Shuiyue Mountain.

Today is February 8th, the tenth day of the Lunar New Year.

The festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival hadn’t completely faded, yet the residential community still felt quiet.

After all, the occupancy rate was low.

Building 26.

Shen Xin got out of the car and scanned his surroundings.

There was a security camera diagonally across from him.

Then another every fifty meters, all the way to the ends of the street. The area was covered in cameras.

As expected of a villa community, the camera coverage was dense.

It was now 11:20 AM.

Bai Jifei’s description of the timeline was as follows.

He usually woke up at five in the morning to walk the dogs before dawn.

Since there were a lot of dogs in their kennel, he walked them in batches: one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one at night.

He got up early to avoid the crowds and keep from bothering others.

Then, while walking the dogs in the morning, he would also stop by the nearby wet market to buy groceries.

If he went a bit earlier, the produce was fresher.

He left the house around 5:30 AM.

When he left, his wife was still asleep.

His wife slept in a professional nursing bed, which couldn’t fit two people, so they slept separately.

After leaving, he walked the dogs on foot, which also served as a bit of exercise.

Then he went to buy groceries and returned home today around 6:20 AM.

At that time, the sky hadn’t fully brightened yet.

He found the front door ajar.

Finding it strange, he rushed inside, only to discover that the power was out in the entire villa.

He hurried to check on his wife and found that she was missing, and her wheelchair was gone too.

ALS usually begins with atrophy in the distal limbs. Jiang Qi’s condition had already progressed to the intermediate stage, and even her torso muscles had begun to atrophy.

Therefore, Jiang Qi was completely unable to move on her own and relied entirely on Bai Jifei for assistance.

There were quite a few security cameras inside the villa, installed to monitor the dogs.

But because of the power outage, it was impossible to know what had happened.

Bai Jifei immediately ran to the guardhouse to ask if they had seen his wife, but the guard said no.

He then went to the property management office to check the exterior surveillance footage, but there was no sign of his wife there either.

A living person had vanished just like that.

He hurriedly contacted both his and his wife’s families, not revealing that she was missing, but simply asking where they were.

His parents were both at home.

And Jiang Qi’s parents were far away in Songpu.

The property manager suggested he report it to the police. On his way to the Hutang Police Station, the thought that his wife might have been murdered crossed his mind. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

So he made a last-minute decision to report the case directly to the district’s Criminal Investigation Division.

This was at 9:20 AM.

At that time, Shen Xin was still at the municipal bureau.

If you only looked at the timeline, it seemed like there were no issues.

But upon closer inspection, there were actually quite a few problems.

Shen Xin had Bai Jifei wait outside while he went ahead to inspect the lock on the front gate.

The villa was a standalone house with a surrounding wall and yards in both the front and back.

It had a front gate and a back gate.

The wall was of a normal height, but someone nimble could easily climb over it.

Then, in the corner of the wall, there was a camera pointed at the front gate.

The front gate was currently closed.

Shen Xin stepped forward and observed it carefully, finding no obvious signs of the lock being picked.

Moreover, it was clearly a Class-C lock core, which wasn’t so easy to open.

’So if I wanted to break in,’ he thought, ’the best way would be to climb the wall and unlock the gate from the inside.’

Shen Xin led Ding Yuwei around to the back gate.

"Camera."

Ding Yuwei pointed at the top of the wall.

Shen Xin saw it too. The camera on the wall that was supposed to be pointed at the back gate was now aimed at the sky.

It looked as if someone had pushed it up from below.

The back gate was shut tight, and the lock core was likely the same type.

Shen Xin went to the wall next to the back gate, examined it from top to bottom, and found scuff marks halfway up, as if from being stepped on.

’So there really are signs of a break-in.’

Shen Xin called over Yu Xiaoping, asking her to take pictures and search for footprints in the greenbelt.

From the looks of it, someone had avoided the cameras, climbed the wall here to get in, and then opened a door from the inside to leave.

Shen Xin didn’t rush inside. Instead, he walked along the path by the back gate, looking for cameras on either side.

Bai Jifei’s villa was in the northeast section of the community, but it wasn’t against the community’s perimeter wall. Outside the back gate was a large greenbelt, and across the greenbelt was another row of villas.

"This camera has been moved, right?" Ding Yuwei said, pointing to the nearest one.

Shen Xin nodded.

There were cameras to the left and right of the back gate, and the closest one had been twisted to face another direction.

Further on, there were more cameras.

"If they cut through the greenbelt, could they have avoided the cameras?" Ding Yuwei added.

This area was quite remote—basically the countryside, to put it bluntly.

So the land wasn’t expensive. To make the houses more attractive to buyers, the community’s landscaping was exceptionally well-done. Between the two rows of villas were dense trees and various man-made greenbelt landscapes.

Just as Ding Yuwei said, it was possible to evade the cameras by cutting through the greenbelt.

Shen Xin walked along the greenbelt, checking as he went. It seemed like only that one camera had been tampered with.

’Maybe it’s just as Yuwei said,’ he thought. ’They cut through the greenbelt to get near the back gate, then moved the camera from a blind spot.’

But to know for sure, they could check the surveillance footage at the property management office later. No matter how careful the suspect was, they must have left some trace.

The most direct question was, how did they get into the community?

The perimeter had a wall topped with barbed wire and was covered by cameras. It wasn’t that easy to get in.

Another point: how did they get the person out?

She was an ALS patient who couldn’t move, and there was also a wheelchair. To take her away silently, they would have needed a vehicle, right?

If they checked the vehicles entering and exiting the community during that time, they would surely find something.

There was sod in the greenbelt, with signs of being trampled, but no complete footprints were left behind.

Shen Xin contacted Chen Chao and briefly explained the situation.

There were signs of a break-in, which meant Jiang Qi’s disappearance was suspicious. She might have been kidnapped.

Chen Chao said he would bring people for support and told him to have Yu Xiaoping conduct the on-site investigation first, and then to start the preliminary inquiries.

That meant checking the surveillance footage at the property management office and canvassing the surrounding area.

Bai Jifei squatted by the car, his expression tense and frantic.

Seeing Shen Xin return, he instinctively stood up, wanting to ask about the situation.

"Don’t panic."

Shen Xin offered a word of comfort, then asked him where the villa’s electrical distribution box was.

Bai Jifei said, "It’s in the utility room against the wall in the backyard."

Shen Xin nodded slightly.

’If that’s the case, then by climbing the wall to get onto the property, the suspect could have directly cut the villa’s power from the outside and shut down the surveillance system.’

"Just try to be patient and wait a little longer."

Shen Xin instructed Ding Yuwei to start canvassing the neighborhood while he headed to the property management office to retrieve the surveillance footage.

The staff at the property management office were clearly aware that a resident had gone missing, and they were quite nervous.

The property manager, Tang Hualong, led Shen Xin to the surveillance room, repeatedly assuring him on the way that the community’s security was very strict.

Shen Xin couldn’t agree with that.

Even though it was a villa community, its low occupancy rate probably made collecting property management fees difficult.

And if they couldn’t collect all the fees, the daily security and maintenance would surely be subpar.

"Oh, by the way, Officer Shen, there’s something I need to tell you."

As they were about to enter, Tang Hualong said awkwardly, "On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, something happened with our surveillance system. The main server had a problem, and... well, all the saved surveillance footage disappeared."

"I’m not sure what happened exactly. I asked my staff, and they said they didn’t accidentally delete anything. It all just vanished inexplicably."

Shen Xin gave him a helpless look.

’And you were just boasting about how strict the community’s security is?’