Mystery Detective of the Steam World

Chapter 374 Narrowing down the scope
The guard is relatively easy to find, as he is still at the Royal Academy and continuing to do his work.

"For me, this is a very easy job."

The old guard was getting on in years, but he was still in good spirits.

"I love this job. Every day here, watching those energetic young men and women walk around, it feels great. It's like I become younger myself, isn't it? They have a future, and they have a long future ahead of them. Thinking about that makes me happy. That's why I refused my family's offer to send me to a nursing home, adults. Nursing homes don't seem like good places to me. They're more like a place where a group of people with little time left huddle together for warmth. But that's not a good thing. Maybe one day you'll wake up and be told that the gentleman next door has passed away. Oh, how pitiful, but you'll quickly realize that maybe I'll be next... Such a place is not good for your physical and mental health."

"indeed so."

Li Wei nodded silently, took a sip of tea, and the old guard continued speaking.

"Ah...right, you're here to ask about Lake's disappearance, right? What a poor young man. I really want to know what happened to him. So many years have passed, and it's still a mystery..."

Do you remember what happened back then?

“Oh, of course I remember. It was a very ordinary night. School had already let out, and we were on night patrol. I was on the east side, and Lake was on the west side. He was a great guy, very funny, enthusiastic, and very responsible. I was patrolling the normal route, everything was normal, and then when I got back to the guardhouse, Lake hadn’t returned yet. This surprised me a bit, because Lake was usually faster than me.”

As he spoke, the old man sighed and looked at the teacup beside him.

"Back then, every time I came back, he would cheerfully brew me a pot of hot tea... and then we'd play cards together. Sorry, sir, as people get older, they tend to get nostalgic. Where were we...? Oh, right, I noticed he hadn't come back, but I didn't think much of it, just assumed something had gotten in the way. So I brewed a pot of tea and waited for him. But he never came back... I worried something might have happened to him, so I went to the west wing to look for him..."

"Isn't the west building the data storage warehouse?"

Li Wei asked.

"Does that area also need patrols?"

"It wasn't like that back then, sir. The west building used to be a teaching building, but after the Master's College built a new teaching building, the west building was converted into a data storage warehouse."

Oh right, I hadn't thought of that.

Li Wei nodded.

"and then?"

"I didn't find anything."

The old man shook his head.

“There was nothing there. I walked around and around the patrol route, calling his name loudly. I was worried that he might have fallen somewhere, hit his head, or had some kind of accident. But unfortunately, I found nothing…”

"So you called the police?"

"Yes, sir, the police came to investigate, but they found nothing... The young man just disappeared without a trace..."

"Could he have run away for some reason?"

“Oh, I don’t think so, sir. He was a very good young man. His parents died of illness, and he lived alone. He had some savings, didn’t gamble, and didn’t go to those shady bars or places like that. Moreover, he was engaged to a girl, and she was heartbroken for a long time after he disappeared.”

"And then what?"

"Thank God, nothing like that has happened since then, especially after the West Building was converted into a vault. You can take this as an old man's ramblings, but I feel that something must have happened in the West Building back then. Although the police have searched the place thoroughly and found nothing, I still have a feeling. In fact, after the West Building was converted into a vault, nothing has happened again."

"Um... thank you for your cooperation."

After bidding farewell to the old guard, Li Wei first went to the restroom—he had been drinking tea and chatting wherever he went all day, and presumably he would continue doing so.

So Li Wei decided to put some stock in for himself first.

As it turned out, Li Wei's approach was correct.

"Ah, Sir Levi, I never expected you to come and visit me."

A middle-aged man in a suit poured Li Wei a cup of tea with a smile and began to speak. He was one of the people who reported the third "disappearance case," and currently co-owns a company with his friend. Fortunately, his friend was also one of the people present at the time.

It's quite a story that college friends continued to start a business together after graduation and even made it a success.

"Are you here because of that missing person case? Is it some kind of big case?"

"You know how it is with newspapers."

