Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 136

Chapter 136: Let’s Start with You

“Damn!! President Liu’s account is live!!”

Just ten minutes after Ni Lifeng had sent the edited message, a live stream notification had appeared on Liu Jia’s short video platform account. The title of the live stream was: “Judge Her.”

The conference room had exploded. Everyone had started to take out their phones. With different phone models and different internet speeds, the live stream delay had caused an echo in the room.

Sun Yuan had been with Liu Jia the longest. As soon as she had clicked into the live stream, she had let out a scream and then couldn’t help but start to cry. Qin Luo was so scared by her that she didn’t dare to look down. She grabbed Shen Yiyi’s arm and asked with a trembling voice, “What is it? Is she dead?”

But Shen Yiyi was very calm.

She turned down the volume, turned up the screen brightness to the maximum, and looked at the screen seriously.

On the screen, Liu Jia was tied to a stool, her hands behind her back. The room was dark all around, with only a single spotlight on her. Her face was covered with a black bag, and her face could not be seen, so it was impossible to judge whether she was dead or alive. But her occasional struggles showed that she still had vital signs, but she was just on the verge of death.

“If the live stream is cut off, she will die.”

Although Shen Yiyi had turned off the volume, the people around her were all watching, so Qin Luo could hear the content of the live stream clearly.

“If the live stream is cut off, she will die.”

A cold AI was repeating the same sentence in the live stream. The live stream platform might also have been scared and did not dare to cut it off.

Shen Yiyi clicked on the text below the live stream title. There were only a few simple sentences:

“Tonight, the audience will have the right to decide her fate. This is a public trial. Once a vote is cast, it cannot be withdrawn. When the number of votes reaches seventy percent of the number of viewers, the trial mechanism will be triggered. The live stream will last for four hours.”

The number of people and the heat in the upper left corner were skyrocketing, and a voting pop-up window appeared on the left side of the screen.

The live stream platform had not banned the live stream, but had chosen to block the bullet screen and had even closed some of the official intervention options such as the gift backend.

Shen Yiyi looked at the voting options.

There was only a choice of two: judge her, or save her.

The phones in the conference room began to ring one after another. Not only had Qin Luo received a call from an investor, but Li Peng had also received a call from the city bureau.

Shen Yiyi was no exception. The call was from Old Geng.

She answered the phone, but the one who spoke was the big leader of the criminal investigation team: “Little Shen, are you in the mountains? What’s the situation now? Haven’t you already locked down the killer? How can the other still be live streaming?”

The network feedback was fast.

From the live stream notification to now, it had only been ten minutes. The criminal investigation team had found Old Geng. The speed was very fast. It seemed that the situation was very serious.

Shen Yiyi’s heart sank. It was really as he had wished.

“I’m in the mountains.” Her voice was steady. “But the killer has entered the mountains. There’s no way to locate him at the moment. This live stream is most likely a recording.”

Ten minutes ago, she and Piao Zheng had already predicted the occurrence of this situation.

And now, as she had expected, the killer would push the fourth victim, Liu Jia, in front of the public to achieve the trial effect he had expected.

This was also the reason why the killer had been slow to make a move on Liu Jia.

The killer had been waiting.

Waiting for the police to find his whereabouts.

Therefore, Shen Yiyi had decided to have Ni Lifeng send him a text message, which was a notice from the police, telling him that he had been locked down by the police.

Only when the police made the first move would the killer take the next step: he would use a public trial to restrain the police, to change from passive to active.

“I’ve confirmed the surveillance. It’s a picture captured by the town’s surveillance. He arrived in Tong County three days ago and has been going back and forth between the mountains these past few days. The last time the surveillance captured him was last night. He probably went into the mountains.”

The other end of the line was silent.

Shen Yiyi said with certainty, “The live stream can’t be stopped, and the number of viewers can’t be limited. So you have to discuss it with the higher-ups and see if you can create a mirror live stream for him through technology.”

This new type of crime, the leader was a little behind the times. “A mirror?”

Shen Yiyi did not want to waste time with an old-timer. “You should find more technical police officers to analyze it, but this live stream room can’t be sealed for now.”

The leader was not vague either. “It’s not up to me to decide whether to seal it or not.”

Shen Yiyi could hear Piao Zheng whispering in the leader’s ear on the side. “Sealing it or not is not the key. The key is to rescue the hostage. Most of Little Shen’s judgments are correct. She has a mass base on her side, and she has the killer’s background. She has more information than we do.”

The leader said to Piao Zheng impatiently, “Go and get some people from the technical department first. Weren’t there people who participated in the virtual counter-control of network security before? Get them all here to study it.”

The phone was handed over to Old Geng, and he was even more annoyed.

“How could you…” He let out a long sigh. “Weren’t you already recused? How did you get involved in this case?”

“That person is my friend.” Shen Yiyi said bluntly, “Old Geng, we’d better do our best. If we can’t save her, it won’t be good for either of us.”

Old Geng was choked by her words.

Shen Yiyi couldn’t say the curse words to her colleague. Before she hung up, she said in a low voice, “A Lin Puping who has just graduated from college knows that it’s important to catch the person. But the officials are avoiding it…”

The phone was hung up, and the surroundings were still a mess.

