Silent Reading 默读 [BL Novel by Priest]

Chapter 121 to 128

CHAPTER 121 Verhovensky 31

The black Buick really had been positioned in the camera's blindspot; if it had gone forward a little, the camera would in fact have caught the front license plate. Lu Guosheng had evidently noticed this and immediately notified his accomplice to back up before the car could show itself, shielding the front plate. This would have been a very timely action—if there hadn't been a convex reflector at the corner.

Convex reflectors were ordinarily placed at intersections and comparatively complicated turnings to give drivers a view of cars and pedestrians turning from other directions.

The convex reflector at the corner mainly faced the intersection; in other words, the camera was aimed at a large portion of the back of its "head"; both were facing the same direction. Reasonably speaking, the camera wouldn't have caught what was reflected in the mirror, so Lu Guosheng had overlooked it.

Unfortunately, while he'd taken a thousand precautions, one had slipped through. An open window was reflecting half of the convex reflector; furthermore, the Lungyun Center's installations were all luxurious. Its surveillance system used the most expensive high-definition cameras.

When they'd enlarged that section, they could vaguely distinguish the last three digits of the license plate number.

Xiao Haiyang pushed at his glasses, wanting nothing better than to dive into the screen. "3...3, 6... I can't see what's in front of it, maybe it's 3, or maybe 8. Wait, I'll carefully analyze the recording again."

"Don't worry. A trace is enough." Luo Wenzhou fixed his gaze on Lu Guosheng in the screenshot, then stood up, picked up his phone, and dialed a number.

"Hello, Lao Qiu. Yeah, it's me, I have a favor to ask... A little while ago some bastard scraped my significant other's car and wasn't caught at the time... Oh, no injuries, the car was empty at the time, otherwise wouldn't we have known who it was? It's actually not a big deal, the important thing is that the car's paint is pretty expensive, it's half a year of our wages to get it repainted... Yes, fine, please look into it for me. Don't tell anyone else, I'd rather this little private business not get out, after all it violates discipline... A black Buick, looks pretty well-maintained, around noon on November sixth, in Beiyuan—near Beiyuan's Longyun Center. A security camera nearby caught a flash of the end of its license plate number, 336. I have a feeling it's likely to be a local car... All right, thank you, sorry, you're really helping me out, I'll bring you some packs of good cigarettes in a bit."

He put down the phone and saw Xiao Haiyang staring at him, his glasses having slipped down again.

"What are you looking at?" Luo Wenzhou pushed at his head. "Is it heroic to fool around on your own trying to do everything instead of asking someone? Our country is the most richly endowed with population. Don't be so confident, idiot.—When it gets light, Tao Ran and Xiao Haiyang, go to the City Bureau and do what you need to. Wait to hear from me. I'm going to the main traffic police team. Fei Du, you wait for word from me, too, don't do anything rash... Enough, stop wiping, you're going to wear a hole in the lens."

"I'm thinking about something," Fei Du suddenly said in a low voice. "Lu Guosheng has been running away all these years. There isn't much information about him, and no one did a psychological profile of him back then. So we've been acting on preconceptions, thinking he's a cruel, ruthless, extremely audacious person."

"Yes, what else would he be?" Tao Ran said.

"Fourteen years ago, Lu Guosheng revealed himself once in the police force's line of sight—though it later came to nothing. This time, however, after killing Feng Bin, he even more carelessly let Xia Xiaonan go, and dared to openly appear in a public venue." Fei Du put his spotless glasses back onto his nose. "Comprehensively, this person gives me the feeling of being careless, arrogant, and disdainful. It's likely he has dissociative and manic episodes. While his IQ isn't low, when he commits crimes, there's an element of venting. He's unruly, very unsettled. Simply speaking, he's somewhat crazy. I've always thought he's remained at liberty so long because someone's been protecting him—Lu Guosheng shouldn't be like this. He shouldn't be this cautious, nor have such a strong sense of measures to counteract police surveillance."