Qiming Chapter 97

Chapter 97

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"Professor Lu, I'm Gu Yunfeng from Jinping Bureau's criminal investigation team. This is our first time meeting, hello." Gu Yunfeng firmly grasped Lu Yong's hand, his gaze sharp and expression stern. It truly was his first time meeting Lu Yong. When Xu Chengyue joined the criminal investigation team, it had been orchestrated by Director Zhao, and Gu Yunfeng had been entirely unaware. His only role had been to supervise the rookie who had been parachuted into the team.

Lu Yong, wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, sat opposite him with a refined and gentle demeanour, draped in a dark coat. He fit the image of an academic that Gu Yunfeng had imagined. However, on closer inspection, heavy dark circles were visible under his eyes, his hair was thinning noticeably, and his complexion appeared unhealthy. Most curious of all was the strong smell of alcohol on him, mixed with the scent of tobacco.

Had he just finished drinking?

"Hello." Lu Yong removed his glasses and wiped the lenses. Still not fully sober, he squinted in Gu Yunfeng's direction and said, "You're the officer who worked with Chengyue before, right?"

"That’s me."

"Quite a handsome young man." Lu Yong looked Gu Yunfeng up and down carefully, but when his eyes landed on Gu Yunfeng's face, all he saw was cold indifference, even disgust.

"What have you lost?" Although it was their first meeting, Gu Yunfeng had no intention of hiding his disdain for Lu Yong. All of his impressions of this man came from Xu Chengyue, oh, and a comment from Xu Chengyue's junior, delivered via Ying Xizi.

He had already formed a fixed opinion: this seemingly well-dressed, cultured scholar was, in reality, a selfish villain who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. The scent of air freshener couldn’t mask the stench of alcohol that clung to him, just as the slogans of justice plastered on the walls couldn’t conceal the desire and greed festering in his heart.

"Before you arrived, I took inventory. Nothing’s missing, but a copy of the data stored in the lab’s cache has been stolen."

"Only the data?"

Lu Yong rubbed his eyes and hesitated for a few seconds before nodding drowsily and revealing the full truth: "There's also most of the documents from one of our projects, which were stored in a local directory."

"What project?" He didn't expect to understand Lu Yong's answer, but he still found himself asking.

"A project we call AI detective." As he finished, Lu Yong let out a belch, the reek of alcohol wafting up from his stomach. Gu Yunfeng had no choice but to cover his nose and open the window, shivering as he pulled his coat tightly around himself in the cold breeze.

Lu Yong had reported the incident at seven o'clock in the morning. He still wasn't fully awake at the time, babbling nonsense and nodding off constantly. Several students had been with him, taking care of him, though they too had clearly had too much to drink and looked sluggish.

According to Lu Yong, the previous night he had taken his students out for dinner and drinks, overindulging. Several students had left early, leaving just him and a few others who stayed to look after him. After spending the night at a hotel, they returned to the lab to find clear signs that the lock had been tampered with. Upon checking the database and computer logins, they confirmed that someone had entered the lab between two and four o'clock in the morning, and copied a large amount of data and materials.

The computer from which the data had been stolen was Lu Yong's. The login password had been cracked, and the hacker had gained access to the database permissions.

"A few days ago, everyone in our lab received an email with no address or signature, but it was actually a meeting invitation infected with a Trojan horse virus."

"Most of us opened the email, including me." Lu Yong had drunk several glasses of water, and as the alcohol wore off, his mind gradually cleared. He sighed as he spoke, "Maybe the access was compromised at that time. We're connected to a remote database, and there's a bastion host in between for data security."

"But even that wasn’t foolproof."

What made it even more perplexing was that the computer in question was located in a separate room with a triple-layer security lock. The first layer was a mechanical lock, the second was a password lock known to no more than three people, and the third was Lu Yong's palm print and fingerprint.

The laboratory's front door was just an ordinary security door, and several people had keys to it. The first mechanical lock had clearly been picked, with tools that were left behind at the scene – thin wire and tinfoil.

Gu Yunfeng picked up the tinfoil from the floor, finding it oddly familiar. It resembled the packaging of a delivery he had received a few days earlier.

"Who are the people who know the password to that room?" Gu Yunfeng asked, looking up at Lu Yong.

"Me, Dean Dai from the School of Biology, and Principal Wu."

"What about the database access?"

"The compromised access belonged to the super administrator, I'm the only one with that."

"Do they know about the stolen data?"

"I haven’t been able to reach Director Dai, but the others know."

