Urban Martial Saint

Upon seeing Huang Yun, Huo Pingping immediately rushed out, no longer concerning herself with her own company’s affairs.

The two women embraced, appearing very familiar with each other.

Ye Qing listened from the sidelines and vaguely guessed their relationship. They were high school classmates who went their separate ways after college. It was only after both coming to the same city, without knowing the other was there, that they met again today.

Meeting an old friend in a foreign place is, of course, an exciting event, so exciting that Huo Pingping almost forgot what she came to do.

”Hey, miss, what exactly are you planning to do with this batch of security cameras from your company?” the skinny guy yelled loudly from inside the room, quite dissatisfied with Huo Pingping’s disregard for him.

Only then did Huo Pingping remember her task. She quickly turned her head and said, ”Sorry, the company sent me to investigate this matter, to see if we can find out who smashed the cameras. Could you gentlemen please pull up the surveillance footage for us to review again?”

”I already told you, your cameras keep malfunctioning; they hardly capture anything. If you don’t believe me, go see for yourself,” said the thin man, impatiently.

The monitoring room was located behind the security room, a computer overseeing the entire residential complex.

”Hey, you, the dead soldier, come take a look,” Huo Pingping shouted loudly.

Ye Qing walked in, and it was then that Huang Yun noticed him, pausing and asked, ”Ye Qing, what... what are you doing here?”

”You know him?” Huo Pingping asked, surprised.

”He’s a salesman at our company,” Huang Yun said, looking down on Ye Qing with disdain.

On the day of the recruitment, Ye Qing told her he graduated from Northern University, which Huang Yun took as the biggest joke and decided Ye Qing was not trustworthy. Today, after Ye Qing got scolded harshly by Wang Xuan without any retort, it further confirmed to her that Ye Qing lacked backbone. So, in her eyes, Ye Qing was exactly as Wang Xuan had described: nothing but a loser.

”Your company?” Huo Pingping’s eyes widened, and she said, ”You... you... you aren’t working at Mu Qingrong’s company, are you?”

Huang Yun, surprised, said, ”Eh, how did you know? Do you know Director Mu?”

”Damn!” Huo Pingping slapped her own face and said, ”If I knew you were with the big boss’s company, I would have found you sooner!”

Although Huo Pingping had been roommates with Mu Qingrong for a while, she didn’t know much about Mu Qingrong’s affairs, let alone the staffing inside Mu Qingrong Company. Thus, she didn’t even know that an old classmate worked for Mu Qingrong. If not for today’s encounter, she might have remained unaware of such a fact.

After hearing Huo Pingping recount her connection with Mu Qingrong, Huang Yun suddenly realized, then curiously said, ”Does Director Mu still need to rent a place? I mean, she’s a big boss after all.”

Huo Pingping shrugged and replied, ”Who knows? Who can predict the temper of the wealthy!”

Huang Yun nodded, glanced at Ye Qing, and whispered, ”How do you know him?”

”Roommate,” Huo Pingping answered.

”Ah?” Huang Yun was stunned for a moment, then gave Ye Qing a once-over. She finally understood how Ye Qing got into the company. It appeared that he was also Mu Qingrong’s roommate, and it was through this connection that he managed to get into the company.

However, with this thought, her disdain for Ye Qing deepened. She had regarded Ye Qing as a spineless wimp before, but now, she had elevated him to the status of a freeloader and a spineless wimp.

”This guy is no good,” Huang Yun whispered.

”Why say that?” Huo Pingping asked, curious.

Huang Yun quietly repeated the insults Wang Xuan had hurled at Ye Qing, and added her judgment, ”A man should have some integrity, even if he’s not capable. But him, he doesn’t even talk back when scolded. Is that even manly?”

”Really?” Huo Pingping looked at Ye Qing in astonishment. The Ye Qing she knew was extremely fierce when he took action; how could he be like the person Huang Yun described?

”Of course, I saw it with my own eyes,” said Huang Yun. ”You better stay away from that kind of person in the future, or you’ll lose face too.”

”Uh...” Huo Pingping didn’t know what to say, as she couldn’t understand how Ye Qing could remain silent when scolded.

Inside the room, Ye Qing had reviewed all the surveillance footage. Although he could clearly hear the whispers of the two women behind him, he acted as if he hadn’t heard anything.

After resetting the computer, Ye Qing stood up and walked out of the monitoring room. Huo Pingping immediately approached him and asked urgently, ”How did it go? Any clues?”

Huang Yun gave Ye Qing a sidelong glance, her low opinion of him leading her to doubt he could find any clues.

Ye Qing did not respond to Huo Pingping but entered the security room and asked, ”In the monitoring room, how many people can come and go as they please?”

”People from property management can come and go freely, and then it’s just the two of us,” the skinny man answered.

”How often do the property management people come by?” Ye Qing asked.

The skinny guard replied, ”How often can they come? If there’s nothing going on, they won’t show up for a lifetime. But since three thefts occurred recently, they came to check the surveillance, making it three visits.”

