CH 114

Half an hour later, the duty officer’s fingers flew across the keyboard as he searched for the relevant video in the hotel’s central control room.

Yan Suizhi rested his palms against the table, looking up at the twenty or so flickering monitors. Gu Yan was standing behind him with his arms folded, similarly watching those screens. 

Joe closed the door to the central control room. He patted on the hotel manager’s shoulder, saying, “Chill, don’t be nervous. This isn’t anything big. I’ve been having a hard time sleeping lately, and when I see something in the middle of the night, I can’t stop fixating on it until I wrap my head around it. I haven’t slept well for over a week, so if something else affects my sleep tonight, I might accidentally die here. Don’t you think that’s pretty worrying?”

The manager was startled by his words, hastily flapping his hand. “Nonono, don’t joke around. Aren’t we letting you check it now? We’ll make sure that you get to the bottom of it. But, to tell the truth, you can actually put your mind to ease. The security in our hotel is second to none in this region; otherwise, you wouldn’t have chosen to stay here, would you?”

This manager was only responsible for the building that the interns were staying in. There was still a higher level of management above him. Just by his authority, it wasn’t an issue for him to allow guests to enter the control room. However, the clout of this group of guests was nothing to scoff at; he was anxious to report it above, afraid that something would go wrong.

But this Young Master Joe and that lawyer stopped him, saying that there wasn’t any need for false alarm as it wasn’t anything major. 

In fact, no one else was alerted, not even when they entered the control room.

Apart from the few of them, other guests were relaxing and chatting over their breakfasts. No one was aware of what was happening on this side.

Joe smiled. “Yeah, I am aware of your hotel’s reputation. That’s why, don’t be nervous. You can just pretend that we’re here to hang around for a bit. Look, we aren’t touching any of the equipment either. Everything is being operated by your duty officer and you can keep an eye on things here, alright?”

He dragged a chair over, then used his bigger body stature to press the manager down into the chair, filching the work earpieces around his collar at the same time.

“…” The manager wiped the sweat on his temples, thinking that this young master had a formidable ability of talking to himself, too quickly to allow room for rebuttal, and making decisions. He could only nod, half a beat late, “That works, I guess. Then… my earpieces?”

Joe tinkered with them. “I’m just taking a look; I’ll return it to you in a bit. Don’t be so fussy.”

The manager nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose, but was crumbling on the inside. He said inwardly, Aren’t you guys here to see the footage? Why do you make it seem like you’re going to hijack the control room?

The work earpieces provided by this hotel were specially manufactured. It piqued Joe’s interest. They weren’t those normally found on the market that could be synced to smart devices. 

He nonchalantly leaned against the back of Ke Jin’s chair, figuring out the quick commands on it.

Ke Jin was mostly quiet, like he was cocooned from the world. His gaze wandered between the monitors, and no one could tell what was on his mind.

On rare occasions, he would slowly shift his gaze over when Yan Suizhi or Gu Yan was talking. His eyes were vacant most of the time, like he had simply found a random spot to dwell on. There were also times when they would reveal some confusion, as though something was consistently preventing him from understanding the words of those around him.

When this confusion crossed a certain threshold, he would suddenly grow agitated, and things would turn chaotic. 

So, to avoid this situation, Joe would often divert his attention, not letting him linger on a certain object or person for too long.

He made it a point of mumbling non-stop while tinkering with the earpieces. After a good few minutes, Ke Jin’s gaze finally averted from a spot, slowly turning over to stare at the earpieces in Joe’s hands.

“This hotel’s earpieces are custom-made. Look, they have the fire and police alarm, room service, as well as permissions to open doors, and other such functions on this side…”

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Even Yan Suizhi couldn’t resist glancing back. 

At this time, Joe didn’t pay heed to anyone else, laughing cheerily as he spoke, lifting his gaze to look at Ke Jin every once in a while.

Unconsciously, Ke Jin shifted to sit sideways in his seat, both hands perched on the armrests, looking earnestly at the earpieces like an obedient student listening to class.

This look softened Joe’s heart. He wanted to say more, but there was only so much he could ramble on about a useless pair of earpieces. He finally stopped after a while and reached out, fiddling with the tips of Ke Jin’s hair. “Your hair has grown out again. Shall I trim it for you tonight?”

Ke Jin looked at him. Seeing that he didn’t continue to speak, he changed his sitting posture again, his attention once again pulled by the leaping images on the monitors. 

It was all too common for Joe not to get an answer to his questions and he was used to it already. This was practically a daily occurrence to him by now. Every time, he would tide it over with a smile, finding something else to tease Ke Jin’s attention back onto him again.

He had become more and more loquacious, and could go on and on about a small matter for a full day. This was also a habit subtly formed in recent years.

Only, this time, when Ke Jin shifted his gaze away from him, he felt an indescribable sadness.

He palmed the earpieces, staring at Ke Jin’s side profile for a while. He couldn’t help but softly nudge him, mumbling, “C’mon, look at me.” 

