Guangming Hotel.
Room 8001.
This was a presidential suite.
Ye Qiu glanced around and found the room neat and tidy, very clean.
“Brother Zhao, are you sure Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old was attacked here last night?” Ye Qiu was skeptical; the place didn’t look like a crime scene at all.
“I’m sure,” Zhao Yun said. “I checked. Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old stayed here last night and didn’t leave the room all night.”
Ye Qiu asked again, “Then why is the room so clean and tidy? Did the hotel cleaners come in?”
“I asked. The hotel didn’t send anyone to clean.”
Ye Qiu frowned and looked at the Dragon King. “Do you think this looks like a crime scene?”
“No.”
“I don’t think so either,” Ye Qiu said. “If Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old was really attacked here last night and a few guards were killed, there should be signs of a struggle. But there’s nothing here, as if no one ever stayed.”
“Could it be that Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old stayed here, but the attack happened elsewhere?” The Dragon King had just finished speaking when Zhao Yun refuted him.
Zhao Yun said, “I checked the surveillance carefully. After Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old entered this room last night, he didn’t leave until this morning. And his dead guards were carried out from this room this morning. I’m sure this is the crime scene.”
“Then why can’t we find any traces?” The Dragon King frowned.
“Could it be that Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old had someone clean up the place?”
Hearing this, Ye Qiu and the Dragon King were both stunned.
Zhao Yun continued, “If it was really Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old, why would he do this? What benefit does he get from cleaning the scene so thoroughly?”
“You idiot, isn’t it obvious?” The Dragon King said irritably. “Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old is testing Ye Qiu.”
“Testing?” Zhao Yun was even more puzzled.
The Dragon King explained, “Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old asked Ye Qiu to find the killer, which is a test in itself. Now, by erasing all traces, he’s making the test harder. If Ye Qiu passes and finds the killer, we all remain safe. If Ye Qiu fails, Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old will take my life and one of Ye Qiu’s arms as promised.”
“That bastard, so cunning.”
After cursing, Zhao Yun quickly covered his mouth, looked around, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw no one else was around.
The Dragon King scolded Zhao Yun with a stern face, “As the saying goes, illness enters by the mouth, and trouble comes out of it. Be careful with your words from now on. If the people from Dragon Gate hear you, your days are numbered.”
“Yes, I’ll be more careful in the future.” Zhao Yun knew he had misspoken and sincerely accepted the Dragon King’s criticism.
“Little Ye, what do we do now?” the Dragon King asked.
“Find the killer,” Ye Qiu said.
“How?”
“If the killer came to this room, they must have left some traces. No matter how thoroughly Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old cleaned, he couldn’t erase everything,” Ye Qiu said. “Let’s search the room first and see if we can find any traces of the killer.”
“Alright!”
The three of them began searching the room.
The presidential suite was large, with a living room, four bedrooms, and two bathrooms.
The three searched meticulously for nearly an hour, turning the room upside down but finding nothing.
“I’m sure Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old had someone erase the traces. Ordinary people couldn’t clean so thoroughly,” the Dragon King sighed. “No wonder Dragon Gate expanded so quickly; Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old has many capable people under him!”
“Brother Zhao, where’s the hotel’s surveillance room? Take me there,” Ye Qiu said.
Having found no clues in the room, he pinned his hopes on the surveillance footage.
Zhao Yun said, “I’ve already watched the surveillance footage and found nothing valuable.”
“But I still want to see it.”
Seeing Ye Qiu’s insistence, the Dragon King also said, “Zhao Yun, take us there. I want to see it too.”
“Alright then.”
Zhao Yun led Ye Qiu and the Dragon King to the hotel’s surveillance room.
The three sat in the surveillance room and watched all the footage from last night to this morning.
As Zhao Yun had said, after Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old and his guards entered the room, they didn’t come out all night. The door didn’t even open once.
It was only this morning that the door opened, and a few bodies were carried out, followed by Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old leaving.
After watching the footage, Ye Qiu said, “The surveillance footage has been tampered with.”
“Little Ye, what did you find?” the Dragon King asked quickly.
Zhao Yun also looked at Ye Qiu curiously.
Ye Qiu said, “In the footage, after Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old and his guards entered the room, they didn’t come out all night, not even opening the door. So, how did the killer get in?”
“Could they have entered through the window?” the Dragon King suggested.
“I checked all the windows in the room; there’s no sign of damage. Even if Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old erased the traces inside, I don’t believe he replaced the windows. So, the only possibility is that the killer entered through the door. But we didn’t see the killer in the footage,” Ye Qiu continued. “And most importantly, I didn’t see Han Long.”
“Han Long? Who’s that?” Zhao Yun asked.
“Han Long is Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old’s adopted son. He was sent to Jiangzhou Hospital this morning with dozens of gunshot and knife wounds, barely clinging to life,” Ye Qiu said. “Han Long was severely injured protecting Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old, which means he was with him during the attack.”
“But Han Long doesn’t appear in the footage.”
“Based on these two points, I conclude that the footage was tampered with, likely by someone under Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old’s orders.”
“Bast…” Zhao Yun started to curse again but stopped when he saw the Dragon King glaring at him.
Unbeknownst to them, Ye Qiu was also cursing Ninety-Thousand-Year-Old in his mind.
That cunning bastard, erasing the traces so thoroughly, how are we supposed to find the killer?
Zhao Yun said, “I’ll get someone to restore the footage right away.”
“Alright, Brother Zhao, you handle that. I’ll go back to the room and keep looking,” Ye Qiu said, returning to the room with the Dragon King.
They continued searching.
Half an hour later, they still found nothing.
Zhao Yun returned, saying the footage couldn’t be restored.
“Looks like we’ll have to use the Maoshan Talisman.”
While the Dragon King and Zhao Yun weren’t paying attention, Ye Qiu quickly formed a seal with his hands in front of his chest and chanted softly. Soon, a wisp of black smoke appeared out of thin air, floating before Ye Qiu’s eyes.