Ye Qing asked, ”Before they came, had you checked the surveillance yourselves?”

The skinny guard said, ”Of course, the homeowners came asking questions, so we had to look at the surveillance first. But the cameras were malfunctioning, capturing nothing. What’s with all these questions? What exactly are you getting at?”

”Hm,” Ye Qing nodded, then turned to Huo Pingping and said, ”There’s something off about these two security guards.”

”Huh?” Huo Pingping was taken aback; Ye Qing’s sudden remark left her completely unprepared.

Huang Yun was also wide-eyed, looking back and forth between the two guards and Ye Qing, and said, ”Ye Qing, you can’t just spout nonsense!”

The two guards were furious, with the brawny one suddenly standing up and bellowing, ”Bastard, what are you saying!”

The skinny guard held back the brawny one and, with a cold look at Ye Qing, said, ”Kid, you can eat whatever you want, but you can’t talk nonsense. You need evidence for that accusation; without it, you’re going to have to be responsible for your words!”

Ye Qing calmly faced them, ”Someone tampered with the surveillance records. No one else can enter the surveillance room besides you two. So who else could have tampered with it?”

”Nonsense, which of your eyes saw the surveillance being tampered with?” spat the skinny guard. ”I swear to God, you’d better take responsibility for your words!”

”Ye Qing, could you have seen it wrong?” Huo Pingping was puzzled, and inquired, ”There’s nothing wrong with the surveillance records. I’ve seen it, the camera malfunctioned, and the screen was just a blank, nothing visible. There was no interruption, and the timing matched up, so how could there be something wrong with the surveillance records?”

”It’s precisely this blankness that is problematic,” Ye Qing stated, looking at the skinny guard with a soft voice, ”After the camera malfunctioned, the screen showed a blank, but if you observe that blank closely, you’ll notice that it still has slight variations.”

”What kind of variations?” Huo Pingping inquired curiously, while the skinny guard remained silent, just watching Ye Qing closely.

Ye Qing continued, ”There’s a slight variation in the sheen of the blank space.”

The skinny guard asked, ”What does that prove?”

Ye Qing explained, ”It proves that the camera wasn’t malfunctioning!”

”What?” Huo Pingping was even more astonished, and asked, ”How can you say that?”

Ye Qing elaborated, ”If the camera malfunctioned, the blank on the screen would be the result of a signal interruption, with no changes at all. However, since the luster of the blank changes, it indicates that the camera is still capturing something.”

”Capturing what?” Huo Pingping was even more confused.

”Let’s take a simple example,” Ye Qing suggested, ”If you point a camera at a white cloth, the screen will show a blank. But the sheen around it can’t possibly stay stable all the time, so you’d see some variations in the screen’s sheen. Thus, the blank in the surveillance records is a fabricated image, not the result of a camera failure.”

”What?” Huo Pingping’s eyes widened, and Huang Yun was similarly stunned, Ye Qing’s theory was something she had never heard before.

”Don’t just talk without proof, where’s your evidence for all this!” the skinny guard shouted, his confidence clearly waning.

”The change in the screen’s sheen is evidence,” Ye Qing said, looking at them. ”If I’m not wrong, this screen was probably recorded by pointing a camera at a white cloth. Then you spliced this recorded image with the community’s surveillance log to create such a screen.

There’s an old saying, ’The hardest to prevent are the thieves within.’ To steal such small things, you two actually became security guards. But, I guess your haul hasn’t been small, considering this qualifies as high-tech crime.”

Huo Pingping looked at the two guards in shock. Now, their faces were ashen, and they were no longer making excuses as before.

”Three thefts, and the community has lost valuables worth hundreds of thousands. Your gains haven’t been small at all!” Huo Pingping said gravely.

The skinny guard clenched his teeth and snapped, ”You... you’re talking out of your ass, this is all just your speculation, what evidence do you have?”

”Only you two can enter the surveillance room, nobody else has that much time to alter the records,” Ye Qing said, looking at them, ”I might not have found the evidence yet, but if the police start suspecting you, they will investigate you directly. I suppose, tracking down those hundreds of thousands in stolen goods shouldn’t be difficult for them!”

The two guards were struck dumb; what Ye Qing said was true. If the police were to list them as suspects for investigation, they really wouldn’t have anywhere to run.

”Are they really... really thieves?” Huang Yun couldn’t quite believe it; she just couldn’t accept it all.

”Bastards, so it was you crying ’stop thief’ while you were the thieves, tricking me, your grandma. Do you know how many times I’ve been scolded by the manager over this?” Angrily, Huo Pingping charged at the skinny guard and swung at his face.

Dodging back a step, the skinny guard quickly slammed the security room door shut, and said gravely, ”Old He, don’t let them get away!”

(The reader group for this book has been established, with group number: 310323423, friends are welcome to join the group chat. Additionally, recommending a friend’s new book ”Underworld Civil Servant,” just search ”Underworld Civil Servant.”)