Chapter 462: Can a Human Being Actually Remember All That?

Chapter 462: Can a Human Being Actually Remember All That?

“These cars…” Wu Chen glanced at her with a smile. “The first one, the white Santana that went in and out of the lot before the truck left. That’s the car that brought the driver who caused the crash…”

“Hm?” Li Ruobing paused, then asked, “What makes you say that?”

“Look at the footage of it leaving. Don’t the rear tires look flatter?” Wu Chen said.

Li Ruobing moved the slider and checked.

She even compared the shots of the white Santana entering and leaving the lot. It really did look that way.

On its way out, the Santana seemed to be carrying something heavy in the trunk. The rear tires had squashed down noticeably.

“The driver who caused the crash was brought in by that car. And the real truck driver was most likely stuffed in its trunk and driven away.”

The moment he finished, Li Ruobing sensed something was off.

What he was saying was far too subjective!

Why that car, of all of them?

Just because it went in and out before the truck left? Just because its rear tires were a bit flatter?

“Maybe it was hauling cargo. Look at all the trucks going in and out of that lot. Most of them are doing freight runs, aren’t they?” she asked.

“And that wasn’t the only sedan in and out of the lot before the truck left. There were other trucks, too. Why does it have to be—”

“I’ll get to that. I’ll explain it all at once.” Wu Chen smiled and went on. “The second car I had you remember was parked near the intersection.

“That one was working with the driver. Its job was to watch for traffic police, because the truck was about to go onto Tongjiang Avenue, where trucks are banned.

“The third car, across the road while the truck was parked illegally on Tongjiang Avenue… That was backup for the truck, in case anything unexpected happened. If traffic police suddenly turned up, say, it could cause an accident on purpose and draw them away…

“To make sure the truck could finish the job.

“And on Mao Rusong’s side, every car I had you remember was taking turns tailing his convoy and reporting its position!

“Murder by staged car crash means knowing exactly where the target is at every moment. You can’t do it without them!

“When the truck stopped for a while, it was probably because it had gotten a position update and needed to wait, so it could time things perfectly and cause the crash at that intersection!”

In a single breath, Wu Chen laid out the role of every car he had told her to remember!

Li Ruobing could follow it.

A murder staged like this would need every piece of that!

Otherwise it would be very hard to know which route Mao Rusong’s convoy would take. Was he going home? Somewhere else? Would he change his route on a whim?

And there’d be no way to judge exactly when the convoy would pass through a given intersection.

So all of that, Li Ruobing understood perfectly well!

But!

The same question remained.

Why those cars?

Cars parked at the curb? Cars on the same roads as Mao Rusong’s convoy?

There were far too many! Cars like that were everywhere, and nothing about them caught the eye. They shared no particular feature at all.

“Why does this sound like you’re making up a story?” Li Ruobing thought it over, then asked with an odd look. “What are you basing any of this on?

“The way you tell it, it’s as if you imagined how they planned the murder, then picked cars off the road at random to fill in the roles in your imaginary plan. There’s no logic to it.”

She was being very blunt, but she wasn’t doubting him.

The result was already in. There was no point doubting it.

She wanted a complete explanation from him, not a shrug and an “It’s complicated, you figure it out.”

“What I’m basing it on is that the owners of these cars, or their bosses…” Wu Chen smiled at her, gesturing with one hand. “Or their bosses’ bosses, and so on… all lead back to one person.”

“Who?” Li Ruobing asked first, then froze. A moment later she blurted, “Cao Liangpeng?!”

“Right!” Wu Chen nodded with a smile.

“They’re all cars belonging to Cao Liangpeng’s people?” Shock showed on her face.

“Right!” He nodded again.

“How do you know?” she shot back. That was what truly stunned her.

“I just know.” Wu Chen laughed. He couldn’t go any deeper than that. It would touch on the secret of his thousand-year loop.

“Don’t forget, I’m an information broker,” he added, half joking.

“Information broker” was just a label. What he was really reminding her of was his bizarre, incomprehensible capacity for intelligence.

In the end, Wu Chen had cracked the case with his information advantage after all.

There were two reasons he had asked Gu Ruibo for the footage.

Two reasons he had dared bet Li Ruobing he could name the mastermind after ten minutes of video.

First, anyone who dared go after Mao Rusong couldn’t be a minor player, and Wu Chen had investigated every such person in Modu!

Second, he knew exactly what it would take to stage a precisely timed murder with a heavy truck, especially on a road where trucks were banned.

With a memory like his, he could recall any car he had seen at any moment of his life.

Whatever marked it out, a scratch, a small dent, he could remember it! Changing the plates was useless.

Unless the car had been overhauled, repainted, and given new plates.

Wu Chen knew Modu far less thoroughly than Donghai. For the vast majority of cars he remembered seeing there, he had no idea whose they were.

But the vehicles the big shots could call on, he basically knew.

Many of them had lodged in his memory passively, glimpsed while he was investigating one big shot or another during the thousand-year loop.

He’d never needed to make a point of memorizing them. He remembered them anyway!

And to crack this case, he didn’t need to recognize every vehicle involved. He only needed some of them to point to the same man. That was enough!

So there it was.

Li Ruobing stared at him, her expression thoroughly off.

He had made it sound so simple, so effortless, and yet it was still beyond belief. Wu Chen recognized the cars Cao Liangpeng’s people drove?

He had pinned down Cao Liangpeng through the cars.

And if the mastermind hadn’t been Cao Liangpeng but some other powerful figure, then the confidence he’d shown earlier meant… he could identify people through their cars!

Which meant! He’d have to remember a massive amount of vehicle data!

Could a human being actually remember all that?!

The more she thought about it, the more she felt even that wasn’t the point.

The point was that he’d only watched for ten minutes… He had barely glanced at almost every frame, and with one glance after another, he’d worked out who all the cars on the street belonged to?

“You… this… There were so many cars on the road. Sure, some belonged to Cao Liangpeng’s people, but there’d be cars belonging to other powerful people too, connected ones…” Her words came out a little jumbled.

Wu Chen understood what she meant.

“There were. But the ones that fit the operation completely, and showed up in the greatest numbers, all pointed to Cao Liangpeng,” he said with a smile.

Li Ruobing looked at the screen.

Then at Wu Chen.

Her eyes were slightly wide. Her expression still wasn’t right.

She couldn’t get over it.

She no longer wondered whether her IQ was too low! This damn well wasn’t an IQ problem at all—it was practically mysticism!

The logic of how he’d cracked it seemed sound.

But the prerequisite for cracking it that way, the sheer volume of intelligence this man carried around, could be explained by nothing short of mysticism.

“All right, that’s enough. Stop thinking about it. No need to get so hung up on it, is there?” Wu Chen laughed and put his arm around her.

In truth, there was a great deal he hadn’t said. What he had compared and weighed went far beyond what he’d explained.

He’d only wanted her to grasp, broadly, how he had cracked it. Anything finer he left out. It really was complicated, and there was no point.

Li Ruobing thought for a moment.

Then she gave up.

She seldom tied herself in knots over Wu Chen. Too much about him couldn’t be explained, and this was hardly the first time.

“Hmph!” She gave a soft snort, set the laptop aside, wrapped her arms around his neck, and rolled over to look down at him. “Hubby, do you think our kids will be as smart as you?”

“Probably.” Wu Chen smiled.

“Then let’s… have a few.” The corners of her lips curved up, and she kissed him.

A little over half an hour later.

Certain things still weren’t finished.

Ring, ring, ring…

The sudden sound of a phone cut them short.