Chapter 662 - 411: Pristine Skeleton and a Change of Mind

Chapter 662: Chapter 411: Pristine Skeleton and a Change of Mind

TAP, TAP, TAP...

After leaving the Ping’an Garden District, Wang Hao strode quickly across the street.

When Chen Xiaoyan and Zhu Daqi saw Wang Hao approaching from a distance with a grim look on his face, their hearts sank. They immediately wondered if something had gone wrong at the target’s apartment.

"Wang Hao, what’s the situation?" Chen Xiaoyan asked as soon as he reached them.

"I went to the guy’s apartment and rang the doorbell. When no one answered, I opened the door and went inside. I searched the whole place, but there was no one there."

Wang Hao said to Chen Xiaoyan, then turned to look at Zhu Daqi, who was standing to the side.

Hearing this, Chen Xiaoyan’s brow furrowed, and she also turned to look at Zhu Daqi.

Zhu Daqi panicked under their combined stare and hastily explained, "Yan, Wang, I swear I’m not lying to you!

I’ve been here ever since I finished breakfast this morning, keeping an eye on that guy, Lin Li. I haven’t slacked off for a second.

He left this morning to go to a jewelry store and then came back to the district. From that moment until you two arrived, I watched every single person who left. I didn’t miss anyone. I can guarantee that after he returned, he never came out of the district."

"Besides, I secretly put a tracker on his car. Look, this little red dot shows his car’s location. It’s still parked inside the district; it hasn’t moved at all."

Wang Hao and Chen Xiaoyan listened to Zhu Daqi’s explanation. When he took out his phone and showed them the information on the tracking app, their suspicion that he had fabricated his intel was temporarily allayed.

"According to you, this Lin Li guy never left the district. But I just broke into his apartment and couldn’t find him. So where could he be right now?" Wang Hao said.

"That, I don’t know," Zhu Daqi said, shaking his head while inwardly complaining.

’I worked so hard watching the target, only to get accused of giving false intel,’ he thought. ’This is so unfair.’

But after calming down and thinking it over, he had to admit their suspicion was understandable. After all, just a short while ago, he had confidently guaranteed the target was at home.

"If he’s not at home, could he be visiting a friend?" Chen Xiaoyan guessed.

Zhu Daqi’s eyes lit up, and he immediately agreed. "Yan is right! Who doesn’t know a few people in their own residential district?

"It’s possible that when Wang went over just now, he just happened to be visiting a friend he knows in the district. That would explain why Wang came up empty."

Wang Hao mulled it over for a moment, then said, "If he really hasn’t left the district like you said, then that’s the only possibility.

There are a lot of residents in this district. We can’t just go door-to-door looking for him.

Even setting aside whether we could even check every single apartment in a day, we’d probably only get halfway through before a resident calls the police to report suspicious people knocking on every door."

"..." After Wang Hao finished speaking, the three of them fell silent. This was a situation none of them had anticipated.

In going to find him personally, their main concern was to avoid blowing things out of proportion and attracting the attention of the authorities.

But now, with the target gone and his whereabouts unknown, finding him without causing a scene seemed impossible.

For security reasons, the only option now was to lie in wait.

Since the target hadn’t left the district, he was most likely visiting another resident. If that was the case, he would have to go home eventually.

They would just have to check his apartment periodically. As soon as he returned home, they could grab him.

"Looks like we’ll just have to spend more time on this," Wang Hao said, frustrated. He’d been hoping for a quick in-and-out job, but now it had come to this.

Chen Xiaoyan and Zhu Daqi nodded. Then Zhu Daqi spoke up.

"Wang, Yan, you two probably haven’t had lunch yet, have you?"

"No," Chen Xiaoyan said to him. "Zhu Daqi, you keep watch here. The two of us will go find a place to eat."

"Okay, Yan... Don’t worry, I’ll keep a close eye on things. If anything changes, I’ll call you immediately."

Just as Wang Hao and Chen Xiaoyan were about to leave and find a restaurant for lunch, Chen Xiaoyan’s phone suddenly buzzed in her purse.

She opened her purse, pulled out her phone, and glanced at it. An excited expression immediately appeared on her face.

"What is it?" Wang Hao asked, noticing the change in her expression.

"I just got a location ping from Liu Menglong’s phone."

Her face flushed with excitement, Chen Xiaoyan read the text message on her phone two or three times to be sure before handing the device to Wang Hao.

After Liu Menglong’s disappearance, Chen Xiaoyan had used some technical means to try and locate his phone.

Unfortunately, Liu Menglong’s phone signal seemed to have been blocked, making it impossible to pinpoint its location.

She had thought the lead was a dead end, but now, there was an unexpected breakthrough.

Wang Hao took the phone from Chen Xiaoyan and carefully studied the information on the screen, quickly memorizing some of the numbers—they were the current coordinates of Liu Menglong’s phone.