Chapter 1521: Clues
It was a typical simple residential building that had been renovated during the Monster War.
In order to fit as many people as possible into the building, each unit was divided into very small units, but the walls were extremely thick.
Many of the outer walls had interlayers, and steel plates could be put down at any time to block the windows.
As a result, the room had poor lighting and ventilation. It was more of a bunker than a residence.
Meng Chao only took a few steps before he had a clear view of the entire room.
The room was very clean. Aside from a military bed and a folding table that could be used for both work and meals, there were almost no additional furnishings.
The kitchen was covered in a thick layer of mud. It would have taken more than ten years to acc.u.mulate, but there were no signs of a recent fire.
There were only three to five stacks of newspapers piled up in the corner, and there were newspaper clippings that were being produced on the table. That meant Tailless Monkey had once lived there.
Meng Chao flipped through the half-cut newspaper on the table.
He found that the latest issue was yesterday’s evening newspaper, which should have been published yesterday afternoon.
Although Dragon City’s information technology was advanced, due to the strong spirit and magnetic interference from the Other World, the monsters often gnawed on the cables and Internet wires.
It was definitely not possible to rely solely on the Internet to transmit information.
During the Monster War, to allow the soldiers and citizens at the forefront to receive each other’s messages when the spirit and magnetic interference were the strongest and the monster attacks were the craziest, alot of newspapers appeared in Dragon City.
They printed newspapers and leaflets twenty-four hours a day.
Many citizens of Dragon City had the habit of reading physical newspapers.
Even though they had won the war, this habit never changed.
It was a very common practice for a broker like the tailless monkey to use newspaper clippings to gather information and a.n.a.lyze intelligence.
Meng Chao asked Ai Lei and confirmed that the tailless monkey indeed had the habit of newspaper clippings.
If the newspaper clippings were not deliberately forged, the tailless monkey would still be here until last night.
“Last night, there was no big explosion in the Red Creek Creek project.
“This morning, Gao Chuang’s men came here and found that the tailless monkey had disappeared.
“Who could have reacted so quickly and accurately locked onto and captured the tailless monkey almost at the same time as the explosion at the Red Creek Project?”
Meng Chao continued his search.
Soon, he made an unexpected discovery.
When he opened the greasy cupboard door in the kitchen, he found a secret pa.s.sage at the back.
To be more precise, it was a part.i.tion.
He moved the part.i.tion and went to room 317 next door.
It was different from the empty room 316.
317 was like a big warehouse.
It was filled with drinking water and canned meat.
Meng Chao saw several boxes of canned meat of synthetic monsters produced by Superstar Group.
With these materials, even if the tailless monkey didn’t leave the house for three to five months, he wouldn’t starve to death.
This was a cunning rabbit with three burrows.
It seemed that the tailless monkey had a very clear understanding of his situation.
Unfortunately, he still couldn’t escape the vicious hand.
Meng Chao closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
When he opened his eyes again, there were already several rings of light that were slowly rotating in the depths of his eyes.
He raised his extraordinary vision to the highest level.
He did not let go of the slightest trace.
Soon, a large amount of shiny evidence appeared in Meng Chao’s field of vision in the two seemingly clean suites.
The first was the trace of a large amount of oil being wiped.
Humans secreted sweat and oil all the time.
No matter what they came into contact with, the sweat and oil would leave tiny traces on the surface of the object.
These traces that could not be identified by the naked eye could not even be considered fingerprints.
However, G.o.dly state experts or the most professional trace investigators could use genetic testing tools to firmly lock onto someone who had disappeared.
Meng Chao found a large amount of traces of grease in 317.
Especially on the boxes of canned monster meat.
It seemed that the tailless monkey had spent quite a bit of effort in moving these boxes.
As a result, the sweat and grease secreted from his fingers increased, leaving dozens of extremely shallow fingerprints on the boxes.
Following the traces of the grease, Meng Chao returned to 316.
Here, he found more traces of human activity.
Meng Chao lay on the ground, pressed the tip of his nose to a mark, and took a deep breath.
The physical qualities of humans were different.
Their past experiences were also different.
Their grease scent was as unique as fingerprints, which could clearly reveal the ident.i.ty of their owners.
“The scent of glue and ink on the grease marks of the tailless monkey suggests that he often wrote and used glue to make newspaper clippings.
“Moreover, his grease marks are very deep, and fingerprints have been formed in many places.
“This means that he is not worried about leaving any evidence. At least, he is not worried that the law enforcement agencies will come looking for him.
“However, the shallower and lighter traces of the oil contain traces of the mithril stabilizer.
“The mithril stabilizer is a very common storage medium for monster materials. It is used in the Reaper circle and the underground black market. It is inevitable that it will be contaminated by the pract.i.tioners.
“This means that Gao Chuang is not lying. His people have indeed been here before.
“Then, did Gao Chuang’s men capture the tailless monkey?”
Putting aside Gao Chuang’s dead-end argument, Meng Chao did not think so either.
He had asked ai lei. Although the tailless monkey was not a powerful character, its vigilance was higher than many monsters in the depths of the jungle.
