Chapter 67
Let's go back three hours.
Yuan Chuyu would occasionally go to the 17th floor of Dingpu Community to buy some small items, especially if he needed to go to Yingshan Lake, it was convenient.
He realized he had forgotten some documents in room 1702, so he made a special trip to Dingpu Community after get off work tonight.
Just as he stood in front of his house, ready to open the door, his neighbor from apartment 1701 heard the noise and opened the door. Upon seeing Yuan Chuyu, the neighbor gave him a friendly smile and asked, "Excuse me, are you Lin Xiangshuo from the Lin family of Yingshan Lake Pearl?"
Yuan Chuyu paused, the black plush kitten hanging on his keychain swaying gently in the air, but he didn't answer immediately.
The neighbors were a young family of three. The woman thanked them, saying, "When I picked my child up from school today, I saw a gift box at the door with 'Lin's Pearls' written on it. When I opened it, I saw such beautiful pearl necklaces and bracelets... Thank you so much!"
After she finished speaking, a cute little girl's face appeared behind the hostess. She had a large pearl bracelet on her chubby little arms, the same style that Lin Langyi had shown in her previous live streams.
Yuan Chuyu nodded and smiled at the little girl, realizing that the bracelet was not the latest model, nor was it one of the main products currently being promoted in the live stream, which was filled with a dazzling array of new items.
The woman patted her daughter's head and urged, "Quickly, say thank you to your brother."
The little girl was a bit timid, hiding behind her mother's legs and only daring to show half of her face. She said in a childish voice, "Thank you, brother."
Yuan Chuyu's lips remained slightly curved in a smile as he politely asked, "How did you know it was me?"
The woman picked up her daughter and said, "There was a greeting card inside that said thank you to the neighbors. There are only four households on this floor. I know that number 4 is a physics teacher. I didn't know who the other two households were at first. I was baking cookies for my daughter and took the cookies to knock on the doors of each household on this floor. That's when I found out that they had been receiving them over the past few days."
"Then you weren't home, and your neighbor said you don't usually come to stay. After thinking about it, it must be you."
Yuan Chuyu's key was still in the lock. He completely withdrew his hand, took a few steps closer to his neighbor, and said with his smile undiminished, "To be honest, this was packaged by the company. I'm usually busy and didn't know if the items would suit your taste. If I had known the child would like them so much, I should have asked them to put some smaller bracelets in."
The hostess quickly declined, saying "No need, no need," but Yuan Chuyu politely inquired, "Our packaging has been criticized for not being exquisite enough, and we'd like to improve it. This isn't my area of ​​responsibility, and I heard it's a new packaging version, which I haven't seen. If it's convenient, could I take a look?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the little girl immediately twisted her body, trying to break free from her mother's embrace.
The hostess put her down, and she immediately ran into the house, and a little while later she came out carrying the box and jewelry together.
Yuan Chuyu squatted down in front of the child and said with a smile, "How about I bring you a few prettier and more suitable ones tomorrow?"
The little girl nodded shyly and then hid behind her mother again.
Yuan Chuyu then withdrew his gaze, his smile fading slightly, and lowered his eyes to examine the object with a critical and strict look.
I placed the order through the live-streaming online store, and the gift box was included in the purchase. I think it was marked as a "gift," so the greeting card was from the company and the header was Lin's Pearls.
The message on the greeting card was very brief:
I just moved here, and as the saying goes, a close neighbor is worse than a distant relative. I am honored to be neighbors with you all, and I would like to express my gratitude with a small gift.
The signature is Lin Xiangshuo.
The lettering is also printed on, and it looks like someone bought it online, removed the outermost courier box, wrapped each item in a gift box, and placed it at their doorstep.
Yuan Chuyu shook his head, held up his phone horizontally and took a few photos, then sighed, "There's still a gap in packaging. I'll hold another meeting with everyone when I get back to the company tomorrow."
The woman quickly replied, "But the pearls are of such high quality! We were absolutely thrilled to receive them!"
"I'm glad you like it!" Yuan Chuyu put the box away, stood up and returned it to her, but the enthusiastic neighbor insisted on stuffing several large bags of freshly baked cookies into his hands.
It seems the neighbors had already shared the news. Not long after Yuan Chuyu returned to his house, the other two households came to express their gratitude. Both said they wanted to thank him as soon as they received the gifts, but Yuan Chuyu had been away from home for the past two days, so they had to give up.
