HHH Chapter 54

Ningma quietly watched the last segment of the video. The woman in the frame looked like a normal person, wearing a gray T-shirt under a beige sweatshirt on top, and black casual pants and sneakers on the bottom. Besides a light-colored fisherman’s hat on her head, she was almost indistinguishable from ordinary tourists.

The reason he noticed the hat was because she had pulled the brim down very low. If you looked at her straight on, you could barely see her eyes. She carried a backpack slightly larger than a student’s bag and dragged an ordinary suitcase.

The scene switched to the camera above the hotel front desk. Since it was the time to check out, the hotel generally charged an extra half-day room rate. When she received the bill and signed it, the woman quickly signed her name without hesitation.

Afterward, she dragged her suitcase towards the lobby. A doorman stood by the automatic door in advance, posing to see the guest off. Specifically, he bent his upper body forward, with one hand open, palm facing the exit, and the other hand placed on his lower abdomen. For a gesture that a server had to make many times a day, it was very standard.

Luo Zhe’s fiancée walked straight out of the main entrance without looking to the sides. The camera quickly switched here, almost in half a second, to the situation outside the door. The editing was very smooth, but because of the angle, the woman’s figure was diagonally behind when inside the door, while it was directly in front outside the door.

The woman dragged her suitcase out of the guest drop-off area and walked along the welcome lane towards the road without looking back. As her figure grew smaller and smaller, the scene switched to the last surveillance camera installed on the lamppost.

The woman in the frame hadn’t changed in the slightest, it could be said she was very determined, except—maybe it was an illusion, Ningma noticed that at the very end of the video, the woman lowered her head. Because of the slight reflection from the beige hat, the uncertain action looked like she slightly lowered her head.

Then the video ended. The action of lowering her head was in the last second before the woman’s figure disappeared. Logically speaking, this was a perfectly normal action. Anyone walking wouldn’t keep their neck upright all the time, and would occasionally move it unconsciously. But strangely, swaying from side to side was more normal, and very few people would sway forward and backward…

Or was he just being too sensitive?

[If you see this text, please exit reading mode, or go to the “Source Webpage” to read normally]

[Please go to the source webpage to read, the following content is automatically replaced to prevent crawling] you──me, big──small, more──less, up──down, left──right….

Ningma stood up and poured himself a glass of water that had long gone cold. When he looked at the empty tea bag, he licked his lips. The saliva produced surged back into his mouth, and he felt an almost fanatical longing for strong tea when he swallowed.

His drowsy brain became more and more irritable. He looked up at the clock on the wall, the hour hand pointing to “3.” He paced to the window and found that the ground below was covered in dark colors again. He looked closely and saw that the rain from the sky above was falling again.

Although it was only drizzle, it made his mood, which had only cleared up for half a day, become gloomy again. He didn’t know how long this round would last, whether it would be continuous for several days.

Putting down the water glass, Ningma planned to go to the bathroom. The short distance of a few meters didn’t require the support of a crutch. Although he walked relatively slowly, at least he was walking independently without relying on external force.

One step, two steps, three steps… The awareness in his head swayed quietly once, left or right. A few steps later, it swayed again consciously, still left or right.

While “Wow” (the sound of urinating), Ningma suddenly realized that in the last two seconds of the last video, the action of Luo Zhe’s fiancée slightly lowering her head was not a conditioned reflex of the body, but deliberate!

To verify his deduction, Ningma hopped back to the table on one foot, picked up his phone, and turned on the video. He pulled the progress bar back and watched it repeatedly and carefully—after nearly ten times, he was almost eighty percent certain!

She was lowering her head!

Was she lowering her head to see something?

Under what circumstances would a person walking with a suitcase lower their head?

A phone? No! She hadn’t taken out her phone from beginning to end in the frame, and Luo Zhe said that he kept calling his fiancée, and her phone was always on.

Was there something on the ground? It was possible, but he felt that if she had discovered something, the extent of her head lowering wouldn’t have been too great, and her stride hadn’t slowed down.

What else could it be? Ningma scratched his cheek. Could it be that she had something in her hand? Was she looking at something in her hand?

Damn it, what could she have in her hand?

Ningma immediately dragged the video to the beginning. The moment the woman appeared in the frame, he paused and carefully distinguished the woman’s hands. She held one of the straps of the backpack with one hand and dragged the suitcase with the other. It was obvious that she didn’t have anything in either hand.

The progress bar continued. The woman walked to the front desk, signed after a while, and then walked towards the exit. He pressed pause at the moment of leaving and zoomed in to observe. The woman had one hand free and the other hand dragging the suitcase. There was still nothing in her hand.

The third scene, the back view of the woman leaving the side door, one hand holding the backpack strap again, and the other hand dragging the suitcase…

Wait!

Ningma almost buried his eyes in the phone as if he couldn’t believe it—a subtle detail that was easy to ignore had almost deceived his eyes!

The woman in the video switched hands in the instant the scene changed. In the previous frame, her left hand was empty and her right hand was dragging the suitcase. After the switch, her left hand was dragging the suitcase, and her right hand was holding the backpack strap!

And until the last scene, while the woman slightly lowered her head, her left hand was reaching towards the approximate location behind her chest!

In other words—the woman was looking at something she was holding in her right hand, after she thought she wouldn’t be noticed!

Damn it! What was she looking at!

How could something appear out of thin air in her empty hand?

The woman in the frame had even only switched left and right hands!

Something abnormal must be a sign of a demon! Ningma simply adjusted the video to 0.25 speed. At the limited playback speed, everything was like slow motion.

Since the problem emerged when the scene switched, it must be the previous segment, which was the moment Luo Zhe’s fiancée stepped out of the hotel door—

Not the hotel front desk, because her hands were clearly empty when she left. Then she walked forward, and just as she was about to walk out of the gate—

Unexpectedly, it was the doorman!

The doorman wearing the hotel’s red uniform!

Ningma’s pupils almost shrank into a circle!

The doorman made a welcoming gesture, wearing white gloves on his right hand. Luo Zhe’s fiancée passed by the doorman, and in a flash of lightning, the woman’s empty left hand pretended to grab the backpack strap and lifted it up, intersecting with the doorman’s outstretched right hand!

In other words, when they passed each other, the doorman gave the thing in his hand to Luo Zhe’s fiancée, and the fiancée naturally switched her left and right hands, because her left hand was her dominant hand, so she needed to use her right hand to drag the suitcase.

And after walking far enough, she opened the thing in her hand and looked down at it—white (to match the color of the gloves), couldn’t be too big, contained information… so it was almost certainly a note.

A note! What was written on it?

Ningma’s gaze was fixed on the doorman’s blurry face, and gradually a familiar figure appeared in front of him, even overlapping with the person in the picture…

If he guessed correctly—Ningma licked his dry lower lip, the doorman in the picture, was Luo Kang, whom he had met only two hours ago.

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