164: Chapter 164 Not a buddy... How could you recognize me?

When Lu Cheng came out of the side door, the corridor outside was empty.

He glanced left and right.

To his left was a long corridor leading deep into the main building, and to his right, around the corner, was the direction to the restroom that Zhou Jinan had mentioned.

The music and chatter from the banquet hall behind him were mostly blocked by the door, leaving only muffled, low-frequency vibrations.

A waiter stood by the side door, wearing a standard black suit with a gold 'Qian' emblem pinned to his chest, his upper face covered by a mask.

Seeing Lu Cheng emerge, he bowed slightly.

"Sir, is there anything you need?"

"The restroom," Lu Cheng said. "Take me there."

The waiter nodded, stepped aside, made a gesture of invitation, and then walked ahead to lead the way.

Footsteps were light in the corridor. The two of them walked about twenty meters, one after the other, and turned into a transverse passage.

Light sources were embedded in the walls on both sides of the passage every few steps, and there was a faint smell of disinfectant in the air.

Walking to the end of the passage, the waiter pushed open a frosted glass door to reveal a large restroom inside.

The floor was paved with black and white marble, a full wall mirror stood before the sinks, and the stall doors were all half-open, with no one inside.

"I will wait for you outside," the waiter said.

Lu Cheng nodded and walked in.

He didn't head toward the sinks but turned directly into the innermost stall.

He closed the door.

It was quiet in the stall for about five seconds.

Then he heard it.

A knocking sound came from the wall on the left.

Three long knocks.

Boom—boom—boom—

A two-second pause.

Then two short ones.

Boom-boom.

Lu Cheng took a deep breath.

Honestly, he really wanted to drag Zhou Jinan out of the banquet hall right now and ask him which genius designed this set of signals.

He cleared his throat.

"Hmm~!"

He used his full strength, and the sound bounced around the stall.

Then he raised his hand and knocked three times on the wall.

Boom, boom, boom.

The response was complete.

Lu Cheng lowered his hand, waiting for the person next door to come out.

However, what he waited for wasn't the sound of a door opening.

The sound of a lock being picked came from outside the stall.

The metal scraping was very faint, and in less than two seconds, the lock clicked open.

The door was pulled open from the outside.

A muscular man appeared at the doorway.

He was at least one meter ninety tall, and his shoulders were so broad they almost filled the stall's door frame.

He was wearing a black tight-fitting T-shirt, the fabric stretched taut over his pectoral and abdominal muscles, a silver chain hung around his neck, and there was a faint scar on his chin.

Most importantly...

He was holding a waiter by his side.

The waiter was being lifted by the back of his collar with one hand, curled up in the big guy's grip like a cat held by the scruff of its neck, completely unconscious.

The big guy looked down at Lu Cheng, and Lu Cheng looked up at the big guy.

The big guy pushed the waiter aside, took out a transparent terminal from his pocket, and handed it to Lu Cheng.

"It's copied. The terminal information and character relationships are all in there."

Lu Cheng took it and scanned it.

The screen displayed the detailed profile of this waiter.

Name: Chen Yucheng.

Position: Manor perimeter patrol and banquet hall waiter.

Duty Area: Zone B3 to Zone B7, mezzanine passages, east corridor on the second floor of the main building.

Duty Shift: Tonight's night shift, ending at 3:00 AM.

Contacts: Thirteen colleagues, including three fellow patrolmen, two pantry coordinators, four hall waiters, three emergency backups, and one infirmary attendant.

The patrol route was clearly marked, with time nodes for every movement within the manor.

Lu Cheng's gaze paused on the 'Range of Activity' column.

Responsible for patrol and waiting, the range was quite extensive.

There were many places he could go.

Moreover, the connecting passages between each area were also marked, and some places were even labeled with 'surveillance blind spots' and 'shift change gaps.'

Lu Cheng continued reading.

Then his expression changed.

There was a character relationship column in the file.

It marked Chen Yucheng's main social connections within the manor.

Colleagues, superiors, work contacts, card buddies, drinking buddies...

And, a person marked as 'Intimate Relationship.'

Team leader, male, thirty-seven years old, married.

Lu Cheng's gaze lingered on that mark for a full three seconds.

He looked up at the big guy.

The big guy was also looking at him.

The two stared at each other for a second.

The big guy suddenly flexed his pectoral muscles... then started fiddling with his arm muscles...

A look like he'd swallowed shit appeared on Lu Cheng's face.

He seemed to know what had happened in between.

This Chen Yucheng... cheated.

And he was the bottom.

Zhou Jinan's people must have investigated Chen Yucheng before the pickup, and now they had knocked him out and dragged him here.

Lu Cheng was silent for two seconds.

"Fine," he said. "Thank you for your hard work. Leave the rest to me."

