't seem to have anything to do with the book itself...... At least, it has little to do with the content of the book. ”

Zhang Pei stood up: "Senior brother, this matter is really strange. Can you help us? ”

Cheng Qi is naturally obliged: "Senior sister, this matter is on me...... But first, I'm going to meet up with some of my good friends. ”

After the three strangers in the academy reunited, everyone took advantage of the recess to discuss such a strange thing together.

"I grabbed all the "Laws of the Eastern Roman Empire" sold from this bookstore, why don't you go back to this bookstore to see if there is anything strange?" Huang Yang proposed.

Cheng Qi and Guo Shan also felt the same way, and at noon, Cheng Qi and his two partners put on their schoolbags and came to the door of the bookstore, where they happened to meet Zhang Pei's elementary school sister again.

"Yo, junior sister, what a coincidence." Cheng Qi happily held the girl's soft twing: "Have you eaten it?" If you haven't eaten it, let's eat it later. ”

Huang Yang quietly bit Guo Shan's ear; "It looks like spring is coming."

Not to mention whether spring is coming or not, the four of them entered the bookstore together, and Cheng Qi said hello to the boss: "Boss, how many goods have you bought in this set of "Laws of the Eastern Roman Empire"? How long has it been sold? ”

"Let me look it up......" the boss flipped through the books, "There are only fifty copies of this set of books, and they have been sold for several months—and now there are still twenty copies that have not been sold, and they are all piled up in the warehouse." I took it out and sold it out in one go today. ”

"Mr. Huang and Zhang Pei, who bought books yesterday, were robbed. Today, the rest of the books were all wrapped. It seems that these books are indeed a bit strange. ”

The boss suddenly seemed to remember something: "I remember, there was indeed a strange thing yesterday afternoon." It was about ...... in the afternoon" He looked at the chiming clock on the counter: "It was about a quarter of the afternoon when it was time to arrive, and a noble lady came to the store, she seemed to be very flustered, and she searched for this wall of books for a long time but did not find it. I asked—Madame, what book do you want? She gave me the title of a book, which I remember was a great author, and it was a bestseller, and it happened to be sold out in my store, so I asked the lady to wait a while, and I went to the back to get it. But when I returned, the lady was gone. ”

"It's such a strange thing."

The four of them thanked the boss, walked all the way on Lin **, and unconsciously came to the place where Cheng Qi and Zhang Pei met in the morning. Cheng Qi suddenly stopped: "I suddenly thought of a possibility......"

Zhang Pei looked at him adoringly: "Senior brother, have you been able to solve this mystery?" ”

Cheng Qi said: "It's just a possibility...... Not necessarily. You see, it's about 500 steps from here to the bookstore, it's very close. It is not far from here to Mr. Huang Yong's small courtyard...... A distance of a thousand steps at most, right? If that Blackbeard bought the book from the bookstore - he used the time to buy the book, taking advantage of the boss's packing to look at the account book, and know who bought the book, it is equivalent to going to these people who bought the book non-stop. ”

"You see, there's a very strange thing about that. The boss's ledger registers the names and addresses of new customers, but old customers like Huang Yong and Zhang Pei only remember one name - if he didn't know Huang Yong and Zhang Pei, how could he find Mr. Huang's home, and how could he snatch the book from Zhang Pei when he happened to meet her on the road? ”

"So the suspects actually know us?" Zhang Pei said subconsciously.

"It should be ......" Huang Yang hugged his arms and said, "That noble lady was also very suspicious yesterday afternoon, no matter how she behaved, it looked like she was trying to break the boss away." Where did she go? Let's make such an assumption...... The lady put something in a stack of books, and for some reason she could not come back, so there was the mad Blackbeard, who did everything in his power to get it back. ”

"What could it be?" Zhang Pei asked curiously with big eyes.

Guo Shan picked up the conversation: "It should be a very thin thing, otherwise, it will be found at once if it is sandwiched in the book." ”

Cheng Qi seemed to have thought of something; "Speaking of which, one thing comes to mind that is most likely. It's light, thin, and often priceless......"

"What is it?" Zhang Pei jumped up in front of him and asked curiously like a cat.

"Postage stamps!" Cheng Qi said proudly.

Obviously, where there is a need for postal services, sooner or later such a thing as stamps will be developed. In order to facilitate settlement, the stagecoach agency of the South China Sea Colony invented the "postmark", that is, after budgeting the price, the envelope was marked with different colors and graphics in the post office - for example, from Lingyamen to Fuzhou for ten yuan, then it is a golden dolphin, from Juedongcheng to Caiqiu for five yuan, then it is a black crocodile, and so on. Later, this set of practices was widely implemented, but the General Administration of Stagecoach felt that it was too troublesome for each branch to be equipped with dozens or even hundreds of different postmarks, and it was easy to forge, so stamps were slowly born in practice. 、

Stamps are the General Administration of Stagecoach to the special printing house specially customized prepaid postage certificate, each grassroots post station and other face value for sale, the user only needs to send the letter in accordance with the post station posted odometer on the full amount of stamps, and then by the post station staff stamp to eliminate the value, such a small change can greatly facilitate the work of the staff of the post station, and different years issued different denominations, styles of stamps have also become the object sought after by the collection industry.

Cheng Qi turned to the place where they came: "If I remember correctly, the place we came here just now seems to be a place selling old stamps diagonally opposite the bookstore. ”

Huang Yang's eyes rolled: "Let's go, go back and have a look." ”

The four of them came to a trading house opposite the bookstore, and the trading house hung a sign that read "Recycle all kinds of cultural and artistic works", but the door of the store was locked, and Huang Yang peeked inside to see what was going on inside, but he didn't expect a scolding from behind.

"What are you guys doing!"

Everyone turned around, only to see a middle-aged errand and an old man dressed as a businessman who also came to the door of the store at some point, and it was the errand who scolded Huang Yang just now.

Cheng Qi hurriedly explained to himself and his companions, but this rhetoric did not convince the officer, and he had to take out his student ID to check it.

Fortunately, the old man was reasonable; "I remember that this little girl was a child from the nearby Kaoting Academy. She shouldn't be a bad person. ”

The old man opened the door: "Please don't be surprised, this officer is my nephew - something strange happened in our shop yesterday, and he is a little suspicious. ”

The three strangers exchanged glances, as if they had a sense of ingenuity.

Walking into the shop, the errand took the initiative to take on the work of the young man who served tea and water. The four of them sat down with the old man and talked about yesterday's strange events.

"Yesterday afternoon, before and after the o'clock, I was packing up the collection in the store, and suddenly I heard someone greeting, so I looked up to look at the ......" The old shopkeeper recalled yesterday's events, as if he still remembered it vividly.

In came a well-dressed lady, about thirty years old, wearing beads and silk on her head, with a dignified face and a restrained gaze, and she looked like a well-born family. He also talks elegantly between words, and is not a nouveau riche family who is steep but rich.

This lady claimed that her husband's surname was Hu, and the old shopkeeper called her Mrs. Hu.

Mrs. Hu claimed that she had something she wanted to sell, and asked the old shopkeeper to give her a palm. She took out a gold hibiscus stamp from a bag she was carrying, and the old shopkeeper looked at this treasure with straight eyes! My heart was pounding, even an eighteen-year-old boy was not so excited when he saw the second sister of the kiln who was not wearing clothes!