Where is a safe place?
Hearing Tang Ci's words, Liu Qiao frowned deeply. She whispered, " Professor Xiao has no grudge against anyone, and he's been framed for no reason. It must be Hunter's doing. Maybe Hunter is also targeting us. Mr. Tang, where should we go?"
She dared not go back to school.
Liu Qiao, who was hiding nearby, witnessed Xiao Lou being taken away in a police car today. Because of this, she sensed something was wrong and immediately ran away. There were undoubtedly many plainclothes criminal police officers lying in wait at the school; going back would be like walking into a trap.
But Liu Qiao was not familiar with Jiangzhou, and apart from the school, she didn't know where else was relatively safe.
As Tang Ci drove the car out of the underground parking lot, he said, "Let's go to my lab. Our company's surveillance system is very sophisticated. At this time, the lab is empty, and there are cameras everywhere in the corridors. I can detect any outsiders approaching immediately."
Liu Qiao didn't know exactly what Tang Ci researched, only that it was related to intelligent robots. Hearing this, she nodded and said, "Okay, let's go to the lab."
Tang Ci's car drove into the company's underground parking garage, and he took Liu Qiao to the laboratory via a private elevator.
Before getting into the elevator, Liu Qiao secretly left a little red riding hood in a corner of the basement when he wasn't looking.
This fairy tale card allows her to switch places with Little Red Riding Hood at any time. Although Tang Ci in front of her seems trustworthy, what if he is Hunter in disguise? Liu Qiao has to leave herself a way out so she can escape in time if something unexpected happens.
After the elevator stopped, Tang Ci led Liu Qiao through the long corridor to the metal door at the end and scanned her pupils.
The metal door slowly opened, and Liu Qiao followed him curiously into the house.
Inside the sealed laboratory were many silver-white precision machines, as well as a completed intelligent robot. Upon seeing Tang Ci, the robot moved from the ground and spoke crisply, "Welcome home, Master."
The robot was clumsy but quite cute. Liu Qiao glanced at it and noticed that its eyes flashed blue light.
Tang Ci reached out and gently stroked its head, saying, "Turn it off."
The robot's eyes immediately darkened.
Liu Qiao found it very novel: "Mr. Tang, did you develop this robot?"
"Yes, my major is in AI." Tang Ci walked to his desk and said, "In the future, artificial intelligence will become more and more common. I am responsible for the research and development of intelligent robots in the company. This is just the first generation of products, and it is not perfect yet."
No wonder Tang Ci was able to hack into the database in Card World, obtain so much information, and even create mechanical cards using data cards. Liu Qiao had to admit she was impressed. With Mr. Tang around, there was really no need to worry about finding information. She relaxed considerably and looked at Tang Ci, asking, " What exactly is this number that Professor Xiao mentioned?"
Tang Ci opened his laptop and said, "Please sit down first, let me check. According to Yu Hanjiang, Xiao Lou changed his phone number. I suspect that Hunter may have used this phone number to frame him and fabricate phone calls or chat logs showing close contact between him and the deceased as evidence."
Liu Qiao thought it made sense, so she sat quietly to the side and waited.
Tang Ci's slender hands flew across the keyboard, and many web pages popped up on the screen, along with a lot of garbled text. Liu Qiao couldn't understand it and didn't bother her anymore.
About five minutes later, Tang Ci finally spoke, "I found it."
Liu Qiao immediately came over to take a look.
Tang Ci pointed to two numbers on the screen and said, "The phone number 1362589 was purchased by Xiao Lou using his own ID card when he was in school, but he changed the number when he started working; the number starting with 159 is the one he uses now. But strangely, the number 136 has never been cancelled and has no outstanding fees."
Liu Qiao was stunned for a moment, then quickly realized: "So, someone stole this number, kept topping up its phone credit, and impersonated Professor Xiao to keep in touch with people using this number?"
