Chapter 161: Erased Traces

Chapter 161: Chapter 161: Erased Traces

The next morning, when Lucien woke up, Damian had already disappeared, which was not very surprising because this man had done the exact same thing the previous times. Was the character setting designed so that Lucien could not see his face in the morning right after waking up?

Come to think of it, they did not do anything last night. Damian simply brought Lucien back to Damian’s place, and the two of them just hugged each other and slept normally. In fact, Lucien did not know why their relationship had developed to the current state. It was obvious that just a few days ago, there was absolutely no way to approach Damian.

However, it had to be admitted that Damian’s self-control was truly excellent. Last night, while being embraced by the man, Lucien clearly felt that terrifying erection constantly rubbing against his body.

Yet, Damian actually managed to hold back and did not do anything at all.

[Perhaps it is because he held back too much that he can no longer get it up.] 000 perched on the headboard, throwing in a sarcastic remark.

"So it is true that he cannot get it up?"

[I thought you had already guessed it?]

Lucien chuckled and scrambled out of bed, not answering anymore. Just as he was about to go wash up, he saw a sticky note left on the bed. The content was still the same as the previous day. Damian had prepared the food in advance and even reminded Lucien to take a taxi to work.

The character setting of this male lead was a bit different, was it not? Other male leads would have reasonably assigned a private driver to chauffeur their lovers around.

Lucien let out a soft laugh, tossed the note back to its original place, stepped out of bed, and entered the bathroom. The warm water cascaded over his body, soothing his slightly tense muscles. He took a quick shower, then opened the wardrobe and took out the outfit Damian had prepared in advance: a white button-down shirt, black dress pants, and polished leather shoes. He put the clothes on, adjusted his collar, and looked in the mirror. The hickey on his neck had faded significantly, leaving only a faint mark if one looked closely.

Quite good. He admired himself for a moment before casually walking out to the living room. The food was still the same as yesterday. Lucien finished it very quickly and then called a car to the company. Today, the human resources department sent him a new email, which was a notification confirming Ethan’s transfer.

Lucien did not care much, only glancing over it briefly before checking the information on his computer, ready to start a new day. It was at this moment that Lucien discovered a few subfolders on his computer were missing their contents.

These things were the documents the company had just handed over to him the other day. He only saved them and had not yet backed them up to his personal storage system. At first, Lucien did not pay much attention to it. He merely thought that he had downloaded an incomplete batch, so he opened the internal network, intending to download them once again.

When he opened it, he realized that everything on the internal system had been completely deleted.

"Tsk." Lucien took one look and vaguely guessed what was going on. "Is Ethan planning a complete fallout by doing this?"

Seeing him frowning deeply, Sarah leaned over and asked, "What is wrong? It is so early in the morning, but your complexion looks terrible."

Lucien shook his head. "It is nothing, just a minor issue with some documents."

After saying that, he hurriedly sent a text message to notify Damian. Lucien was not going to resolve this problem on his own. Things related to corporate documents should be handled by the management board.

Very quickly, Damian dispatched someone from the IT department over to check. After all, the internal system was independently developed. If it was not someone with high expertise or holding the access keys, they absolutely could not erase all traces completely.

Shortly after, the IT department reported back that there were signs of unauthorized access from a USB drive during the time he was absent. They said they could recover most of the data, but it would take some time.

Lucien sat at his desk, resting his chin on his hand, deep in thought.

One could guess who did it with their eyes closed, but how to prove it or point out the evidence was the real problem here. Fortunately, the lost data was not too important, although it still caused a slight impact. Sigh, he would have to spend time making adjustments to ensure the project stayed on the established timeline.

Chris walked into the room, and seeing Lucien sitting still, he immediately asked, "What is the matter?"

"A few data files were deleted from my computer," Lucien replied. "I am waiting for the IT department to recover them."

Chris furrowed his brows. "Why were they deleted? Have you asked if someone made an operational error, or if someone did it on purpose? Do you suspect anyone?"

"I am not entirely sure yet," Lucien said. "I probably have to wait for the relevant parties to investigate and see how it goes."

Chris nodded and then returned to his desk. Lucien sighed, reopened the concept file, and continued working. He knew he could not let these matters affect the progress. The more pressure there was, the more focused he had to be.

By the end of the day, the IT department had managed to recover the majority of the deleted data. Lucien double-checked everything and breathed a sigh of relief.

Even though they were supplementary documents, missing them would still cause a slight disruption.

Since he had no appointments with anyone tonight, he went straight to his own home after packing up his belongings. Lucien wanted to relax a bit; staying at Damian’s apartment might look luxurious and high-end, but he still had to pay attention to far too many things.

The moment he arrived home, Lucien sprawled out on the bed. To be honest, going to work was genuinely exhausting. He had to work while simultaneously playing mind games with malicious colleagues. And yet, he saw so many people who, after coming home from work, still went to the gym, met up with friends, and hit the bars and pubs until late at night.

He had no idea where they got that much abundant energy from.

As for him, it felt as though all his energy had been completely drained away. His mind was still spinning over Ethan’s situation. He knew the battle with Ethan was not over yet, and he also knew that the man was not someone easy to deal with.

When he first discovered the deleted files, Lucien was quite surprised, because he did not think Ethan could resort to such a foolish trick. Or could it be that it was not Ethan?

But if it was not him, then who could it be?

Lucien muttered to himself as he rolled over onto his side, staring blankly at the white patch of wall. He tried hard to recall every single detail from the past few days. Ethan had taken a leave of absence, but before leaving, he had returned to Lucien’s desk. Mark saw Ethan holding a USB drive, but was it absolutely certain that Ethan had plugged it into the computer? Or was that just a diversionary tactic?

Lucien sat bolt upright, grabbed his phone, and opened Mark’s messages to read them again: "I saw him standing in front of your desk for a while, his hand lightly grazing the surface of the desk... After that, he turned to me and asked if I knew what kind of relationship you and Boss Damian had."

His hand lightly grazing the surface of the desk. What kind of action was that? It could be that he was looking for a USB, or it could be that he was placing something back. But if Ethan wanted to delete the data, why would he do it in such a blatant manner? He knew full well that the office had surveillance cameras, and he knew full well that Mark was sitting nearby. Doing so was no different from confessing that he himself was the culprit.

Unless... he deliberately wanted himself to be suspected. Unless he wanted to create a distraction.

Lucien knitted his brows, trying to recall the expressions and behaviors of the people around him.

Or was it Howard?

Did Howard show any unusual behavior today? This morning, when seeing Lucien enter the office, he just brushed past, his face still as sullen as every other day. But it seemed that when Lucien informed Chris about the deleted data, Howard walked past from somewhere, stopped for a brief moment, and then walked away very quickly. At that time, Lucien did not pay attention, but thinking about it now, why did he stop? Was it because he heard about the deleted data and got startled?

"000," Lucien called out softly.

[Do you need something? I am telling you in advance, I cannot point out the specific name for you. I do not know either.]

"Can you access the company’s surveillance cameras?"

[I can.]

"Then help me scan through them and see if yesterday, before Ethan left, anyone else touched my computer. Check all the related cameras."