Chapter 160: Sher-Wang Holmes!

After parting ways with Lin Xiaolei, Wang Zheng did not immediately head to the television station to rendezvous with Liao Tong, but instead drove straight to Liao Tong's apartment. Upon entering, Wang Zheng immediately placed the metal briefcase on the table, entered the password, and popped the case open.

Inside lay a scattered array of items, mostly exquisite miniature instruments such as fingerprint scanners, laser illuminators, and the like—all representing the absolute cutting edge of international technology. The palm-sized laser illuminator alone cost one million dollars; under its beam, everything invisible to the naked eye was stripped of its hiding place. By attaching a transmission cable to its rear and plugging the other end into an analyzer, it could break down and display the exact composition of something as mundane as a drop of saliva.

The era of Sherlock Holmes, relying solely on keen observation and mental deduction, had long since passed. This was the age of high technology.

Wang Zheng collected footprint samples along the entire path from the front door to the table. After filtering out the shoe prints belonging to himself and Liao Tong, what naturally remained were the prints left behind yesterday morning by the masked intruder! At the same time, Wang Zheng conducted a thorough search of the entire apartment, hoping to unearth any suspicious clues.

When Wang Zheng looked at the results generated on the analyzer with full confidence, however, he couldn't help but frown. The footprints had indeed materialized, but they formed a shape a full foot long. Why did he call it a foot shape? Because there were zero friction ridges or patterns on it whatsoever; it was completely flat, allowing them only to deduce that it was a foot-length measuring one foot.

A Bigfoot? According to Wang Zheng's visual estimation of the masked man from a distance using binoculars, the intruder stood somewhere between one meter seventy and one meter seventy-five. At that height, it was fundamentally impossible to grow a foot a full foot long. Unless the person had custom-ordered oversized shoes, or slipped on… a foot mold!

The foot mold Wang Zheng referred to was not the kind used as props to advertise various footwear products featuring beautiful, delicate feet, but rather hollow molds designed to slip right over one's shoes! People abroad frequently crafted oversized foot molds to press into primeval forests, falsely claiming them to be footprints of Bigfoot. Therefore, based on Wang Zheng's deduction, the intruder must have entered the room using a similar method—akin to wearing diving flippers!

Wang Zheng smiled inwardly; the opponent was truly cunning, anticipating even this angle. Moreover, during the intruder's exit, these tracks had even been cleaned up. If not for the advanced technology at Wang Zheng's disposal, he would have been completely helpless.

Naturally, one should not assume that such a tactic could throw Wang Zheng off the scent. After conducting a comprehensive inspection of the apartment, Wang Zheng stepped outside and gathered footprint evidence from the hallway floor as well.

This was an elevator-serviced building, not a walk-up. Although this area had also been tread upon by Wang Zheng and Liao Tong, their footsteps were limited. Subtle details defied human recognition, but high-tech instruments could perceive them—meaning everything still depended on high-tech gear.

Knowledge is power, and technology is the primary productive force; these maxims proved utterly true.

By examining bones, scientists could reconstruct the appearance of dinosaurs from hundreds of millions of years ago; through mummies, they could sketch faces from millennia in the past. How much easier was it to analyze footprints left just yesterday?

Sampling proceeded once again following the previous method. The foot mold impressions did indeed appear, extending all the way to the stairwell before completely vanishing. Several different shoe prints cluttered the stairs—the handiwork, no doubt, of some idiot who ignored the elevator and decided to climb the stairs for exercise, which introduced considerable obstacles to Wang Zheng's investigation.

Nevertheless, Wang Zheng did not give up. He extracted and sampled all footprints that had appeared on this floor, committing them firmly to memory: sneakers, slippers, high heels, and so on. Simultaneously, by tracing the direction of the prints, he ultimately locked onto five target households with high suspicion. Naturally, unless the masked man had simply floated away, in which case Wang Zheng would have been powerless.

He needed to investigate these five households one by one. Yet once a flaw was exposed, it would alert the target; he couldn't simply burst into civilian homes to inspect the soles of their shoes, could he? That was completely impractical!

If anyone assumed Wang Zheng would fail and give up here, they would be grossly mistaken! Wang Zheng returned inside the apartment, grabbed the edges of the open iron case, and gave them a sharp upward haul. Beneath the upper compartment lay yet another layer. Compared to the smaller instruments and components above, this lower tier housed a relatively bulky piece of hardware—a device resembling a laptop computer.

He copied the tread patterns from the soles into the laptop for a comparative analysis. Moments later, the screen displayed several pairs of shoes featuring matching soles, specifying details right down to the manufacturing brand. That was simply how advanced technology had become in this day and age; with humanity capable of landing on the moon, what else was impossible? Perhaps a century from now, the dream of building houses on Mars might even be realized.

After deleting some bizarre and irrelevant data, the remaining images on the screen depicted shoes that were entirely ordinary—shoes worn by normal people. He memorized the shapes of the footwear so he could keep an eye out for them in the future.

