Far away in Moscow

48 Theft
"What's going on?!" The three of them were dumbfounded, feeling their dizzy spin: "There is a thief! It must have been stolen by a thief!"

Hu Yi strode towards the door and bowed his waist to check carefully. The door was still swaying, but the transparent glue on the door lock and door frame was still intact, and there were no signs of violent damage around.

Li Baoqing opened the window and looked down, Hu Yi was furious: "Are you stupid? The window can't be opened from the outside! Besides, this is the fifth floor, who can climb up in broad daylight?"

"Then what's going on?!" Li Baoqing said frantically, "He came in from the door?!"

"It must be, the thief probably has the key." Hu Yi calmed down a little, "Let's go outside and ask first."

The three were in a hurry, and they opened other rooms on the fifth floor to inquire one by one. When the neighbors heard that someone had been burglarized, they all enthusiastically offered advice, but they could not provide any valuable information.

The few Chinese preparatory students who had made friends with Wang Shen accompanied them all over the whole building No. 6, but still found nothing.The Arab who claimed to be the Prince of Morocco suggested: "You go to the administrator."

"I've already looked for it. It's a holiday today, and the office is locked." Hu Yi frowned.

"He lives not far away, I'll call him." The prince seemed to be quite familiar with the administrator, took out his mobile phone and briefly explained the situation in half-baked Russian: "...Yes, it was stolen, please come here .Yes, the situation is bad, you must come. Okay, okay, thank you."

Ten minutes later, the administrator walked up to the fifth floor with a straight face: "Which room was stolen?"

"Happy New Year!" Hu Yi stood at the door and waved: "We lost three boxes, which contained money and clothes."

The administrator went into the room and looked around, but there seemed to be no good solution, so he asked with his arms akimbo, "Who stole it?"

"How do I know?" Hu Yi almost laughed angrily.

Li Baoqing was furious: "Are you asking us? I still want to ask you!" His Russian level is relatively limited, and now he is in a hurry to say a whole sentence, pointing at the door lock and roaring: "This, very Not happy! Others, can come in! Thieves, come in too! Very! Not happy!"

The administrator looked down impatiently: "Your door is broken, of course thieves can come in."

"Yes, we have submitted an application for repair." Hu Yi quickly explained: "But the door can be locked, and the thief must have the key."

"Impossible." The administrator shrugged. "Apart from you, I am the only one who has the key. Do you suspect that I stole it?"

"That's right!" Zhou Dali squeezed in front of the administrator: "Someone came to repair the door this morning! We were going out at the time, so I told him to come back in the afternoon. Could it be... is it him?"

"It's impossible." The administrator smiled contemptuously: "Today is the New Year, and no repairman will go out to work during the New Year."

"Not a repairman?" Hu Yi was stunned for a while, then turned to look at Zhou Dali: "Damn it, it must be a thief coming to step on the spot!"

"Yes, it must be, it must be." Zhou Dali murmured to himself: "And there may be more than one person, or one person may go back and forth multiple times, otherwise there is no way to take three boxes in one trip."

"Damn it! Bastard! Thief!" Li Baoqing slammed his fists on the wall several times: "Why did you only focus on our house? Why didn't anyone see the thief?"

Hu Yi closed his eyes and lowered his head, rubbing his chin and thinking for a while: "Today's New Year's Day, many people in the building will go out to play, and some people didn't come back to stay at all last night. The thief probably expected this, so he came early in the morning to touch it. The situation, the result..."

"In the end, I thought he was here to repair the door, and told him that we were going out and would come back in the afternoon..." Zhou Dali continued the second half of the sentence listlessly.

Li Baoqing said anxiously: "Do you remember what he looks like?"

"Black hair, should be Caucasian, or...or Tatar? Has a beard, looks... long..." Zhou Dali tried hard to recall for a while, then shook his head in frustration: "I am highly short-sighted, and the corridor is dark in the morning. I didn’t wear my glasses when I just woke up, everything was blurry.”

Seeing that they were discussing in Chinese on their own, the administrator turned and went out of the room and said, "Okay, there's nothing I can do here, go to the police. I will arrange someone to repair the door as soon as possible after the festival. Remember to keep it safe from now on." Good luck to you, treasure."

The Chinese preparatory student and the Arab prince who came to help also left, and the three of them were left in the room.

"Call the police." Li Baoqing's voice was hoarse.

"It's useless." Hu Yi shook his head: "I can't provide any useful clues. What can the police do? Do they search from house to house? Besides, the police in Moscow... Hey, you don't know."

Li Baoqing fell silent.Zhou Dali held his head in thought for a moment, then said in a muffled voice: "I remember, when I first came last year, someone threw boxes in Building 6, and it happened several times in succession."

"Who did it?" Li Baoqing hurriedly asked, "Did anyone catch it? Did you find the thing?"

"Nothing." Zhou Dali said: "I don't know the specific situation. At that time, many people suspected that the dormitory administrator colluded with outsiders to commit the crime, but there was no direct evidence, so the matter was settled. Later, the school dismissed the administrator. Replaced with this one."

"what do you mean…?"

"If the administrator at that time was really involved, maybe he had secretly assigned the dormitory key. Or maybe... maybe the current administrator is also... well, I can't tell." Zhou Dali sighed: "Who knows, everyone It's just speculation, and it's useless to say something without evidence."

