Chapter 99: Breaking the Deadlock

No matter how this matter ended in the future, Lü Yang would not let the two of them go. However, for now, he still needed their help, so Lü Yang had to suppress the anger in his heart.

“I know how you feel now, but this is the result I found. If you don’t believe me, I can take you to the mobile company’s server room to consult with their technicians,” Zhou Ling said, her voice filled with a hint of helplessness.

“Where was Yi Ya’s mobile phone this morning when I called her?” Lü Yang asked Zhou Ling again.

“When we tried to check the location of her mobile phone today, the system kept showing an error. We tried many times, but the result was the same. The technicians are still checking the equipment, trying to find out the cause of the system error,” Zhou Ling frowned, looking as if the system error was puzzling her as well.

“If Yi Ya was really taken by the Death Killer, it’s all your fault! If you hadn’t come to find me last night, he wouldn’t have targeted Yi Ya!” Lü Yang glared angrily at Zhou Ling. Cooperation was possible, but they had to know their responsibility.

“If we had known it would turn out this way, we wouldn’t have come to find you last night,” Zhou Ling said apologetically to Lü Yang.

“Nonsense! Director Liu’s girlfriend died at the hands of the Death Killer. How could you not know he was targeting you!?” Lü Yang nearly lost his temper.

“I’m sorry. Director Liu only wanted to catch the Death Killer and avenge his fiancée…” Of course, Zhou Ling could guess that Yi Ya was likely captured by the Death Killer. The reason why the killer targeted Lü Yang and kidnapped Yi Ya was clear to everyone without saying.

Lü Yang remained silent, his gaze filled with anger and a desire to kill as he looked at Zhou Ling.

“Well… Xiao Bei, Director Liu’s girlfriend, was attacked after Director Liu started investigating this case. When we went to find you last night, we repeatedly checked that no one was following us, but we didn’t expect to bring trouble to you,” Zhou Ling avoided Lü Yang’s gaze, not daring to look directly at him.

“Damn it! If he followed you, could you even notice? You idiots! If anything happens to Yi Ya, I will make you, Liu Yin, and the whole damn State Security Bureau pay with your lives!” Lü Yang’s fist slammed loudly onto the table.

“The Death Killer always targets beautiful girls who are in love. We have some information. Before killing his victims, the Death Killer usually contacts the victim’s boyfriend. If you want to save your girlfriend, you can talk to Director Liu. He will share his previous experiences, which might help rescue Yi Ya,” Zhou Ling knew Lü Yang was blaming them. Although he insulted her face to face, she didn’t seem very angry and spoke to Lü Yang calmly.

“Arrange it then.”

Although Lü Yang was very angry, he had no other choice for now, before receiving a call from the Death Killer. He could only cooperate with the State Security Bureau to find more useful clues.

After contacting Liu Yin, Zhou Ling told Lü Yang that Director Liu had some important matters to handle in the morning but agreed to have lunch with Lü Yang. He would book a private room for a one-on-one conversation.

Zhou Ling took a few more phone calls and then drove Lü Yang to the police station near Jing’an Residential Area. The police had obtained all the surveillance footage from Jing’an Residential Area and the surrounding areas from yesterday until today. It had to be said that Zhou Ling was much more professional in investigation than Lü Yang. As a migrant worker, Lü Yang only now realized that his old residential area had so many cameras!

The footage clearly showed that around 9:40 p.m. last night, Lü Yang saw Yi Ya off. At 9:50 p.m., Lü Yang returned to his rented room. At exactly 10:00 p.m., Liu Yin and Zhou Ling’s car stopped below Lü Yang’s apartment building, and the two entered the building. At 10:07 p.m., Yi Ya walked out of the apartment building where she and Lin Yin rented a room. At 10:10 p.m., she entered the apartment building where Lü Yang’s rented room was located.

This timing perfectly matched when Lü Yang heard the knocking at his rented room! Lü Yang was not mistaken; the person knocking was indeed Yi Ya, not some bored child from upstairs. However, when Zhou Ling opened the door, she didn’t see Yi Ya outside. From this, it could be inferred that Yi Ya was likely kidnapped in the very short time between her knocking and Zhou Ling opening the door.

At 10:53 p.m., Liu Yin and Zhou Ling left Lü Yang’s apartment building empty-handed and drove away. They didn’t take anyone with them. During that time, no one left the building, and only two people entered. Lü Yang recognized them at once as long-term residents of the residential area.

After Yi Ya entered the apartment building where Lü Yang’s rented room was located at 10:10 p.m., the footage was checked until after 12:00 a.m., but she was not seen leaving the building. During that time, no suspicious individuals were spotted nearby.

Footage from other time periods was still being analyzed. Hundreds of cameras inside and outside the residential area were under investigation. Because the amount of data was too large, it was difficult to give accurate results quickly.

Zhou Ling called the city bureau and requested more personnel to help review the footage, hoping to find clues about Yi Ya’s possible whereabouts and any traces left by the Death Killer.

However… if this was really the work of the Death Killer, Lü Yang knew he couldn’t fully trust the footage. For a Senior Eerie Practitioner with mysterious domain items, altering such footage should be easy… or maybe it didn’t even need to be altered…

For example, an Invisibility Card would be enough for the Death Killer to sneak into Lü Yang’s rented room unnoticed, steal his mobile phone to trick Yi Ya into coming out, and even kidnap Yi Ya at the door of the rented room.

But this possibility was small. Putting himself in the killer’s shoes, if the Death Killer really wanted to kidnap Yi Ya, he could just sneak invisibly into the rented room where Yi Ya and Lin Yin lived. There was no need for such a complicated plan. If he did this, it was most likely a spur-of-the-moment decision.

The fact that the Death Killer chose to kidnap Yi Yang only after she knocked on the door also puzzled Lü Yang. The best time to kidnap Yi Ya should have been after she entered the apartment building but before she reached Lü Yang’s rented room. That would have allowed him to take her calmly.

Kidnapping Yi Ya from Lü Yang’s door involved the risk of being discovered.

This either meant there was another hidden reason, or the Death Killer was extremely confident in his abilities and intentionally left these clues to create confusion and disturb Lü Yang’s thoughts.

Before the truth was clear, no one could be trusted. What the eyes saw and the ears heard might not be real. All previous deductions could be wrong, deliberately set by the enemy to mislead him.

The trap was set, and Lü Yang had to break the deadlock quickly. Time was running out. The price of failure could be Yi Ya’s life.

Lü Yang, stay calm! You have no one to rely on! You must use your own strength and wisdom to defeat the Death Killer and rescue Yi Ya!

While searching for and analyzing various suspicious clues, Lü Yang also kept checking the various Eerie Cards in the mysterious domain. He hoped to find some cards that might be useful. Although these Eerie Points were meant to save Yi Yi in the future, if Yi Ya really fell into the hands of the Death Killer, Lü Yang had to do everything possible to rescue Yi Ya first, even if it meant using up all his Eerie Points. Otherwise, even if he found Yi Yi, he wouldn’t be able to explain it to her.