Chapter 3

I extracted that crucial video segment and sent it to Harrison via encrypted email.

Five minutes later, my phone vibrated.

It was Harrison's brief reply.

"Continue."

Very much his style.

He didn't want the process. He wanted results.

One video could only prove Vivian was guilty of deleting my files, but it wasn't enough to directly link her to those 197 votes.

I needed more direct evidence.

I pulled out my work phone and dialed an encrypted number.

The call was answered quickly.

"Hello, Clara."

It was Lucas Gray from IT, the person Harrison had assigned to help with my investigation.

He was a recent college grad with great technical skills but an introverted personality. He rarely spoke at the company.

I'd once helped him out when older employees were giving him a hard time.

"Lucas, can you check if there were any unusual operations on Vivian's work computer yesterday between nine and ten AM?" I asked in a low voice.

"Sure, give me a moment."

Lucas agreed readily.

I picked up the now-cold coffee in front of me.

My brain was like a machine running at high speed, replaying every detail of the situation.

Why would Vivian do this?

Just to get rid of me and eliminate a potential competitor?

No, the cost was too high.

The file she deleted must hide a bigger secret.

Half an hour later, Lucas called back.

"Clara, I checked. There's nothing."

His voice sounded a bit dejected.

"She just sent and received emails, browsed the intranet—exactly like a normal employee."

The lead had gone cold.

But I wasn't giving up.

I leaned back on the coffee shop sofa, forcing myself to calm down.

Same-second voting.

That absolutely couldn't be 197 people manually clicking.

It must have used some kind of script or program that completed all operations instantly through a single command.

If there was no problem with Vivian's own computer...

Then where was the "server" that executed this program?

That platform that could centrally control, or rather, could be exploited for unified operations...

A thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

Cloud server!

The company had rented a large cloud server so employees could work remotely anytime, anywhere.

All employee accounts could log in through specific ports and authorizations.

That platform had extremely high permissions. Theoretically, if someone obtained high enough access, they could absolutely perform batch operations.

I immediately grabbed my phone and called Lucas again.

"Lucas, don't check individual computers! Check the cloud server! Check all backend login logs at exactly 9:31 AM yesterday!"