"You couldn’t reach him?" Gu Yunfeng frowned, pushing open the door to the heavily secured room that had been breached. He looked around and noticed there wasn’t a single surveillance camera. The laboratory only had two or three cameras in the corridor on the first floor. Such lax security was truly unheard of.

He opened a window, feeling something was off. Of the three people who knew the room's password, all were from the university, yet Lu Yong was the only one with database access. But he had heard rumours recently that Zhiyin Technology was the laboratory's primary sponsor. With something this important in the laboratory, was it possible the sponsor had no access at all?

"Professor Lu," he said, turning to look at Lu Yong, who was standing at the doorway. "Didn't Zhiyin Technology fund most of your work? They didn’t have access?"

"We ended our partnership," Lu Yong replied, clearly not expecting this question. After a brief pause, he answered calmly.

"Just a few months ago."

—————

"Lu Yong said their lab cancelled a long-term partnership with Zhiyin Technology a few months ago," Gu Yunfeng remarked, biting into an apple as he spoke to Shu Pan. "The timing... coincidentally matches Professor Xu's arrival here."

He looked up and noticed a plate of sliced fruit on the table. Shu Pan sat nearby in a chair, grinning in a way that made him look particularly sly.

"Where did that come from?" Gu Yunfeng pointed at the fruit platter.

"Director Zhao gifted it to you as a reward for abandoning your holiday to devote yourself to work, he wants us to learn from you."

"......" Gu Yunfeng didn't reply. He tossed the finished apple into the garbage and picked up a fork from the plate, stabbing a piece of red-fleshed dragon fruit. The case involved only a few people, making the investigation relatively straightforward. Plus, since this was where Xu Chengyue worked, he might be able to gather more valuable information.

"Why did their lab end its partnership with Zhiyin Technology?" He abruptly thrust the piece of dragon fruit toward Shu Pan's mouth, stuffing it in before Shu Pan could react.

"How... how would I know?" Shu Pan, nearly choking on the fruit, quickly grabbed a tissue to wipe the juice from the corner of his mouth.

"A small lab like theirs cutting off Zhiyin Technology’s investment... maybe they found a better sponsor."

"Quite possible." Gu Yunfeng nodded, sitting cross-legged on his desk without a care for appearances.

"This data breach might be related to that." While he didn't fully understand the relationship between the companies and the university, his instincts told him that the leaked information all revolved around the AI detective project, specifically concerning the chip implanted in Xu Chengyue's brain, the same one that played a role in that life-changing surgery.

It all seemed to point back to Zhiyin Technology, the laboratory, and Xu Chengyue, as well as his former mentor, Lu Yong.

There weren’t many people who knew about the AI detective project, and for someone to bypass all the security layers and steal such critical data, it couldn't have been an external hacker. There had to be someone on the inside.

The pool of internal personnel was small. He knew Lu Yong had been attending a gathering of his former students that day. The perpetrator had obtained Lu Yong's access and password, even replicating his palm print and fingerprint, effortlessly entering the laboratory’s most secure room to steal highly confidential data.

Gu Yunfeng took a bite of an orange, holding the fork in hand, and stared absent-mindedly at the plane in the blue sky outside the window. At that moment, he felt a deep emptiness inside him, as though something was within reach yet still far away. He paced around, unwilling to lift the veil on whatever it was, torn between moving forward or staying in place.

He had never delved deeply into the issues at the AI laboratory. Even though he was well aware that Xu Chengyue’s fall from the building was tied to Lu Yong’s undeniable responsibility, his other work had always held him back from taking action.

He had convinced himself that he was just too busy, but now Gu Yunfeng knew deep down that he had been avoiding it, that he was afraid. Afraid of the consequences he wouldn’t be able to handle, afraid of facing a truth he couldn’t accept, afraid of losing the people and things he cherished most.

Last night, he had slept soundly. He couldn't even recall when Xu Chengyue had come home, though there had been a gathering, and Xu Chengyue returned late. When Gu Yunfeng woke up in the morning, Xu Chengyue was already gone. He couldn't quite pinpoint what felt off, but his eyelids kept twitching, either from lack of rest or as a sign of impending trouble.

"Captain, I remember Professor Xu is involved with that AI lab, right?" Shu Pan nudged his arm.

"Yeah," Gu Yunfeng replied absent-mindedly.

"So why haven’t we seen him around?"

"He has class today."

"Oh..." Shu Pan sounded a bit disappointed. "He should be stopping by later though, right?"

"Not necessarily," Gu Yunfeng’s eyes flickered. "You miss him?"

"Of course!"

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: September 21, 2024 by Angel

Edited: January 7, 2025 by Angel