"Guardian and self-stealing!" Hu Yiting was furious: "It's just collusion!"

Li Baoqing blinked with a sad face: "What is discouraged? What do you mean?"

"It's just working together!" Hu Yi slumped heavily on the bed: "Uneducated!"

Although they knew that the police could do nothing, they still reported the case with a glimmer of hope.The young policeman on duty registered them. Apart from some clothes, personal belongings and a small amount of RMB, there was [-] dollars in Hu Yi's box. Li Baoqing lost [-] dollars, and Zhou Dali lost the most. There was still exactly three thousand four hundred dollars in the box.

It was already dark when they walked out of the police station, and the three of them returned to the room in a daze. They sat on the bed with their heads drooping like frost-beaten eggplants, their minds blank.

"How much money do you have?" Hu Yi feebly took out his wallet to check: "I only have four hundred rubles left."

Li Baoqing and Zhou Dali dug out all their pockets and found less than seven hundred rubles and twenty dollars in total.

"Those melons and jujubes can't last for a few days even if they eat instant noodles and bread every day." Hu Yi sat down and smoked a stuffy cigarette, got up and put on his coat: "I'll ask someone to borrow some money."

Li Baoqing asked: "Who can I borrow from?"

Hu Yi hesitated for a moment: "Let's find... Feifei, other than her, no other acquaintances can open their mouths."

"Don't go yet, Feifei will buy a plane ticket back home during the winter vacation, so she definitely won't have much money left." Li Baoqing reached out to untie his belt, unzipped a thin zipper on the inside, and took out a folded banknote from a hidden pocket: "I still have money here." One hundred dollars is enough for us to support us for a while."

"Damn? Are you still holding back?" Hu Yi was surprised and delighted: "This trick is quite hidden. Who would have thought that someone would put money in their belt!"

Li Baoqing smiled helplessly: "My dad said that he should hide some money in a safe place when going out, just in case, so he bought this belt for me before going abroad. I didn't expect to really use it now."

"Your old man is awesome!" Hu Yi gave a thumbs up: "One hundred dollars, plus what we have in hand, um... so tight that we can insist on sending money home."

Li Baoqing smoothed the banknote gently: "I'll change it into rubles tomorrow, and the three of us will make do with it for a while."

Zhou Dali hesitated for a while, and turned around: "Actually, I also left some money for emergency, but I have to go home in a few days, so let's use yours for now, and return it to you when I come back from vacation."

Li Baoqing was very surprised: "Your belt also has a pocket?"

"It's not a belt, it's here." Zhou Dali patted his lower abdomen: "There is a hidden pocket in these pants. I put five hundred dollars in it, which is just enough to buy a plane ticket."

"Pants?!" Hu Yi laughed and said, "It's really good! Don't you think it's troublesome? Are you afraid that you will forget to take out the money when washing the pants?"

"That's right, I seldom see you washing your underpants." Li Baoqing asked thoughtfully, "Is it because you are worried about losing money that you never change them?"

"How is that possible! All the underpants I brought have pockets, and they are often changed! Really often!" Zhou Dali blushed and shouted: "I don't want to talk to you, I have to call my dad and ask him to help. I will exchange dollars. Tell your family too.”

During those few years, the country’s foreign exchange reserves were still at a relatively low level, and the amount of foreign exchange that ordinary residents could obtain through banks each year was far from meeting the needs of studying abroad, so they could only go to scalpers to exchange.However, scalpers cannot guarantee a stable supply and price. Especially around the Spring Festival, the demand for US dollars is relatively large. It often takes several transactions to exchange for a sufficient amount. Therefore, it is necessary to let the family members make plans in advance.

After being reminded by Zhou Dali, Hu Yi suddenly became anxious again, sighed and put away his heartless smile.Li Baoqing put on his coat with a bitter face: "Oh, it's over this time, my dad will definitely scold me to death."

Around dinner is the peak time for Indians and Africans to make phone calls, and only one public phone is idle in the lobby on the first floor.Hu Yi slowed down and said, "You guys call first, I'll think about how to tell my family."

Li Baoqing hesitated to come forward, Zhou Dali picked up the receiver and hesitated for a moment, then dialed his home number.He talked with his family in the dialect of XZ, Shanxi Province, and his speech was so fast that Hu Yi and Li Baoqing could hardly understand him at all.Zhou's father kept roaring on the phone, extremely angry, and Zhou Dali seemed to be more sluggish in front of his father than usual, he didn't dare to say anything, but just casually agreed with his head down.

The other two kept staring at Zhou Dali's facial expression, and when he hung up the phone, Li Baoqing asked in a low voice, "Did your father scold you?"

　Some friends are curious why the money is not stored in the bank. Let me briefly explain:
　　At that time, most banks in Russia could only deposit rubles, and some banks could deposit foreign currency, but it was very troublesome to deposit and withdraw, and there were requirements on the initial deposit amount and other aspects, and a handling fee was charged.

　　As mentioned earlier, due to the continued depreciation of the ruble, people living in Russia tend to hold US dollars.Especially students, generally only have two or three thousand dollars on hand, so they basically keep cash at home.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)