Li Yun watched the footage that appeared to be from Ju De's waist as he entered a fancy club. He heard Zhu Ah Nin talking from the side as she was careful to avoid being captured by the camera and barely spoke anymore than necessary. They told the waiter that they were there to celebrate Ah Nin's birthday.
The video panned briefly on the first floor, which was the dance floor. As it was the weekdays, there weren't as many partygoers. Ju De and Ah Nin followed the waiter up to the second floor of the club where the private lounges were located. Ju De spent 2500 yuan to reserve the lounge for an hour.
"I hope it's your own money," Li Yun spoke into the microphone as he looked at the expensive decorations inside the club.
Aside from the decorations, there were checkpoints, security cameras and security guards in key locations. After partying in the lounge, Ju De took Zhu Ah Nin to the 5th floor hotel room area.
"This club was a pain to get in," Ju De complained. "I had to get an invite by an existing member of the Midnight Sky Bar. The basic membership for Bronze level is 5000 yuan a month. Only members with a year membership can become a Silver Level, and 3 years for Gold.”
“Do you know who owns the place?” Asked Li Yun.
“It’s listed as Midnight LLC., but there’s no public information on the owner,” said Ju De. “Bufu was able to track down the paperwork to Bai Qin. Mr. Bai was a former judge. He worked mainly behind the scenes, and few people have seen him."
“A former judge?” Li Yun could see why the club could slip under the radar. “Then will it be difficult to get security feeds.”
"Probably," said Ju De. "If it was a regular club, they wouldn't need to plant a spy camera in the private lounge area. I saw something that looked suspicious in our lounge."
"How about the hotel area?" asked Li Yun.
"The fifth to tenth floor are all accessible hotel rooms, but the 3rd, 4th, 11th-13th floor are private floors for upper level members. Our hotel room didn't have any spy cameras, but that doesn't mean other ones are cleaned. It's likely placed sporadically to avoid people from finding them."
"Did you have Bufu look into their system?"
"He tried, but they probably the footage on their internal server."
"So we need to get into their security room and steal the footage somehow," said Li Yun. They needed a plan.
With the four heads focused on creating a plan, they were ready to put it into action. Everyone was still skeptical about the details, but Li Yun thought it was feasible. With a plan in place, Li Yun drove Rouxi home before starting the operation. Rouxi noticed that Li Yun wasn't as riled up about finding the culprit.
"Why aren't you upset about this?" Rouxi curiously asked as she pulled out her makeup kit.
"What do you mean?" Li Yun asked as he sat down in front of the dresser, looking at his reflection in the mirror.
"When I heard about what had happened to Zhangmi, I felt horrified,” Rouxi said while clenching the side of her stomach. “I didn’t want justice, I wanted revenge. I wanted to rip apart the person who did this to her. Is it because you see Zhangmi as an acquaintance?” Rouxi wondered why Li Yun was so calm after seeing Zhangmi. His reaction was a bit different from everyone else. Had working in the ER made him calm? Or was it something else?
“It’s not that,” Li Yun replied. Admittedly, if the same thing had happened to Rouxi, Li Yun would have castrated the guy and everyone involved. He knew Zhangmi, but not at the same level as Rouxi. And if this had happened to Zhu Ah Nin, Ju De would have already blown up the law firm and the club. People placed different values on different people. It was impossible to care about everyone equally. And if the incident had happened to someone else other than Zhangmi, Li Yun might not even investigate the matter. Unfortunate as it was, misfortune happened everywhere in the world and at every moment.
“So you’re calm because you know something?” Asked Rouxi. Although Rouxi knew he had special abilities, he hadn't told her the exact nature of it. She wondered what he had seen when he saw Zhangmi who had refused to leave her home.
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“Can I tell you about it later?" Li Yun asked. "It's a bit difficult to explain now. Just continue to watch her and take her to the hospital."
"All right, promise you'll tell me eventually?" Rouxi took out her primer.
Li Yun nodded.
"So, who do you want to look like?" asked Rouxi as she dabbled the primer in Li Yun’s face.
Li Yun pulled up a picture of one of the waiters from Ju De's camera footage. "Him?" he asked.
Rouxi glanced at the picture and began their plan. After an hour, he was transformed into Tua, a waiter who had access to the third floor and the fourth floor, and more importantly, the waiter with the most similar build to him.
"I should have you do this more often,” Li Yun praised her makeup ability.
