Chapter 137: Song Lin’s Professional Showcase
A police car pulled into the underground parking lot of the hotel.
Song Lin opened the car door and headed straight for the elevator, making his way directly to the surveillance room.
Upon arrival, he began reviewing the previous surveillance footage, examining the suspicious behaviors flagged by Wang Qiang.
For an hour, Song Lin fast-forwarded through all the footage at triple speed before lighting a cigarette. He leaned back in his chair, massaging his brow, exhaustion visible on his face.
“There’s definitely something wrong…” he muttered, picking up the walkie-talkie and pressing the communication button. “This is Song Lin. I’ll be taking over command from Wang Qiang. All units, maintain your current positions.”
“Copy that!”
As soon as he finished speaking, a chorus of confirmations echoed through the walkie-talkie.
“Shiguang!” Song Lin called out.
“Yes, Captain Song, I’m here!”
Shiguang, who had just returned to the hotel, immediately responded.
“How’s the identity verification on that mother and child?”
Song Lin stared at the frozen image of Han Xue’s face on the surveillance screen, waiting for an answer.
“Captain Song, we’ve confirmed it with the family. It’s definitely her,” Shiguang replied without hesitation.
“The family confirmed it?”
Song Lin’s brows furrowed slightly.
“Yes, we double-checked.”
“Did you show the family photos of both the mother and child?”
“I only showed them the woman’s photo.”
Hearing this, Song Lin’s frown deepened.
“Take full-body screenshots of both the mother and child, including close-ups, and have the family confirm again. Also, request photos of the mother and child from the family and send them to the tech department for comparison analysis.”
After a brief moment of thought, Song Lin gave his instructions.
“Yes, sir!”
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“When the woman returned to the hotel this afternoon, she made a phone call. Lip-reading analysis suggests that she was speaking to the child’s father. Confirm whether her husband actually received that call.”
“If he didn’t, check the call records for any numbers under her name.”
As Song Lin reviewed the surveillance footage of Han Xue making her call, he issued his orders with precision.
“Yes, sir! I’ll get on it right away.”
Song Lin put down the walkie-talkie and continued analyzing Han Xue’s lip movements in the footage.
“The weather?”
“Why would the weather be so important?”
“Why did she ask about it twice?”
He murmured to himself while checking the weather forecast on his phone.
The forecast showed clear skies all day.
“She asked twice, and her body language became noticeably tense. Could ‘weather conditions’ be some kind of code?”
Song Lin muttered in suspicion.
With this in mind, he rewound the surveillance footage and watched Han Xue’s return to the hotel over and over again.
Suddenly, Song Lin’s eyes lit up.
He hit the pause button.
“This is it!”
On the screen, Han Xue and Officer Xiao Li appeared in the same frame.
“She made eye contact with Xiao Li under those sunglasses.”
Song Lin murmured as he analyzed her body language.
“After making eye contact, she had an immediate full-body tension response and almost stood up—then quickly made a covering motion, as if trying to avoid being noticed by Xiao Li. That means she was nervous.”
“From that moment on, she avoided turning her head in Xiao Li’s direction, yet her body position suggests she was watching her closely through her peripheral vision.”
“She’s afraid of Xiao Li but also needs to monitor her movements.”
The surveillance footage replayed over and over, each frame scrutinized through behavioral and psychological analysis.
“Wang Qiang’s instincts were right. This woman is definitely suspicious.”
Song Lin marked Han Xue as a person of interest.
“If she’s suspicious, then what about the child?”
He recalled the footage—there was no sense of unfamiliarity between Han Xue and the child. Their interactions were natural and close, nothing like how a child would behave around a stranger.
“A child wouldn’t mistake their own mother.”
“Even if this woman looked identical to his real mother, a child’s instincts would sense something was off.”
Song Lin frowned in thought.
“And would a responsible mother leave her young child alone in a hotel room for such a long time and take the room key with her?”
“The child is so young—wouldn’t he be scared?”
“Locked alone in a powerless hotel room, yet he remained completely calm when interacting with the housekeeping staff?”
“Is that a normal reaction for an eight-year-old?”
Staring at the report on his phone, Song Lin’s gaze locked onto the child’s details.
Age: Eight years old.
With that in mind, he rewound the footage again, isolating every frame that showed Han Xue and the child—from the moment they got out of the taxi to the second they entered Room 512.
Every single surveillance camera’s footage was displayed across multiple screens.
“Let’s see if there are any flaws.”
Song Lin murmured as he slowed the playback, analyzing each frame in meticulous detail.
In Room 507, Fang Xiaocao was also reviewing the hotel’s surveillance footage on her phone. Just like Song Lin, she was watching the recordings from the moment Han Xue and Axi exited the taxi up to their entry into Room 512. However, unlike Song Lin’s expert-level forensic analysis, Fang Xiaocao was simply watching. She had no technical skills, no professional criminology knowledge—only some extended psychology concepts from her study of hypnosis. Still, she had one advantage over Song Lin: she knew Han Xue and Axi personally. As she watched, she carefully compared the people in the footage with her memories of them. While Song Lin searched blindly for irregularities, Fang Xiaocao had a clear target in mind. Now, it was just a matter of who would uncover the truth first.
In Room 518, a middle-aged man and his sultry secretary sat facing each other. The room was impeccably clean. Even the bed remained untouched, showing no signs of the scandalous activity that the front desk staff had gossiped about.
“Call Capricorn.”
“There are cops in the hotel, yet she still had us come. Find out what that crazy woman is up to.”
The middle-aged man’s face was cold, his eyes filled with fury.
“Of course, darling~”
The secretary purred seductively as she picked up her phone and dialed a number.
(End of Chapter 137)
