Animal Detective
Chapter 213: People Don’t Grow Wings and Fly Away
He walked into the security monitoring room.
"Have you called the police?" Shen Xin turned his head and asked.
Tang Hualong shook his head with an embarrassed smile. "No, I just found a local computer repair guy to take a look. He said the computer was fine, that there was nothing wrong with it, so I didn’t think any more of it."
"All the footage from after that is fine. It’s all saved."
Shen Xin made a mental note of this and had the security guard pull up the footage, starting from last night.
The camera positioned diagonally across from Bai Jifei’s house could capture his front gate.
At 9:47 PM, Bai Jifei left the house with several dogs.
He had previously mentioned that he walked his dogs in batches.
Shen Xin then checked the surveillance footage from the community’s main entrance. A few minutes later, Bai Jifei passed by, walking his dogs. Everything looked normal.
About forty minutes later, Bai Jifei returned with the dogs.
Soon after, the lights in his house, visible in the upper corner of the frame, went dark. He had likely turned them off for the night.
The time was 11:31 PM.
He fast-forwarded the video. The rest of the night was uneventful.
Then, just as Bai Jifei had described, he left with his dogs at 5:31 AM the next morning.
At 6:12 AM, he was recorded returning through the community’s main entrance with the dogs.
He arrived home at 6:19 AM.
Then, he opened the gate normally.
"Stop. Rewind a little."
Shen Xin rewatched the clip. Bai Jifei had indeed taken out his keys to open the gate.
But if Shen Xin remembered correctly, Bai Jifei’s previous description was that he saw the main gate ajar, rushed inside, and then discovered the power was out in the villa.
’His story doesn’t add up.’
’Or maybe the "ajar gate" he mentioned wasn’t the yard gate, but the front door of the villa itself.’
"Keep playing it."
Shen Xin continued watching the footage.
Not long after, Bai Jifei came rushing out.
"And that’s when he came to our office to check the surveillance footage," the security guard said, pointing at the screen.
Shen Xin nodded, signaling for him to switch to the back gate’s camera feed.
There were signs the back gate’s camera had been tampered with.
However, what surprised Shen Xin was that this camera, the one closest to Bai Jifei’s back gate, had been pointing in a different direction since last night.
In other words, by the time Jiang Qi disappeared in the morning, the camera had already been tampered with.
"Keep rewinding."
Shen Xin had him go all the way back, watching all the saved footage from this camera in one go. He discovered that the camera had always been misaligned, never capturing the back gate.
That meant if someone had moved the camera, it must have been before the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, when the property’s surveillance footage had mysteriously vanished.
Shen Xin pointed at the screen and asked, "This camera—you never noticed it had been moved?"
Tang Hualong leaned in for a closer look and asked with a bewildered expression, "It was moved?"
The security guard watching the monitors had the same reaction.
"Look at the camera’s angle. It’s inconsistent with the others. It’s obviously been tampered with."
Besides, this camera was likely installed specifically to monitor the back gate of Villa 26.
Tang Hualong patted the security guard on the shoulder, giving him a questioning look.
The guard shook his head slightly, silently mouthing that he didn’t know.
Seeing their reactions, Shen Xin knew they hadn’t paid any attention.
’This kind of thing is all too common.’
’He says he’s here to watch the monitors, but in reality, he just shows up, sits down, and then plays on his phone or sleeps.’
’He probably wouldn’t even notice if a camera was broken, let alone if its direction had been changed.’
Shen Xin crossed his arms and thought for a moment.
’In that case, does this mean they cased the place in advance?’
’Then they found a way to delete the surveillance footage.’
Shen Xin glanced around the monitoring room. There was a camera in here, too.
He asked Tang Hualong, who said they worked in two shifts, so the room was manned 24 hours a day.
That’s what he claimed, but only the security guards themselves probably knew what really went on.
’It’s perfectly normal to step outside for a stroll after sitting for so long, isn’t it?’
’That would create an opportunity for someone to slip in and set up a program to delete the videos.’
Shen Xin had them pull up the footage from the monitoring room’s own camera.
He watched all four days of it but, as expected, found nothing.
He did, however, see several guards eating and drinking in the monitoring room on the night of the eighth day of the Lunar New Year.
Tang Hualong shot a glare at the security guard.
Shen Xin then reviewed all the camera feeds from the vicinity of Villa 26.
With only four days of footage remaining, it was a quick review.
Again, he didn’t find much.
Yesterday, for instance, Bai Jifei followed his usual routine: he walked his dogs, then drove out in the afternoon, returning a little over an hour later.
Other than that, there was nothing out of the ordinary.
Shen Xin asked, "Manager Tang, your community only has one entrance and exit, the main gate, correct?"
Tang Hualong nodded. "All our homes are detached villas with ground-level garages, and we don’t have many residents, so one entrance is perfectly sufficient. And rest assured, aside from residents’ cars, all visitor vehicles are registered. We have records."
After saying this, his expression turned a little unnatural.
A thought struck Shen Xin, and he said, "Don’t tell me the access control records from before the sixth day of the Lunar New Year are all gone, too."
Tang Hualong’s expression froze, and he gave another embarrassed smile.
Then he quickly added, "It’s a really strange business, but I asked the computer repair guy about it. He said a sudden voltage change might have caused the system to restart abnormally and delete the saved data."
Shen Xin looked him up and down.
’He’s in his forties or fifties; he probably doesn’t know much about computers.’
Shen Xin, for one, didn’t believe that load of nonsense.
’Someone definitely tampered with the computer. It needs to be investigated.’
The main computer for the access control system was in the guardhouse.
