The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 293 A ghost knocks on the door in the middle of the night

The property manager was stunned for a few seconds, then waved his hands repeatedly: "That, that's impossible, how can this be replaced? I don't even know!"

"Does your surveillance system have a weather-enhancing function? Changing rainy days to sunny days?" Wu Shanqiu immediately retorted.

"Our management is strictly in accordance with the requirements. Only our security team has the password to log in to the system..." The property manager panicked, "Could it be one of our people...?"

Qi Fei dragged the saved progress bar, this time starting from when Lin Yu disappeared from the scene and continuing to watch. As time passed, the sky gradually brightened, and suddenly at one point, the sky darkened again, and everyone in the scene seemed to teleport away like ghosts. He went back and watched it again, and this time it was clearer: it wasn't that people teleported, but rather, like in a movie, it was a splicing of two scenes.

The surveillance footage shows that it was 4 a.m., so it seems that the murderer replaced four hours of footage to avoid being discovered.

"Ha, does he think we don't have the patience to watch four hours of surveillance footage?" Qi Fei leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and said irritably.
-
At the police station, Wu Shanqiu hung up the phone and said to Qi Fei with slight disappointment, "Brother Fei, I asked a few of Lin Yu's close colleagues at the company, and they all said they had never heard Lin Yu mention anyone named Ma Ziqiang or Song Yun. He is a key designer in the company, and he is usually very busy. When he gets home, he either draws blueprints or sleeps. He rarely even attends company dinners."

"Yes, this is similar to what we learned in Huantai Community."

“Yes, judging from his communication records before his death, there doesn’t seem to be any contact with Ma Ziqiang’s family. Could it really be a coincidence… But both Lin Yu and Ma Ziqiang had their accidents in the early morning, which really does seem like a ghost knocking on the door in the middle of the night…” Wu Shanqiu said.

Qi Fei glanced at her: "Did you catch this from Zhong Kui?"

"Huh? This time it wasn't me who brought up Xiao Kui first," Wu Shanqiu said with a mischievous smile.

"Let's get down to business." Qi Fei abruptly changed the subject. "The company reports that Lin Yu has already taken his October annual leave to go on vacation, which alone significantly reduces the likelihood of him committing suicide."

"But I don't understand, who could a designer with a limited social circle and a hard-working attitude have offended that would make someone go to such lengths to kill him in the middle of the night?"

"Shouldn't the strangest thing be his door?" Qi Fei said. "There were no signs of forced entry, and no signs of a struggle inside the house..."

Wu Shanqiu pondered for a moment: "So, let's assume there was another person at the scene where Lin Yu fell from the building. This person was very likely someone Lin Yu let in by opening the door himself?"

“No need for assumptions. If no one went to Lin Yu’s place that night, the surveillance footage wouldn’t have been replaced. Hmph, that’s just a classic case of protesting too much.” Qi Fei immediately said.

"So it was an inside job?" Wu Shanqiu frowned. "Lin Yu doesn't know many people in Nancheng... It seems he didn't have the opportunity to commit the crime..."
-
In the interrogation room, Xiao Pan, the security guard who was on duty last night, sat nervously opposite Qi Fei, looking completely at a loss.

When Qi Fei showed him the spliced ​​footage, he blurted out, "Huh? Why did the weather suddenly change?"

“The footage has been replaced. We asked the technology company, and there’s only one way to replace the surveillance footage in your community: intercept the transmitted signal during that time period and overwrite the original footage. In other words, this operation cannot be prepared in advance; it can only be performed during the time of the incident. According to the information submitted by your property management, you were the only one on duty in the monitoring room last night. Tell me, what’s going on?” Qi Fei looked at the young security guard in his early twenties with a serious expression.

Xiao Pan's reaction was quite interesting. Instead of rushing to clear himself of suspicion, he scratched his head and looked at Qi Fei blankly: "Huh? What do you mean? I don't understand."

"Did you replace the surveillance footage from 12:00 to 4:00 in Huantai Community yesterday?" Qi Fei asked more bluntly.

Xiao Pan's eyes widened upon hearing this: "Then the surveillance footage can be replaced? I didn't know that." Seeing his expression, Qi Fei sighed helplessly: "Didn't you notice anything unusual in the monitoring room yesterday? The transitions in the footage are clearly not from the same day."

Xiao Pan then seemed guilty, muttering, "Who on the night shift would be watching the security cameras the whole time..."

"Then what were you doing?" Qi Fei was both amused and exasperated. It seemed that the kid had been slacking off yesterday.

Sure enough, Xiao Pan whispered, "I made plans to play games with someone, and I was so busy playing on my phone that I didn't notice..." At this point, he belatedly realized that he was being suspected, and then he protested, "As for that monitoring system, I only know how to turn it on and off. I don't know how to do anything else. You mean that thing about changing the content? I don't know how at all."

"Besides you, who else came to the monitoring room last night?" Qi Fei pressed.

Xiao Pan scratched his head again: "No, besides, it wasn't supposed to be my shift yesterday. If Lao Liang hadn't suddenly fallen and injured himself, and there was no one in the team to cover for him, I wouldn't have gone to work the night shift."

"Huh? It wasn't you yesterday?"

"Yeah, speaking of which, if it were the old Liang on duty, he might be able to help you. Old Liang is very serious; he even won the Outstanding Employee award last year!" Xiao Pan said.

How did you get hurt?

"I was changing a light bulb for a homeowner during the day when I accidentally fell off the ladder and dislocated my arm."

"What a coincidence?" Qi Fei frowned and pressed, "Do you know which homeowner you're helping?"

"Oh, it's the 18th floor of the building behind where the accident happened. It's quite a coincidence."

"Is it Ma Ziqiang's house in 1801?" Qi Fei blurted out.

Unexpectedly, Xiao Pan shook his head and denied it: "No, no, it's 1802 across the hall."

"Wu Weiwei?" Qi Fei thought of the lively female neighbor who had chatted with them in the elevator. When he thought of the elevator, Lin Yu's face inexplicably appeared in his mind. This time it was not the flat image on the ID card, but a tall man of 1.8 meters, wearing a hoodie and standing in the elevator with his hands in his pockets.

As if struck by an electric current, Qi Fei jolted awake. He realized why Lin Yu's face looked familiar. It was the young man who had walked into the elevator and gone upstairs when they came down from Ma Ziqiang's house. The person who had brushed past him was Lin Yu.

"Shanqiu, do you usually go up to other apartment buildings?" Qi Fei suddenly asked.

Wu Shanqiu felt this question was nonsensical: "Unless a friend is staying with me, I definitely won't go, Fei-ge, what's wrong?"

“We’ve met Lin Yu before; we saw him when we went to Ma Ziqiang’s house for research,” Qi Fei said.