Chapter 96

Chapter 96

“On October 25, after completing inspections of the salvage equipment, the Ministry of Marine Affairs will begin a trial salvage operation on the wreck of the Wisdom at 9:00 a.m. The Ministry of Marine Affairs stated that it is not yet known how long the trial salvage will take. The operation team will decide whether to proceed with the formal salvage of the vessel based on the results…”

When Qiu Ziyu arrived at the hospital room, he found Nan Mu still watching news about the sunken ship.

He reached over, picked up the remote, and turned off the TV.

Nan Mu frowned at him in displeasure.

Qiu Ziyu reminded him, “The doctor said you need more rest and less mental strain.”

A faint, rather lifeless smile hung on Nan Mu’s lips. He glanced at Qiu Ziyu. “Did you get the cruise ship footage?”

He had known the moment Nan Mu opened his mouth, that would be the first thing he asked. Qiu Ziyu pursed his lips, but in the end, he had no choice but to hand over all the information he had found. “No footage, but I did get some photos.”

Nan Mu was a little surprised. When he had been on the ship, he had clearly seen surveillance cameras installed in every corridor and public area of the cruise ship. These days, surveillance footage was usually uploaded automatically to the cloud for storage. How could there be none?

Before Nan Mu could ask, Qiu Ziyu explained on his own. “That cruise ship was Huangfu Junsheng’s private vessel. Even the police only obtained part of the surveillance footage, not all of it. Huangfu Junsheng’s explanation is that, to protect personal privacy, he didn’t set all the surveillance footage to be saved to the cloud. Instead, the recordings were stored on data drives. But according to him, the data drives were on the cruise ship.”

In other words, the data drives containing all the surveillance footage had gone down to the bottom of the sea with the cruise ship…

Nan Mu was silent for a moment, then said in surprise, “And you believed an explanation like that?”

Qiu Ziyu gave an awkward laugh. “Of course I don’t believe it… but there’s no evidence proving he’s lying, either. Police work is based on evidence. Without evidence, we can only…”

Qiu Ziyu shrugged, indicating there was nothing he could do. “That said, judging from Huangfu Junsheng’s actions, don’t you think there might be more to the cruise ship accident? Otherwise, why wouldn’t he dare let anyone see the footage? Do you think it’s possible… that he caused this accident?”

Nan Mu froze. “Why would you say that?”

Qiu Ziyu would not make baseless suspicions unless the police investigation had uncovered some questionable clue.

“…It’s just that something feels off, I guess.” Qiu Ziyu gave a wry smile. He truly did not know how to put it.

Nan Mu pondered for a while, then asked, “Have they found out the specific cause of the cruise ship accident?”

Qiu Ziyu shook his head. “The situation is complicated. The exact cause still can’t be determined. Based on the information available so far, what can be confirmed is this: around 10:57 p.m. that night was when the strange noise was first heard. Someone on the ship heard a tremendous crash, the sound of the hull being struck hard. The sound seemed to come from the bottom of the cabin. The cruise ship shook for several seconds. After that, the hull began to list and then sank rapidly. But what exactly happened at the bottom of the cabin at that time? No one knows.”

“Everyone felt the cruise ship shake, but those of us in the banquet hall didn’t hear any strange noise…”

Nan Mu recalled Huangfu Junsheng’s expression when the incident occurred.

The shock and panic on his face had not been fake. In fact, when the cruise ship first lurched violently, he had even done his utmost to calm everyone down and ordered the entourage around him to go investigate the cause.

The attendant who had left was someone who had been with Huangfu Junsheng for more than twenty years. It was said that he was highly skilled and was also responsible for Huangfu Junsheng’s personal safety. Although Nan Mu could not remember his name, he had heard stories about the man protecting Huangfu Junsheng before.
If Huangfu Junsheng had known about this beforehand, there was no way he would have allowed such an important person to leave his side and put himself in danger.

So Nan Mu shook his head. “It probably wasn’t him.”

If it wasn’t Huangfu Junsheng, then why had he tried to cover it up?

Unless letting the police learn who was truly responsible for the cruise ship disaster was an even more terrifying prospect for Huangfu Junsheng.

But what could that be? Unfortunately, they had no way of knowing right now.

Just as Nan Mu had no way to prove whether the person he had seen in the blue-and-white hoodie was Wen Miao.

“Speaking of that…” Qiu Ziyu’s expression turned grave.

Because there was no video footage, after learning from Nan Mu that he might have seen Wen Miao on the cruise ship, Qiu Ziyu had summoned every relevant person to give a statement.

There had been a total of twenty-four crew members aboard the Wisdom that day. In the end, only the six who had been operating the lifeboat survived. But all six stated that the crew had a strict uniform policy, and everyone on duty that day had been wearing the same uniform.

Since the guests had all been partners invited by Wisdom Biotech Company and Huangfu Junsheng, the crew members did not know what the guests had been wearing. On top of that, they had remained at their respective posts the entire time, so none of them had seen any woman in a blue-and-white hoodie.

However, they did have some knowledge of the service staff who were not part of the ship’s crew.

These service staff were not permanent employees on the ship. They had only been temporarily brought in from various places to serve the guests for that evening’s banquet. There were twenty-eight of them in total.

Qiu Ziyu immediately obtained the full list of those twenty-eight people from the administrative office of Wisdom Biotech Company.

He compared the list against the roster of those who had died in the shipwreck and discovered that one person was not on the casualty list.

And the service staff member who was not on the casualty list happened to be a guide.

“A guide?”

Nan Mu immediately remembered the staff member who had guided him and Panpan to their assigned room when they boarded the ship.

“That’s right. She felt unwell that day, so after helping all the guests board, she got off the cruise ship and luckily avoided the disaster. According to her recollection, because it was an evening banquet, almost all of the female guests in attendance were wearing formal dresses. There were no female guests wearing blue-and-white hoodies.”

That was impossible. Nan Mu felt that even if he had mistaken the person, he couldn’t have mistaken the clothes. He had clearly seen it: the person on the ship had been wearing a blue-and-white hoodie. The piece of fabric caught on his cufflink could prove it too.

As Nan Mu thought back, he asked, “But that doesn’t prove anything… I remember that after I boarded, there were several guides standing at the boarding entrance. And the guides had to take each guest all the way to their own room before leaving. Could it have happened while she was guiding a guest…?”

Qiu Ziyu explained, “That’s right. There were six guides at the boarding entrance, but one of them was responsible for registration and handing out room cards…”

Only then did Nan Mu remember that there had indeed been someone specifically asking them to sign in before handing the room card to the staff member who guided them.

Qiu Ziyu continued, “The one responsible for registration and distributing the room cards was assigned solely to registration, so from beginning to end, she never left that spot.”

In other words, she should have seen every guest who boarded the ship.