Li Wei had naturally already explained this. It must be said that being a special guest of the "Exploration News" did save Li Wei a lot of trouble. At least people would no longer be surprised that a famous detective with a renowned reputation in the empire would come knocking on his door for such a trivial matter.

This also makes many people willing to cooperate, since most people are averse to being involved in a case. However, becoming a figure in a newspaper story is a different matter entirely. After all, for most people, being in the newspaper is far more prestigious than appearing in court.

They can even buy several copies of the newspaper for their relatives and friends, and then point out their own names in the articles, which makes them feel very proud, doesn't it?
Therefore, when Li Wei used this identity to investigate mysterious cases, he was actually more popular than when he investigated normal cases, and everyone was more willing to cooperate. The only problem was that, in order to get themselves into the news, they might exaggerate some things to make them more sensational, but for Li Wei, seeing through their lies was just basic skill.

"Ah, speaking of which, that matter was indeed strange..."

Do you remember what happened back then?

"Of course, that was the first time I called the police since I was born, so I remember it very clearly."

The man sat down in the chair and began to think.

“I remember it was the night of Christmas. A group of us had a dance party at school to celebrate. Everyone had a great time and had a lot of fun.”

"At school?"

"It was a little dance party. We were all boarding students, but we weren't allowed to make noise in the dorms, so we found an empty classroom, got permission from the professor to use it, decorated it up a bit, and brought some drinks and food ourselves..."

Oh, a university party... It seems like similar things are done in every era.

"and then?"

"Then we saw that it was almost time, so we decided to go back to the dorm. After all, the dorm supervisor is a very nagging person, and if we missed the curfew, she would really lock us out. So we went back to the dorm together, and when we got to the west building, Paul suddenly said that he saw a woman by the window on the third floor... Is that right, Old Cha?"

"Yes."

Sitting next to him, another man wearing gold-rimmed glasses nodded and continued speaking.

"When we heard him speak, we all looked up and sure enough, we saw a woman by the window on the third floor."

"Do you have any memories of this woman?"

"Actually, there weren't many. I only remember that she was wearing white clothes and her face was white. She was startled when she saw us and then quickly disappeared from the window."

"Then why did you think of reporting it to the police?"

When Li Wei asked them a question, the two exchanged a glance.

“We were very confused at the time because there is usually no one there, and then someone… I don’t remember who said it, could it be a thief? We all felt it was strange, so we decided to go in and look for him.”

"Old Cha and another classmate were guarding the gate outside, and then we went in."

Then the first man continued.

"Looking back now, we were incredibly brave, though it might have been because we'd been drinking. We went into the west building and then to the classroom on the third floor, but we didn't see anyone. We looked around again, but still found nothing. We were getting scared and started to wonder if it was a ghost or something... So someone suggested we call the police, and we did."

"But in the end, nothing was found?"

"Yes, we spoke to the guard first, but he said we were drunk. We were supposed to go back then, but after drinking, we insisted we weren't mistaken, so I ran to find a patrolling policeman nearby... and then..."

The first man smiled somewhat embarrassedly as he spoke.

"As it turned out, the police didn't find anyone there, and we were all scolded by the dormitory manager."

At this point, the two exchanged a smile. For them, this was probably an interesting experience in their university life.

"Weren't you scared when you saw that woman?"

"No, not at all. It wasn't until we went into that room on the third floor and found it empty that everyone started to feel a bit uneasy. Someone said, 'Did we see a ghost?' and then everyone started to panic..."

"But during this time, no one left the west building?"

"No."

The man with the gold-rimmed glasses shook his head.

“We were all watching the door, it’s impossible that someone came out without us noticing. They asked the same question when they came out, so we concluded that the person must still be hiding in the west building. There are so many rooms there, it would be too easy for them to find one and hide without being discovered.”

Upon hearing this, a strange light appeared in Li Wei's eyes. He narrowed his eyes and looked at the two of them.

"Thank you. One last question—do you remember the exact location of that classroom?"

For Li Wei, it seemed he had found the key to the case.

(End of this chapter)