Chapter 763: Chapter 407: Further Investigation, Again (Part 2)

At 1:50 that night, Wan led several colleagues to arrive promptly at Yulu Hotel on Zuowa Street.

They crossed the bright and spacious lobby and headed straight to the front desk.

Wan was the first to present his police badge and an introduction letter from the unit, speaking in a calm and formal tone: "Hello, we are officers from the city public security bureau. We need to retrieve all the surveillance footage from your hotel’s lobby and main entrance area from the day before yesterday for an investigation. We ask for your cooperation."

The lobby manager took the documents and examined them carefully, maintaining a courteous attitude but with a hint of caution in his words.

"Hello, Officer. We will certainly cooperate with the police."

"It’s just that the hotel industry places particular emphasis on guest privacy, especially as we have many long-term residents and returning guests who value the privacy and safety of our environment."

"If your investigation is unrelated to the case, please make sure to handle the relevant video materials properly..."

Wan immediately understood the manager’s implication.

This hotel probably frequently hosts guests for private meetings, possibly involving extramarital affairs or other discreet relationships.

He promptly replied solemnly: "Rest assured, protecting citizens’ personal information is our fundamental professional duty. All data obtained will be used solely for case purposes, and will be processed according to regulations after the case is closed, ensuring no leaks."

The manager visibly relaxed upon hearing this and nodded, leading the way: "Please come with me, the surveillance room is in the equipment area."

They walked through a quiet corridor and arrived at the equipment room on the first floor.

As they pushed the door open, they saw a young man with black-framed glasses focused on a book.

Wan glanced over the cover—it was "Basic Knowledge of Public Security."

He couldn’t help but feel curious, initiating a conversation: "Brother, are you studying for the police exam? Interested in our line of work?"

The young man looked up upon hearing, adjusted his glasses, and smiled somewhat embarrassedly: "Indeed, I’m preparing for this year’s police recruitment exam. This book is a required subject, so I’m trying to utilize all my time to read and memorize."

The manager next to him instructed: "Zhang, these folks are from the municipal bureau, and they need to retrieve the surveillance from the day before yesterday. Assist them fully."

"Understood, manager."

Zhang replied.

After the manager left, Wan specified their needs: "We need to track the activities of two individuals. Please especially retrieve all surveillance at all entrances, the front desk, and the main entrance of the hotel from the day before yesterday, covering the whole day."

"No problem, the hotel lobby, all corridors, and outside areas are under comprehensive high-definition coverage. I’ll extract all relevant footage for the specified times for you immediately."

Zhang said while quickly operating the keyboard at the console.

Amazingly, in less than 2 minutes, he had retrieved all the necessary videos and categorized them into a newly created folder.

"It’s ready, all here."

Wan was slightly surprised: "So fast? This system of yours is really efficient."

Zhang smiled and explained: "Yes, our hotel upgraded to an intelligent surveillance management system last year, which supports multi-condition rapid search and batch export. It’s much more convenient than before."

Wan checked his watch.

If they were to go back now and manually review the surveillance footage step by step, it would likely consume a lot of valuable time.

With this in mind, Wan asked the young technical staff: "Do you have any existing surveillance viewing software here?"

"We’d like to view it directly at your place; it would be much more efficient that way."

The young man became enthusiastic upon hearing they were assisting the police in handling the case and responded immediately: "Yes! No problem!"

"I happen to have a newly developed video surveillance viewing tool here, and I’ve optimized it for recognition efficiency myself."

"It can automatically capture all face avatars in the video, with high accuracy."

Wan was somewhat astonished upon hearing this.

"This software processes video streams very efficiently, would you like to give it a try?"

Wan exchanged glances with his colleagues beside him, then nodded and said: "Alright, please help us retrieve the surveillance from the day before yesterday, from day to night, especially the corridor camera positions, to see if the two individuals appeared concurrently."

"Sure, leave it to me."

The young man said as he imported the previously processed surveillance videos into a software with a black interface.

Remarkably, in less than 5 minutes, all the recognized facial images from the 24-hour surveillance content were automatically extracted, neatly arranged at the front of the screen.

Each captured avatar, although small in size, had clearly discernible facial features.

Wan watched the swiftly displayed results on the screen and couldn’t help but turn to his colleague and exclaim: "This is incredibly fast!"

"Previously, we had to manually review frame by frame, and now we can directly extract all the faces... This tool is a real timesaver!"

In his excitement, he quickly focused, starting to examine each of the facial images on the screen one by one.

Soon, he pointed to two of the photos and said: "It’s these two people—please extract all image segments associated with them."

"Got it, right away."

The young man responded as he operated.

The screen clearly displayed Wu Guang and Zhang Qian, whom they were searching for.

Next, the young man once again imported these two individuals’ images into the video surveillance system and activated the precise snapshot program based on their physical characteristics.

The system swiftly began matching, and in less than a minute, a new matching image list was generated.

The list clearly marked the surveillance device name, specific location, and appearance time of each video segment, arranged orderly and detailed.

Seeing this, Wan and his colleagues were almost astonished.

Has technology advanced to such a degree now?

So efficient and precise, it felt like a scene from a sci-fi movie.

Or could it be that this young engineer in front of them was actually a deeply hidden tech genius?

Wan was immensely excited inside, recalling the past when to investigate leads, they often had to stay up late like owls, bringing a large amount of surveillance video back to the unit and reviewing frame by frame repeatedly.

Such methods were not only time-consuming and labor-intensive but also prone to missing crucial details due to fatigue.

He couldn’t help but exclaim: "This is amazing... Can we start viewing one of these now?"

"Of course,"

The young man said as he operated, "Here, this is a wide-angle camera at the hotel entrance, with a very large coverage area and relatively clear images."

The video started playing, showing Wu Guang and Zhang Qian arriving at the hotel entrance on an electric scooter.

They parked the scooter in a designated area next to the hotel, then walked hand in hand into the lobby.

Everything seemed normal.

Just as the video was about to end to view the next segment, Wan suddenly focused his gaze and called out urgently: "Wait!"

"What is it?"

The young man paused the playback and looked up.

Wan pointed to the corner of the screen, speaking seriously: "Notice this person—his behavior is strange, it feels like he’s been following Wu Guang and Zhang Qian from a distance!"

"He deliberately slowed down and lingered for a few seconds at the hotel entrance too."

The fellow officer nodded repeatedly, "There seems to be something off."

The young man responded immediately: "I’ll enhance this frame using the image processing function right away."

He swiftly operated the software, activating sharpening and denoising algorithms.

Moments later, the previously blurry figure became clear: a helmeted man in a black jacket, riding a motorcycle without a license plate, subtly followed Wu Guang and Zhang Qian into the monitoring area shortly after they entered.

Wan said in a low voice: "This behavior is too unusual."

"We will immediately retrieve footage from cameras around the hotel later to specifically track this motorcyclist’s movements to see if there are any other suspicious activities."