BXBX NOVEL Chapter 685 - 688: Eerie
Chapter 685: Chapter 688: Eerie
"Yes, sir!"
Yang Chen didn't have to wait long before he saw Fannie arriving at the entrance of the Yulei building. She was a petite white girl from the twelve-member Sea Eagle team.
Fannie, wearing a pair of light pink-framed sunglasses and carrying a large leather bag full of investigation tools, nodded slightly in respect when she saw Yang Chen. She seemed a bit nervous and asked quietly, "Lord Hades, before investigating the scene, can you tell me about the company's surveillance specifics?"
As they took the elevator upstairs, Yang Chen explained, "Ministerial offices have no surveillance equipment. The large office area has full-angle surveillance. The security room is manned 24/7. If someone sneaked into the office to steal data, it would have been caught on camera. But because the safe isn't opened daily and the stolen data was only made public today, anyone who entered the office in recent days is a suspect."
Fannie listened obediently, nodding occasionally.
Once they exited the elevator and entered the PR department, Yang Chen couldn't help but smile, "Fannie, why do you seem so nervous? Am I that scary?"
Fannie shook her head vigorously and smiled awkwardly, "No, Lord Hades, it's just my first time alone with you. I'm a bit nervous, afraid of not doing well."
Yang Chen patted her shoulder, "You only need to confirm one thing for me: whether the safe's password could have been cracked or tampered with. I'll handle the rest."
"Understood, I know what to do."
As they spoke, they arrived at Liu Mingyu's office. The PR department was already in disarray. The deputy minister, a senior female PR officer, who temporarily replaced Liu Mingyu, quickly unlocked the door for Yang Chen.
A group of curious female PR officers peeked at Yang Chen and Fannie, their faces full of questions. They couldn't imagine that this petite foreign woman was an expert in evidence collection and code breaking.
With the entire company busy, no one paid much attention to what Yang Chen and Fannie were doing. After closing the door, Yang Chen let Fannie start her work.
Fannie took out a thin silver laptop from her large bag, along with a bunch of cables and devices. She sat down on the floor beside the large safe and began analyzing it.
Despite his vast knowledge, Yang Chen didn't truly understand everything, having memorized much of it in a rote manner. Thus, he could only stare blankly at the complex numbers and English codes displayed on Fannie's screen.
Seeing that Fannie's analysis would take some time, Yang Chen decided not to wait around. He went down to the security department and had the guards pull up the surveillance footage of the PR department for the past two weeks.
Yang Chen needed to confirm who had entered Liu Mingyu's office in recent days.
After over an hour of fast-forwarding through the footage, Yang Chen found that besides some major clients and internal employees, Li Minghe had entered the office four times!
What struck Yang Chen as odd was that two days ago, in the afternoon, Li Minghe entered Liu Mingyu's office when she was clearly not there. Liu Mingyu returned to the office about five minutes later. After another ten minutes, Li Minghe left the office.
However, Yang Chen noticed something strange. With so much data, how did Li Minghe take anything out without a bag or wearing bulky clothes?
Pondering this, Yang Chen checked the time and returned to Liu Mingyu's office.
Upon entering, he found Fannie just finishing up. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and smiled at Yang Chen, "Sorry to keep you waiting, Lord Hades. The complexity of this lock is comparable to some international bank safes. It's hard to believe this is used in a company."
Yang Chen raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean?"
Fannie, excited in her field of expertise, explained, "This lock is a multi-dial freely changing lock produced by the renowned European company, Casa. The user sets the password using a combination of dials, each with 100 possible positions, ranging from zero to ninety-nine.
This standard safe uses four dials, which means there are 100 to the fourth power, or one hundred million possible combinations.
To crack such a lock, the fastest method is to connect a computer to a device that can reverse-engineer the lock's movements. By turning the dial counterclockwise and recording the less movable positions, you can deduce the combination."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Yang Chen interrupted, smiling wryly, "I know you're very professional, but I just want to know how long it would take an expert to crack this lock."
