Ji Xun suddenly understood: “Right! That really doesn’t make sense.” He thought for a moment, then felt something was off: “But if he was lying, why would he make up such an outrageous story?”
“That depends on what he hopes to guide us toward with this story,” Shen Kui said. “We can’t confirm his intentions yet. But if we follow the trail, we’re bound to find something.”
“But he didn’t leave any clues. With just that brief encounter, how are we supposed to find him? It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“Who said there are no clues?” Shen Kui quickly typed a few words into her phone’s search bar and handed it to Ji Xun.
“Sanjiang Law Firm?” Ji Xun looked at her, confused. “What does that have to do with him?”
“His briefcase had the firm’s logo on it. At first, he deliberately covered it. But when he left, he probably relaxed and let his guard down. I saw it,” Shen Kui said calmly.
“Damn, sis, you’re the best!” Ji Xun gave her a thumbs-up, immediately switching to full-on praise mode. “Why aren’t you a detective? If you were, I’d be your partner. We could form a super detective duo, and we’d call ourselves—”
Shen Kui quickly cut him off: “Stop, stop, let’s focus on the matter at hand.”
“Oh.” Ji Xun fell silent instantly.
“I think we need to do two things now. First, as we discussed yesterday, about the list of belongings. We have time today, so let’s head to the museum later and try to get the list as soon as possible.”
“Second, regarding the follow-up on 412L, we should look into Sanjiang Law Firm and see if we can find any information about 412L. The priority is to confirm his identity. I have a good relationship with our company’s legal department, so I plan to ask around privately.”
Ji Xun raised his hand: “I can help with that, too! One of my good friends has a dad who’s a lawyer. I’ll ask him to look into it.”
“Perfect. We can compare the information from both sides and see if we can figure out this person’s real identity.”
Shen Kui made the decision: “Alright, let’s head to the museum now.”
“Um…” Ji Xun hesitated for a moment, speaking cautiously. “Is… is that all?”
“What else?” Shen Kui asked, puzzled.
“What about Tian Ke…”
As soon as he mentioned it, Shen Kui’s expression darkened instantly. Ji Xun immediately regretted bringing it up.
Shen Kui said quietly, “I can’t think about her right now.”
Ji Xun seemed to understand the deeper meaning behind her words. He nodded obediently: “Alright, should we go now?”
“Let me contact the museum first.” Shen Kui took out her phone, about to call the staff member who had assisted her that day, when a question she had overlooked suddenly resurfaced in her mind.
“Wait, let me ask you something first.” Shen Kui remembered the shadow she had seen at home the night before, when she was in a daze. “Do you remember when we first met at the museum? Were you hiding behind the display case?”
“Huh?” Ji Xun looked completely baffled. “When did I hide?”
“That day at the museum, I saw a shadow behind the display case. Wasn’t that you?”
“Of course it wasn’t me!” Ji Xun immediately retorted. “That day, I snuck in when there were no staff at the entrance. I thought you had sneaked in, too, so I struck up a conversation with you. But when you turned around, you gave me quite a fright!”
Shen Kui was taken aback. “If it wasn’t you, then who did I see?”
The two fell into an uneasy silence, both clearly considering some unsettling possibilities.
Ji Xun stumbled over his words. “Y-you mean there was a third person in the museum that day?”
“Hold on, let me think this through.”
Shen Kui carefully recalled the details of that day. “After I parted ways with the staff, I entered the exhibition hall alone. I spent a long time there and was absolutely certain I was the only one present at the time.”
“Do you remember the layout of the hall? There were rows of square display cases in the main area. I checked every single one and confirmed there was nothing extra around.”
As she recalled the scene, a chill crept up Shen Kui’s spine. “But just as I was about to enter the side room, I noticed an irregular shadow on the floor near one of the display cases I had passed earlier.”
“I don’t know if you can understand what I mean, but logically, there shouldn’t have been a shadow like that in that spot…”
“At the time, I sensed something was off, but I didn’t fully process it. Then you showed up right after.”
