Chapter 333: Searching in the Rain

Raindrops fell from the sky, drumming against the umbrella like rain striking banana leaves. A mist-like veil seemed to shroud the world, blurring the distant scenery.

Xiao Yu stood silently on a small road outside a residential area. It was the place where the victim, Yu Anan, had been abducted.

Another surveillance blind spot.

Four cases over the past five years. Every time, the perpetrator had exploited these blind spots, places invisible to surveillance cameras, to commit the crime.

Once or twice could be a coincidence. Three or four times, it was a pattern.

Before acting, the perpetrator always scouted the area, identifying these surveillance dead zones before ultimately abducting the victim.

A premeditated crime.

And all four victims had suffered the same fate. That, too, was no coincidence.

Examining the three cases from five years ago and the fourth one now, a pattern emerged. The victims’ experiences were all eerily similar. Unable to see, unable to hear, unable to speak. Constant torment. Various forms of torment. And in the end, a cross carved into their backs.

Amid the heavy rain, with Falcon’s Eyes activated, Xiao Yu saw a world unseen by ordinary eyes.

He raised his head coldly, scanning his surroundings with sharp precision. He did not overlook a single detail. He scanned everything until his gaze landed on a window on the sixth floor of a residential building.

***

Bang! Bang! Bang.

Standing before the entrance, umbrella in hand, Xiao Yu knocked.

The door slowly creaked open. A bespectacled young man looked at Xiao Yu. 

“You are…?”

“Police.” Xiao Yu flashed his badge, smiling. “I’d like to take a look at your surveillance footage.”

“…” The young man’s expression shifted.

Could he refuse?

After changing into indoor slippers, Xiao Yu walked to the floor-to-ceiling window in the living room. Looking at a surveillance camera mounted above, he smiled and asked, “What do you usually record with this?”

“The parking lot,” the young man replied, “The residential parking lot is on the road outside, and there are no surveillance cameras. One time, someone scratched my car, and the security didn’t do anything about it. So, I had to install a camera myself to prevent it from happening again.”

“I see.” Xiao Yu nodded. “Can I take a look at the recorded footage?”

“No problem.”

With a clear conscience, the young man agreed without hesitation.

“How far can it capture?” Xiao Yu asked.

“Since the parking lot is quite far, I bought one with a sixty-meter range. The seller told me it has a 16mm lens?”

The young man thought for a moment. “I only turn it on when I get home at night and switch it off the next morning. Works pretty well.”

“How often do you clear out the recordings?” Xiao Yu’s eyes lit up.

“About once a month?” The young man smiled. “When I bought it, I also got a 4TB hard drive. Only cost four or five hundred yuan. It’s not too expensive.”

‘What’s with this rich guy attitude?’ Xiao Yu’s mouth twitched.

He turned on the young man’s computer. Then connected the surveillance hard drive enclosure to it.

A massive folder appeared, filled with countless video files.

Fortunately, the filenames were labeled with surveillance dates. Even luckier, the footage from the day the victim, Yu Anan, disappeared was still there—it hadn’t been cleared out.

Unfortunately, the camera angle was off. It only covered the parking lot behind the residential area. The small road by the back entrance was too blurry. It was barely visible.

But it was enough.

***

Night, 10:51 PM.

Yu Anan’s figure appeared at the edge of the video frame. Only a small portion was visible, and the image was blurry but that didn’t matter. Xiao Yu only wanted to see what had happened that night.

At 10:52 PM, suddenly, a shadowy figure appeared beside Yu Anan.

From the camera’s angle, only half of the person’s body was visible.

Yu Anan struggled briefly, then collapsed.

After that, the attacker carried Yu Anan into the parking lot.

Xiao Yu’s eyes gleamed. The figure was short, thin, and dressed entirely in black sportswear.

The attacker walked to a sedan, opened the rear door, placed Yu Anan inside, and then got into the car. It was a BMW 5 Series, white. The license plate was blurry—too unclear to make out the numbers. But one character was visible—辽.

It was a local vehicle.

***

Amid the heavy rain, Xiao Yu returned to the Criminal Investigation Brigade with the hard drive.

Upon seeing the surveillance footage, the entire team was stunned. Everyone had already investigated the crime scene. It was indeed a surveillance blind spot, and there were no cameras behind the residential area.

So how had Xiao Yu found this footage?

‘I cheated.’

He had spotted the surveillance camera using Falcon’s Eyes but, of course, he couldn’t say that.

That wasn’t the point.

The point was, they had to find the car.

A white BMW 5 Series, with an unclear license plate.

The search would be difficult, but not impossible. They just needed to check the Skyeye surveillance cameras outside the residential area on the day of the crime, or within a few days before and after, to see if a white BMW had entered or exited.

The suspect vehicle was identified four hours later.

The owner’s information was retrieved and the arrest operation began.

***

Walking into a hardware store, Xiao Yu spotted a man sitting behind the counter.

“Excuse me, Qi Xubin?”

The man appeared to be in his thirties—thin as a twig, with large eyes. He looked at Xiao Yu in confusion. “That’s me. And you are?”

“Police.” Xiao Yu spoke slowly. “There’s a case that requires your—”

Before he could finish, the man sprang up. He leaped over the counter and bolted toward the back door of the hardware store.

Xiao Yu watched coldly as Qi Xubin fled.

He didn’t move. He simply observed as Qi Xubin yanked open the back door, just about to rush outside.

Bang!

The butt of a rifle slammed into Qi Xubin’s face, sending him crashing to the ground.

Several SWAT officers stormed in, swiftly pinning Qi Xubin down and cuffing him.

Xiao Yu stepped forward and gazed at the bloodied suspect, now held up by two officers. His face was filled with despair.

“Looks like you know why the police are here for you,” Xiao Yu said. His voice was ice-cold. “You also know what’s going to happen to you, don’t you?”

Qi Xubin trembled, his lips sealed shut.

“I have all the time in the world.”

Xiao Yu turned and walked toward the door.

***

Two hours later. Criminal Investigation Brigade. Interrogation Room.

Xiao Yu walked out, his face dark, his expression strange.

According to Qi Xubin’s confession, a month ago, someone had given him a photo, an address, and a bottle of ether. He was instructed to abduct Yu Anan at night and deliver her to a specified location.

He was paid 100,000 yuan. But he had no idea who the person was.