Fannie, a bit regretful to stop her explanation, thought for a moment and said, "If it's the world's top lock-picking expert, it might take about an hour. But such experts are extremely rare, no more than five in the world. In reality, even an entire day might not be enough for an average lock-picker to crack this lock."
Yang Chen squinted, "So, it's almost impossible for anyone to crack this lock without knowing the password."
"Yes, Lord Hades," Fannie confirmed, standing up.
Confirming this, Yang Chen began to carefully inspect the office, not missing a single detail or corner.
Seeing Yang Chen's actions, Fannie asked, "Lord Hades, are you looking for traces of a miniature surveillance device?"
"That's right. If the password must be used to open the safe, then the only way to see it is by installing surveillance equipment to secretly observe the process," Yang Chen replied.
Fannie smiled wryly, "I'm sorry to say, but while my computer was analyzing the password, I also checked this office. If I'm not mistaken, there's no sign of any surveillance equipment here."
"What?!" Yang Chen was genuinely taken aback. He had been confident that there would be some sort of surveillance equipment here, similar to how Old Tang had surveillance around him. But things were not as he had expected.
Yang Chen trusted Fannie's expertise—if the Sea Eagle team sent her, she must be highly skilled. If Fannie said there wasn't any surveillance equipment, then there wasn't.
Yang Chen furrowed his brows. This was bad news; without any clues, there was no way to find evidence to help Liu Mingyu.
"I'm sorry, sir. It seems I haven't been able to help much," Fannie said, bowing her head in shame.
Yang Chen smiled reassuringly, "It's okay, you've done your best. I'll go check on other things now. Go back and tell Mo Lin to speed things up."
Fannie immediately agreed and left with her tools.
Yang Chen was contemplating his next move when his phone vibrated. He looked at the screen and saw that it was Liu Qingshan calling!
Yang Chen's face grew tense. This call obviously meant Liu Qingshan knew his precious daughter had been taken to the police station. Feeling embarrassed, Yang Chen reluctantly answered, "I know you're angry, Uncle, but I—"
"Save your excuses! I don't want to hear them! I entrusted my daughter to you, not to let her be bullied by Lin Ruoxi! Yang Chen, if you're a man, get my daughter out of the police station right now! If you can't do that, stop shamelessly involving so many women in your life," Liu Qingshan yelled furiously, clearly distressed by his daughter's arrest.
Yang Chen felt a mix of emotions and frustration. He was no longer the reckless young man who could solve everything by killing someone without a second thought. He had to explain, "Getting Mingyu out of the police station is not difficult. The key is whether it will clear her name and compensate for her grievances. The more chaotic things get, the more we fall into the criminal's trap. Uncle, if you want Mingyu to remain wronged, I could blow up the police station and bring her out, but would that help?"
Liu Qingshan, still angry, managed to restrain himself somewhat after hearing Yang Chen's calm reasoning. He said, "I'll give you one more day. If you can't clear Mingyu's name, I'll go there myself with my men!"
Yang Chen, equally irritated, responded, "Don't worry, I won't let Mingyu stay there for long. If things really go south, I'll tear down the police station myself."
"Hope you keep your word—" Before Liu Qingshan could finish, Yang Chen hung up. He had no time for arguments. Scratching his head, Yang Chen began to rack his brain, wondering what detail he had missed. Why did everything seem so strange? All signs pointed to Li Minghe being the problem, but how had he done it? What evidence could be found?
Suddenly, a spark of realization hit Yang Chen. He quickly picked up the phone and dialed Lin Ruoxi's number.
Although they had just argued, Lin Ruoxi still answered, her tone cold, "Have you found anything?"
Without wasting any words, Yang Chen asked, "I need to know, when were the stolen documents originally completed and finally finished? Also, how many copies of the documents are there?"