“Still, it might be a good thing...” Wang Ling scratched his head. “If he’s not at Hughes’s place anymore, maybe he’ll just come back?” He looked at Lu Linjiang. “Then you won’t have to go abroad.”
“Nonsense. If Jiang Cheng comes back, it has to be because he wants to.” Lu Linjiang thought for a moment. “I expect he’s too busy to deal with me right now. I’ll send a reply first and ask if there’s anything I can do to help.”
Watching Lu Linjiang type out the email, Wang Ling couldn’t help but shake his head. “How the tables have turned...”
Lu Linjiang ignored his rambling. “Just hurry up and restore that audio. I’m waiting on it!”
That evening, after Lu Linjiang had finished showing the apartment to a prospective tenant, the two of them saw the person off. Wang Ling nudged Lu Linjiang with his elbow. “Care for a drink?”
Lu Linjiang reached out and pushed him away slightly. “Why aren’t you restoring the files?”
Wang Ling: “...” He was just about to curse Lu Linjiang for being a slave-driver who exploited free labor, but Lu Linjiang suddenly remembered something. “Wait, does your colleague live in the East Suburbs?” Seeing Wang Ling nod, he continued, “That night Martina went out late, it seems she took a trip out toward the East Suburbs...”
“What was that?”
Lu Linjiang looked at the bewildered Wang Ling. “Nothing.” He took two steps forward. “I have some business to attend to. Are you calling a cab, or are you waiting for me to drop you off?”
Wang Ling knew this man’s temperament all too well. He waved his hand impatiently. “Go do your thing. I’ll find my own way.”
As soon as Lu Linjiang got into his car, he called Xu Sichen. “Do you remember that night Martina went out very late? Did she go to the East Suburbs?”
Xu Sichen was currently working overtime, scouring through video footage. “I remember. I was just finishing that part. She went out alone and headed toward the East Suburbs. She didn’t get back until very late.”
“I didn’t pay much attention at first. Where exactly in the East Suburbs did she go? She’s been in Jinghai for a while, but she rarely seems to have any activity out there.”
Xu Sichen quickly checked the records. “Yes. she drove out that time. She got on the elevated highway right after leaving the hotel and took the Guanshan Road exit. She turned left after that, and there’s no surveillance coverage from that point on.”
Lu Linjiang thought for a moment. “Past Guanshan Road, at night... I’ll drive over and take a look. Let me know if you find anything new.”
Lu Linjiang followed Martina’s route from that night, taking the elevated highway to the Guanshan Road exit and turning left at the first intersection. At this point, he had officially entered the outskirts of Jinghai. It was no longer rush hour, and the traffic was much lighter compared to the bustling city center. Lu Linjiang slowed down, observing his surroundings as he drove. There was a large home improvement market nearby, surrounded by various small shops. It was a well-established commercial area, but the location was quite remote. Lu Linjiang had barely touched the accelerator before he reached the end of the short commercial street.
Further ahead lay vast stretches of overpasses. Because there weren’t many buildings, the view was much more open than in the city; one could easily see for a kilometer. Lu Linjiang pulled over to the side of the road, got out, and looked around. Ahead was a four-way intersection, making it difficult to determine which direction Martina had taken once she reached this point.
He pulled out his phone to search and found a gas station two intersections ahead. Lu Linjiang followed the navigation there. The gas station occupied a corner of the crossroads. Lu Linjiang noted that if he was lucky, the cameras might capture the center of the road. He found the manager on duty and produced his credentials. “Do you have any cameras that can see that intersection out front?”
The manager examined Lu Linjiang’s ID carefully before speaking. “We do. Camera four happens to capture it, but it only gets the area near the center. The southern entrance of the intersection isn’t clear.”
Lu Linjiang breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s more than enough.”
The manager pushed open the door to the computer room. A young man on duty inside put down his phone. “Manager Tang, what’s up?”
“Xiao Zhang, pull up the footage from camera four. Show this officer the recording from the night of the 3rd, starting from 9:10 PM.”
Xiao Zhang nodded and quickly pulled up the footage, fast-forwarding until he stopped at 9:10. “Here it is.” He stood up. “Have a seat.”
