Chapter 1033: Change Of View
The elevator soon arrived in front of Room 3094. As the doors opened, E-Goat subconsciously tried to retreat behind Zhang Heng. However, when he realized that Xu Qian might be in her apartment unit, he decided not to succumb to fear. This was the time to show how manly he was.
As a result, the scene in front of him surprised him. The living room was now as clean as the Heiwu Shopping Mall’s shelves. They could not even find a roll of toilet paper in the unit. Xu Qian was not there, and the furniture in her apartment was gone as well. Other than the air-conditioners and heaters that came with the apartment, not a single thread was left in the living room.
Zhang Heng then checked the bedroom, Xu Qian’s studio, kitchen, and bathroom. The conditions were exactly the same as the living room. So, he put away the pistol in his hand.
“Did she… move away?” E-Goat asked. Other than moving away, he could not figure out what could cause the scene in front of him.
Zhang Heng did not answer this question immediately. Instead, he said, “hack into the access control system of the apartment to see when she left.”
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt“Oh, okay.” E-Goat took out his handheld computer and quickly began to work on it. On the other hand, Zhang Heng took advantage of this time to search the entire apartment thoroughly, looking for clues that he might have missed.
After about ten minutes, E-Goat spoke again, “I found something.”
“Hmm?”
“The access control system records show that a moving company called EasyMove visited this apartment this morning, and they probably moved out all the furniture.”
“Did Xu Qian leave the apartment at that time?”
“No, Xu Qian left way earlier. She left yesterday morning.”
“Did she leave with her boyfriend, Qiu Ming?”
“No, she left alone. I found the surveillance footage. She did leave alone. I can also see that no modifications have been made to the footage. After this, I will send this to one of my professional friends to check for its authenticity. Well, she looked a little panicked in the video. You mentioned that you told her that her boyfriend is suspicious. Maybe, she is afraid of him and decided to look for a temporary place to hide. Or should I send her an email and ask her in person? Considering what I did to her before, it is understandable if she has a hard time trusting me. But we can tell her that you are still alive, and she should believe you.”
“It’s not a good time for me to show myself. So don’t drag me into this. If she wants to go into hiding, why would she contact the moving company to move away from all the furniture?”
“Because… she’s moving to her new residence?” E-Goat guessed, “It doesn’t make sense. She decided to move because she was afraid? She picked a place yesterday, and she contacted the moving company to move all her furniture away. So, we only need to contact the company and ask them where we can find her.”
Zhang Heng was noncommittal upon hearing what E-Goat said.
“Any questions?”
“When I took this job, Xu Qian told me that she was being followed by someone mysterious. There was this once she realized that someone had messed with her things after she came home. However, there were no records of the person entering and leaving the apartment.”
“You suspect that someone like us hacked into the apartment system and came to Xu Qian’s residence to kidnap her. But in the surveillance video, she did leave the apartment alone.”
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm“The intruder didn’t need to use force to make Xu Qian leave the apartment. All he needs to do is leave some traces in there to cause her to panic. By doing that, she’ll leave the apartment voluntarily,” Zhang Heng said. “When I checked the house just now, I found the buoyancy valve of the toilet broken. There is also a foreign object under the sink in the kitchen. Other than that, I spotted a man’s handprints on the window as well. Xu Qian left her apartment voluntarily and abruptly yesterday. It was probably because someone was threatening her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have found a moving company to move the furniture this quickly. If you are free and are willing to watch all the surveillance videos from the previous day, you should find out that some footage has gone missing.”
“Indeed, your analysis is more logical, but why did the other party choose to go through all these troubles? He can just kidnap Xu Qian from her apartment and delete all the surveillance footage.” E-Goat scratched his head.
“The recovery of the second type of clone is not as simple as the first type. You are right. If the existence of the second type is known to the public, it may cause mass hysteria. Besides, Xu Qian is half a public figure, and she has a lot of fans too. This is why the other party came up with a plan to make her think that she would marry a rich man. From there, they expect her to announce her retirement to her fans. When all that is done, they could easily make her go away silently afterward.”
Zhang Heng paused and went on, “Because of me, Xu Qian has begun to doubt her boyfriend and has not announced her retirement in her livestream until now. I am afraid that the other party has no intention to continue dragging.”
After all, they would need to spend a lot of money to maintain such a perfect boyfriend. So, Zhang Heng did not rule out that they decided to change their strategy after evaluating the existing situation.
“If the plan of getting her married to a man and retirement is not feasible, the mental pressure that comes with her streaming job and eventually leads to mental health problems is also a good reason to make her quit becoming a streamer. And it is very simple to pull this off. All they need to do is to publish the news that is related to her mental health problem on the internet.”
Upon hearing that, E-Goat immediately went on the internet and skillfully retrieved all the information related to Xu Qian. It did not take long for him to find out something about Xu Qian. The news came from a well-known paparazzi website known for its timely and accurate news. The headline of the day was that a female streamer was suspected of suffering persecution delusion. A short clip was attached, showing Xu Qian walking on the road and constantly looking behind her though there was nothing.
The readers did not seem to believe in this news. Some of Xu Qian’s fans thought it was wrong to say that she suffered from mental health problems based on this short clip. Maybe someone was really following her at the time.
However, last night, another anonymous person replied to the following post by uploading the surveillance video. In the video, Xu Qian’s expression was flustered and frightened. She kept shouting at the access control system to close the gate. It was as if someone was coming after her. However, after she left the elevator fifteen minutes later, the surveillance video did not show a second person walking out of the elevator.
As soon as this video was uploaded to the internet, her public opinion had changed drastically. More and more people began to believe that Xu Qian was suffering from mental health problems.