Especially Li Peng, who was still on the phone, responding to the leader’s arrangements. Shen Yiyi could hear from his words that the higher-ups had coordinated with the fire brigades of the surrounding city bureaus to enter the mountains together, and the provincial criminal investigation team was also rushing here at the same time.

It was always good to have more people.

Shen Yiyi glanced at Qin Luo. Qin Luo was sitting in a chair, bent over, talking on the phone. She looked like she had lost control of her expression, her eyes red.

She knew that Liu Jia was very important to Qin Luo.

In the letters that Qin Luo had written to her, she would mention Liu Jia every two or three sentences. Whether it was in Beijing or Nanjing, whether it was Logos or the reading group, it was Liu Jia who had accompanied her as she had grown up. Long-term companionship was more important than anything else.

Ever since she had become a forensic pathologist, she had rarely empathized. The pain of flesh and blood only existed in her own nightmares.

But now she could feel that Qin Luo was in pain.

Shen Yiyi did not know how to comfort her. Even though the words of heartache were on the tip of her tongue, her fingertips were tightly pinching her phone, and she had once again clicked into the live stream.

Only by saving Liu Jia could she stop the pain from continuing to expand.

She carefully observed the person on the screen. Her breathing was even, and her occasional twisting movements were also powerful. Although her shirt was wrinkled, it was at least not dirty.

The bullet screen was banned, but the voting was still going on.

Although the live stream had been restricted, the number of viewers was still rising. It was currently as high as 210,000, but most of them were just watching the show, and only a few thousand had voted.

Most of them had voted to save her.
A few hundred had voted for a trial.

There was no story background, no character appearance, only a dying outline tied to a chair. You couldn’t feel her bones or her character, but you could get a few hundred trial votes.

Shen Yiyi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

She had to look at the text again carefully, hoping to find the purpose of Zhan Luo’s behavior through the voting rules.

The vote determines the trial mechanism.
Then what is the trial mechanism?

Just as Shen Yiyi was thinking, Ni Lifeng suddenly ran over with her phone. “Little Zhan sent a message.”

The whole room fell silent, especially Li Peng, who immediately came over to look.

[Give you ten minutes to restore the bullet screen of the live stream room.]

Click, Shen Yiyi took a picture and sent it directly to Piao Zheng in the work system.

“Let me use your phone.”

Shen Yiyi very politely took the phone, wiped it clean, and then replied, [This is not something we can decide. It’s the platform’s review mechanism that has automatically avoided the bullet screen.]

This woman had replied too quickly, and the leader hadn’t even decided how to reply!

Li Peng was shocked. “Director Shen, why don’t we discuss how to reply? What if we anger the other party?”

“It’s easier to anger him if we don’t reply.” Shen Yiyi looked at Li Peng calmly. “Your main job now is to lead people to search the mountain, not to command me.”

…

No one in the room dared to refute. After all, she was the one who had found the killer, and she was the one who had contacted him. Although the case was under their jurisdiction, they had lost the initiative.

Shen Yiyi was typing and waving her hand. “Wang Xi, you can open the computer.”

Qin Luo had been defeated. At present, only Wang Xi could be her deputy. Fortunately, the other was quick on her feet and immediately responded. Shen Yiyi logged into WeChat, made a network call to Piao Zheng, and was ready to handle the case online at any time.

“Hurry up and restore it for him.”

“It’s not that we won’t let him restore the bullet screen. It’s that the platform doesn’t dare to restore it. Now the internet is full of posts discussing the live stream. The platform is afraid of getting into trouble.”

Shen Yiyi’s tone was cold. “If you don’t restore it, the hostage will die.”

“Hold him off. We’ll try our best to negotiate.” Piao Zheng was also in a difficult position. “This matter has alarmed a very high level. The engineers from the National Security have even come to help. They said that they’re rushing to render a mirror.”

Shen Yiyi finally saw a glimmer of hope. “So it’s a recording?”

“Yes, the engineers are using the complete video to create a mirror live stream room. But this is a technical attempt. No one knows if it will work. We need time to hold him off.”

Shen Yiyi said, “We only have four hours.”

Piao Zheng replied, “But I heard that the uploaded video is only two hours long.”

“The uploaded recording is only two hours long?” Shen Yiyi paused for a moment, her hands on the table. “Perhaps he had already anticipated that the police would do this. Don’t waste your energy on creating a mirror live stream room. It’s useless.”

He had used the network surveillance to explore Qi Yingjun’s daily life, and had also installed surveillance at Qin Luo’s house. He was naturally familiar with the network.

The live stream text said that the live stream would last for four hours. Even if the mirror live stream room was really useful, there would still be a two-hour time difference. He had reserved enough time for the trial, and had repeatedly extended the time window, just to prevent the police from using technology to intercept the stream, or to deliberately delay.

“It’s useless?”

“The voting countdown is a game of domination. We’re already in the rules of the game.” Shen Yiyi was unwilling to accept it, but she had to compromise with reality. “Unless we abandon the hostage.”

It was all over the internet. How could they abandon the hostage?

“What a joke.” The leader was so angry he slammed the table. “Search the mountain, and locate the signal. You must catch him within two hours!”

Buzz buzz

The phone vibrated.

Ni Lifeng’s phone had received another message.

[Director Shen, you also have the right to vote.]

Shen Yiyi’s brow furrowed as she stared at the screen. The other was using words, through the phone screen, like a shadow, to provoke her nakedly.

[Let’s start with you.]