Ke Jiazhao felt a pang of empathy and nodded vigorously on the side.
"It’s so hard! It took a lot of time just to sort through so many shops, and then to spend effort on doing tasks, how on earth did you manage to do it?"
It had taken nearly an hour for the two people on her team to complete just two tasks, and they thought they were fast.
But what was the result?
The three people on the other team had their hands full with grains—all seven or eight catties of them?!
It was simply unbelievable.
Upon hearing this, Zhang Yilin and Chen Xin both looked at Tang Shu simultaneously.
Since they were on the same team, the overall score would be tallied in the end, so it was essential for both sides to exchange information.
"It’s indeed tough, we want to know too!"
"Xiao Shushu just had us asking the shopkeepers what they needed along the way, and then we kept doing tasks, we didn’t figure it out either, did we?"
Actually, just like Wang Zhan and the others, they only knew that the shops were connected; identifying one lead would suffice.
The problem was, there were so many shops; when would they manage to sort out the lead?
Before they had a chance to understand, Tang Shu’s words fell like raindrops, and the grains were in their hands in just a few minutes, incredibly fast.
Things went incredibly smoothly, leaving them no time to react!
Tang Shu met their four curious pairs of eyes and raised her hand to point at a nearby shop.
"Every shop outside has a flag, have you noticed?"
"The flag? You mean the one that says general store on it?"
"What about this piece of cloth?"
The flag was very conspicuous, fluttering freely in the wind—impossible for anyone to miss, as ordinary as it could be.
But because of that, everyone had overlooked it, thinking it was merely a decoration.
"Is there something wrong with this flag?"
Tang Shu pointed to the right upper corner of the flag, "In ancient times, shops that wanted to grow had to join the local merchant association, and different associations had different rules. To distinguish which shop belonged to which association, they would leave the association’s information in the right upper corner of the flag."
With her explanation, everyone suddenly realized that the right upper corner of the flag was inscribed with the traditional character for "nine."
"Hey, how come I didn’t notice that there were characters here before?"
"Damn! Even if we noticed, we wouldn’t have known that it represents the ninth merchant association!"
"These flags are everywhere, and each shop has its own signboard above the door; who would care about a flag?"
"Wait a minute, the meaning of this merchant association is..."
Lu Shen, who had always been the sharpest one in the detective family, had been too astonished earlier, but now with Tang Shu’s hint, an idea flashed through his mind instantly.
"Could this merchant association be the hidden clue connected to the task line?!"
Tang Shu smiled and nodded, "That’s right."
The other three suddenly had a moment of realization!
"I get it, so this means the shop with the nine is only related to other shops with nines!"
Everybody looked towards the other shops and indeed noticed that the flags at their entrances bore different traditional characters—such as "six," "eight," and "seven." Not far off, there was another "nine."
"I understand now. Just now, Yuchun Tower’s leading card said they lacked clothing but didn’t want Wang Zhan’s red garment; instead, they chose our silk cloth because we belong to the same merchant association!"
Chen Xin suddenly had an epiphany.
Zhang Yilin also had a flash of insight next to him, "So the red garment in Wang Zhan’s hands, and the wonton stand across the street, also belong to the same merchant association?"