Chapter 1404: Chapter 1404: Clues (Large Chapter Requesting Monthly Tickets)
Sunlight stread through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the villa’s hall.
He Ao looked at the broken window in the hall, lost in thought.
“Controlling the local intelligent steward system.”
Eve’s gentle voice echoed in his ear.
“Alright, got it.” anwhile, Vigina also put down her wristband.
He Ao turned his head to look at Vigina, “Are those black-clad figures still unwilling to cooperate?”
“Yes,” Vigina sighed softly, a bit helplessly, “Even though we showed them their leader who had turned into a human skin, they still refused to say anything. So even believed we were lying, thinking that we used extraordinary powers to create illusions,”
She glanced at the broken villa window, “But most of them are more inclined to believe our ‘control theory’, because they’ve never seen their officer turn into a sheep-horned giant before, who also killed a lot of their ‘companions’,”
She retracted her gaze and looked at He Ao, “However, they seem to have so ‘internal regulations’, not cooperating with our work until they receive permission.”
“For a tightly-knit ard organization, having such regulations is quite normal,” He Ao nodded gently, smiling, “But they’re not entirely silent, are they?”
“Indeed.” Vigina nodded.
The villa they’re in now was ‘accidentally’ revealed by one of the black-clad figures who had a closer relationship with the sunglasses man.
Even though He Ao and Vigina were once evidently enemies of the sunglasses man, and if he were alive, they’d still be enemies,
But the sunglasses man is dead, and He Ao and Vigina are the only ones in Denno City with the ability and willingness to investigate the truth behind his murder.
“But there’s no more information.” Vigina ruffled her hair, making her fluffy curls look like a bird’s nest.
It wasn’t that those under the sunglasses man didn’t want to speak, they simply knew nothing more.
The most they could reveal was that the sunglasses man lived in this villa and would return here frequently, knowing nothing else.
They didn’t even recognize the gaunt figure who turned into the sheep-horned giant with the sunglasses man.
Perhaps the young man who led the pursuit of He Ao knew sothing, but he was killed by the gaunt figure at the start of the battle.
It was the first ti Vigina faced such an enemy, solving problems with such simplicity and terror.
From dignitaries to corporate executives, any risk of a secret leaking resulted in direct execution, as if playing a real-life ga, with life seen as just a number, a na.
“The clues from this villa are actually quite important.” He Ao turned his gaze to the sofa behind him.
Of course, what Vigina didn’t know was that the young man pursuing He Ao didn’t recognize the gaunt figure either.
In the recent battle, He Ao was monitoring the general thoughts around him.
The young man himself did not know that the sunglasses man had other ‘companions’ or ‘subordinates’.
No one present recognized the gaunt figure.
Either the gaunt figure was a hidden trump card of the sunglasses man, or the figure was brought in by the mastermind because there was a need for more sacrifices.
However, He Ao inclined towards the first assumption.
He Ao’s gaze fell on the slight indentations on the sofa.
Vigina’s gaze followed his, landing on the sofa, “Two sofas, two indentations, did two people sit here talking last night? The sunglasses man and that gaunt figure?”
“Probably.” He Ao glanced at the broken window.
Looking at the state of the hall, it’s likely that last night, the sunglasses man and the gaunt figure had a ‘eting’ in this villa.
And during their ‘eting’, the attackers burst in from outside the window, killing the two.
“There’s nothing obvious elsewhere in the villa, so last night, the sunglasses man and that thin guy,” Vigina scrutinized the surroundings, frowning slightly, “were probably taken out in this hall?”
She glanced around, “But there’s no sign of any intense battle here, did the attacker have so extraordinary ability? Erased the traces? Even the window’s glass fragnts are gone?”
“Nothing was erased.” He Ao paused for a mont, glanced at the clean floor, and looked towards the corner of the hall.
“The steward system control is complete.”
Accompanied by Eve’s gentle voice, the sound of a vacuum cleaner humd in the corner of the room.
The white wall in the corner naturally ‘opened’, and a pure white barrel-shaped robot erged from the space behind the wall.
Seeing this, Vigina fell into a long silence.
The white robot approached He Ao and opened its top with a ‘bang’, revealing a mass of glass shards inside.
At that mont, Vigina felt her cheeks flush a bit.
Having encountered many bizarre extraordinary abilities recently, she instinctively thought that any unreasonable situation must be due to so strange extraordinary power at work.
But sotis, a complicated problem might have a simple answer.
No extraordinary powers, simply that the battle traces were cleaned by the cleaning robot.
“Ahem,” Vigina stood before He Ao, no longer ntioning her earlier speculation, but looked at the trash in the robot’s open bin, “Most of it is glass fragnts, mixed with so dust. It seems the battle wasn’t intense? Almost like a swift kill?”
She hesitated for a mont before cautiously voicing her judgnt, “Perhaps the attacker was much stronger than the sunglasses man, or possessed so terrifying ability, enabling him to kill instantly? Leading to such a result.”
“Probably.” He Ao nodded slightly, still looking at the cleaning robot’s trash bin.
He pulled out the demon curved blade from behind him and sifted through the top layer of glass fragnts.
Vigina watched He Ao’s actions with so confusion, but soon, she noticed so other ‘debris’ among the glass pieces.
They were so black shards and a few ‘glass residues’ with a reflective sheen.
Quickly, she realized they were parts of a shattered tablet motherboard and ‘screen’.
And at this mont, she saw He Ao lift a hand, picking up the cleaning robot, and dumped everything from inside the robot.
The robot quivered, emitting a series of beeping alarms.
He Ao set it down flat, tossing it aside.
