Part 78

The sky truly doesn’t know how to drive.

After sitting in the driver’s seat, The Vault’s expression grew serious, a rare sense of crisis as if facing a formidable enemy appearing on her face.

She fumbled around the steering wheel and various buttons for a while, matching them one by one with the online tutorial instructions, confirming all the functions, and then inserted the key.

There’s nothing a genius can’t master quickly.

Including driving.

Parking spaces in the bustling city are, of course, in high demand. The cars in front and behind were parked close together, and someone had even left an electric scooter in the gap, making it much harder for The Vault to drive out.

The engine started, letting out a low humming sound. The Vault gripped the steering wheel tightly, turning it back and forth to get used to the force, while her gaze measured back and forth between the window and the roadside, trying to use mathematical angles to calculate the optimal way to reverse.

The functions of a car are actually quite simple—just starting and accelerating. But some things depend on talent.

After less than two minutes of struggling, The Vault cheerfully gave up. She got out of the car again, pulled over a passerby, and said, “Sorry, could you help me back the car out?”

What geniuses are best at is cutting losses in time.

Netizens burst into laughter at this scene, and the “tool person” she pulled over also showed a helpless expression. Fortunately, everything went smoothly enough—the helpful tool person drove the car out of the parking spot and stopped it at the intersection. After The Vault took over, she followed closely behind the car in front, drove along the side of the road, and finally turned into a secluded alley, stopping in a quiet place.

The Vault unfastened her seatbelt and let out a long sigh as she sat there.

Drivers in the city center all need to have a tough heart—after all, there are plenty of people with terrible driving skills. Cutting in, forcing their way, it’s all too common. This short stretch of road actually made her break out in a cold sweat.

The Vault turned on the dashcam and found the playback function on the small screen.

The car owner had come in from outside, so it must have captured where the police had set up checkpoints and what kind of deployment they had made. The Vault scrolled through the footage in chronological order, checking it over and over.

She didn’t have a phone on her; Tiffany Dawson’s phone had been left behind in the shop by her. Without any social tools, she had no idea that outside, because of the name “Nancy Dawson,” a new wave of turmoil was surging.

·

Julian Grant and Wallace Franklin and other professionals kept trying to quickly locate The Vault from different angles.

The last person to have clearly seen The Vault was the one who had transferred money to her via mobile payment in exchange for cash.

So, Julian Grant and the others changed into plain clothes and went to the northeast area of the commercial street. They were less than two kilometers from The Vault’s actual location.

“I really didn’t know he was Nancy Dawson.” The shop owner leaned on the counter, spreading his hands. “And when he exchanged money with me, your news hadn’t come out yet. How was I supposed to know what happened?”

Julian Grant said, “We’re not here to hold you responsible, we just want to ask for clues. What did Nancy Dawson buy here?”

The shop owner said, “Don’t I only sell clothes here? She bought the most ordinary white shirt and casual pants, the kind you can get anywhere, very plain styles.”

Julian Grant: “Where did she go afterward?”

“I don’t know.” The shop owner, afraid of being blamed, hurriedly said, “Comrades, I’m responsible for after-sales, but where the customer goes after that, I really can’t control.”

Julian Grant: “Let me take a look at your store’s surveillance footage.”

The shop owner nodded, “Sure, we’re happy to cooperate. But could you please go to the back to watch? We still need to do business.”

Julian Grant couldn’t help but smile wryly. He said to a few colleagues nearby, “I’ll stay here to check the surveillance. You guys go ask around in the nearby shops. If there’s any news, let’s keep each other updated.”

No one objected, and they went to question people in the surrounding area as he said.

Julian Grant followed the owner into the storeroom behind the door to check the surveillance footage.

Finding the segment where The Vault appeared was easy.

The Vault was bold, just as Julian Grant remembered her—she swaggered in wearing the same old clothes she’d left the neighborhood in, strolled around the shop as if it were her own backyard, picked out a few items, and went to negotiate with the owner.