Based on current intelligence, this was seemingly the limit of what could be achieved. Solving cases usually relied on team spirit and collective strength; a single man… after all, he was human, not a god. This was all Wang Zheng could accomplish on his own.

Five households… Wang Zheng mentally mapped out their locations, realizing one of them happened to be right across the hall.

Wang Zheng closed the door to Liao Tong's apartment, walked over to the opposite neighbor's threshold, and suddenly reached out to press the doorbell.

"Ding-dong."

After a brief pause, a voice rang out.

"Who is it?"

A woman? Wang Zheng had tracked this particular household down based on a slipper print.

"Oh, I'm a resident from across the hall. When I went downstairs to take out the trash just now, I forgot my house keys. No one else is home, and I didn't bring my phone. Could I possibly borrow your telephone for a moment?" Wang Zheng asked earnestly.

Outside was a doorbell, while inside was a video intercom system. The screen allowed those inside to view the scene outside, while the microphone enabled them to question visitors.

"The person living across the hall is apparently Miss Liao from the television station, right?" the woman inside asked suspiciously. Modern women possessed remarkably high vigilance, which was hardly surprising—inviting a wolf into the house could have severe consequences.

"I'm Miss Liao's boyfriend, and I've been staying here for several days. If you don't believe me, I can give you Liao Tong's phone number so you can help notify her, alright?" It was time once again to play the role of the upstanding, innocent citizen, though a tall, handsome man like Wang Zheng with slightly tanned skin didn't exactly look like a docile, law-abiding citizen.

"Go ahead and give me the number then, I'll notify her for you!" the woman replied.

Damn it, this woman still wasn't opening the door? Generally speaking, when a woman displayed such caution, there was only one possible explanation: she was living alone, and her greatest fear was someone knocking at night!

The door could not be opened for the time being, and Wang Zheng couldn't afford to force his way in at this juncture. Therefore, he provided the woman with Liao Tong's cell phone number, his own name, and the message to be relayed, then sat down quietly outside to wait. At present, he could only await Liao Tong's appearance. Wang Zheng had consistently sought to protect Liao Tong's peace of mind, which was why he hadn't informed her of what he was doing to spare her unnecessary worry. Never did he expect that after taking such a roundabout detour, he would still have to notify her!

"Click." Just as Wang Zheng sat desolately before the door, silently lamenting that his strategy had fallen short, the opposite door pushed open from within, and a woman poked her head out.

"Mr. Wang, I'm so sorry about earlier. Please, come on in and sit down; Miss Liao said she'll be right back!" The previous phone call had completely dispelled the female homeowner's suspicions toward Wang Zheng. Besides, since he genuinely turned out to be Miss Liao's boyfriend, keeping him locked outside would be entirely too discourteous—especially since she usually exchanged pleasantries with Liao Tong whenever they bumped into each other.

"Well, thank you very much!" Wang Zheng said awkwardly, "I'm just a bit scatterbrained and always forgetting things!" With that, Wang Zheng stepped inside. The homeowner was rather attractive, yet why did she look somewhat familiar? It felt as though he had seen her somewhere before.

As Wang Zheng took a seat in the living room, the hostess brewed him a cup of tea and settled down nearby.

"Have some tea." Looking at Wang Zheng, the hostess offered an apologetic explanation, "I live here all by myself, so whenever I encounter strangers, I never dare to open the door—especially at night!"

"Understandable. A single woman has to be careful; otherwise, letting a wolf into the house becomes a real headache. You did the right thing!" Wang Zheng said with a smile. It turned out she really was single, and a woman at that. It seemed he could safely cross this apartment off his list of suspects, leaving four remaining. "By the way, what might your honorable name be, Miss?"

"Oh, my name is Wang Qianqian. I've been living right across from Miss Liao for quite a long time. We rarely cross paths, though; Miss Liao is a news anchor and always seemed so mysterious, so I never dared to disturb her. Come to think of it, we've only run into each other four or five times over all this period... how ridiculous is that!"

This woman named Wang Qianqian seemed remarkably conversational—or perhaps, having lived alone for too long, once her conversational floodgates opened, they simply refused to shut. Her lips clacked away like popping beans, streaming without pause. From neighborhood security to international counter-terrorism, from memory-improvement techniques to delivering piglets... she covered every topic under the sun, launching into an almighty philosophical ramble.

It was the first time in his life Wang Zheng had ever witnessed a woman capable of chatting this extensively. He was truly enlightened!

Huh? Watching Wang Qianqian gesture with her hands as she spoke, a flash of inspiration struck Wang Zheng's brain, and he suddenly remembered where he had seen Wang Qianqian before.

Wasn't she the woman he had spotted changing clothes yesterday during his surveillance? The one with the rather ample chest. No wonder she looked so familiar; once she put clothes on, he almost failed to recognize her. If not for her expansive gestures revealing a white undergarment beneath a loose-fitting T-shirt, Wang Zheng probably wouldn't have recalled it at all.

Right, yesterday the color she wore seemed to be black, though—