Then the robot closed its lid, circled around He Ao and the ss on the floor as though ready to start cleaning.
But after a brief pause, it seed to receive a command, changed direction, and wobbled back to the corner.
At this point, He Ao also crouched and quickly picked out the motherboard fragnts from the garbage pile.
Although Vigina was a bit puzzled, she followed him and quickly picked out the mainboard fragnts.
As he selected the fragnts, He Ao was also quickly examining the serial numbers on the remaining components of these fragnts, roughly arranging them.
Market-standard tablets generally use chips or components from a few major suppliers, with only a few serial numbers on the chips.
For example, chips with serial numbers starting with ‘MS’ are signal baseband chips developed by the Triton Group, and chips starting with ‘ND’ are usually power managent chips from the Noder Group.
By looking at the serial numbers, the shape of the chips, and the circuit traces on the board, one can roughly figure out the structure of the mainboard.
This tablet is not a custom-boarded computer; its mainboard shape is similar to mainstream boards on the market, and He Ao could use those mainstream board structures as a reference to attempt to roughly restore this shattered board.
“Alright.”
While Vigina was quickly picking out the mainboard fragnts, she suddenly heard a soft exclamation.
Her hand paused, and she looked up, gazing ahead.
“Huh?” She looked at the structure of the mainboard arranged on the ground, her eyes widening slightly, “You can piece this together?”
Although she and He Ao found it easy to distinguish these fragnts, most of them were shattered to the point of resembling debris.
Most fragnts were only as big as half a pinky finger, with very few being slightly bigger but not by much.
“The structure is basically like this; you get used to it after a while.” He Ao said casually.
Vigina gazed at He Ao; she felt he was right, but vaguely sensed that things weren’t as ‘simple’ as He Ao made them out to be.
At least, she couldn’t piece it together; she couldn’t even tell what was what.
“Can this computer be saved?” Vigina looked at the rough structure on the ground, cautiously asked.
If it were anyone else, she wouldn’t even ask, but if it were this person in front of her, maybe it wouldn’t be an issue?
“No.” He Ao shook his head.
Vigina felt her spirits drop slightly.
Just then, she heard He Ao continue, “But the data in this computer can be recovered.”
“Huh?” Vigina looked at He Ao, “How?”
“No need for anything too complicated,” He Ao shook his head, picking up a larger fragnt from the ground, “the storage chip in this computer is intact.”
On this fragnt, a square, thumb-sized chip was encapsulated.
“It’s all broken like this.” Vigina gazed at the debris on the ground.
Many fragnts inside were indeed shattered but reassembled by He Ao.
She looked at the storage chip in He Ao’s hand, with so surprise said, “This chip can still be preserved intact? What luck.”
“This actually isn’t luck,” He Ao placed the chip back in the arranged frawork on the ground, said slowly.
He raised his hand, fingers hovering above the crudely assembled mainboard, “See, the fracture force on this mainboard is like this, soone held it up in front of them as if to block sothing, but actually, the force didn’t co from the outside but from the inside.”
“The person holding this mainboard ‘broke’ it? They were nervous?” As she said this, Vigina paused, realizing sothing, and quickly said, “Did they do it on purpose?”
“It might have been the only thing they could do at that mont,” He Ao looked at the intact storage chip on the ground, said softly.
At the mont of breaking this tablet, the person exerting force used a bit of ‘skill’ to protect the remaining storage chip.
“Seems like there are crucial clues inside,” Vigina also looked at the storage chip, “but what can we use to read this information?”
“That’s why we need to go back to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and use your laboratory,” He Ao picked up the storage chip and slowly stood up, looking at Vigina, “How about the Kevort Group over there?”
“I sent a ssage when I just ca over,” Vigina also stood up, “asked those executives to go to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Building for a eting,”
She glanced at her wristband, “Deducting travel ti back, we should have about half an hour.”
“Alright,” He Ao nodded lightly, raising his hand to glance at the ‘received’ report on his wristband.
This report was summarized after Eve had controlled the villa’s butler system.
The villa’s caras did not capture the attacker’s appearance; when the attacker arrived, the entire villa’s surveillance system experienced so sort of strong interference, paralyzing it montarily. By the ti the system recovered, the bespectacled man and the thin figure had disappeared.
After that, it was the cleaning robots that cleaned the floors.
Because the bespectacled man cut the butler system off from external internet, theoretically the system alarm should have triggered but did not.
It seems, the attacker might have carried so kind of device generating strong magnetic interference, or possess so sort of special ability.
Aside from last night’s situation, Eve also analyzed the bespectacled man’s actions in the villa.
The bespectacled man would regularly clear system data every day, but yesterday’s data he hadn’t had ti to clear.
This data shows he spent most of his ti in a study on the second floor of the villa, seemingly sleeping there too.
“Let’s go check the study,” After browsing the report, He Ao looked at Vigina.
“Alright.” Vigina nodded.
······
The two quickly entered the study on the second floor.
The entire study was simple, with only a desk, a chair, a computer, and rows of shelves with fake books.
Vigina walked to the shelves, began examining them.
He Ao, anwhile, went to the computer, powered it on, and connected to his wristband.
After a brief wait, the computer unlocked and went to the desktop.
The computer was unusually clean, with only a few office software and so system icons.
As He Ao watched, Eve explained the computer’s situation to him while controlling the computer, opening the recycle bin, and retrieving the only draft docunt inside.
Other than this draft in the recycle bin, there was no other data on the computer.
The bespectacled man would clear data and the recycle bin daily.
And this draft’s tistamp was from the afternoon yesterday; he hadn’t gotten around to clearing it.
He Ao opened the draft.
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