CHAPTER 87: CHAPTER 87; WHY WAS THE FOOTAGE ERASED

He stepped closer to them, voice low but icy. "You were the last people assigned to protect her but you failed."

Wenna fell to her knees, sobbing now. "Please forgive us... We didn’t mean for this to happen. We will do anything to make it right..."

"Then start talking," Shen Xiao said, face carved from stone. "What did you see? Who was near her? Was anyone following the van? Did she speak to anyone strange?"

Xiaoling shook her head, frantic. "No one was suspicious at the hospital, sir. Just the usual staff. She didn’t talk much, she just thanked the nurses and said she was tired."

"And, on the way down to the parking lot?"

Wenna blinked through her tears. "There was a black sedan parked two slots away from the van... It had tinted windows. I thought it was strange because it had no hospital sticker on."

Shen Xiao’s eyes narrowed.

"License plate?"

"No, sir... I didn’t get a clear look," Wenna whispered.

Shen Xiao turned and yanked the door open. "Get out...."

The two maids scrambled out, sobbing and bowing.

As the door slammed shut, Shen Xiao stood alone in the quiet room, his fists clenched at his sides, jaw rigid. Soon, the door opened, and he walked out into the hallway.

Shen Xiao stood in the quiet hallway a moment longer, the edges of his control fraying.

Nothing seemed to make sense.

Still unsatisfied, he turned and returned to his study.

Shen Xiao stood in silent stillness by the wide study window, his gaze sweeping over the gardens below, where golden sunlight dappled the manicured hedges and stone pathways. Everything looked calm, perfect, exactly as it should be.

But his chest felt tight with something he could not name.

With a faint exhale, he turned away, striding back to his massive mahogany desk. His polished shoes clicked softly against the marble floor with each measured step.

He settled into his chair, the supple leather sinking under his weight with a quiet sigh. Leaning back, he rested his elbows on the armrests and steepled his long fingers beneath his chin.

For a moment, he simply sat there, his obsidian eyes narrowed with silent calculation as he gazed at the blank screen of his locked tablet.

Then he reached out and tapped it to life.

The encrypted files opened instantly, displaying the investigation data his private team had gathered overnight. Names, dates, CCTV links, and hospital records flickered rapidly across the glowing glass.

His gaze sharpened as he opened Yueyao’s hospital file.

Routine outpatient visit for gastritis.

Prescription for mild antacid therapy.

Follow-up appointment for nutritional supplements.

That was all.

He scrolled further, searching for any mention of surgery, emergency intervention, severe conditions inpatient admission, just anything that could explain this.

But there was nothing.

Not a single note.

His brow furrowed faintly, the muscle along his sharp jaw ticking once.

He swiped back to the CCTV footage folder. Small video thumbnails lined the screen in neat rows, each labelled by date and hour.

His thumb flicked quickly through the timeline until it landed on the day of her hospital visit.

He tapped.

The file failed to load. A dark screen with a blinking error code stared back at him.

He tapped the next.

Another error. Another corrupted file.

He checked the footage from the days before and after. The halls bustled with nurses and visitors. Doctors strode by with clipboards, pushing IV poles and guiding patients in wheelchairs.

But the footage from the day she was there, the entire day, was missing.

His obsidian gaze grew colder, darker, as he set the tablet down on the desk with deliberate precision.

He had not been told of any surgery and he didn’t know about it. He couldn’t even get to see the medical reports, apart from the usual ones, and nothing suspicious was found.

There had been no emergency call from the hospital apart from the time they had gone to the hospital and found her there, there was no emergency message from Yueyao herself. Nothing.

Shen Xiao leaned back in his chair, the cool leather creaking faintly under his weight as he stared blankly at the flickering data on his tablet screen.

No surgery recorded.

No emergency admission apart from the gastritis one, which has been a normal process for her.

The inpatient notes didn’t have anything apart from gastritis.

Just a routine outpatient visit for gastritis.

His gaze darkened, obsidian eyes narrowing slightly. He scrolled further through the records, checking lab results, prescriptions, discharge summaries, anything that might hint at a procedure.

But there was nothing.

Nothing at all.

His thumb flicked down to the phone logs from that week.

No calls from her number registered in his private line.

No texts from her.

No voicemails from her..

His jaw tightened faintly, the memory surfacing like a blade dragged across old wounds.

She used to call him. Years ago, when they were newly married, she would call him softly during his business trips to ask when he would be home, to tell him dinner was ready, or simply to say goodnight.

But he had always cut her off coldly.

"I’m busy. Don’t call me for trivial things."

"You are disturbing me."

"Handle it yourself."

And slowly, painfully, she had stopped calling.

Stopped asking.

Stopped telling him anything at all.

Not because she didn’t want to... but because she knew he wouldn’t care.

His hand clenched around the tablet, the veins along his wrist standing taut beneath his crisp white shirt sleeve. The leather armrest creaked under the force of his grip.

He leaned forward, elbows resting on the edge of the mahogany desk, the faint scent of polished wood filling his lungs as he drew in a slow, ragged breath.

What had happened that day?

Why was the footage erased?

Why did her hospital file hold nothing beyond mild gastritis treatment when his sources had reported her fainting from severe pain?

What had she gone through... alone... while...