"I've told you many times, everyone in our building is a good person. There are no perverted serial killers like you keep talking about. If she's still in the room later and we walk into her place and get cursed out, you'd better take the blame."
In the elevator heading up to the sixth floor.
Manager Wu Meiling was nagging Li Shumu endlessly.
Li Shumu nodded in agreement.
They arrived at the door of Room 602.
Manager Wu Meiling took a full minute to find the right key from a bunch.
Then, she opened the door.
Once the door was open.
The silence inside was eerily dead.
Li Shumu entered first and gave a quick scan.
Compared to his own assigned room, it wasn't just similar—it was practically identical.
Li Shumu wandered around inside.
There were signs of someone having been in the living room, and women's underwear and clothes were scattered on the bed in the bedroom.
Even the toilet paper roll in the bathroom had used-up paper.
But that foreign woman was nowhere in the apartment.
"Where did she go?"
Li Shumu turned around to ask.
Manager Wu Meiling laughed coldly: "Are you sure you're not mistaken? Where a tenant goes—should that be something I, the manager, need to know?"
"Maybe she went out to have fun, shopping or something. Who can say?"
Standing there, thinking for a moment.
Li Shumu asked: "The surveillance in Building No. 2 is infected with a virus, completely down, right?"
Manager Wu Meiling nodded.
Li Shumu asked again: "What about Building No. 1's?"
Manager Wu Meiling: "I wouldn't know that. You can go check for yourself."
Li Shumu: "The front gate, and surveillance from other areas in the complex—where can I find it?"
Manager Wu Meiling: "The surveillance room on the first floor of Building No. 1. Under normal circumstances, you can check all the surveillance in the complex from there."
"Ugh!"
She suddenly sighed: "My dear criminal psychologist! You still think our building has that kind of person you're talking about!!!"
Li Shumu smiled at her and turned to leave.
The surveillance in Building No. 2 was already down.
He'd known that since morning.
Thanks to that thuggish young man's death, he had followed the police to check it out earlier. Even the cops couldn't do anything about the virus in the surveillance system.
Now, he had to go check the surveillance from other places to see if there were any clues about that foreign woman.
Ten minutes later.
Li Shumu appeared at the door of the surveillance room in Building No. 1.
To his surprise, the surveillance room door was unlocked.
He walked straight in.
After entering, he sat down in front of the computer in the surveillance room.
He turned on the computer.
At first, it showed a normal computer screen. Just as he was about to take the next step.
Suddenly, a page popped up by itself, and no matter how he clicked, it wouldn't go away.
Since he couldn't close it, Li Shumu decided to see what this page was about.
This page had a few lines of text, seemingly a question.
[Question: In the anime 'One Piece', the current progress is dragging on and on. Similarly, the anime 'Case Closed' also drags on. In your opinion, which one dragging on any longer will ruin the entire series?]
[A: One Piece]
[B: Case Closed]
"Uh..."
After reading the entire question, Li Shumu was a bit stunned.
But he quickly made his choice. He selected Option A—One Piece.
The reason was simple: whether the main plot of Case Closed dragged on or not didn't really matter.
Because after over a thousand episodes, very few of them were the main storyline.
Its format had always been one self-contained arc after another. It could run until the end of the world and still not be affected.
On the other hand, the anime 'One Piece'—if it kept dragging and padding, it really would be ruined.
Li Shumu felt quite pleased with himself, thinking it was a good thing he had watched both anime.
Otherwise, he really wouldn't have known what to do.
After he made his choice.
Three seconds later.
New text appeared: [Correct answer! Too bad, no reward...]
After this line, the entire computer screen went into a frenzy of garbled code.
Nothing responded no matter what he clicked.
"What the..."
Li Shumu couldn't help but curse: "Whoever set this up did it on purpose, right?!"
He didn't know much about computers—after all, that wasn't his specialty.
But just because he didn't know how to fix it didn't mean he didn't know someone who did.
Even though the police had been helpless against the virus in Building No. 2's surveillance system during the day.
It was still worth getting someone to try.
At that moment, just as he was pulling out his phone to call for backup.
A flicker of light appeared in the corner of his left eye.
He turned his head to look, and saw Manager Mao Li Zhishu standing silently at the door of the surveillance room.
Not moving an inch.
"What's wrong?"
Li Shumu paused, stopping himself from dialing.
Manager Mao Li Zhishu shook his head: "Nothing. Just wanted to see what you were planning to do in the surveillance room."
Li Shumu said: "I'm trying to find surveillance footage to see where that foreign woman, Eileen, went."
"I entered her apartment and found she wasn't home."
He didn't bother to hide his intentions at all.
"Maybe she went out shopping."
Manager Mao Li Zhishu asked: "Judging by your expression, are you planning to find someone to fix the surveillance?"
Li Shumu nodded: "Yeah."
Manager Mao Li Zhishu: "Alright then. If it actually gets fixed, it saves the building some money!"
He forced a smile and then left.
But he was in a very bad mood.
He was thinking: if he let Li Shumu keep investigating like this, would he end up uncovering him?
Would it get him killed or eliminated?
In the livestream room.
The people who had been keeping a close eye on Li Shumu's stream couldn't help but feel like they were watching a suspense crime drama, following the male lead, Li Shumu, as he gradually unraveled the secrets of the building.
Ultimate Rich Kid typed: [That foreign chick, Eileen, was killed by Mao Li Zhishu and a few others. This Li Shumu seems to have his sights set on the Eileen thread. Isn't that just forcing the manager to go after him?]
People like Ultimate Rich Kid could check the livestream room's provided highlight replays.
So through those replay clips, he had seen the entire process of that American—Eileen's—murder.
Domineering Female CEO: [Don't ask for trouble, and you won't get it. Judging from Li Shumu pursuing this line of inquiry.]
[In the end, either he dies, or the manager and his people die, or he gets them arrested and taken away.]
I am the Hero: [If the building manager gets caught because of a call to the police from a lab rat, will he be eliminated and sent to another country's Alice Apartment?]
The livestream room returned to the familiar studio.
The long-haired beautiful host answered: "Yes. In this regard, there is no difference between managers and residents."
"Moreover, once he is eliminated in this manner, he cannot serve as a manager again for ten years."
I am the Hero: [Oh... I see. Actually, whether you're a manager or a regular resident, there doesn't seem to be much difference.]
The long-haired beautiful host shook her head: "You're wrong. A manager is not on the same level as an ordinary resident."
"First of all, a manager doesn't need to hunt a certain number of lab rats to access the files of everyone in the building. They can also receive a lot of information from other sources."
"Secondly, ordinary residents in the building are given a living allowance of ten thousand a month."
"A manager, besides that ten thousand, also gets a thirty-thousand-a-month salary for being manager, as well as opportunities to line their pockets during the welcome party and so on."
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