For Zhuang Yi, he had no choice, and he did not want to covet the so-called wealth left by Ivanov, he just wanted to return to China to retrieve the notepad and hand it over to Maxim in exchange for the safety of his wife and children.

But for Maxim, he concluded that Zhuang Yi had already known the secret in the notebook, and that he came this time, ostensibly to travel with his wife and children, but in fact it was for the wealth left by Ivanov.

Otherwise, what would it be like you, a foreign tourist who had just been kidnapped by his wife and children, to stay in the local area and wait for further information from the police to confirm the fate of his wife and children, but instead hurriedly ran back to China? Isn't this typical for the police to lead their minds to themselves?

And Zhuang Yi's burning is undoubtedly also to draw fire to Maxim, and even to the entire mercenary army under Maxim, which Maxim absolutely cannot tolerate.

Even, when Zhuang Yi proposed that he wanted to return to China to retrieve the notepad, Maxim felt that this was a threat to himself by Zhuang Yi, and he thought that Zhuang Yi was warning himself, after all, the Russian police did not know who the kidnapper was, but Zhuang Yi knew. Maxim thinks that Zhuang Yi's implication is that if he doesn't let go of Zhuang Yi's wife and children, he will tell the police everything about the mercenaries with the mentality of burning jade.

With the firepower of mercenaries, of course, there is no fear of the police in Irkutsk, but that will inevitably lead to the actions of the Russian military in the end. Maxim is not arrogant enough to think that he can compete with the Russian military, even if he believes that he can run away with mercenaries, but the secret base that he has operated for so many years will be destroyed.

Even after calming down, Maxim thought that Zhuang Yi was not too likely to threaten him, but he felt a kind of humiliation with his own group of subordinates, who believed that Zhuang Yi might not care about the life or death of his wife and children.

Because time is constantly passing, the police are obviously helpless to find Zhuang Yi's wife and children, but Zhuang Yi has never handed over the notebook. During this time, Zhuang Yi of course also understood that he was not suitable for returning to China alone for the time being, so he called Maxim several times and asked Maxim to release his wife and children, and he also promised that after he returned to China, he would immediately take pictures of all the contents in the notebook and send them to Maxim, and repeatedly said that all the contents in the notebook were just Ivanov's nostalgia for his former family.

Zhuang Yi didn't know that there was indeed a clue hidden in that notepad, and that clue directly pointed to a huge fortune.

Zhuang Yi told Cheng Yu that the huge wealth was the batch of diamonds he got later, but at the time of the incident, he didn't know the secrets of the notepad at all, and naturally he didn't know the existence of those diamonds.

Maxim, on the other hand, has already determined that there is a secret about the diamond hidden in the notepad, because Ivanov divided the clue of the diamond into two parts, and what is hidden in the notepad is the clue that can be directly found for the diamond. And before he died, he also gave Maxim a necklace, the necklace pendant was inlaid with a ruby, between the ruby and the silver base, hidden a very small miniature negative, Maxim washed out the negative and enlarged, only to learn that there are such a batch of valuable diamonds.

The clue to get this batch of diamonds is hidden in the notebook that Ivanov handed over to Zhuang Yi.

Ivanov also explained in the negative film that he did not tell Zhuang Yi about this, but Maxim had reason to believe that even if Zhuang Yi really did not know what was hidden in the notepad, time would still allow him to gradually discover the secrets of the notepad.

Since Maxim himself discovered the secret in the necklace pendant by accident, and the accidental loss of the ruby, he found the negative, and he felt that Ivanov's clue to the diamond was probably simply hidden in a mezzanine of a notepad. Even, he clearly remembered that the notepad in Zhuang Yi's hand was a notepad with a plastic sleeve, and that clue was probably simply hidden in a plastic sleeve.

Once the plastic envelope is broken, Zhuang Yi can actually easily get that clue.

Maxim's desire to acquire vast wealth had already brought him to the brink of madness, and it was when Zhuang Yi said that he would take pictures of all the words recorded in the notepad and send them to himself, which made Maxim feel deeply humiliated.

One of the members of the mercenary said to Maxim: "Do you think that a woman and a little boy can really make Zhuang Yi give up such a large fortune? After he has that money, what kind of woman can't find it? As long as he wants, he can let those women line up to give birth to a football team for him." Boss, I think our best choice is to directly tie up Zhuang Yi, relying on this woman and this little boy to blackmail him, it is useless at all. That's what I suggested to you from the beginning, but you still miss the brotherhood back then, and you don't want to attack Zhuang Yi directly. Now it seems that he has no brotherly affection for you, and I guess if it weren't for the diamonds he hadn't really gotten his hands on them, I'm afraid he would have left Russia by this time. ”

Maxim groaned deeply and said, "You don't think he got that batch of diamonds yet?"

