1056 Perplexed and Smitten 116 (2/2)

Instead of driving into the estate, An Xiaoning checked the locations of all the surveillance cameras before calling Pan Zhenghui and instructing him to check last night's footages.

There was no need to check the footages of the surveillance cameras inside the estate since they would definitely be erased. She decided to check if the surveillance cameras outside the estate were destroyed too.

After checking, Pan Zhenghui called her and informed her that the surveillance cameras were all intact since last night.

An idea popped up in An Xiaoning's head.

As long as there were surveillance cameras, there would be a chance to grasp some leads.

She headed to the police station to obtain the footages. She then told the police officer to zoom in on the areas near the estate. The footages were then displayed on the screens of the monitors.

The surveillance cameras had captured all the license plates of the cars that had entered the estate after No. 5 and No. 8 did last night.

She instructed the police officers to note down all the license plates.

It would be too easy for An Xiaoning to investigate and find out the culprit if he or she had committed the act within just one or two hours. The perpetrator must have also thought about that and hence stalled for some time by leaving the estate when there were more cars, so as to distract the attention of the person checking the footages.

Since the perpetrator had decided to stall for time, he or she would have definitely left in the morning before the guards found out.

But of course, that was just one of the possible conjectures. There was also another possibility.

While the police officer was recording the license plate numbers, she brought No. 5 out of the police station.

\”Sis, aren't we going to wait for news at the police station?\”

\”It'll take a long time for them to finish recording everything. We can't waste time. We'll just come back again once the results are out. Let's go back to Sanqiao Estate now.\”

\”Sanqiao Estate?\”

\”Yes, there are two possibilities; one is that they've taken No. 8 out of the estate, and the other is that they did not. We can't rule out any possibility. Don't they always say that the most dangerous place is the safest one? We can't eliminate that either.\”

No. 5 found her words to have made sense. \”Sis, how do we continue checking in Sanqiao Estate, then?\”

\”I reckon the surveillance camera footages in Sanqiao Estate must have been destroyed. In the fortunate event that they're still intact, that'll make things easier for us. However, we'll still have a lead if otherwise.\”

\”How can it be a lead… without the footage?\”

\”If there are no footages, who do you think was the one who deleted them? Isn't that a lead?\”

No. 5 said in epiphany, \”Oh yeah, there are clues for us with or without the footages.\”

\”Of course.\”

Upon thee sight of An Xiaoning, the guard in the guard room tensed up in fear and thought to himself, Oh god, this troublemaker is here again…

He was still traumatized by the water-poisoning incident that took place previously.

In spite of his fear and anxiety, he still managed to put on a lopsided smile.

\”Ms. An, you're here.\”

\”Were the surveillance cameras faulty last night?\”

\”Last night? I don't know, I wasn't on duty last night. No one mentioned anything about the cameras being faulty last night when I arrived this morning.\”

\”Who was on duty last night? Call him here.\”

\”I think he's still sleeping. Ms. An, just what's the matter?\”

She reiterated, \”I said, call him here. You'll find out once he's here.\”