After she finished the transfer, put away the cash, and picked up the bag to leave, she casually placed her phone on a shelf to the side.

The shop was small, and the racks were packed with clothes.

Long hems hung down, covering the phone. If you didn’t move the clothes, you’d never see there was a phone on the wooden shelf.

Julian Grant immediately became alert.

With The Vault’s personality, she would never do something so careless. If she just wanted to avoid exposing her whereabouts, she had countless ways to deal with the phone—even tossing it in a random trash can would be more convenient than this.

This meant she had deliberately left the phone for the police.

It meant that after taking Tiffany Dawson’s phone, she discovered there was an important clue inside.

Julian Grant quickly walked out and, following the location shown on the surveillance, found a phone.

There were still traces of blood on the phone case, not yet fully wiped off, now dried. Julian Grant scraped at it with his finger, then looked up and realized this angle was directly facing the shop’s camera.

He pressed the power button on the side, and the screen lit up.

As expected.

No password.

The background image had been changed by The Vault to a plain white picture. In the center, two sentences were written in bold:

I think this world will never get better.

At least, my world will never get better.

Chapter 50: Brother

The Vault said that when Harry Forrest called her while on the run, he only said two sentences in those 32 seconds, and the rest of the time they were both silent. Julian Grant had been a bit suspicious at the time, thinking the two of them should have at least discussed something.

But when he found himself in the same situation, he wondered what he should say to Harry Forrest.

He realized he truly didn’t know.

Comfort sounded too hollow, advice too insincere. And help? That seemed far too meager.

Perhaps Harry Forrest himself didn’t know what he wanted to do when he called The Vault. Maybe, when someone is at the end of their rope, they just crave a trusted, admired person to give them a bit of guidance, a bit of hope. Yet after dialing, he suddenly realized that the person on the other end was just an ordinary human too. So he left.

What kind of feeling is it to be asked for help by someone so helpless, yet be equally powerless yourself?

The Vault must have been left with a lingering confusion in her heart, circling in her mind, puzzling her for a long time. That’s why she joined Trident’s [Crime Scene Analysis], searching for so-called answers. Otherwise, with her aversion to trouble, just the complicated psychological screening process of Trident would have been enough to make her give up.

Those two sentences that once troubled The Vault now troubled Julian Grant as well.

Julian Grant pressed the communicator at his ear, controlling his tone, and said in a low voice, “I found Tiffany Dawson’s phone.”

Wallace Franklin was listening to reports from team members all over. Upon hearing this, he quickly replied, “Is there any clue inside?”

There were many ordinary people around, and the shop owner kept glancing over at him. Julian Grant took the phone and walked out of the shop, heading to a police car parked nearby.

Inside the enclosed space, the air felt stifling.

The sky during the Qingming holiday was gray and oppressive. Even though it was still daytime, it was as dark as dusk approaching night.

Julian Grant tugged at his collar, unbuttoned the top button, suppressed the slight resistance in his heart, and tapped the photo album icon.

Rows of small square images appeared. Julian Grant randomly selected one to enlarge.

The censored photos appeared simultaneously on the right side of the livestream.

There were over three hundred photos stored on Tiffany Dawson’s phone, all of them taken of different parts of her own body.

Bruised arms, skin with needle marks, obviously dislocated fingers, swollen welts from beatings, even flesh turned outward by embedded glass shards...

Some wounds were dark in color, clearly old injuries. Some were still bloody, taken with an unsteady hand right after she was hurt. The injuries were shocking, and all shared the trait of not being on her face.

Each photo was taken at a different time and place, clearly recording the inhuman torment she had endured over the years, piecing together her completely abnormal married life. Judging from the earliest date, this had been going on for more than two years—almost from the time she got married until now.

Halfway through, Julian Grant stopped. He raised his hand and wiped his face hard, forcing his emotions to settle.

Many viewers also left the livestream. They really couldn’t bear to look at such images, even though the pictures displayed on the Trident interface had no gory details, only a line of text description.

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