“When I later remembered this detail, I naturally assumed it was you hiding behind the display case.”
Shen Kui’s expression grew grave. “But if it wasn’t you, then who was behind that display case?”
“Or perhaps… what was it?”
Ji Xun swallowed hard. “Y-you mean that thing just appeared out of thin air?”
“Not exactly out of thin air, but I had passed that spot just a minute earlier, and there was nothing there at all.”
“And then you saw a shadow there…”
“Exactly.”
“C-could something have fallen from the ceiling?”
“Impossible. If something that big fell, wouldn’t I have heard it?”
“What if it was something very light?”
“I’m not so oblivious that I’d miss something slowly drifting down.”
Ji Xun gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and blurted out, “Then it must be a ghost!”
“…Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
Shen Kui pulled out her phone. “Places like this have surveillance cameras. We can just ask and find out.”
She dialed the staff’s number and quickly fabricated a reason. “Yes, it’s a ring. I think I might have left it on one of the display cases. Could you please check?”
Before long, the staff member replied that they hadn’t found it. Shen Kui pretended to be distressed. “That ring was left to me by my mother. You know, I came to the exhibition that day hoping to find something of hers. You mentioned before that among the items stolen from your exhibition hall was a leather jacket that belonged to her. Now the ring is missing, too…”
She paused for a moment, waiting for the other person’s reaction. Sure enough, the staff member’s sympathy was instantly stirred. “Don’t worry. We haven’t opened the exhibition hall these past few days. If you really left it there, it should still be there. Why don’t you come over now? I can check the surveillance footage for you. It just so happens that the supervisor isn’t here today. I’m on duty alone, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Then I’ll trouble you with this.” Shen Kui hung up the phone, satisfied to receive Ji Xun’s admiring look.
*** ***
The staff member dragged the progress bar to the point where Shen Kui entered that day, clicked to start playback, and motioned for her to come forward. “This is the surveillance footage from that day. Take a look.”
Shen Kui thanked them again and sat down in front of the display screen.
The dozen or so split screens before her showed her entering the exhibition hall that day from multiple angles, capturing the entire exhibition space without a single blind spot.
Recalling the general direction from which the shadow had appeared, she pulled up the surveillance footage from the corresponding angle and directly dragged it to the segment where she was about to enter the partitioned area.
In the footage, Shen Kui slowly walked around the exhibition hall, then, seemingly finding the overhead light a bit harsh, returned to the switch by the entrance and turned off two of the ceiling lights.
However, the moment the lighting dimmed, the screen clearly showed a sudden, dark shadow emerging from behind the display stand diagonally behind her.
What was most chilling was that the shadow kept changing, continuously merging and separating. The moment Shen Kui stepped into the partitioned area, it actually formed a human face!
It was… Tian Ke’s face!
The staff member gasped and took a step back in fright. “What’s going on? A system malfunction?”
The shadow flashed and vanished, and the footage returned to normal. But Shen Kui couldn’t calm down for a long time.
Boundless fear seized her mind. She almost frantically turned to meet Ji Xun’s gaze and saw the same terror reflected in his eyes.
With trembling hands, Shen Kui dragged the video progress bar back and forth, watching it at slow and fast speeds over a dozen times. By the end, even the staff member couldn’t help but remind her, “Um, weren’t you looking for a ring? I’ll have someone check the malfunction issue later.”
Shen Kui struggled to suppress the surging emotions inside her. She pretended to ask casually, “Sorry, I was just really startled earlier, so I’m a bit curious. Does your surveillance often have issues like this?”
The staff member, still shaken, said, “Not really. This is the first time I’ve seen something like this. But it was really scary. I almost thought it was a ghost for a moment.”
Shen Kui nodded thoughtfully. Then, she pretended to casually glance through the rest of the footage but found nothing unusual.
She found an excuse to inquire about the list of personal effects. The staff member generously offered to help look it up, but said it would take some time. After that, she dragged the utterly terrified Ji Xun out of the museum.
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Meow meow On TPH Chapter 26.1