Shen Xin went over to check it.
Between 5:00 AM and 7:00 AM, not a single car had entered.
The log showed only two cars had exited.
One was a Panamera, belonging to Villa 8.
The other was an S-Class, belonging to the owner of Villa 12.
The gatehouse’s surveillance camera had also captured footage of the two cars leaving.
The Panamera was driven by a woman. The guard at the gate remembered her because she was very beautiful and lived alone in Villa 8, even though she wasn’t the registered homeowner. The guards all guessed she was a kept mistress.
She left at 6:33 AM.
The S-Class left earlier, at 5:52 AM.
The guard recognized the person in the surveillance video as the owner of Villa 12. He said the man was a nice guy, seemed to be in the building materials business, and would sometimes give out cigarettes—at least the good stuff, like Big Su’s—if the guards helped bring a delivery to his door.
Shen Xin’s brow furrowed.
During the time frame of Jiang Qi’s disappearance, only two cars left, and the community had only this one exit.
She was incapacitated, so she couldn’t have climbed over the wall.
Besides, the wall had an electric fence, and no alarms were triggered all night.
Any non-residents entering would have been recorded.
’How strange. Did a living person just vanish into thin air?’
Shen Xin looked at the security guards and asked, "You all must be pretty familiar with the residents, right?"
The occupancy rate was low, so there weren’t many people. The guards patrolled back and forth; honestly, they knew all about what went on in the residents’ homes behind their backs.
Especially when it came to gossip about men and women, they knew everything.
The three security guards exchanged a look, then glanced at Tang Hualong.
"This is a criminal investigation. Say whatever you know," Shen Xin said.
Tang Hualong quickly waved his hand, signaling them to speak freely.
One of the younger guards said, "There’s nothing particularly special about the family in Villa 26. They run a kennel, so people often come over to look at the dogs."
"As for his wife, I think she’s sick. She’s always in a wheelchair, but I don’t know what specific illness she has."
Another guard added, "I remember them arguing one night, shortly before the Lunar New Year."
"I was patrolling over there and just started to overhear it when the man came out the door, so I quickly walked away. From a distance, I saw him smoking outside. It was obvious they’d been fighting."
Shen Xin interrupted him, "So, according to you, the couple’s relationship wasn’t very good."
The last guard shook his head. "No, they have a great relationship."
"You guys started working here more recently, so you wouldn’t know. Last year, the man would often push the woman around the community in her wheelchair for walks. They were always talking and laughing. You could tell they were a very loving couple."
"It’s just that her condition seems to have worsened in the last few months, so I haven’t seen them out for walks much."
Shen Xin nodded and asked if they had anything else to report.
The three guards thought for a moment. One of them said, "Oh, right! On the afternoon of the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, I think they lost a dog. The man came to the property office to check the surveillance footage. He watched it and left. I don’t know if he ever found it."
’The sixth again?’
Shen Xin’s eyebrow twitched. ’A lot happened on the sixth day.’
Shen Xin asked the three of them to recall if anything else had happened on the sixth.
The three shook their heads, saying nothing else stood out.
Shen Xin then had Tang Hualong ask the other security guards, especially those on duty on the sixth, if they noticed anything unusual or knew anything special about Bai Jifei’s family.
Tang Hualong ran out, asked around, and made some calls. The stories were much the same as what the three guards had said.
Everyone knew the wife was ill and confined to a wheelchair.
And that the couple had a good relationship.
Just as he was asking, Chen Chao arrived with backup.
He had brought Dou Dou with him.
Since a person was missing, they would treat it as a missing person case.
Shen Xin didn’t rush to share his findings. Finding the person came first.
The forensics team entered the scene first.
Yu Xiaoping brought out a few items of Jiang Qi’s clothing, and Shen Xin let Dou Dou sniff them.
Not far away, Bai Jifei watched nervously.
"Got the scent?" Shen Xin asked, crouching down.
’Got it.’
He heard Dou Dou’s thought.
Shen Xin immediately started the search with Dou Dou on the leash.
They began at the back gate.
The front gate’s surveillance was normal, with nothing to be found.
That only left the blind spot of the back gate’s camera.
It was actually very strange. Only the camera aimed directly at the back gate had been moved; the surrounding cameras had not.
And during the time of the incident, the other cameras hadn’t captured any strangers, nor Jiang Qi, nor any suspicious vehicles.
So, even if someone had taken Jiang Qi out through the back gate, they should have been caught by the surrounding cameras.
But they weren’t, which was what made it so baffling.
Dou Dou lingered at the back gate.
She sniffed intently.
’Where?’
’Nothing.’
Shen Xin kept hearing her thoughts.
She just kept pacing back and forth near the back gate, repeatedly looking back toward the villa.
She even turned to look at Shen Xin, her eyes seeming to say that the scent was inside.
"Shen Xin, what’s with Dou Dou? Hasn’t she found anything?" Chen Chao asked, puzzled.
Previously, whenever Dou Dou was on the case, she was unstoppable and would find a trail almost immediately.
Shen Xin led Dou Dou on a search around the villa’s perimeter, then told Chen Chao what he had discovered.
"In other words, during the window of Jiang Qi’s disappearance, only two cars left the community, the electric fence wasn’t triggered, and the surveillance cameras didn’t capture anything unusual."
"It’s like the person grew wings and flew away."
Chen Chao looked up at Bai Jifei, who was waiting in the distance, his gaze sharpening.
Of course, people can’t grow wings and fly away.
In a situation like this, there could only be one explanation: Jiang Qi hadn’t disappeared. Or rather, she hadn’t disappeared today.