So... Yuan Chuyu keenly sensed the implication: these gifts were not delivered on the same day, but rather at different times.
He sat on the sofa, flipping through the photos of the gifts he had just taken on his phone, knowing that they could not possibly be Lin Langyi's doing.
In any case, she would never do anything that could reveal her connection to the 17th-floor home.
As for Lin Xiangshuo, he has been busy raising funds for those two companies in G City during this period, so he would not have the time or inclination to send these small gifts to his sister's neighbors.
Besides, the whole family knows the house number and building number of the new house, how could they possibly make a mistake?
Or rather, how could anyone possibly guess right?
There are four households on the first floor, but only this place didn't have any gifts. The person who gave the gifts clearly knew that this was Lin Langyi's home.
Yuan Chuyu pondered for a long time, still holding his phone in his hand without moving. After thinking for a while, he made a call to the property management.
After the call connected, he half-closed his eyes, his long, slender fingers slowly stroking the fluffy kitten's tail from head to tail, but his speech was slightly hurried, enough for the person on the other end to sense the urgency. He asked:
"Hello, I lost a rather valuable package a couple of days ago. The deliveryman said he confirmed it was delivered to my door, but I still haven't received it. Since it involves compensation, could you please check the surveillance footage?"
The property management of the upscale residential community was quite responsible. They first asked for some basic information and then said they could go to the first floor of the new sales office to retrieve the surveillance footage.
Yuan Chuyu took the property certificate that Lin Langyi had left in the house, and went out wearing a black mask and a black baseball cap.
He first went to a tobacco and liquor store outside the community to buy a few cartons of cigarettes, and then bought a fruit card at a specialty fruit store before leisurely returning to the community's monitoring center to check the surveillance footage.
After completing the registration process and checking the property certificate, Yuan Chuyu stated that he had been out for the past few days, and besides, the package was sent by a friend, so he didn't know when it was delivered or when it was lost.
Therefore, the time frame for retrieving the surveillance footage was roughly the last three days. Yuan Chuyu stood behind the duty officer's chair with his hands in his pockets, exuding a commanding presence.
Upon entering, he first placed the cigarettes and fruit cards on the table, then pushed them forward with two fingers together, a gesture that carried a profound meaning.
Once the staff in the monitoring room were clearly intrigued, he frowned and slowly explained the value of the package.
The duty officers immediately waved their hands, indicating that they would definitely investigate the matter thoroughly.
There are two surveillance cameras on the 17th floor, one at the front and one at the back of the floor, with the camera angles facing the corridor.
Even with double-speed playback, three days of monitoring would still take some time. Yuan Chuyu waited for a while and then considerately suggested that he could sit in front of the computer and watch it himself, while the other staff on duty could go about their business.
After a few rounds of refusals, mainly because they felt obligated to help since they had received a gift, they were eventually persuaded by Yuan Chuyu to leave the chair to him.
Yuan Chuyu pulled his seat back a bit, crossed his legs, leaned back against the chair, and looked at the screen with an air of nonchalance, as if he were participating in a video conference.
His method of checking the surveillance footage was very efficient. He kept going back until the neighbors returned home, then back again after discovering the pearl gift box, until he pinpointed the exact time of delivery.
With a click, he lightly clicked the mouse, pausing the video on a screen showing a man wearing a hat and baggy long-sleeved shirt and trousers, also dressed in the sweltering summer heat.
From the moment he appeared in the elevator to the moment he placed the gift box in front of the door, the man even glanced around at the surrounding entrances, seemingly trying to ascertain the homeowner's information.
Unfortunately, the residents on the 17th floor were very considerate and did not block the passageway, so there was nothing placed next to their doors that could be used to gather information.
Yuan Chuyu leaned forward, his left hand loosely clenched into a fist and resting on his chin, while his other hand lightly clicked the mouse to slow down the speed, and then leaned back.
He tilted his head back slightly, propped his chin up with the back of his hand, and watched the video repeatedly, but he still couldn't see the man's face in the video.
The staff member on duty emphasized with a hint of apology that the video could not be copied, but there was another way.
So Yuan Chuyu copied the video using his phone.
Using the same method, the remaining three videos were all sent by the same man, over two and a half days.
