Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“Spot on. I actually entered the door first. However, at the thought of his mobile phone running out of battery, I turned around to remind him to charge his mobile phone. He’s very forgetful,” No. 5 said confidently.
“Have you checked the footages of the surveillance cameras in the estate?”
“This is a planned conspiracy. There was a power outage in the estate that lasted for about 20 minutes last night. That just so happened to be the time when the incident occurred. Could it be Sister Zhang’s doing again?” No. 5 speculated.
“Maybe.”
An Xiaoning’s heart sank, and she instructed Fan Shixin to find out Sister Zhang’s current whereabouts.
Due to the fact that they did not know Sister Zhang’s real name, he would have to begin investigating from the Flying Tigers gang, which she was associated with.
While waiting for the news, An Xiaoning asked, “Does Mo Li know that No. 8 has gone missing?”
“I don’t think she knows yet.”
“What do you mean you don’t think? What did you ask her?”
No. 5 explained, “The moment I saw that she was the one who answered the door, I asked her if she knew where No. 8 had gone. Ms. Mo then asked me, ‘Weren’t you together with No. 8 last night?’ I said that he wasn’t with me, after which she said that No. 8 texted her to say that he had gone out to handle some matters together with you. I sensed that something was amiss then, because you would usually call both of us along whenever you needed to settle something. Why would you call him alone? I then tried to call you but you didn’t pick up. I went back to our home and bumped into No. 9, who told me that you were already home when he and No. 11 were here to collect the food supplies. If No. 8 was with you at the time, the Chief would’ve definitely told them to bring No. 8 back to Sanqiao Estate together with them. But since Chief Fan didn’t mention anything, that just means that No. 8 wasn’t there. Hence, I had a feeling that something must have happened after hearing what No. 9 said. So I told Ms. Mo that I haven’t gone home yet and decided to wake No. 8 up at Ms. Mo’s place because I thought he was still sleeping.”
No. 5’s conjecture… did make some sense, actually.
The focus was now on Sister Zhang, whom both No. 5 and An Xiaoning felt was the greatest suspect.
If it had already been an entire night, then…
An Xiaoning dared not imagine what might have happened. It would be alright if No. 8 was safe and sound, but if he wasn’t… how would Mo Li feel?
Noticing that she was deep in thought, No. 5 asked again, “Sis, should we tell Ms. Mo?”
“Not for the time being. It’s not going to be of any help even if she finds out now. It’ll only cause her unnecessary worry. We’ll tell her when there are some leads.”
“That works too.”
Placing his hands on his lap and feeling ill at ease, No. 5 said, “That Sister Zhang definitely hasn’t gotten over No. 8 yet. She went to look Ms. Mo up and showed her the photos of No. 8 and her in the past. She even sent those lewd photos to Ms. Mo’s family. However, if she really had the audacity to do that, isn’t she afraid that you would deal with her?”
“If she was the one, she definitely wouldn’t leave any traces behind. Otherwise, things are just going to get tricky for her. But who could it be if it’s not her?”
“Could it be Ye Xiaotian?”
“He’s already married and has a wife. Besides, he also knows that Mo Li and No. 8 have been dating for quite some time now…”
“However, I’ve heard No. 8 mentioning casually before that Ye Xiaotian has once shown up at Ms. Mo’s door in the middle of the night. We can’t rule out that possibility.”
“I doubt I can make it to the office today…” An Xiaoning walked outside and said, “No. 5, follow me.”
No. 5 hurriedly rushed forward and asked, “Sis, where are we going?”
“To solve the case of No. 8’s disappeance, of course. I don’t care who the culprit may be, I’m definitely going to find him or her. Instead of waiting for Chief Fan’s news, we might as well search for other leads ourselves.”
No. 5 felt a boost of confidence after hearing her words.
She handed him her car keys and said, “Go drive my car out.”
“Alright.” No. 5 took it from her and scurried toward the garage.
Before getting inside the car, she instructed the bodyguard on duty, “Tell the Chief to call me once he has news.”
“Yes, Young Madam!”
The red Ferrari sped out of Wei Ni Estate toward Sanqiao Estate.
Instead of driving into the estate, An Xiaoning checked the locations of all the surveillance cameras before calling Pan Zhenghui and instructing him to check last night’s footages.
There was no need to check the footages of the surveillance cameras inside the estate since they would definitely be erased. She decided to check if the surveillance cameras outside the estate were destroyed too.
After checking, Pan Zhenghui called her and informed her that the surveillance cameras were all intact since last night.
An idea popped up in An Xiaoning’s head.
As long as there were surveillance cameras, there would be a chance to grasp some leads.
She headed to the police station to obtain the footages. She then told the police officer to zoom in on the areas near the estate. The footages were then displayed on the screens of the monitors.
The surveillance cameras had captured all the license plates of the cars that had entered the estate after No. 5 and No. 8 did last night.
She instructed the police officers to note down all the license plates.
It would be too easy for An Xiaoning to investigate and find out the culprit if he or she had committed the act within just one or two hours. The perpetrator must have also thought about that and hence stalled for some time by leaving the estate when there were more cars, so as to distract the attention of the person checking the footages.
Since the perpetrator had decided to stall for time, he or she would have definitely left in the morning before the guards found out.
But of course, that was just one of the possible conjectures. There was also another possibility.
While the police officer was recording the license plate numbers, she brought No. 5 out of the police station.
“Sis, aren’t we going to wait for news at the police station?”
“It’ll take a long time for them to finish recording everything. We can’t waste time. We’ll just come back again once the results are out. Let’s go back to Sanqiao Estate now.”
“Sanqiao Estate?”
“Yes, there are two possibilities; one is that they’ve taken No. 8 out of the estate, and the other is that they did not. We can’t rule out any possibility. Don’t they always say that the most dangerous place is the safest one? We can’t eliminate that either.”
No. 5 found her words to have made sense. “Sis, how do we continue checking in Sanqiao Estate, then?”
“I reckon the surveillance camera footages in Sanqiao Estate must have been destroyed. In the fortunate event that they’re still intact, that’ll make things easier for us. However, we’ll still have a lead if otherwise.”
“How can it be a lead… without the footage?”
“If there are no footages, who do you think was the one who deleted them? Isn’t that a lead?”
No. 5 said in epiphany, “Oh yeah, there are clues for us with or without the footages.”
“Of course.”
Upon thee sight of An Xiaoning, the guard in the guard room tensed up in fear and thought to himself, Oh god, this troublemaker is here again…
He was still traumatized by the water-poisoning incident that took place previously.
In spite of his fear and anxiety, he still managed to put on a lopsided smile.
“Ms. An, you’re here.”
“Were the surveillance cameras faulty last night?”
“Last night? I don’t know, I wasn’t on duty last night. No one mentioned anything about the cameras being faulty last night when I arrived this morning.”
“Who was on duty last night? Call him here.”
“I think he’s still sleeping. Ms. An, just what’s the matter?”
She reiterated, “I said, call him here. You’ll find out once he’s here.”