Tang Ci nodded and said, " Xiao Lou isn't the type to be careless and misplace things. I think someone deliberately stole this number when he wasn't looking. So, the prime suspect is someone close to him." He paused, then turned to Liu Qiao: "If you bought a new number and lost your old SIM card, would you go to the trouble of looking for it?"
Liu Qiao shook her head: "Of course not. We've changed our number, why would we still look for the old one?"
Tang Ci said, "That's exactly the point. The service provider will automatically cancel the number after it is out of credit. Xiao Lou probably thought the same thing at the time. There wasn't much credit left on the old number, and he figured he'd cancel it after he used it up, so he didn't pay any more attention to it. He didn't expect that someone would steal the phone number and continue to top it up and use it."
Liu Qiao pondered, "It seems Hunter has been planning this for a long time?"
"The basic background of the world we are in is the same as Jiangzhou a year ago. Hunter will not appear out of thin air, but will replace the identities of some people in this world and then use these identities to do something to kill us. The previous secret rooms were all like this, and the Twin Kings Secret Room should not change this basic pattern."
"So, Hunter entered this world earlier than we did?" Liu Qiao analyzed, following this line of thought, "He replaced someone close to Professor Xiao and stole Professor Xiao's identity."
The phone card, after we officially arrived here, staged a murder and framed us.
"This explanation makes more sense." Tang Ci continued typing, looking at the information that popped up on the page, he frowned slightly and said, "The signal for number 136 has disappeared, so I can't pinpoint the number's location."
Liu Qiao stroked her chin: "This person is very clever. After framing him, he destroyed the phone number so that there would be no evidence against him, making it difficult for Professor Xiao to clear his name." She paused, then asked: "But during the year he used the 136 number, as long as he recharged it with his own WeChat, Alipay, or bank card, surely he would have left some clues?"
"That's where his brilliance lies. He never topped up his phone online; he always went to the service center with cash. There's no record of any bank card or WeChat top-up," Tang Ci said helplessly. " The phone number Professor Xiao left us isn't enough to find the suspect. Think about it again, was there anything else suspicious at the time of the incident?"
"Hmm…" Liu Qiao thought carefully about what happened that night, and suddenly said, "The timing is a bit off."
"How so?"
"Last night at 7 pm, Professor Xiao and I went to the Music Conservatory. The finals officially started at 7:30 pm and lasted until 8:50 pm. Ye Qi went on stage and sang a song. After he finished singing, we went backstage to find him and took a picture with him…"
Liu Qiao took out the photos Xiao Lou had sent her on her phone, glanced at the time, and said, "After taking the photo at 8:55, Professor Xiao and I walked out of the gymnasium, and then we heard screams in the distance, followed by the sight of a body in the lake."
As Tang Ci listened, he took notes on the key time points mentioned by Liu Qiao on his computer.
Hearing this, he couldn't help but wonder: "The timing is very clever. Before 8:55, whether you were watching the game in the stadium or going backstage to find Ye Qi, you could find someone to prove that you weren't at the crime scene. However, during the ten minutes or so between leaving backstage at 8:55 and seeing the body, you and Xiao Lou could only prove each other's location; no third person witnessed your position."
Liu Qiao nodded: "That's right, Ning Xue also died around this time."
The more they thought about it, the colder they felt inside.
Who is it that has been keeping track of their movements?
Liu Qiao thought about it carefully for a moment, then suddenly said, "Right, that Xu Mingyue, she was the first person to find Ning Xue's body. At that time, Ning Xue should have just been thrown into the lake. Wasn't it too coincidental that she passed by the lake? If she had been hiding in the shadows, watching Professor Xiao and me go backstage to find Ye Qi, and then timed it perfectly to push Ning Xue into the lake, and then deliberately screamed to attract our attention after we came out... that makes sense."
Tang Ci asked, "What is this person's relationship with the deceased?"
Liu Qiao said, "She was the deceased's roommate. Moreover, she called the deceased that night. Maybe she was the one who arranged to meet Ning Xue by the lake?"
