Memory Lost

Su Mian pushes open the door and sees that Han Chen has already gotten out of bed and is sitting on the couch. He has a jacket over his shoulders and her laptop on his knees.

"Why didn't you sleep longer?" she asks and sits beside him.

He takes a sip of tea from a cup. The tea is from his place and it has a nice fragrance to it.

"You had a good time chatting?" he says casually.

Su Mian is speechless, "……pfft." This jealous man. She reaches out her arms and wraps them around his neck; she kisses him fiercely as a way to pacify him. His expression is indifferent; his young master temper is back again, so Su Mian will have to try harder.

Su Mian is a smart girl after all. She turns her gaze to the laptop and changes the subject, "You're watching the video?" The screen is frozen on the part where L is bowing. In the dark alleyway, only the moon is showing in the narrow view of the sky, as well as the very dim light shining from an unknown source.

"Mm," he answers. He grabs her waist and looks at the image with her, "Did you guys find anything?"

Su Mian shakes her head, "What could we find? There's nothing in the video. These alleyways exist everywhere, and these three will obviously not leave behind any traces." 𝑓𝓇𝑒𝑒𝚠e𝘣𝓷𝘰ѵe𝑙.com

Han Chen doesn't comment. He releases her, leans forward a little bit, adjusts the image with his fingers and is completely focused on the screen. A man is the most handsome when he's working seriously. Su Mian leans into his embrace and looks up at the side of his face, "Don't tell me you've really found something."

He glances down at her with his eyes looking calm, "What if I have? You'll be obedient from now on?"

What does this have to do with anything? Is he still jealous?

But Su Mian has lost a few times to him, so of course, she's gotten smarter. She yawns immediately, "What do you mean? Haven't I been obedient all this time? I've pretty much become your Zhou Xiao Zhuan, your all-purpose follower! Hurry and tell me, what have you found exactly?"

She's a dazzling beauty, but when she's shameless, her words can be so flippant that it makes you speechless. Han Chen stares at her, smiles, and then turns his head back to the screen. But his hand slides to her waist again as he hugs her.

"In the video, there are three clues," he says.

"Hah?" Su Mian feels as if there's not enough power in her brain for the first time. There are three?

Han Chen's finger taps on the screen three times lightly, "The moon, the lighting, and the sound."

"The moon……" Su Mian looks at the crescent moon and seems to be enlightened, "Could it be that based on the degree of the moon being illuminated that we could find out which day it was?"

Han Chen is still staring at the screen. His eyes are half closed and his expression is emotionless, "What use is that? It is to find out which day and what time based on the height and degree of illumination of the moon."

Su Mian opens her eyes wide. She snaps her fingers, "Oh yeah!" Even though Han Chen has only revealed one clue, the moment her mind is opened up, she's actually quite excited. It's a video image that seems ordinary, but Han Chen's eyes are laser sharp and he is able to come up with such a precise conclusion. 𝗳𝘳𝒆𝘦𝑤𝐞𝚋𝗻𝚘𝘷𝘦𝙡.𝑐𝐨𝘮

Han Chen picks up her colorful soft cover notebook from the coffee table in front of him. Su Mian hasn't noticed it until now that it's filled with his beautiful and strong writing once the cover is opened; it has a bunch of numbers and formulas and even a simple drawing of the trigonometric formula.

Mm, she doesn't understand it.

"It's the day before around 3 to 3:30 am," he says.

"Mm! Mm!" Su Mian is completely in awe as she watches him spin the pen between his fingers; he looks more and more handsome. She can bet that if Han Chen didn't become a criminal investigator, he would have been a super handsome yet cold faced mathematics professor.

"And then?" she asks.

A faint smile flashes across his eyes, "And then it's the light. Everywhere else in the alleyway is dark and only this in the video has a bit of light. There are very little places with lights still on at 3:30 am." His fingers slide across the computer screen to magnify the image; the small area of the light reflecting on the ground enlarges as well.

He continues, "Based on the length of the clown's shadow versus his height, we can calculate the distance between him and light source as well as its height. The calculation shows that it's about 20 meters away and 15 meters high. The light is pure white, uniformly lit, no patterns, and it is not projecting any other shapes from it. Therefore, it's not a light from a home. It's a light from a street lamp in a spacious area."

Su Mian is a bit stunned as she hears him speak unhurriedly, "I've done some research. The city standardized all the street lamp posts last year and there are only two heights allowed: 8 meters and 12 meters. There are no 15-meter posts. But besides that, lamps are also installed in other places——under the eaves of buildings that are immediately adjacent to a road in order to illuminate the street for pedestrians. Which means, 20 meters away from where the clown is, there's a five-story building with a light installed, shining through the night."

"Holy s.hit!" Su Mian blurts out. This is crazy, crazy, crazy! She can't believe that he's actually able to discover the uniqueness of the location; the length of the shadow and the evenness of the lighting makes it a street lamp and one that is installed on an elevated area——these details pulled out by him are so intricate and logically unbeatable.

Based on this info, the criminal investigators no longer need to be searching for a needle in a haystack. They can pinpoint this location very quickly. But what happens after they find it? Who knows. It could be somewhere close to their old home base, or at the very least, they can find some more clues of their whereabouts. ——after all, just like what Han Chen said, a criminal likes to commit crimes at a place that is comfortable to him/her. The fact that they've sent them this video, they must feel that it is a very safe place for them.

It's just that what they don't know is that although they've proudly sent this video which seems to be void of any clues, Han Chen has actually found such important clues!

She spreads out her arms and wraps them around Han Chen's slender waist, "How can you be this good! You're just an absolutely incredible weirdo!"

Her words cause Han Chen to frown his eyebrows slightly, but the admiration from her eyes are naked. This makes Han Chen smile. He feels as if his chest is entangled with a certain softness and comfort. He leans back and hugs her and taps his fingers on the table, "As for the sound, we'll need to wait for the detailed analysis from the forensics department. But there are two sound sources that will be easier to analyze. The first is A and R's laugh. We can use a machine to analyze the soundwaves and calculate the distance it travels from them to this side of the wall. And then we will be able to infer the relative shape of the ground that they're standing on. The second source is the noise from passing cars. We can try to calculate how far away they are from the road. This way, our guys can find the place even more easily."

Su Mian has only vaguely heard about soundwave analyses before. But she can understand it a bit: the sound waves, its speed, which bounces off of objects can determine the shape of its barrier. She never thought that Han Chen would know even this. With these three clues, there's no way they won't be able to find the place.

_____

Noon of the next day. Good news finally comes to them. They've made an important breakthrough!

Based on Han Chen's findings and after many hours of hard work, the criminal investigator team has actually found the place. A large area is now under their search. Additionally, they've obtained the surveillance footages between 3 to 3:30 am in the area; Zhou Xiao Zhuan has successfully identified a suspicious vehicle.

The surveillance video is about 3:40-3:41 minutes in. The location is on a road that's roughly three hundred meters away from the alleyway. The video is from outside of a bank beside the road.

At that time, there is no one on the road.

And then, three men walk out of the alleyway. One of them is wearing a clown costume; it has to be L. Due to the area being dimly lit, they can't make out their faces. And they also have their heads down.

L hops into the driver's seat; A and R enter the back seat. The whole process happens quickly and quietly. The vehicle is a very common black car in the city. Very quickly, the car starts and leaves the scene. The surveillance video very clearly captures its license plate: "ka7x.x.xx52".

"It's possible that they're using a fake license plate, but they haven't realized that their car has been caught on camera, so they might continue using it." Han Chen orders, "Immediately carry out a search for this car within the city."