The Camera Across the Street

Shen Xing's expression changed abruptly, shock written all over his face.

Feifei, who had already reached the bedroom doorway, suddenly froze and stopped. She thought she might have said something wrong.

Shen Xing picked up his phone and hurried over to Feifei. "Did you just say you saw your Auntie Ye Ting looking toward the camera in the video?"

Feifei paused, then nodded. "Yeah. She must have noticed someone was filming her. Uncle Shen, it really wasn't you?"

Shen Xing shook his head.

He remembered that the last time he'd seen Ye Ting turn toward the camera in the video, he'd asked Officer Ma Jinlong about it. Ma had said he hadn't noticed anything, and that he'd later asked the others in the missing persons unit, too. None of them had seen Ye Ting do anything so unusual.

Although nobody else had noticed, Shen Xing remembered it clearly. He had definitely seen it; he couldn't have imagined it.

Later, he'd also shown the video at the dinner table to Hong Bin and his father, Hong Anjie, but neither of them had noticed anything unusual either.

Now, no one had expected that after Feifei watched the video, the same scene Shen Xing had seen would appear before the little girl's eyes.

Shen Xing didn't explain further. Instead, he opened the video again and invited Feifei to sit with him on the sofa.

He wanted to watch it again with her. Ever since he'd first seen Ye Ting staring at the camera, he hadn't seen the same scene again.

Perhaps it only happened by chance, or perhaps it could only be triggered under certain conditions.

Shen Xing didn't know why, but since Feifei said she'd seen it, they might as well try again.

In the video, Ye Ting's familiar figure stood by the bathroom window, speaking to the air and gesturing now and then.

It was exactly the same scene Shen Xing had seen over and over before. Nothing was different.

But just as the video was nearing its end, Shen Xing, who had been watching closely, suddenly felt that the picture had briefly stuttered.

It lasted only a moment, as if the video had lagged during playback. The hitch was so fleeting that it would have been impossible to notice without watching carefully.

Shen Xing couldn't remember whether the video had stuttered slightly the first time he'd watched it.

But right after the hitch, Ye Ting stopped speaking to the air and slowly turned her head to look toward the camera in the video. The picture was a little blurry, but he could tell her gaze was focused; she stared at the camera without blinking.

Feifei pointed at the phone screen. "Look, Auntie Ye noticed someone was filming her! Maybe she knows the person who recorded the video."

Her words gave Shen Xing a sudden jolt, stirring up a strange, inexplicable feeling inside him.

"Knows them?" he murmured.

Shen Xing knew perfectly well that the video came from a surveillance camera in a building diagonally across the street. It hadn't been filmed deliberately by anyone, so there was no way Ye Ting could know the person recording it.

But was Ye Ting's strange behavior in the video deliberate, or was it some kind of hint?

Or had she noticed something worth paying attention to in the direction of the camera?

At first, Shen Xing had thought Ye Ting was looking toward him when she turned her head. Maybe that was just wishful thinking—he'd read too much into it.

Perhaps Ye Ting hadn't been looking at him at all. Perhaps she really had been looking at the camera.

"Knows... the person who recorded the video?"

Shen Xing murmured the words again.

The video had finished playing, and this time both he and Feifei had witnessed Ye Ting's strange behavior.

But Feifei didn't know any better. She thought Ye Ting had always acted that way in the video, turning toward the camera every time it played.

She also had no idea that her casual remark might have given Shen Xing an idea—or a clue.

Shen Xing got up from the sofa and went to the bathroom, stopping at the window that faced the garbage alley.

Though he was on the third floor, his position was almost the same as in his rental upstairs. The only differences were the height and the angle.

He looked up and across the street, searching his memory, and soon found the building opposite. Then he scanned its floors.

After about a minute, judging by the direction, Shen Xing fixed his gaze on the seventh and eighth floors.

The video must have been filmed from somewhere in that direction.

Of course, there were no longer any cameras there. The old surveillance equipment had already been removed.

When he returned upstairs to his rental with Feifei, the windows on the third floor were still all open. Aside from the television, there was nothing valuable in the room, and they wanted to air it out.

At dinnertime, Auntie Shen, who lived on the fifth floor, came downstairs and warmly invited Shen Xing and Feifei to her home for a meal. She said she'd made dumplings.

Auntie Shen had invited Shen Xing over before, but never come down in person to ask him like she had today. The reason was surely Feifei.

Shen Xing didn't refuse. After thanking her, he took Feifei to Auntie Shen's home. There were three people in the household: Auntie Shen, who didn't work, her husband, who worked for a pharmaceutical company, and their daughter, who was in high school.

The whole family was very warm toward Feifei, drawing her into conversation and asking how she was. They clearly felt sorry for the poor girl, who had become an orphan.

Feifei wasn't shy. She chatted happily with Auntie Shen's daughter and told them about everything she'd seen at the orphanage.

After eating the dumplings, Shen Xing glanced at the sky outside. It wasn't completely dark yet, and the thought that had been circling in his mind kept nagging at him. He decided to check out the building across the street.

Feifei was in good hands for the moment, so he wasn't worried about leaving for a while.

He told Feifei and Auntie Shen that he was going out to buy a few things and that Feifei should wait there. No one thought anything of it.

Shen Xing hurried out and downstairs. As soon as he left the residential compound, he headed toward the garbage alley behind it, then crossed the street at the alley's entrance and walked to the building opposite.

The building had been there for quite some time, even by the standards of the old district. It didn't look dilapidated at first glance, but the mottled marks left by time on its exterior were impossible to hide. Nearly a third of the exterior's ceramic coating had peeled away.

The building had originally been office space and was called Jincheng Building. Later, as the new district developed, most offices moved elsewhere. Many of the rooms were then converted for sale or rent.

By now, it had essentially become a residential building.

When Shen Xing reached the entrance, he saw that quite a few people lived there, and people were constantly coming and going through the lobby.

He followed a man and a woman into the elevator and pressed the button for the seventh floor.

The two of them were going to the eleventh floor, so when the elevator stopped at the seventh, Shen Xing stepped out first.

After exiting, he happened to glance back and noticed the woman in the elevator scanning the area around him with an odd look, though she wasn't looking at him. The man immediately pressed the button to close the doors, seeming unusually eager.