Chapter 78.1: “Ji Lin, I found the key evidence!”

After being ambushed during dinner, Rong Sheng no longer had to look at Bai DuanDuan with pleasing or hopeful eyes. Almost from the next day, he avoided Bai DuanDuan like the plague, even willing to take detours if she was around. It can be seen how deep the psychological shadow caused by that dinner was on him.

However, Bai DuanDuan didn’t have the time to worry about Rong Sheng’s impression of her. She was completely immersed in the headache of the Tian Mu case. Now that the evidence collection at the hot pot restaurant was obstructed, where could she find the missing clues?

Although Ji Lin told her not to worry and that he would do his best to follow up, and Bai DuanDuan believed that with Ji Lin’s ability, even if she did nothing, he could find the key evidence to turn the case around before the deadline. It’s just…

Just unwilling.

Unwilling to just lie down and accept defeat, unwilling to completely let go and take a risk, unwilling to depend on Ji Lin.

Apart from normal rest time, Bai DuanDuan almost immersed her entire being into the case. What did she miss before? She tried to comb through everything from beginning to end, afraid that her previous thinking patterns had caused a miss in the screening of crucial information.

Since Tian Mu is developing a competitive game for Lu Shuisheng, and game development is not something that can be done alone but requires teamwork, Tian Mu is hindered by a non-compete agreement and cannot attend meetings with the team at Mercury Network. Given that other employees at Mercury Network haven’t even met Tian Mu in person, it can be inferred that Tian Mu hasn’t even had a video conference with other members of the game development team. It’s understandable, as once Tian Mu’s appearance is exposed, everyone in the game development circle knows each other, and Mercury Network employees are not stupid. They will make connections and eventually, the truth will come out. Therefore, Tian Mu hasn’t taken this risk. However, as an important member of the game design team, he still needs to communicate with the company. Therefore, the person in charge of this communication is most likely Lu Shuisheng himself.

But…

Before this, apart from checking Tian Mu’s bank statement, Bai Duan Duan also looked for his call records with Lu Shuisheng, but couldn’t find anything suspicious. So how did Tian Mu communicate with Lu Shuisheng? Did they rely on video calls through some network software?

In game development, in addition to oral communication of ideas, many times, they also need to run programs, and game software has prototypes and trial versions. Tian Mu’s job is to test the smoothness and user experience of the game after it is launched, so he needs to run the game software.

Speaking of Tian Mu’s cautious personality, he doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would trust someone to send game software versions via email, because once targeted Trojan horses and virus software are implanted in an email, all communication records may be completely exposed.

As for game software and some confidential information, let alone Tian Mu’s unwillingness to receive them via email, even Lu Shuisheng would not risk using email to send them because once there is a leak, someone else may get ahead of them and cause fatal damage to the game’s launch, just like what happened with Mercury Network.

But if Tian Mu doesn’t go to Mercury Network and doesn’t use email, then the trial version of the game software must be transmitted using a USB flash drive or some other carrier. And this USB flash drive or carrier involves a huge amount of commercial value. Lu Shuisheng is determined not to deliver it by express delivery, so there is only one way left–to find someone to deliver it in person.

However, as Bai DuanDuan previously analyzed, both Tian Mu and Lu Shuisheng are very cautious people, and it is highly likely that they will adopt a face-to-face delivery method and personally communicate. After all, the modification and updating of the game software version are not as frequent as money, which may only need Lu Shuisheng to give the USB flash drive to Tian Mu once every six months. Even if the two meet, the risk is not that great, and it is more troublesome to have someone else do it.

Bai DuanDuan tried to analyze and believed that regardless of how, Tian Mu must have met with Lu Shuisheng at least once before the final version of the competing game was released. Theoretically speaking, it may have been more than once, and Tian Mu should have had extensive communication with Lu Shuisheng in person regarding bugs or poor user experience in the game. Bai DuanDuan believes that what she needs to do now is to find out how these two people communicated and what their communication mechanism was, and whether it is possible to obtain key evidence of the two people transmitting USB flash drives and game software.

The idea is good, but it is very difficult to put into practice, because all the analysis is based on pure speculation by Bai Duan Duan. She has no idea how Tian Mu and Lu Shuisheng think and operate.

Moreover, Tian Mu hardly went out in the early stages, and Xie Miao had people watching him. But he almost stayed at home every day… If he really communicated with Lu Shuisheng through non-face-to-face means, then it would be difficult to obtain evidence.

However, no matter what, once there is such speculation, Bai Duan Duan doesn’t want to give up any chance and decides to try to obtain evidence in this direction. She took out a piece of white paper and started to carefully organize the relationship diagram and all possible developments between Tian Mu and Lu Shuisheng.

Unintentionally, a day passed by. On the other side of Bai Duan Duan, Wang Fangfang was already packing up and getting ready to leave.

“Not working overtime tonight?”

Wang Fangfang has been working until seven or eight o’clock every day lately to earn the year-end bonus. It was unusual for her to leave early tonight, so Bai Duan Duan couldn’t help but feel curious.

Wang Fangfang whispered, “I have been eating supper every night because I am so hungry after working overtime lately. But when I stepped on the scale yesterday, I gained twelve pounds! Can you imagine? Twelve pounds! Not two pounds! My mom also arranged a blind date for me at the end of the year with a handsome guy. There are only a few months left, so even though I usually stay at home, I have to rush to the gym to lose weight now.”

After she finished speaking, she put on her sneakers, said goodbye to Bai Duan Duan, and ran away.

However, Wang Fangfang’s inadvertent words suddenly enlightened Bai Duan Duan.

Gym!

Although Tian Mu usually stays indoors and rarely goes out except to take out the trash, he has been to the gym before. Bai DuanDuan knew about this, but Tian Mu’s frequency of going to the gym was not high. He only went a few times every six months or so, which didn’t catch Bai Duanduan’s attention. After all, it was normal behavior, just like Duan Yun, who had also bought a two-year gym membership but only went a few times in the first month before losing interest. Later, she sporadically went a few more times, but not to exercise, but to take a shower, claiming it was a way to use up some water fees and save costs…

Tian Mu was completely similar to Duan Yun in this regard, as well as to any ordinary person who has a gym membership but doesn’t go. Therefore, Bai DuanDuan didn’t think much about it before, especially since Tian Muping was slightly overweight and it was understandable that he would want to lose weight.

But now, looking at it from a different angle, Bai DuanDuan felt that he needed to carefully investigate every time Tian Mu went out. The gym was a very reasonable place for him to go, and it wouldn’t be strange for him or Lu Shuisheng to be there. If they picked the right time, there would be few people in the gym during the daytime on weekdays, and the two of them could meet and exchange USB drives to discuss the game.

Bai DuanDuan immediately shared this discovery with Ji Lin.