"It's not perfect, so try not to stand in the light and get close to other people," said Rouxi. "And don't do anything rash. This is just a trial makeup, I’ll need a few days to prepare some prosthetic to change your cheekbones.”
In other words, she was going to study tutorials online used by special effect artists.
****
After something preparations, Li Yun changed into a plain white dress shirt and black dress pants that looked similar to the ones the waiters had worn. Looking into the mirror, he was sure that even his mother would not recognize him. With everything set, he drove to the club and parked his car several buildings away from the front entrance. For an hour, he watched and listened to his surroundings.
Outside the club entrance, the body-builder bouncer Wong, guarded the front with a stern look on his face that he had cultivated for a few years to intimidate the regular club goers. The line was long, filled with rich college students and white collar workers. There were a few VIPs who were able to directly pass by bouncer Wong, and most of the workers entered through the side door that was card access only.
Ten minutes before 7pm, he waited for Tua, whose shift was about to begin. As Tua walked past his car, Li Yun got out and casually followed the waiter from behind. His feet traveled lightly, without Tua noticing that he was being followed or pricked by an acupuncture needle. Tua walked into the employee's entrance, swiped his keycard, and entered the side door. As he entered, he looked behind, making sure that no one was there before shutting the door tight.
In the meanwhile, Li Yun approached bouncer Wong.
"Hey Wong, forgot my card," Li Yun said in a muffled voice as he looked at the bouncer Wong.
Wong squinted his eyes, thumbed a "get-in" with his hand, and then crossed his arm back into position. Li Yun thanked him with a nod and walked into the lobby.
Li Yun listened in carefully with his ears, carefully dialing in on Tua's voices. He followed a waiter into the employees-only area, and followed his ears to the sound of Tua's heavy grunting. He moved along the floor with ease. Every time a door opened, his ears picked up vibrations from beyond, allowing him to carefully map out the layout of the employee's area. His destination was the men's bathroom.
Inside the bathroom, Li Yun heard and smelled the waiter in a diarrhetic state, causing his nose to squint. He had smelled worst in the hospital, but his nose was extra sharp. He entered the adjacent stall, stood on top of the stall, and shot another needle at Tua. This time, the waiter dozed off on the toilet. Li Yun jumped over the stall, and took the waiter's keycard and vest. From there, he had 15 minutes to find and collect the security footage.
Li Yun placed Tua's keycard over his neck and casually walked back into the hallway.
"Hey, where's Wejin?" Li Yun asked one of the waiters who passed by him in the hallway. Wejin was a security guard for the club according to his Meibo's page. Some people listed everything about themselves on the internet.
"Shouldn't he be in the security room?" asked the waiter, pointing further down the hallway.
Li Yun walked down the hall until he was near the security room. From the outside, he heard the security guard Wejin playing on his cellphone and casually glanced at the security cameras every time his phone was at the loading screen. A moment later, the phone rang and Wejin picked it up.
"Wejin here, what's up?" Wejin asked.
"Hey Wejin, there's a package for you at the front," said the guy over the phone.
"What? A package, just take it in for me then," said Wejin. "I'm on duty."
"The delivery guy said it's a special delivery, and you need to sign it."
"Really?" Wejin wondered if someone on the security team had ordered something. "All right, give me a moment." Wejin walked out of the room, since he was only going to be gone for at most 10 minutes, he didn't think leaving the room unattended was a big deal. He did it all the time.
Once everything was cleared, Li Yun entered the room and plugged in the usb drive. He shifted through until he found the files. He copied an entire month's worth of videos onto his drive within a few minutes. They only kept videos for a year, but he didn't have time to copy all the files, and he also needed to scout out the other areas.
The room that stored the spy camera footage was likely located in a different location. There were two possible locations of a security room, which was likely on the 3rd or 4th floor. Although he could map out the floor with his hearing, the ceiling had too many ducts and insulation that blocked off vibrations. He needed to be on the floor to gather more information.
Li Yun quickly arrived on the 3rd floor and pressed his ears against the door. There were two people inside and another door that seemed to lead into a long corridor. He decided to skip the floor and headed up to the fourth floor. Inside the fourth floor was a similar lobby, but there was only one person standing guard.
If he had time, he would wait to gather more information, but he needed to head back to the bathroom. He quickly retraced his step back to the first-floor bathroom and returned the vest and keycard to Tau. As he exited the side door, he sensed Wejin returning to his post, looking happy that he got a gift and a long love letter from a secret admirer courtesy of Bufu's flowery words and Hunlun's delivery service.