Since the tailless monkey was already prepared to be a cunning rabbit in three caves, it would not be easily caught.
Even if it was caught, it would still struggle a few times.
Meng Chao had also met Gao Chuang’s subordinate before.
Although his skills were not bad, it was still not easy to quietly capture the tailless monkey.
If there was a conflict between the two sides.
There should be more and more traces of oil and sweat secreting in the room.
But now, Meng Chao didn’t find any similar traces, as well as scratches and collisions caused by the fierce fight.
This meant that the tailless monkey had been captured by an even more powerful character.
When it was captured, there was almost no room for resistance.
With this suspicion, Meng Chao continued to search.
He didn’t let go of every corner and every crevice, every hair and every mark.
Soon, he found 357 hairs, 66 fresh scratches, and three collision marks that were invisible to the naked eye in the seemingly empty room.
“Among the 357 hairs, 332 of them are very thin and withered.
“Master’s strength should not be that strong, and the nutrition did not keep up.
“The location of the discovery was mainly on the camp bed and behind the toilet.
“They are all the hair of the tailless monkeys.
“There are also 21 hairs, which are obviously thick and flexible. Although they have fallen off from the human body, they still maintain a certain degree of cell activity.
“These should all be Gao Chuang’s subordinates, which fell off when they searched this place this morning.
“The other four hairs are very interesting.
“Three of them are more l.u.s.trous and flexible than Gao Chuang’s subordinates, and their cells are more active. They must have come from experts of a higher level.
“If I’m not wrong, at least one of the three hairs belongs to a heaven-tier expert.
“As for the last reddish hair, it’s not even human hair or hair. It’s the beast hair of the h.e.l.lbeast, the Dreadclaw Tiger!
“The Dreadclaw Tiger’s body was enormous, and its temperament was brutal. Its roars could be heard from three to five streets away. Naturally, it was not brought here.
“Therefore, the people who captured the tailless monkey came here earlier than Gao Chuang’s subordinates. They often interacted with the dreadclaw tiger. As a result, their bodies were stained with the Dreadclaw Tiger’s hair?
“That’s weird.
“Following the victory of the Monster War, many wild monsters disappeared without a trace.
“As for the Dreadclaw Tiger, as far as I know, it is one of the wildest and most untamed wild monsters that are difficult to raise and reproduce artificially.
“What kind of person would have the opportunity to come into contact with the Dreadclaw Tiger more than a year after the victory of the Monster War?”
With this thought in mind, Meng Chao returned to the kitchen and lay down on the ground.
Ai lei asked in surprise, “Senior, what are you doing?”
“I’m thinking.”
Meng Chao stared at the dazzling incandescent lamp on the ceiling and said thoughtfully, “When the tailless monkey was captured, it should have been lying on the floor like this. Maybe it was trying to crawl to 317 to get the canned food, or maybe it found someone sneaking in and wanted to escape to 317.
“I want to maintain the same posture and restore the situation at that time.”
“How do you know?”
Ai Lei was stunned for a moment. “I saw that you collected a lot of hair and found some scratches and marks, but none of them were in the kitchen
“It was because there weren’t too many hair and marks left in the kitchen that it looked so weird.”
Meng Chao said, “Judging from the date of the newspaper clipping, the date of the production of the canned food, and the consumption, the tailless monkey must have stayed here for a few days, and the kitchen was the only way for him to travel between 316 and 317. Therefore, he must have left a lot of hair and marks here.
“But now, there are too few hair, fingerprints, footprints, and scratches in the kitchen.
“The thickness of the oil mud on the floor and the thickness of the oil mud on the stove are also obviously disproportionate.
“This is enough to prove that someone wanted to cover up the place and cleaned and disguised the kitchen.
“Therefore, this is the first scene where the other party captured the tailless monkey!”
Meng Chao closed his eyes.
A virtual “Room 316″suddenly appeared in his mind.
According to the evidence, he could easily restore Gao Chuang’s underling. After arriving here, he would carefully rummage through the boxes and search for the tailless monkey.
However, it was very difficult to restore the entire process of the real captor taking the tailless monkey away.
The other party was very professional.
Although there were inevitably some scratches and collision marks, they were not too obvious. They were considered invalid evidence. They were even deliberately left behind to distract the investigators.
The truth was still shrouded in fog.
“But, that’s not right!”
Just as Meng Chao could not find any clues to the investigation, AI lei suddenly muttered softly.
Meng Chao suddenly opened his eyes. “What did you say?”
Ai Lei was shocked by him. “No, it’s nothing. Maybe I misheard.”
“What misheard?”
Meng Chao retracted his aura and lowered his voice. “It’s alright. No matter what the problem is, tell me.”
“It’s not a big problem. It’s just that you said that the tailless monkey was like this, lying here and being taken away.”
Ai lei said, “However, your current position is not ‘lying’, but ‘lying’!”!
“I’m sorry, senior. It’s a habit of mine. I prefer to stick to my words. This shouldn’t have anything to do with the tailless monkey’s whereabouts, right?”