Crazy Detective

Chapter 599: The Mystery Behind the Extinguisher

“Police officer, even though our robot has a camera, it doesn’t go near the escalator. It only goes back and forth within the restaurant area!” the worker explained to Zhao Yu. “So, it wouldn’t have been able to record the place that you were talking about! Plus, its speed is extremely slow and it has a special function that allows it to avoid passers-by. Hence, it was obviously the little boy’s fault! You should tell them to compensate us!”

What Zhao Yu intended was for the restaurant to transfer out the video before the murderer burnt the five million ransom, in order to see if the robot’s camera had recorded anything suspicious. He felt that, since he had gotten a Qian hexagram that day and the side quest had led him there, it was most likely related to the burnt ransom incident.

However, according to what the worker had just said, the robot couldn’t reach the escalator, so it wasn’t robot able to record anything. And yet… Zhao Yu was very familiar with the miracle adventure system, which got him thinking…

This miracle adventure, which looked normal at first, might not be just an ordinary case of a kid running into a robot…

Regardless, as he came across the robot, he had to bring the video taken by the robot back for further investigation.

After all, what if I can find something in the video?

The chubby boy’s mother, seeing that Zhao Yu was a police officer, did not dare pursue the matter further, but quickly left the scene with her son. The pair then walked towards the narrow corridor.

As Zhao Yu took a glance at them leaving subconsciously, he could see from the signboard on the wall that there were a toilet and an elevator also along the corridor.

Tsk tsk…

This made Zhao Yu recall that, back when the murderer was burning the ransom, he didn’t come to the building personally. However, he knew that Li Luoyun had stationed men at every exit of the building! Hence, there must be someone who was guarding the exit that had the elevator!

“Police officer… Look…” the worker suddenly broke into his train of thought, pointing at the robot that had just malfunctioned. The worker obviously didn’t know what to do next.

“Cut the bullsh*t!” Zhao Yu ordered. “Hurry up and pass me the memory card of the surveillance record! You must cooperate with this police investigation! And… If you have any other robots here, pass me all those memory cards now, too!”

“No… No, we only have this one…” The worker tried to explain further, but Zhao Yu couldn’t be bothered to listen. Instead, he creased his eyebrows and walked towards the same corridor, where the pair of mother and son had just left.

But, just as he took the turn, he suddenly saw something. It was an extinguisher case! Within the red case, which was set on the side of the corridor, were two red fire extinguishers!

Zhao Yu remembered that, when the murderer had told a hobo to burn the ransom, the police who were in charge of monitoring the situation were caught off guard, so they could only grab the fire extinguisher nearby. But, when they grabbed it, they realized that the extinguisher didn’t work!

He estimated the distance with his naked eye. Although it was a bit far away, it was most likely the nearest extinguisher case to the escalator.

“Hey…” Zhao Yu beckoned to the worker and asked, “Do you remember the day that someone burnt some ransom money here? Did someone take an extinguisher from here to put out the fire?”

“What?” The worker creased his eyebrows, a bit confused. “I… Let me ask the guards. Hold on a second…”

“Ask what?” Just then, a waiter from the restaurant next door came out, and after overhearing the last part of the conversation, told Zhao Yu directly, “You’re right, the place where the money was burnt was at the escalator, and that is the nearest extinguisher case! I saw what happened that day. The moment it caught on fire, someone grabbed the extinguisher! Then, we found out that the extinguisher was broken. I heard that quite a large sum of money was burnt!”

After listening to the waiter, Zhao Yu roughly understood what had happened. The person that the waiter was talking about was naturally the plain-clothes policeman that was on duty at the elevator. He must have heard the news of the fire and quickly grabbed the extinguisher to put it out. But, he didn’t know that the extinguisher was defective.

When Li Luoyun had investigated this before, he thought that someone must have done something to the extinguisher beforehand, meaning that whoever that was would be the murderer’s accomplice! But, when they had checked with the person in charge of the building, no video surveillance camera was found as of yet, so they didn’t find any valuable clues to support the theory.

One verification that they were on the right track came from the building security guard, who could certify that, not only were the building’s fire extinguishers full, but they were brand new, too. Besides, after a careful examination, they certified that no one changed the two extinguishers…They were still the two originals!

With all of these things in mind, Zhao Yu walked into the corridor to take a closer look at the extinguisher case. Needless to say, the extinguishers inside it should be all new.

What did he do to that fire extinguisher?

Zhao Yu suddenly thought of the toilet, which was located a bit further down the corridor.

Could the murderer have come ahead of time and poured the extinguisher’s powders into the toilet?

He walked towards the toilet again. The corridor wasn’t very spacious, so the toilet was quite cramped.

Zhao Yu noticed that, on the right side of the elevator, there was a surveillance camera. However, he knew that the surveillance camera wasn’t operable! Hence, the entire corridor was a surveillance blind spot!

After more observation, he walked into the male toilet to check it out. The facilities in the male toilet were very simple. There were no commodes to sit on, only two squatting pans and urinals.

Tsk tsk…

Zhao Yu didn’t know much about extinguishers, but he felt that the powder in the extinguisher could be poured out easily, thus rendering the safety equipment useless. Hence, he immediately took out his phone to search for information about it on the internet.

As he did so, he was surprised to discover that, in order to make an extinguisher lose its effect, there’s no need to pour out the powder in the extinguisher! One only needed to release all of the pressure within the extinguisher!

Oh…

Zhao Yu then understood why Li Luoyun had given up on finding any more clues about the extinguisher. It was because there wasn’t a surveillance video, and there were too many people that were walking to and fro in the corridor at that time. Hence, it was quite difficult to find who had tampered with the two extinguishers.

Tsk tsk…

Zhao Yu pondered this all carefully, feeling at a loss. But somehow, Zhao Yu was not yet willing to give in.

However, due to the pressing of time, he had to rush back to the hospital. As Zhao Yu left, the worker quickly passed him the surveillance video memory card from the robot.

After getting into his car, Zhao Yu inserted the memory card into his laptop and watched the video again.

He then fast-forwarded the video to the timeframe when the money was burnt, as he wanted to see if the robot had gotten any footage during the incident. In the video, just as the five million ransom caught on fire, the robot happened to pass by the corridor where the extinguisher was located! As he watched, Zhao Yu could clearly see a plain-clothed policeman grab the extinguisher to put out the fire!

Zhao Yu rewinded the footage and watched it again, his heart thumping out of shock!