At this nudge, Ke Jin’s gaze looked down at his hand then slowly moved up to his face.

And Young Master Joe’s mood improved again.

He lifted his chin at the manager and said, “Thanks for your earpieces. They’re splendid.”

The manager, “???” 

When he withdrew his attention, he glanced at Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan. The two of them were looking over at him. Likely having noticed that he seemed depressed just now, Yan Suizhi asked Joe, “What is it?”

Joe waved his hand. “It’s nothing. My mood is probably down in the dumps from losing sleep the past few days.”

“Go back and sleep for a while more?” Gu Yan said.

Joe straightened up. “Nah, no need for that. My biological clock has been screwed by Ke Jin already; no sleeping pill will work for me in the day. Just keep watching those monitors; don’t you both stare at me like that.” 

As the young master spoke, he even put his hands together in an entreating gesture, pleading them to have mercy on this bachelor who hadn’t gotten his love life sorted out.

“Eh? Does Joe have… for Ke Jin?” Professor Yan turned his gaze away, prodding Gu Yan with his shoulder, asking in a low voice.

He would seldom ask about these in the past. Even the closest of students seemed to be separated from him by a layer of mist, and he wouldn’t restrict nor interfere with their matters.

Actually, it wasn’t much different now, but he’d occasionally reveal a bit of his curiosity in front of Gu Yan. 

Right after he asked this, he looked up and noticed that Gu Yan was directing a fond, helpless look at him.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” The esteemed Professor Yan clicked his tongue.

Gu Yan said mildly, “Nothing. I just feel like you’re even more obtuse than Joe in some respects.”

Yan Suizhi, “…” 

Bullshit.

Who was he to be compared to the Little Fool Joe?

“I just hadn’t the leisure to think about it before,” Professor Yan snappishly explained, then said craftily, “Is the presumption of innocence just empty talk?”

Gu Yan had an arm folded across his chest, the other arm resting on it with a hand loosely forming a fist, holding a knuckle to his lower lip. He gazed at the flickering monitors, uttering an “mn” in response to Yan Suizhi’s nonsense, a response as perfunctory as it could be. 

After a moment, when Yan Suizhi also looked back at the monitors again, Lawyer Gu finally deigned to open his mouth of gold. “So, for how many years did you presume me of innocence?”

Yan Suizhi, “…”

The duty officer abruptly hit the stop button. “I found it. There, the corridor footage from earlier this morning.”

This hotel archived its footage once every ten minutes, and these video files were all sequentially arranged ten minutes at a time. 

For convenience, the duty officer gave some buffer to the time frame that Joe suggested and selected those videos, playing them in order.

The playback speed was cranked up a few times and the angle was fixed on a long corridor.

“This is from two o’clock onwards.”

Soon, two people appeared at opposite ends of the corridor, crossing paths in the middle of it. 

“Who are they?” Yan Suizhi asked.

The manager said, “They are the security on duty. At two, four, and six every morning, security would make their rounds on every floor to ensure safety.”

These two men were in black uniforms. Even though they would look left and right when walking through the corridor, they didn’t approach any door in particular, so it wasn’t possible for them to have entered ‘the sixth room’.

Then, it was like the corridor had turned into a still frame. Aside from occasional changes in the light or shadows, nothing was happening. 

This continued until 4 a.m., when those two security personnel appeared at the corridor again, intersecting midway, sweeping an eye over the corridor and leaving, still without pausing in front of any particular door.

“Could I have seen a ghost?” Joe found it hard to believe.

He said to the duty officer, “How about surveillance from outside? Could there be anyone entering from the windows?”

“That shouldn’t be possible. The wall surface is very slippery; it wouldn’t be easy to climb,” the manager said. 

However, to alleviate any fears, the duty officer still took the surveillance out and, again, played it from between 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.

This security camera was shot upwards from the garden, leaving not a single window out from its frame.

The playback was once again cranked up. The night vision camera footage tinged everything in a faint green glow, making it uncomfortable to look at for prolonged periods of time.

“That’s all.” Time seemed to pass by in a blink, and the duty officer hit the pause button. 

Joe rubbed his eyes blankly. “Just like that? No way, right?”

The duty officer pointed at the time stamp on the screen. “Look, it’s already four in the morning.”

Joe frowned.

In the footage between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., there wasn’t any suspicious figure scaling the walls, let alone the small spot of light that Joe said he saw in ‘the sixth room’. 

“But it’s possible that the light in the room might not have been captured from this angle,” the manager said, chuckling. After all, he couldn’t say straight to the young master that his eyes were playing tricks on him in the middle of the night.

The duty officer went through the footage many more times, and Joe’s brows tangled into knots. He wiped his face awkwardly. “I’ll be damned. Was I mistaken?”

But Yan Suizhi suddenly patted the duty officer’s shoulder, saying, “Replay the footage from 3:10 a.m. one more time. I want to have another look.”