Chapter 354
Chapter 354
I regretted the question as soon as it left my mouth.
Of course they didn’t.
If there had been a Basement, the police would have searched it too.
Boss Xu confirmed there was no Basement, only underground parking on level B1, which every apartment building connected to directly.
I didn’t bother asking whether someone could have taken the girl out through the parking garage.
The only ways down were the elevators and fire stairs, both of which had cameras. The garage itself was monitored too. The police had certainly checked all the footage.
At last, Boss Xu took us into the building where the girl had disappeared.
There were cameras in the ground-floor lobby, elevators, and fire stairs, but not in the corridors on the residential floors. Installing them there would violate the residents’ privacy.
Some residents had installed cameras outside their own doors, but that was their choice.
According to Boss Xu, the girl had last been seen leaving the elevator on the thirteenth floor. After that, she disappeared.
There were two apartments per floor. The police must have paid very special “attention” to the two households on thirteen.
“After she stepped out of the elevator, no camera ever caught her getting back in. She never entered the fire stairs either. That means she stayed on the thirteenth floor the entire time.”
Song Xiaotian frowned. “Chen Mo says she’s still alive, so she has to be inside one of those two apartments. Are you sure the police searched them properly?”
“Absolutely,” Boss Xu replied with complete certainty. “The officer in charge was a veteran. He said they checked every place large enough to hide a person. They also performed that… whatever it was called, the test for blood traces. Neither apartment showed anything suspicious.”
“That girl really did vanish into thin air on the thirteenth floor.”
Song Xiaotian and I exchanged a look. At last, a chill crept over me.
Even if the building was haunted, a ghost couldn’t make a living person disappear into thin air.
Unless the building itself ate people?
Boss Xu received a call, apparently from the police.
When he hung up, he said the officers were still inside the complex and would be over shortly. He would speak to them when they arrived, and we could ask for any details we needed.
A few minutes later, an officer arrived. By some ridiculous coincidence, it was Brother Liu again.
Then I remembered that this neighborhood fell within his precinct’s jurisdiction.
“Oh, shit…”
The moment Brother Liu saw us, he looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
“What are you guys doing here? Don’t tell me this place really is haunted. I knew the yin energy felt heavy the moment I walked into the building…”
Like Song Xiaotian, he was terrified of ghosts.
But there wasn’t any yin energy here. At least, I hadn’t seen a single sign of a haunting yet.
Seeing that we knew each other, Boss Xu quickly said, “Officer Liu, Master Chen, I’m leaving this matter in your hands. Please, you have to find the girl. At the very least, we need to see her alive or recover her body.”
“I really can’t take much more of her family causing trouble outside.”
“Fortunately, nobody has posted this online yet. If the story reaches the internet, this entire development will be ruined.”
“You’ll have to give us a few days,” I told him. “We need to investigate. This is too strange to solve in a day or two.”
At the very least, the girl couldn’t have entered this complex for no reason.
She didn’t live here, either. That left only two possible explanations for her vanishing.
The first was some unknown supernatural phenomenon. There were too many possibilities to count – time travel, a parallel dimension, aliens, whatever.
The second was human involvement.
Whichever it was, we weren’t going to reach a conclusion in a day or two.
Boss Xu nodded. “All right. I have some business to take care of, so I’ll leave you to it. Call me if you need anything.”
As soon as he left, Brother Liu eagerly asked, “Chen Mo, what the hell is going on? Is this place actually haunted? If it is, I’m leaving. My job is arresting people, after all.”
I stared at him. “We just got here. Aren’t you the one who knows the case best?”
Brother Liu planted his hands on his hips. “We’ve done all the work there is to do and used every technical method available. I even went home and watched a few episodes of Detective Conan, and I still can’t figure out how that girl disappeared.”
“And those two apartments on the thirteenth floor – I came close to ripping up their floorboards. Neither household has a problem.”
“Did the girl go to the thirteenth floor willingly?” I asked.
Brother Liu nodded. “Nobody forced her. The footage shows her behaving normally in the elevator. She even looked happy, like she was on her way to meet someone she wanted to see.”
Happy?
“Then one of those two households has to be involved,” I said. “At least one person there must have some connection to her. How did you investigate this, Brother Liu? Your detective skills are pretty mediocre.”
Brother Liu punched me lightly and grinned. “That’s why you’re the clever one. I did find the tiniest little clue, though it’s probably useless.”
He pulled out a photograph and showed it to us. “Pretty, isn’t she?”
The picture showed a sweet, innocent-looking young woman. She really was beautiful.
“This is the missing student. Her name is Liang Yi.”
Then he took out a second photograph. “The girl in this one is An Yutong. She lives on the thirteenth floor of this building.”
“An Yutong and the missing Liang Yi attend the same university. One is a junior and the other a sophomore. They’ve never interacted. The only thing they have in common is their school.”
We studied the pictures. Both young women were exceptionally pretty.
With looks like that, either of them could have been the campus beauty.
“Can you tell what’s different about them?” Brother Liu asked.
We stared for ages but couldn’t see anything.
Anning took the photographs and carefully compared them. It didn’t take her long to say, “Liang Yi’s family is very poor. An Yutong’s family is rich.”
Song Xiaotian and I both froze.
“How can you tell?”
She had figured out who was rich and who was poor from two photographs alone. What kind of skill was that?
Anning held up Liang Yi’s picture. “Because she’s poor like me…”
It was funny enough that we should have laughed, but none of us could.
Brother Liu nodded. “She’s right. Liang Yi’s family is extremely poor. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be outside causing trouble before their daughter has even been found. We all know what they’re really after. They’re trying to extort money.”