From the left-turn intersection to this gas station, the drive would take no more than ten minutes at normal speeds. Lu Linjiang watched for over ten minutes at normal speed but found no matching vehicle. Even at a very slow pace, if she hadn’t passed through here within twenty minutes, it meant Martina definitely hadn’t taken this road.
Lu Linjiang stared at the frozen frame, then turned to the manager. “Manager Tang, what time does that nearby construction materials market usually close?”
“Six o’clock. Some shops might stay a bit later for inventory, but the main gate closes at eight. Our location is remote; there’s no business late at night.”
“What about the restaurants around there?”
“The restaurants also close at eight. There’s a car sales center nearby, and they usually finish their overtime by eight or nine. After that, there are no more cars, so the small diners close up and go home once they’re done with that business.”
Lu Linjiang looked thoughtful. “Sorry to trouble you. I need to copy this video.”
Manager Tang replied, “No problem.”
Lu Linjiang copied the video and drove to the sales center Manager Tang had mentioned. There was indeed an Audi 4S dealership there. The sales department had already closed, and only the service department in the back still had people. Lu Linjiang walked around and found the person in charge. He gave them the license plate number of Martina’s rental car and asked, “Was this car brought in for repairs on the night of the 3rd?”
The person looked it over. “The night of the 3rd? Definitely not. We had a power outage that day. Someone digging a foundation pit nearby cut the cable. The power went out in the afternoon and wasn’t fixed until the morning of the 4th. None of us worked overtime that day; we told all our customers to come back the next day.”
That meant there was no point in asking about surveillance. Lu Linjiang had spent the whole night running around only to find one video of uncertain utility. He went home, brewed a cup of coffee, and patiently plugged the USB drive into his computer.
It was tedious work. Even at double speed, the footage felt interminable. The camera mainly focused on the fueling area, only showing a sliver of the road and passing vehicles due to the angle. Double speed was the limit; any faster and the small corner of the screen would become a blur.
Lu Linjiang stared at that corner for nearly an hour. Just as his eyes were beginning to ache, a car flashing past the frame finally jolted his spirits.
The car was clearly speeding. Lu Linjiang timed his pauses twice before he could clearly see the license plate. It was indeed Martina. He checked the timeline Xu Sichen had compiled; about ten minutes later, Martina’s car had appeared back on the elevated highway. She had obviously taken a different route to get back on.
Lu Linjiang pulled out a map. Estimating the distance based on Martina’s reckless driving style, he found that less than twenty kilometers further northeast was a highway entrance. Xu Sichen had checked earlier; Martina had never left Jinghai, and her rental car had never appeared on the highway surveillance.
He marked an 'X' at the highway entrance, then drew a straight line between the intersection under the elevated highway and the gas station intersection. After calculating the distance, he drew a semi-circle to the east of the line, using the highway entrance as the boundary.
This area wasn't small. It was a newly developing zone, and the region Lu Linjiang had circled contained many construction sites. He opened a satellite map and searched through it section by section, finally stopping at a small park next to a residential complex under construction.
The faces of Lu Linjiang’s team members didn't look great. Aside from Xu Sichen, who had managed to tidy herself up, the rest of them wore haggard, sleep-deprived faces. Lu Linjiang slapped the map onto the table. “She couldn’t have just been driving wildly on the road the whole time. The surroundings are either construction sites or wasteland. If she was going to stop somewhere, I think this is the most likely spot.”
Yang Bo looked at the location Lu Linjiang had marked. “Isn’t this just a park? What would she be doing there in the middle of the night?”
“What do you think?” Tang Hua let out a huff.
“Could she have been meeting someone?” Xu Sichen speculated. “This is her first time in the country. Unless someone told her, she never would have found the East Suburbs, let alone a small park like that.”
“Have you checked her phone? Emails, social media, texts—any leads?” Lu Linjiang asked.
“We’ve checked everything except the emails. Nothing unusual. Tech is still cracking the email password; it should be ready today.” Just as Xu Sichen spoke, the internal line rang. She picked it up, and her expression brightened. “Captain Lu, the email password has been cracked.”
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Fatal Virus | Chapter 81 | The East Suburbs Lead | Novela.app | Novela.app
