Chapter 5 — The Lost Golden Bangle

Then why is everything being swept under the rug with the flimsy excuse of equipment failure?

No one uttered a word. The employee who had delivered the package to me was standing quietly behind the crowd. I walked straight toward him.

Yesterday, who was it that insisted I had to obtain my signature right then and there?

He cast a sideways glance at Manager Hua.

No one.

When you made that phone call outside the door, I recorded it.

His lips twitched nervously.

It was just a routine work report.

I played the audio recording. His voice rang out clearly from the phone:

She hasn't signed yet.

It has already been weighed.

Yes, it's missing over thirty grams.

Although the voice at the other end was very faint, a single sentence could still be heard distinctly:

Do not let her write the actual weight at the post office on the receipt.

The deliveryman's complexion instantly turned ashen. Manager Hua instructed the technician to amplify the volume. The second sentence spoken by the person on the phone was:

Bring the item back here, do not leave it in her hands.

Manager Hua demanded:

Who was on the other end of that call?

The deliveryman lowered his head in shame.

Manager Luo.

Why did you have to bring the package back?

He said that once a customer holds onto physical evidence, it becomes much harder to handle later on.

Harder to handle in what way?

I do not know.

Do you really not know?

The deliveryman's hands trembled incessantly. After a long moment of hesitation, he retrieved a series of voice messages from his phone. They had been sent within the work chat group. Manager Luo had written:

There have been quite a few abnormal packages lately.

For valuables without declared insurance, deliver them first under the condition of intact packaging.

If the customer makes a fuss, tell them to take it up with the sender.

Do not record specific weight discrepancies on the signing receipt.

After listening to the playback, Manager Hua's expression darkened completely. I looked directly at the deliveryman:

Why are you willing to bring this out now?

He stared at the floor.

That day, when you opened the box, I already felt something was wrong.

By the time we reached the post office, the carton was noticeably lighter.

I mentioned that we needed to report it as an abnormal package, but Manager Luo told me not to meddle in matters that did not concern me.

Previously, an elderly woman lost her gold necklace and cried at the post office for an entire afternoon.

He told her the sender simply forgot to put the item inside.

I did not dare to speak up.

The photographer asked coldly:

Does the fear of losing your job give you the right to help them trick us into signing?

The deliveryman offered no defense.

I am sorry.

I did not grant him absolution. Perhaps he was afraid. Yet with every single day of his cowardice, someone else had to shoulder a loss that was never theirs to begin with, solely because the evidence had been falsified as intact packaging. Following the continued intervention of the police, the scope of the investigation was expanded to include the night shift and the unloading areas of the post office. The surveillance footage had not been fully preserved. In the cargo unloading zone of the western city post office, there was a blind spot partially blocked by towering metal storage cages. Out of the seventeen abnormal packages, thirteen had arrived during the night shift. The shift supervisor, a man named Do Cuong, was responsible for re-inspecting abnormal shipments. He was also Manager Luo's brother-in-law. Do Cuong adamantly insisted that the weight fluctuation occurred at the higher-level transit hub.

When the goods arrived at our facility, they were already light.

I am only responsible for logging them into the warehouse.

Yet the system held a photograph. The moment my package was just unloaded from the metal cage, the transparent packing tape had not been pressed down completely flat. One corner of the box opening was slightly curled upward. In a re-inspection photo taken five minutes later, that same layer of tape had been firmly pressed down. The background of both photographs was identical. Exactly five minutes had elapsed between them. The account used to capture the images belonged to Do Cuong. He offered a feeble explanation:

Perhaps I pressed it down out of habit.

Manager Hua questioned:

Upon discovering that the opening was curled up, why did you not register it as damaged packaging?

I was too busy and forgot.

You forgot for more than ten consecutive times?

I know nothing about the other packages.

The police examined the browsing history on his mobile phone. On a second-hand trading platform, he had previously sold: two unopened smartphones, three camera lenses, and four pieces of gold jewelry. The transaction timestamps correlated heavily with the dates the abnormal packages had surfaced. However, my bracelet was nowhere to be found in his sales history. Do Cuong quickly altered his testimony.

The items were not stolen by me.

The packages were self-damaged, and I merely picked them up.

He claimed he was only holding onto them temporarily. Then he backtracked, stating that Manager Luo was aware of the entire situation. Manager Luo finally made his appearance. The moment he stepped into the warehouse, he pointed an accusing finger straight at Do Cuong and shouted:

Do not try to splash your dirty water onto me!

I only thought there was something wrong with the equipment.

Do Cuong immediately produced their chat logs. Brother-in-law, there is another uninsured package. Manager Luo had replied: Handle it cleanly, do not leave the items at the post office. In another message thread, Manager Luo had asked: Have the phones been sold yet? Use the money to cover last month's customer complaints first. The entire warehouse fell into a profound silence. It turned out Manager Luo had never been protecting the company's reputation. He had known from the very beginning. Relying on order notes and inspection data, Do Cuong cherry-picked valuable packages. He exploited the night shift unloading hours to rip open the cartons. Ordinary goods were tossed away directly, while gold, phones, and camera lenses were systematically fenced off for profit.