Interestingly, the time the man appears in the video is always very specific. It's either around 5 pm, when office workers are going home after work, or around 7 am, just a little while later, when ordinary people are leaving for work or school.
Yuan Chuyu also discovered that the man took the elevator to the 17th floor, but left via the stairs after delivering the items.
Most intriguingly, one day, that gift box was also placed in front of 1702's door.
At that moment, Yuan Chuyu realized what this man was doing.
He didn't know which apartment Lin Langyi lived in, but he knew she was on the 17th floor, so he used this method to probe apartment by apartment.
The gift placed in room 1702 remained unclaimed, which was to be expected, as Yuan Chuyu and Lin Langyi had not visited the house in the past few days.
What's chilling is that the man who went up the stairs to deliver the gift was around 5 p.m., and he came out of the stairwell again around 10:30 p.m., and then took the gift box from the door of 1702.
Yuan Chuyu suddenly realized that this man might have been staying in the stairwell, quietly waiting and secretly observing when the gift would be taken away by its owner upon returning home.
I waited from 5 o'clock to 10:30, which means I knew that Lin Langyi usually got home at the latest by 10:30.
Yuan Chuyu recorded all of these videos, thanked the duty officer, and went back.
He did not return to his home on the 17th floor. Since Lin Langyi was being watched, there was probably a pair of eyes watching this place all the time, so it was inappropriate for him to appear in 1702.
It's not appropriate to call the police directly; it's best not to make a big fuss about this.
Yuan Chuyu returned home and projected the video onto a large screen on the wall. He then sat cross-legged on the carpet, opened a can of beer, and slowly sipped it while watching the video repeatedly.
On the sixth time, he suddenly picked up the remote control on his lap and pressed the pause button.
He still had two fingers loosely pressed against the aluminum edge of the beer can, and he squinted slightly to observe it carefully for a while.
Although the man in the video was wearing loose clothes that obscured his figure, his legs appeared thin and frail inside his trousers as he walked, as if he were swaying unsteadily inside his clothes.
He deliberately tucked his hands into his long sleeves as he walked. Only when he was collecting the gift from 1702 did he bend down to wipe the box with his sleeve, then hugged the gift box to his chest, looking extremely precious.
That movement revealed a section of his thin, bony wrist.
Extremely white, deathly white.
Yuan Chuyu wasn't sure if the cold, pale color, resembling that of a place that never sees the sun, was due to color differences in the monitoring equipment, but suddenly a person's image popped into his mind.
The more I look at it, the more it resembles it.
So, the first time gifts were sent was on the day Bian Shu returned.
To be precise, it should be after Bian posted that Weibo about their reunion at Yingshan Lake.
It seems he's suffered quite a bit of trauma...
The original Chu Yu search box still contained Chi Shu's garbled alternate account. Clicking on it revealed that the Weibo post about their reunion had not been plagiarized.
How strange, they're no longer comparing one-to-one?
But the next day, Chi Shu posted a photo of a small model of the Taj Mahal made of pearls, which was poorly made, or rather, far below standard.
The flawless white pearl was speckled with dark red bloodstains, which were roughly wiped away by fingers, leaving large scabs on the pearl.
Yuan Chuyu finished the last few sips of beer, squeezed the can slightly with his fingers to flatten it, and then got up to turn on his computer.
Thanks to this person, he hasn't been able to go to 1702 for a while.
The cold white light from the computer screen illuminated Yuan Chuyu's expressionless face. He didn't even furrow his brow, but the aloofness that made him unwelcome to the general public proclaimed his extremely terrible mood at that moment.
With an indifferent expression, he methodically took screenshots of all the content from Chi Shu's alternate account, categorized them into a document, and even thoughtfully made the edited photo of the two people under the ginkgo tree the cover, covering the entire homepage.
It's like a newlywed's photo at the entrance of a wedding banquet; any passerby would be drawn to take a look.
After seeing this group photo, how could Bian Shu not open the document and take a closer look?
Afterwards, Yuan Chuyu registered a new email address and sent the gift package to Bian Shu's email address.
The email address was forwarded to him by Lin Langyi. In the professor's reply, there was not only an explanation of the questions about the paper, but also Bian Shu's email address.
About an hour later, Yuan Chuyu received a message from Bian Shuhui, who asked him directly who he was.
Yuan Chuyu glanced at it, exited, deleted it, and did not reply again.
He sent Lin Langyi only one message, carefully considering the wording.
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