Tang Ci didn't rush to conclusions. After thinking for a moment, he said, "We need to see Xiao Lou again. At the moment, we have too little information from him, which is not conducive to us finding out the truth."
Liu Qiao thought so too. However, when she impersonated Officer Xiao Wu to deliver lunch to Xiao Lou at noon, she had already aroused Yu Hanjiang's suspicion, so she couldn't impersonate Xiao Wu anymore.
Fortunately, Tang Ci quickly came up with an idea: " Isn't Xiao Lou detained by the police? I can arrange a lawyer for him. A lawyer can talk to his client, and Yu Hanjiang has no right to refuse."
Liu Qiao's eyes lit up: "Great idea! Mr. Tang, will you play the lawyer yourself?"
Tang Ci said, "Okay, can I borrow your twin card? I'll go see Xiao Lou this afternoon."
***
That afternoon, Tang Ci, disguised as a lawyer using a twin card, calmly arrived at the Police Station carrying a briefcase and specifically asked to see Xiao Lou: " Captain Yu, hello, I am Xiao Lou's lawyer. I have some things I would like to discuss with my client."
Yu Hanjiang's expression darkened slightly: "I don't recall Xiao Lou hiring any lawyers."
Tang Ci said, "I am Professor Xiao's friend, Mr. Tang Ci, who hired him as his defense lawyer. Mr. Tang has already paid the fees, so I have a responsibility to provide my client with the legal assistance he deserves, even though he is not familiar with the law."
Yu Hanjiang: "......"
In the morning, Xiao Lou asked him to find Tang Ci for questioning, and now Tang Ci has found a lawyer for Xiao Lou? Yu Hanjiang's displeasure was clearly written on his face, and he was almost about to say, "You've all teamed up to mess with me."
However, it is in accordance with the law for a lawyer to meet with his client, and Yu Hanjiang cannot prevent it.
With a stern face, he led Xiao Lou into the summons room, invited the lawyer in as well, and then turned and closed the door.
According to regulations, the police cannot eavesdrop on conversations between lawyers and their clients, so Yu Hanjiang could only wait in the corridor with a frown.
Inside the room, Xiao Lou's hands were cuffed with cold handcuffs. Tang Ci sat opposite him across a large table, pretending to be serious as he took out a stack of documents and said in a low voice, " Professor Xiao, hello, I am the lawyer invited by Mr. Tang."
Xiao Lou met his eyes and understood.
Tang Ci certainly wouldn't be idle enough to hire a potentially unreliable "lawyer" to help investigate a case. It was obvious that Tang Ci himself was in disguise. Both of them knew this, but neither of them said it out loud.
Tang Ci asked openly and honestly, "As your lawyer, I will definitely help you clear your name. If you have any questions about this case, or anything you want to say, please tell me the truth."
The acting was quite convincing.
Xiao Lou gently raised the corners of her lips and said, "
The number that called Ning Xue at that crucial moment wasn't mine; Liu Qiao and I were definitely out last night and didn't go home, so I can't provide an alibi, but the person who dissected Zhang Hengyu in the lab building was definitely not us. The fact that Liu Qiao and my hair were both at the dissection site means someone deliberately placed it there."
Tang Ci quickly took notes.
At this point, Xiao Lou paused, then said thoughtfully in a low voice, " Who could be the person who could get both my hair and Liu Qiao's hair at the same time?"
Tang Ci looked up at him: " Professor Xiao, is there anyone you suspect?"
Xiao Lou suddenly said, " Zhang Hengyu."
Tang Ci paused, then asked, " Zhang Hengyu, who was dissected?"
Xiao Lou said, "That afternoon, Liu Qiao came to listen to my class and happened to sit next to Zhang Hengyu. It was easy for him to get Liu Qiao's hair. He is the class monitor of our Forensic Medicine Department. He asked me questions during the break and it was also easy for him to collect my hair sample."
As if a sudden realization dawned on Xiao Lou, and he said with certainty, "The person who got my and Liu Qiao's hair is most likely Zhang Hengyu."