Chapter 499: Deep Exploration

I rushed back to the room like a madman, making more than a dozen phone calls and summoning all the more capable hands from Hangzhou. I assigned several tasks. The first group was to search for people—I hadn't seen what that person looked like, just told them to look for anyone suspicious. The second group was to rummage through every trash can in the area looking for videotapes. With so many videotapes, he couldn't have taken them away immediately; either he destroyed them or hid them somewhere else. Even if they only found a pile of ash, they had to bring it back. The third group was to get someone to haul out everything from that secret room and bring it to me. I was going to study it inch by inch; I refused to believe there wasn't a single trace to be found.

The first group naturally found nothing—I was just venting my frustration by ordering people around. But no one was found. The second group never came back. The third group was even more frustrating, because maybe when that room below was originally designed, the furniture was placed inside first. Now getting that furniture out through such a small passage was nearly impossible. My men asked what to do, and I thought, what else? "Take it apart!"

Everything inside was broken into pieces and piled up in the courtyard. I looked at all the fragments, turning them over one by one, until I realized there was absolutely no clue. Only then did I calm down.

I sent everyone away and sat alone in the courtyard, lit a cigarette, and thought. I felt I had failed too miserably—such a good opportunity lost. But as I looked at the bedding, the tables, the chairs, I suddenly noticed something off and let out a cold laugh.

I realized I hadn't failed at all. Everything I wanted to know was right in front of me. I just needed some measures to decode it.

I picked up my phone and called one of my men: "No matter the cost, find me a DNA testing facility." I spread out the quilt and carefully searched through it, picking out a single strand of hair. "Yes, money isn't an issue."

If a person had lived in a sealed room for decades and the only person communicating with him was my third uncle, what was the biggest problem? That person's knowledge of modern technology must be pitifully small. I don't know how they communicated before using computers, but obviously their understanding of technology wouldn't be deep.

I sent the few strands of hair I found for testing. If my guess was correct, this would let me know half the damned story.

On the other side, I sent both computers to my old classmate to keep studying. I knew that deleting things from a computer doesn't clean them completely; even if you format the hard drive, the data might still be recoverable. I already had some understanding of everything—certain fragments might be extremely valuable hints for me.

Long story short, the DNA results wouldn't come out that fast, but the next day, my classmate showed up.

To my surprise, my classmate came empty-handed. I gave him a questioning look. He shook his head: "The hard drives in these computers are useless—just empty shells."

Empty shells? "This is a workstation," he said. "I found this in the optical drive." He took out a CD. "This computer's hard drive is just for show; it's a workstation that runs off the optical drive."

I didn't really understand, so he explained: "In short, the computer has no hard drive. All information is stored in memory, with no permanent record. Once you shut it down, everything resets to zero."

I lit a cigarette, had him sit down, and asked: "Is this kind of technology very advanced?"

He shook his head: "No, it's actually a pretty low-end technique. Often used in university multimedia classrooms and internet cafes, so you avoid the trouble of viruses and reinstalling the system."

I sighed, thinking to myself that he really was watertight. But given how my third uncle and this person who lived for years in a dark room operated, how was this all set up? There had to be someone with technical knowledge to guide them.

I didn't believe that my third uncle had secretly learned a lot of modern knowledge; there had to be someone else.

I sighed and asked him: "Did you carefully check both computers? Any strange things? Any differences?"

He scratched his head and sat down beside me, saying: "I don't know if I should say this." I said: "Say it, and I'll pay you extra."

He said: "I've been repairing computers in the computer mall for many years and seen all kinds of machines. I believe you're top-notch in the antiques business, but you have to trust me too—with all my years of computer repair, any computer that comes into my hands, I can tell what kind of person the owner is, their habits, even whether they're fat or thin, their personality, what they like to do on it."

I lit his cigarette and watched his eyes shine with pride as he spoke, finding it amusing. He saw me lighting his cigarette and immediately felt encouraged: "You might not believe me, but let me give an example. Gamers and writers use completely different computers, including the wear on the keyboard. I can tell from the keyboard wear."

I nodded for him to continue. He said: "This computer is a popular model from seven years ago, meaning it's been used for about seven years—already a long time in this era. But when I checked all the parts, I found something very odd." He paused. "Basically, none of the parts show any wear."

I frowned, realizing what he said might really be valuable.

"You see, when people use a keyboard, the oil from their fingers always gets on the keys. No matter how clean they are, after one use, a thin film of oil forms, and dust sticks to it, creating grime. A computer used for seven years, no matter how clean the owner, this grime is unavoidable."

"Just tell me your conclusion directly."

"The keyboard is too clean, the mouse wheel is too clean—and this isn't the kind of clean after wiping. You know, a mouse is very hard to clean. How clean? It looks like the computer just came out of storage. But from the marks on your desk where the computer sat and the degree of yellowing on the plastic shell, it's clearly been sitting out for a long time. So there's almost only one conclusion," he said. "These two computers were rarely used—almost never used."

I rubbed my chin, fully understanding what he meant. I patted him. I thought: Damn, so that's how it is.

If my third uncle had frequently used the computer to communicate with the person in the secret room over these seven years, it definitely wouldn't have been like this. But the computers were definitely placed here—I saw them every time I came. If the computer wasn't often used yet was kept here to communicate with the person…

This was a contradiction. The evidence conflicted.

"This is a trap, son of a bitch." I stubbed out my cigarette and cursed myself inwardly.

It was a testing mechanism. When the person in the secret room sensed something off, he used this computer to send messages. If it were the real third uncle, he might reply with a prearranged code.

But my thinking wasn't that deep; I hadn't considered that, so I fell for it immediately. All those conversations afterward, I thought I was testing him. Now I see he gave such watertight answers precisely to test me. In this entire setup, I was at a complete disadvantage.

From this kind of terrifying trap and setup, I could see that the psychological warfare among these factions before had reached an indescribable level. Everyone walked on eggshells; every move required exhaustive calculation.

"Uncle, what exactly are you trying to find from this? If it's convenient, tell me, so I have a direction to search." Seeing my expression, he realized I had accepted his conclusion, and his enthusiasm soared. "Wu Xie used to ask me to look up stuff all the time; with a goal, it's much easier."

I clicked my tongue and said: "Let me tell you a story."

So I adapted what happened in this house into a very ambiguous story and told it to him.

After hearing it, he thought it was quite interesting: "This is like a spy drama from World War II."

"I just want to find this person. He must be the key."

"But it doesn't hold up," he said. "Uncle, that story you just told—it doesn't hold up."