Chapter 846: Lurking Forces (V)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Gu Nianzhi frowned the entire way. She couldn’t stop thinking about Gu Yanran.
Huo Shaoheng loosely held his arm around her as they turned the corner on the path in front of the professor’s building. He only put down his arm when he confirmed that He Zhichu couldn’t see them anymore.
Putting both hands in his trouser pockets, his footsteps slowed down to match Gu Nianzhi’s pace.
Gu Nianzhi didn’t feel anything at all. She moved her feet almost robotically as she followed Huo Shaoheng back to the female graduate student dorm that she lived in.
“We’re here. I’ll walk you upstairs.” Huo Shaoheng took her hand. “It’s already late. Should your Resident Advisor be asleep by now?”
“You shouldn’t go upstairs even if she is asleep already.” Gu Nianzhi discreetly pulled her hand away. “I’m very sleepy and want to go to bed. You should go home too. So many things happened today and we still need to go to court tomorrow.”
Huo Shaoheng looked at her fixedly and was silent for a moment. Finally, he smoothed her hair and patted her shoulder. “Go upstairs.”
Gu Nianzhi didn’t even turn to look back as she walked away, leaving only the view of her tall and feminine back for Huo Shaoheng.
Huo Shaoheng didn’t leave. He leaned against his car door and took out a cigarette to light and inhale.
During November in the Imperial Capital, it was starting to get very cold late at night.
However, with Huo Shaoheng’s constitution, he didn’t feel cold at all in this kind of weather. He also had lots of work and things to worry about, so he needed the fresh, cold winter air to clear his head.
Crossing his arms, the cigarette between his fingers glowed and flickered. Lifting his head, he stared in the direction of Gu Nianzhi’s dorm.
The light in her room was turned on. Sometimes he could see the silhouette of a person inside the dorm.
Afterward, she sat at the desk in front of her window and began typing on her computer.
Huo Shaoheng could see even through the curtains that her silhouette was elegant and beautiful. There was a natural charm about it.
The keenly focussed Gu Nianzhi was the most beautiful being in Huo Shaoheng’s heart.
…
Gu Nianzhi turned on her laptop to begin writing a legal text requesting the revocation of the complaint. She would submit it to the court the next day.
Aside from that, she still needed evidence to prove that Ye Xuan hadn’t been with Gu Yanran that night.
This evidence was very simple. It was the real-time surveillance system of the apartment building that Ye Xuan lived in. But Gu Nianzhi suspected that the evidence must’ve been destroyed by Gu Yanran by now…
If the evidence had really been destroyed, what other evidence did she have to substitute it with?
Gu Nianzhi opened some mapping software to look up the address of Ye Xuan’s apartment.
She suddenly realized that if Gu Yanran had been able to destroy the real-time surveillance footage, she’d probably had no way of destroying the camera outside the apartment building. Strictly speaking, that camera was surveillance equipment installed by the government which happened to record the front door of Ye Xuan’s apartment.
As long as she could obtain this record, she could prove that Ye Xuan had been home the entire night and hadn’t gone out at all on the night Gu Yanran that had been referring to.
If Gu Yanran had lied about being abused that day, then her claims about continuous abuse would appear even shakier.
Arguments in court were just like that. When there was an issue with one evidence chain, it caused a chain reaction that resulted in the other relevant evidence becoming invalid as well.
Also, Gu Nianzhi didn’t need evidence to disprove the continuous abuse allegation. She only needed to disprove the abuse that Gu Yanran had claimed she’d suffered that night.
The injury evidence from the hospital proved that it had been caused that night.
Gu Nianzhi thought about it and also opened Weibo to browse. She suddenly recalled the short video of Gu Yanran that Cai Songyin had uploaded online…
In that video, it appeared that there was fully nude footage of Gu Yanran.
It looked like it had been recorded a few days before Gu Yanran claimed she had been continuously abused by Ye Xuan.
Perhaps she could get a hold of the video and take screenshots to see if there were old injuries visible on Gu Yanran’s body.
If she really had been continuously abused, then there must be old injuries on her body.
If there weren’t, then it could further prove that Gu Yanran was lying.
Gu Nianzhi thought about it as she looked online.
The video on Weibo had already been deleted, but it was no match for the vast majority of netizens’ love for these kinds of short videos. There were many people who’d reposted or saved it to Qiandu’s cloud drive.
Gu Nianzhi quickly looked it up and found quite a few “resources.”
She picked the two videos with the largest file sizes and downloaded them. Then she opened them in her photo processing software, planning to use high definition technology to recover the original appearance of the video.
Anyone who had seen the video knew that the background in this video had been blurred out, along with the man in bed with Gu Yanran. Gu Yanran was the only one whose appearance had been enhanced using high definition photo processing.
Gu Nianzhi had modified her photo processing software when she was in university. It was more efficient than many other photo processing software on the market.
She only needed one hour to completely reverse the blurred out outer shell of the short video and return the short video to its original state.
When the man in the video revealed his true face, Gu Nianzhi suddenly laughed.
She recalled how Huo Shaoheng had once told her that their Special Operations Forces had completed video footage recovery work in the past and returned videos to their original states. The male lead in the video was none other than the new Prime Minister, Tan Dongbang.
It was because of this video that the Senate had initiated impeachment procedures.
As Gu Nianzhi watched this video, she suddenly had a different idea.
She didn’t have to overturn Gu Yanran’s allegations of abuse, she only needed to say that the person abusing Gu Yanran was someone else.
However, this video contained restricted content, so she would need to obtain court permission before submitting this video as legal evidence.
Where could she obtain a legal resource?
Gu Nianzhi thought about it some more but still had no clue.
It was already late at night, so she was getting a bit sleepy.
Standing up to rub her eyes, she planned to shut off her laptop and go to bed.
Suddenly, a tiny bit of light glowed and flickered somewhere downstairs. Like a firefly’s glow, it was short-lived yet brilliant. She looked downstairs and saw that the car Huo Shaoheng had driven was still parked in front of the building.
A tall and strapping figure leaned against the car door. That light must be coming from between the person’s fingers.
Huo Shaoheng hadn’t left yet…
Gu Nianzhi glanced at her watch to see that it was already 1 A.M.
Had he been standing downstairs for nearly three hours?
During November in the Imperial Capital, late nights were even more dew ridden than usual. He hadn’t dressed very warmly. Was he not concerned about catching a cold?
The corners of Gu Nianzhi’s mouth turned down as she shut off the lights and prepared to sleep.
But when she walked over to her bed to undress, her hands couldn’t move.
Her mind kept replaying the image of Huo Shaoheng downstairs. Her mood was also a mess.
That man always made other people worry…
As Gu Nianzhi grumbled, she put on her coat to walk out of the dorm and head towards the elevator.
She rode the elevator to the main floor, then walked out of the building. Gu Nianzhi stood on the steps and quietly watched Huo Shaoheng for a while.
Huo Shaoheng was a bit surprised to see her come downstairs.
He had seen the light in Gu Nainzhi’s dorm go out earlier, so he’d assumed she had already fallen asleep.