The man scratched his head and said, "Of course, it is also possible that he has already succeeded, but he has not yet come up with a better way to get that batch of diamonds out of Russia." Russian customs could not have allowed him to take the diamonds so easily. ”

Maxim was convinced of this.

And at this time, he found that he couldn't contact Zhuang Yi.

Maxim didn't know that Zhuang Yi was because his visa was about to expire, and the Russian police obviously didn't have any clues, and the embassy suggested that Zhuang Yi return to China first, and they would urge the Russian police to continue to investigate the case.

In desperation, Zhuang Yi had to agree, and he tried to contact Maxim again, but Maxim failed to receive his call.

At that time, Zhuang Yi's thinking was relatively simple, he was determined to return to China first, contact Maxim after getting the notepad, and then tell the other party everything in the notepad. He believed that perhaps in this way, Maxim would still spare his wife and children.

But what Zhuang Yi didn't understand was that after he returned to China, he couldn't contact Maxim anymore, and the phone number that Maxim left him before was completely unreachable.

Of course, he didn't understand that after Maxim's attempt to contact Zhuang Yi unsuccessfully (in fact, because Zhuang Yi was sitting on the plane back to China at the time, his mobile phone was turned off), he sent someone to Irkutsk to check on it, and he found that Zhuang Yi had left Russia. This made him even more convinced that Zhuang Yi didn't care about the life or death of his wife and children, and in anger, he killed Zhuang Yi's wife, but just as he was about to shoot Zhuang Yi's son, one of his subordinates stopped him.

Maxim, who was worried that the secret base would be exposed, directly threw away the mobile phone that contacted Zhuang Yi at the beginning, and in the shortest possible time, he found another suitable valley in the Yablonov Mountains as a mercenary base, and moved the entire mercenary army over.

Unbeknownst to both of them, they had lost contact with each other after a series of mishaps.

Zhuang Yi still does not know the life or death of his wife and children, after Maxim killed his wife, he threw the corpse into the wilderness, and no one in the Russian mountains could find such a female corpse.

And Maxim didn't know that it wasn't until more than a year later that Zhuang Yi slowly stabilized his emotions from the grief of the disappearance or death of his wife and children, and then he remembered the notepad and found the secret about the diamonds.

And, about two years later, Zhuang Yi found a suitable opportunity, went to Russia again, and finally got the batch of diamonds.

It's just that, as Maxim and his men thought, Zhuang Yi was not able to bring the diamonds back to China, he just hid them somewhere on the shores of Lake Baikal.

Zhuang Yi said: "After finding the diamonds, I found out why Maxim was so desperate, and these diamonds, whether they were used to continue to support his mercenary army, or to pay everyone a settlement allowance after disbandment, were more than enough." Since I have never heard from my wife and children, I am not sure if Maxim killed them or not, and I have a glimmer of hope at the last of my heart. So, I took the diamonds to the base where we used to be, but it was already in ruins. Maybe Maxim really disbanded that mercenary army, perhaps, he took those people to a different place. ”

"If Maxim disbands the mercenaries, he will definitely be incognito, or even make a fake identity for himself, right? You should understand that although the dark web is very powerful, it is not said to be so powerful that it can help you find a deliberately incognito outlaw in Europe and even around the world. ”

Zhuang Yi nodded heavily and said, "Of course I understand, so I don't have such extravagant expectations." When I went to the base in the Yablonov Mountains to look for them, I really thought that Maxim had disbanded the mercenaries. But I also have one last bit of hope...... Cheng Shao, you should be able to understand my psychology of hoping for a life-saving straw, right?"

Cheng Yu bowed slightly, took a sip of wine, and expressed understanding.

"So, although I knew it was probably futile, I kept checking the news about the armed conflict in Russia over the years, in accordance with the style and habits of our team and the general scope of its activities. Of course, most of these news can't be found in normal media, but fortunately, the Internet and private media are developed enough, as long as you are attentive enough, you can always find some clues. ”

Regarding this point, Cheng Yu also agreed, in the era of big data, even if it is an individual's activities, as long as they are intentional enough, they often have nothing to hide, let alone a mercenary army of more than 200 people?

"Eventually, I found traces of Maxim, and although I am not sure where his current base is, I can be sure that he did not disband the mercenaries, but took them through the most difficult times, and is now a well-known team in the European underworld. And, as far as I know, the size of his team is quite impressive. It's a pity that I tried to contact some European mercenaries, but no matter what my price was, as soon as the other party heard that they were going to kill Maxim's mercenaries, they all chose to give up without exception. My only hope is on the dark web. ”

"How did you know about the dark web? It's not all because of your guest's boasting?" Cheng Yu asked, a question he never believed anyone would listen to a drunken guest's nonsense.

"Actually, it was the advice they gave me when I was in contact with some mercenaries in Europe. ”