The door sounded, and Yvonne Quinn stormed in angrily: “How can this be? Little brother, look at the kind of shady friends you keep—right off the bat they order blue crayfish! Even if you have money, you can’t buy that stuff. Where am I supposed to steal it from?”

Charles Sutton closed his laptop and grinned, “What are you afraid of? You have to remember, this is China. We can even manufacture eggs with chemical methods—how could we not be able to make blue crayfish?

Sigh... My biggest flaw is honesty. Let’s be honest and play it straight. You go negotiate with that restaurant and buy their blue crayfish shells. I’ll handle the rest.”

Yvonne Quinn immediately caught on: “I’m worried... that restaurant won’t sell the shells.”

“Of course not. Do you think what they sell are real blue crayfish? What they buy are just the shells... They show the customers an ordinary crayfish, then take it to the back, cook the regular crayfish, put the blue shell on it, and sell it at a high price.

Every day, the restaurant sells blue crayfish, but where in the world are there so many blue crayfish? The total number of blue crayfish produced on Earth in a hundred years isn’t enough for Chinese restaurants to sell in a single year, but our restaurant has been buying them for three years—three years...

So, what they’re selling can only be the shells. We’ll do the same. Hmm, real crayfish are too expensive, so we’ll use pork instead, slice it thin, tell the kitchen to use all their skills and make it outstanding—guaranteed customer satisfaction.”

Yvonne Quinn curled her lip: “Isn’t that cheating... Say, if we threaten that restaurant by exposing the truth, do you think they’ll obediently sell us the blue crayfish shells? That way, we’ll have another signature dish.”

“Impossible,” Charles Sutton replied. There’s no dedicated “Commercial Fraud Law” here, so when you encounter commercial fraud, lawsuits are a hassle, and verifying authenticity is also a hassle. There’s no dedicated “Commercial Compensation Law” either, so even if you win the case, the compensation won’t cover the verification costs. The restaurant can legally cheat you—what can you do?

“If the restaurant won’t sell the shells, can we make our own?” Yvonne Quinn’s eyes lit up. “You just said ‘we can make eggs with chemicals’—why not just fire a porcelain blue crayfish shell? Dyed shells are toxic, but at least porcelain ones aren’t harmful, and we could use them for ten thousand years without fading. Wouldn’t that be convenient?”

“Good point, good point,” Charles Sutton said shamelessly. “What’s the difference between a porcelain shell and a real shell? With my skills, I can make it so those rural entrepreneurs can’t tell the difference. And even if they can—legally, there’s no compensation. Alright, you go buy a real crayfish, I’ll make a mold from the shell, fire up the kiln, and tonight we’ll have a hundred blue crayfish. Haha, go on, hurry.”

Yvonne Quinn mused, “We’ll need to close the kitchen first, brief the staff, and make sure everyone’s story matches...”

“No need,” Charles Sutton smirked mischievously. “If we really get exposed, we’ll just say: the important thing isn’t whether the crayfish is real or not, the important thing is ‘developing the blue crayfish industry’...

That doesn’t work? Then we’ll say: the experts have verified it’s real, and for now, we can’t say it’s fake—these days, pay an expert and they’ll raise their hand; hiring an expert is cheaper than bribing a judge...

Still not working? Then we’ll say: the authenticity issue depends on the organization, we have to follow organizational principles. The organization hasn’t made a final statement yet—only when the organization says it’s fake, then it’s ‘fake’; if the organization says it’s ‘real’, then even ‘fake’ isn’t fake... Do you think the organization will hold a press conference for our restaurant’s crayfish?

Still not working, and they’re angry? Remember what the guy who took the South China tiger photo said—‘Whoever says it’s fake, I’ll deal with them sooner or later, none of them will get away.’ Scared yet?”

Yvonne Quinn giggled, her body going limp with laughter: “You’re just causing trouble... I’m not getting involved. I’ll take the new guy, Little Evelyn, to get familiar with the job. I won’t be joining you for lunch.”

“Mm-hmm,” Charles Sutton nodded absentmindedly. After Yvonne Quinn left, he reopened his laptop. A few lines of French flashed on the screen—“Mr. Sutton, long time no see!”

Charles Sutton sighed and replied, “Long time—actually, not that long! Hagen Centurion, my friend knows nothing about this. Please don’t drag him into it.”

The screen flickered, and Hagen’s reply popped up: “Yes, I’ve already confirmed: your friend knows nothing, and he still doesn’t know. But you suddenly disappeared, vanished for months, so we had no choice but to approach your friend...”

“How did you find him? Or rather, how did you discover the connection between us?”

“It was simple. We traced the place where you first appeared—back then, you hadn’t learned to hide your tracks.

Following your trail, we found that when you landed, someone helped you, allowing Flora and you to receive further rescue.

After that, we started looking for this person.

He’s not as good at hiding as you are. It didn’t take us much effort to find him singing in the New York subway. Then we kept watch by his side, quietly waiting for you to show up. When we saw a mysterious remittance slip from China, we believed: the target had appeared.”