The big guy nodded, shoved the terminal into Lu Cheng's arms... then grabbed the unconscious waiter and returned to the restroom stall.

A moment later, someone with a face similar to Lu Cheng's walked out of the stall and lured that waiter away.

Lu Cheng stood in the stall and took a deep breath.

He took the black mask given by Zhou Jinan out of the system space and pressed it onto his face.

Injecting Source Power, a layer of dark light flowed across the surface of the mask.

Lu Cheng could feel his face shape changing; his cheekbones narrowed slightly, his nose bridge became a bit lower, his lips became a little thicker, and his jawline contour moved toward Chen Yucheng's appearance.

A dozen seconds later, he saw a completely unfamiliar face in the mirror above the sink.

It was exactly the same as the photo on Chen Yucheng's terminal profile.

Lu Cheng took off his jacket and wore it inside out.

The lining of the jacket was a different color, and once reversed, it was close to the color of the waiter's uniform.

He also stripped the black suit jacket from the unconscious waiter and put it on himself.

The collar was a bit tight, but it was barely wearable.

The mask was secured.

The collar was adjusted.

Lu Cheng glanced at himself in the mirror.

Alright, now he was Chen Yucheng.

He turned and walked out of the restroom.

The corridor outside was still quiet, the light from the Source Power strips making the floor shine.

Lu Cheng strode toward the villa area, running through the patrol route displayed on the terminal in his mind.

All waiters at Qian Family Manor were assigned by area.

Everyone's terminal had an internal positioning system embedded.

The logic of this system was multi-threaded dynamic scheduling; the monitoring headquarters would constantly call upon different people to perform cross-patrols and arrange a location verification every so often.

If someone deviated from the scheduled route, or if there was no signal feedback from a certain area for a long time, the monitoring side would immediately sound an alarm.

Then someone would come to check.

This was why Lu Cheng needed the identity of a real waiter.

He had to have a real terminal signal running within the manor's system to move freely in this manor, which was sealed by Source Power and fully covered by military-grade surveillance.

Fortunately, the academy had already taken care of it.

When scanning the terminal earlier, Lu Cheng had noticed.

Chen Yucheng's signal was currently moving along the scheduled route on the manor map.

And it was done by the academy using a virtual IP...

From the perspective of the headquarters' monitoring system, this person, Chen Yucheng, was currently patrolling in Zone B4, moving at a normal speed, and his route matched the schedule.

No problems could be seen.

Lu Cheng put away the terminal and walked forward along the corridor.

His task now was to use Chen Yucheng's range of activity to go to the villa area and find Qian Shuying and Chu Xiuxiu.

He encountered a few other waiters on the way, each wearing a mask.

They wore uniform black suits or white cheongsams.

They didn't talk much to each other, at most nodding to acknowledge each other when passing by.

Not everyone knew each other.

This was perfect.

When passing a cross-corridor, three patrolling waiters walked over from the left.

The one leading the group glanced at Lu Cheng.

Lu Cheng nodded.

The other party nodded back.

They brushed past each other.

He walked out of the villa, but Seeking Good Fortune and Avoiding Bad Luck did not give him accurate feedback...

It was just... he felt both good fortune and bad luck all around...

He could only try them one by one...

The villa area was on the east side of the main building, a cluster of independent small buildings built against the mountain.

Each building was separated by artificial gardens and stone paths.

It looked very quiet at night, with lights shining from the windows, scattering into fragments on the leaves.

When Lu Cheng reached the outer edge of the villa area, the reaction of Seeking Good Fortune and Avoiding Bad Luck became more and more obvious.

Is it that building ahead?

A two-story building with an independent courtyard, the outer walls were dark gray stone bricks, the curtains were drawn on the second-floor windows, and two uniformed guards stood at the entrance on the first floor.

Their posture was exactly the same as those people pretending to be waiters in the banquet hall.

Lu Cheng slowed his pace, his mind already calculating how to bypass the two people at the door.

Just at this moment... a voice came from behind.

"Chen Yucheng, why are you here?"

Lu Cheng's steps stopped.

Seriously, bro...

He was currently wearing the standard waiter uniform, wearing a mask, with his back to the person who arrived, and the night was so dark, with the surrounding lights not very strong.

You can recognize someone just from their back?

Are you using cheats?

He slowly turned around.

Then his face turned green.

The green crept all the way from his neck to his ear roots, and his entire facial muscles froze for two seconds.

Standing in front of him was a man.

Around forty years old, wearing the same black waiter suit as Lu Cheng.

He wore a half-mask on his face, and the exposed lower half of his face wore a very subtle smile... a kind of... slimy smile that carried a sense of personal territory.

Damn it.

This person was the team leader in charge of Chen Yucheng.

And at the same time... also Chen Yucheng's lover.