Chapter 573: Tampered Surveillance
After collecting fingerprints from all the teachers, the group left the school. Wei Zengmarie kept chatting with Chen Shi, “Uncle, Yueyue is such a good student. Do you give her extra tutoring?”
“It’s mainly because she eats well. I cook all her meals and never repeat a dish.”
“Wow, you cook? That’s impressive!”
“Showing off again!” Lin Dongxue laughed. “Chen, I need to talk to you.”
Chen Shi turned to Tao Yueyue and said, “Why don’t you and Marie get some ice cream?”
Tao Yueyue understood and pulled Wei Zengmarie along. Lin Dongxue asked, “Do you suspect any of the teachers?”
“Not yet.”
“Actually, you do, but you don’t want to mislead me.”
“Haha, you know me well.”
“But everyone now believes that Teacher Lin disappeared on October 1st. Her father mentioned that day he asked Lin Xiaoxiao to come home for dinner. She entered their community, handed him a box, said she had something to do, and left.”
“What was in the box?”
“A foot massager she bought for her parents.”
“And the time?”
“Around 4 p.m. So, her father was the last to see her.”
“That makes three witnesses who saw her alive on October 1st.”
“Exactly!”
Chen Shi felt something was off. All the testimonies were from eyewitnesses. If Teacher Lin was planning to leave town, wouldn’t it make more sense to leave on September 30th?
She went to school on October 1st without doing much, seemingly just to be “seen.” Even more unusual, she left a message on her phone, which could easily have been written on a piece of paper instead.
Suspicious!
The testimonies from October 1st were all questionable.
Chen Shi said, “I want to check the surveillance footage from the school and her neighborhood to verify these testimonies.”
“But you promised to spend tonight with Yueyue.”
Chen Shi looked helpless. Just then, Tao Yueyue and Wei Zengmarie returned with three chocolate ice creams. Tao Yueyue handed one to Lin Dongxue, who thanked her.
“Yueyue, I have to work late tonight,” Chen Shi said.
Tao Yueyue remained calm, “Oh, then I’ll go to Marie’s house to do homework.”
Wei Zengmarie was delighted, “Stay for dinner too. You can help me with my homework.”
“Marie, thank you… Yueyue, do you need any money? I can transfer some to you.”
“Uncle Chen!” Tao Yueyue reminded him.
“Oh, right!” Chen Shi smiled, remembering his promise. He hugged Tao Yueyue and patted her head. “I’ll pick you up tonight.”
“Don’t come back too late.”
Lin Dongxue also hugged Tao Yueyue, and the two girls walked off together. Chen Shi and Lin Dongxue then drove away.
They obtained the surveillance footage from Teacher Lin’s father’s community and returned to the station. Many of the team members were working late, reviewing surveillance footage. Xu Xiaodong was eating instant noodles in front of a computer when Chen Shi patted his shoulder from behind, “Any findings?”
“Although there’s no footage from October 1st, Teacher Lin did leave the school normally on the evening of September 30th.”
“Let me see.”
Xu Xiaodong rewound the footage to show Teacher Lin walking out with a female colleague around 6 p.m. Everything looked natural.
Chen Shi found a computer and played the footage from the community. Suddenly, an object flew into the frame, causing the camera to shake and point away from the entrance, showing only trees afterward.
“What’s this?” Lin Dongxue asked.
“I’ll rewind it.”
Chen Shi rewound the footage and paused it frame by frame. At one point, the object came into view with some geometric patterns on it. Lin Dongxue guessed, “Is that a soccer ball?”
“Looks like it. What a coincidence. Some kid must have kicked the camera off-angle. The key footage wasn’t captured.”
“I bet the camera is still misaligned, and the security didn’t notice.”
Chen Shi pondered for a while, then said, “Let’s check the school’s footage from September 30th.”
Chen Shi played the footage while Lin Dongxue watched closely, “What are you looking for? Why this footage? We also have footage from October 1st near the school.”
“I’ll explain later.”
Chen Shi had a hunch that someone tampered with the timeline. He paused the footage showing Teacher Lin walking out with her colleague. Then he rewound it further, showing students leaving the school, the scene chaotic and blurry.
Lin Dongxue didn’t know what he was looking for and went to pour him some water. Suddenly, Chen Shi grabbed her hand, “Here!”
“What is it?”
Chen Shi zoomed in on a little girl, “That’s Tao Yueyue.”
Lin Dongxue laughed, “You’re looking at her.”
“Tao Yueyue was wearing jeans, but on September 29th, those jeans got splashed with mud by a car. I washed them myself. She should’ve been wearing a plaid skirt on September 30th.”
“Could it be…”
“Someone overlaid the September 29th footage onto the September 30th footage.”
“But the timestamp says September 30th.”
Chen Shi pointed to the corner, “The ‘1’ is slightly blurred, tampered with. Someone edited the footage, overlaid a layer on it, exported it, and renamed it as September 30th.”
“I’ll find the September 29th footage!”
Lin Dongxue retrieved the footage, and they played both side by side, discovering they were identical except for the date.
“Everyone, major discovery!” Lin Dongxue clapped her hands.
The team gathered around, surprised by the finding. One officer admitted, “I reviewed both videos but didn’t realize they were the same.”
“The school entrance footage looks the same every day. It’s not your fault,” Chen Shi said.
“But why switch the September 30th footage? Isn’t the disappearance on October 1st?”
“This suggests something happened on September 30th. Maybe that’s when Teacher Lin truly disappeared.”
“But three people saw her on October 1st. Even if the janitor and Mr. Liu lied, her father wouldn’t,” Xu Xiaodong argued.
Chen Shi fell silent. How was this possible?
He was convinced this wasn’t an ordinary case. The perpetrator had somehow shifted the timeline by a day, indicating an unexpected event that couldn’t be changed, so they tampered with the timeline.
After a long silence, Chen Shi asked, “Who stole the Chunghwa cigarettes?”