Chapter 261: Escaping the Community, Sneaking into Another House
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“What do we do now?” Niu Rui was deflated.
“You…” Suddenly, Jiang Fuyue paused.
Just now, a shadow had quickly flashed past her eyes. Judging by the direction of the sunlight, if her judgment was correct, that person should be right behind her!
The person likely realized the sunlight would cast a shadow, so they quickly moved and hid.
Unfortunately for them, she caught a glimpse of the fleeting shadow.
“You idiot, they’ve already found us!” Jiang Fuyue cursed and quickly hung up.
Niu Rui: “!”
Without much hesitation, Jiang Fuyue bolted.
Seeing she had noticed, her pursuer also stopped hiding, emerging from behind the rockery and giving chase.
They passed through a pavilion and an artificial bamboo grove. Jiang Fuyue ducked into a corner, her pursuer momentarily losing track.
She looked up and saw the balcony of the master bedroom of a single-family villa. Hearing footsteps getting closer, she quickly erased her footprints and, using the stone platform, vaulted herself up to the balcony and hid in the bedroom.
Zhu Qifeng chased her to this point and suddenly stopped, looking around: “Where did she go?”
With his criminal investigation background, his powerful and keen observational skills had him searching for a long time without finding any footprints.
“Something’s not right…” His brow furrowed.
He was sure he had chased her in the right direction, and the girl definitely fled this way.
With the surrounding area being wide open, no rockeries, trees, or pavilions to hide behind, there was almost nowhere to hide…
“Where did she go?”
He took out his phone and dialed a number.
The call was quickly answered: “Hello, Captain Zhu!”
“Little Liu, help me check the surveillance cameras in Yutian Huafu, around the A3 area.”
“Do you have a specific camera number? If I’m not mistaken, all areas in Yutian Huafu with an A prefix are single-family villas, covering a large area with many cameras. It’ll take at least forty minutes to check them all.”
By then, the trail might be cold.
Zhu Qifeng: “Where can I find the camera number?”
“Well… the property management should know that.”
Zhu Qifeng: “…”
“But the layout of residential surveillance cameras follows a pattern. Generally, to ensure full coverage, a camera is installed every twenty meters. This way, each camera’s coverage overlaps with its neighboring cameras’. By counting them clockwise, you get the camera numbers.”
Zhu Qifeng squinted at two cameras with red lights opposite him. Fifteen seconds later—
“36, 37!”
“…That’s right! These two cameras. Captain Zhu, I can see you now.”
“Check if a girl passed by two minutes ago and which direction she went.”
“Yes!” In the criminal investigation unit’s dedicated room, keyboard clacking sounded.
Two uniformed young police officers watched the screen in amazement—
“Captain Zhu is amazing! He calculated the camera numbers so quickly. He calculated them, right?”
The officer at the computer confirmed, “It has to be calculated.”
“Captain Zhu is awesome! Following him wasn’t a waste.”
“Captain Zhu knows a lot more than this; these are small matters. You’ll see in time.”
The young officers exchanged looks, astonished.
Suddenly, the keyboard clacking stopped. Little Liu stared at the screen, frowning. “Captain Zhu, you said how many minutes ago?”
Zhu Qifeng: “Two minutes. Why?”
“I fast-forwarded through the last ten minutes of footage. Besides you, no one else appeared.”
“Impossible! She definitely ran this way.”
Little Liu frowned more deeply. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely!”
“But…” Little Liu reviewed the last fifteen minutes, “there really is no one.”
Zhu Qifeng’s eyes darkened. “I understand. Over and out.”
“Hello? Captain Zhu, I…” Little Liu sighed, taking off his headset and slamming it on the table.
“What’s wrong, Liu?” asked young officer A, puzzled.
“Nothing, just that Captain Zhu’s search turned up nothing.”
Little B thought for a moment and guessed, “Could Captain Zhu have misjudged the situation?”
Little Liu shook his head. “If Captain Zhu says she ran that way, then she did. He wouldn’t be wrong.”
“Why? From the surveillance, the area is vast. She could run in any direction. Anyone with some sense wouldn’t run into a dead end.”
And the place Captain Zhu was standing was clearly a dead end, with no escape forward and no cover on either side.
“That’s true, but I trust Captain Zhu’s judgment more.”
The two young officers didn’t understand.
“Look, surveillance might fail, and eyes can be deceived, but Captain Zhu’s firm judgments are never wrong. I’ve followed him for seven years, handled thousands of cases, and he’s never been wrong.”
“Really? That amazing?”
Little Liu smirked. “How do you think he earned the nickname ‘Miracle Detective’?”
“Brother Liu, I’ve had a question for a long time but never dared to ask.” Officer A scratched his head.
“What is it?”
“The Kangtai Hospital case has been handed to the prosecutor’s office, right? We’ve submitted all our evidence and documents, so technically, our involvement is over. Why is Captain Zhu still looking into the surveillance?”
Little Liu shrugged. “Our Captain Zhu’s curiosity is as famous as his investigative skills.”
“Curiosity?”
“Yeah. Aren’t you curious why all the cameras at the hospital were working fine, except on the night Shi Youmin jumped?”
“Wasn’t it due to a power surge that shorted the fuses?”
Little Liu snapped his fingers. “Correct. But if the fuses blew, shouldn’t the two cameras that should have captured Shi Youmin’s jump also be dead?”
“Weren’t they?” Little A swallowed his saliva.
“Of course not. Do you know—” Little Liu lowered his voice and leaned in, “those cameras showed K being pushed off the roof by Shi Youmin!”
“Huh? That was a year ago!”
“Exactly! A year ago, but it appeared in the surveillance footage that night. Isn’t that eerie?”
“Liu, Brother Liu, you’re giving me goosebumps.”
“Coward!”
Officer B pondered, “But that’s not what’s being said online…”
“Could we post the exact details online? The nation would go crazy! People flocking to see a ghost story?”
“But isn’t this a good thing? Otherwise, how would we find evidence of K’s murder by Shi Youmin after so long?”
Little Liu nodded. “It is a good thing.”
“Then why is Captain Zhu…”
“Didn’t I say? Captain Zhu is curious. He wants to find the master behind this. He’s been investigating since it happened.”
“A master? What kind of master?”
Little Liu sighed. “Do you think surveillance footage gets swapped out of nowhere?”
“What else?”
“Someone tampered with it! And they didn’t clean up well enough, leaving a trail for Captain Zhu.”
“What does this have to do with Yutian Huafu?”
Xiao Liu: “Captain Zhu found an intrusion IP on the hospital computer. Although the traces had been erased, who is Captain Zhu? There’s nothing he can’t do. He managed to restore it and traced the address to somewhere within the Imperial City.”
“Imperial City? How is this related to the Imperial City again?”
“Who knows? Captain Zhu deduced that for the other party to get the information so quickly and act in time, they must have help in Linhuai. So he started to follow the trail.”
“How exactly did he follow the trail?”
“Ahem! Captain Zhu monitored the other party’s phone. As soon as he detected any contact with someone in Linhuai, he immediately took action, which led him to Yutian Huafu.”
“But doesn’t Yutian Huafu only house wealthy people?”
“Yes… do rich people become heroes? See injustice and draw their swords to help, taking care of Director Shi?”
At this moment, the actual hero, Jiang Fuyue, was hiding in someone’s master bedroom, cursing “idiots!” into the phone.
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