We asked you to solve cases, and here you are sharing your criminal experiences?

Data recovery would take time, Gu Tingchen glanced at his watch and made a quick decision.

"Lin Wan, have you found Meng Xiaoqing's current address?"

Lin Wan immediately opened her tablet. "Found it. It's a studio apartment in the old city. The image detection team reported that there were no transaction records on Meng Xiaoqing's bank cards and mobile payments in the past 48 hours. There are also no ticket purchase records for her on high-speed trains or flights."

Gu Tingchen grabbed his coat and headed out. "Take the gear and head to her place immediately."

Song Qianxia was not about to miss this opportunity to see the scene live, so she shamelessly climbed into the passenger seat of Gu Tingchen's SUV.

The car sped along and drove into the old town of Jiangcheng.

This is a typical urban village redevelopment project, with narrow roads and illegal additions on both sides. Overhead, a tangled mess of electrical wires resembles a giant spider web.

"The road conditions are terrible." Song Qianxia sat in the passenger seat, feeling dizzy and disoriented from the bumpy ride.

She looked out the window at the dark alleyways, barely any security cameras, and her brow furrowed deeper and deeper. These places were practically breeding grounds for illicit activities; if something happened, there wouldn't even be a single witness.

Gu Tingchen parked the car at the entrance of the alley. The three of them walked to a six-story old building with peeling exterior walls.

Meng Xiaoqing lives on the fourth floor.

The hallway reeked of mold and cooking fumes. The motion-activated lights had long since broken, and Lin Wan had to rely on her powerful flashlight to light the way.

Lin Wan walked up to the door of room 402. She knocked for a long time, but there was no response from inside.

"Captain Gu, request permission to break down the goal." Lin Wan said anxiously.

Instead of ordering the door to be kicked down, Gu Tingchen took out a thin wire from his pocket and fiddled with it in the keyhole. With a soft "click," the old security door opened.

Song Qianxia watched in stunned silence. How could this living devil be more skilled at picking locks than she was?

Pushing open the door, a wave of stuffy, hot air hit me.

The apartment is very small, only about 30 square meters, and you can see the whole thing at a glance.

Surprisingly, the room was very tidy. There were no signs of a struggle, no mess from ransacking. A single bed was covered with a neatly folded floral sheet.

Lin Wan walked into the room and looked around.

"Captain Gu, it doesn't look like something happened," Lin Wan said, pointing to a suitcase in the corner. "Maybe she really did go on a trip to some place with no cell phone signal to relax?"

Song Qianxia rolled her eyes.

She strode into the room, ignoring everything else. She went straight to the bedside table and pointed to a white phone still plugged into the socket with a data cable.

"Who goes on a trip without bringing their phone?" Song Qianxia turned to look at Lin Wan, her tone utterly ruthless.

Then she quickly walked into the small bathroom and peeked at the sink.

"The electric toothbrush is still on the charging dock, and the face wash and contact lens solution haven't been taken either." Song Qianxia walked out of the bathroom, her face completely darkening.

She looked at Gu Tingchen and gave a professional assessment.

"This wasn't a flight, nor was it a vacation. This was a very typical case of being 'taken away'."

"If I were to flee on my own, no matter how panicked I was, I would definitely take my phone and ID with me. Only when I am forcibly controlled or under duress would I leave these personal belongings behind."

Gu Tingchen nodded in agreement, put on gloves, and began to inspect the details of the room.

Police searches usually follow normal human logic. But Song Qianxia is different. In her past life, she was involved in shady dealings, and she knew all too well the habits of those street cleaners.

Song Qianxia didn't rummage through the conspicuous documents in the wardrobe or drawers. Instead, she crouched down and crawled under the cheap plywood desk.

She lay on her back, her hands tracing the edge of the desk base, feeling around little by little.

These are the most easily overlooked blind spots, where even a mop can't reach.

Suddenly, Song Qianxia's fingers paused. She felt a small bump, about the size of a fingernail, in the center of the bottom of the desk.

The material feels somewhat rough, like some kind of special sticker.

Song Qianxia gently peeled it off completely with her fingernail.

She crawled out from under the desk and, by the light of the streetlamp outside the window, carefully examined the object in her hand.

It was a black feather sticker.

The material is similar to some kind of waterproof sandpaper, with sharp edges and exquisite workmanship that sends chills down your spine.

Lin Wan leaned over for a look, and her face instantly turned deathly pale.

"Captain Gu!" Lin Wan's voice trembled. "This...this is the sticker we found at the scene of the child's disappearance in the downtown shopping mall! It's exactly the same!"

That case was also part of the Night Owl series. At the time, police found the same black feather in a blind spot of the surveillance cameras.

"Are they provoking us?" Lin Wan gritted her teeth in anger. "Leaving the evidence so obvious, do they think the police are blind?!"

"This isn't for you to see," Song Qianxia coldly interrupted Lin Wan's fantasy.

She placed the sticker on the table, her eyes revealing an undisguised disgust.

"The Night Owl's Cleaners never engage in unnecessary provocation," Song Qianxia explained, staring at the black feather. "It's a mark used by their outer organization. It's called the Feather of Death."

Gu Tingchen walked to the table and looked at the sticker.

"What do you mean?" Gu Tingchen asked.

"It means that the owner of this room has been marked as something dirty that needs to be cleaned up."

Song Qianxia turned her head and looked at the empty room.

"Putting it under the desk, somewhere others can't see it, but the person can touch it as soon as they sit down. This is a form of psychological pressure. It tells the target: We've been here, you'd better behave and come with us, or you'll suffer even more."

Song Qianxia took a deep breath of the stale air in the room.

"Meng Xiaoqing might still be alive. Night Owl needs her to use her legal identity to complete the final few disposal procedures. Once the procedures are complete..."

Song Qianxia didn't continue, but everyone present understood the consequences: once her usefulness was exhausted, Meng Xiaoqing would disappear from this world completely.

"Time is running out." Gu Tingchen grabbed the black feather from the table and put it into an evidence bag.

The owl's tentacles have stretched too far. Taking a living person away from Jiangcheng's territory has crossed Gu Tingchen's absolute bottom line.

"Immediately contact the Transportation Bureau and obtain the license plate numbers of all vehicles that passed through this neighborhood within the two hours before and after Meng Xiaoqing's disappearance!"

Gu Tingchen made a phone call as he walked out.