Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 138p1

Chapter 138 p1: Please Talk to Me

At 8:20 in the evening, forty minutes after the live stream had started, the bullet screen in the live stream room was restored.

Although the platform had enabled a user filtering mechanism and had opened it to some users, it still could not stop the bullet screen from flooding in like a tide.

The voting was still going on, and the inside and outside of the live stream room had become an entertainment venue.

Some rich people had even posted, hoping to spend a lot of money to buy an account that could enter the live stream room.

[Please give me the link to his live stream room!]
[Is it an AI synthesis? Otherwise, the account would definitely be banned.]
[The one who was kidnapped is the boss of a media company. It should be a hype, with a script.]
[My friend works at that company. The matter of their boss being kidnapped is true.]
[[Dog head] I’m numb, but I’m still watching.]

The internet was in an uproar. Everyone was a glutinous rice ball in boiling water.

Outside the venue, some people were directing the voting, some were getting rewards from the live stream screenshots, and some were making up stories to attract attention. In the low-resolution screen, dense and meaningless words were refreshed every second.

Whether the woman on the stool would die tonight was just one of the many screens. A person’s attention was shackled by information like a dog. Human empathy had long been fed to death by algorithms, and the excitement made it impossible for people to stop.

“The command room has already arranged for people to start searching the mountain.”
“I’ll let you know if there’s any information here.”
“Li Peipei just said that Zhan Luo had asked about Shang Yi taking health supplements. She denies everything else.”

It had been twenty minutes since Zhan Luo had posted. Shen Yiyi had not moved and had not given him any reply. She sat on the sofa in silence, listening to Piao Zheng summarize the battle situation.

Wang Xi had noticed the depression in Shen Yiyi’s emotions, but she did not dare to go forward and ask. She sat on the side quietly, waiting to be dispatched.

The voting was still going on, and the number of voters had already exceeded half of the online viewers.

In the live stream room, the bullet screen was scrolling at a speed of hundreds of messages per second. The flowing electronic epitaphs were like drops of water, one by one, washing away death completely.

[It feels like playing an interactive drama.]
[Is there a resource group that has a recording and has made a clip?]

There were also kind-hearted viewers who were praying for Liu Jia’s rescue, and there were also people who were analyzing the rules of the game. The bullet screen was a variety of things.

[The rule is: the number of votes has to reach seventy percent of the number of viewers, so we have to vote whether she dies or not.]

The bullet screen was anonymous, and the tone was light.

The choice of a person’s fate was left to a live stream, as if it had been written into an instant joke.

The audience did not have to be responsible for anything. They were not even sure if this was a play.

Emotion was the protagonist of this play.

It was not important who the person with the headgear was. She was the embodiment of a “display piece.”

Her vulnerability, her fear, her struggle, were being paused, screenshotted, and commented on by hundreds of millions of invisible fingers.

The screen had become a mirror.

The internet is the product of voyeurism. Everyone is almost a transparent individual. What is reflected in the mirror is not a faceless person with a headgear—but themselves.

Buzz buzz buzz

The phone’s message finally rang again. Shen Yiyi received a message from Zhan Luo.

[It’s time for Qin Luo to vote.]

Shen Yiyi looked at the number of voters. It had already started to rise, and the ratio had reached 7:3. Seventy percent of the people had chosen to save her.

Shen Yiyi naturally could not call Qin Luo to vote for him. She was being led by his rhythm, and she did not know where she was being taken. The negotiator had also arrived at the command center, and a circle of people were brainstorming, preparing to use this reply to start a counterattack.

[Haven’t you been monitoring Qin Luo for a long time? You must know her very well. You can make the choice for her.]

A long time after the message was sent, there was no reply.

There were still three hours left in the window. It was a purely psychological battle. As long as the police could find a loophole in the criminal, the counterattack would be very fast.

But Zhan Luo was clearly not in a hurry.

He would not be angry if he did not get a satisfactory answer. Instead, he would disappear into silence, which would add a lot of pressure to the command center.

“What does he want?” Piao Zheng was so angry he couldn’t take it anymore. He had never seen such a calm and arrogant criminal. He was clearly holding a hostage, but he was acting as if he were hosting a game. He had asked several times, “Can’t you just state your conditions?”

At this time, there was a synchronous feedback on the walkie-talkie. “Report to the command center. The mountain search team has arrived at Gezi Town, Xiashan County, and is now entering the mountain.”

With Yanli’s check-in record, the search range could be expanded with the hotel as the center. The town government had received a cooperation directive and had broadcasted to every village in advance to prohibit the villagers from entering the mountain.

Li Peng was at the foot of the mountain with a walkie-talkie and said to the command hall with a headache, “How to search is still a problem.”

The police had dispatched the most advanced night vision drones and had arranged a route with a segmented and dotted strategy, a phased advance. But the number of firefighters was still limited, and it was almost impossible to search the entire mountain within four hours.

Shen Yiyi’s thoughts returned. She found a map.

“If it were me…” Shen Yiyi said in a daze. Her voice was not loud, but it had attracted the attention of several anxious eyes. “I wouldn’t hide her in the mountains.”

“Hmm?” Piao Zheng was stunned again.

Shen Yiyi said slowly, “We’re being led by him step by step. Even the game is being dominated by him. He’s too confident.”

Just like when he had killed Xin Wuzheng, he had dared to commit the crime directly on the set, and had slit his throat with a knife without any preparation.

He had even dared to use Liu Jia’s phone to restrain Qin Luo for two days, had dared to bring her to the mountains, and had dared to threaten the police with a hostage. But he had many flaws and had given the police a timeline to work with.

“He’s just luring us into the mountains.”

Can he escape?
—He definitely can’t.

The mountain roads have all been blocked. The hostage is dead, but he can’t escape the law.

Could it be that he just wanted to see a voting result?

Shen Yiyi turned to look at the electronic clock in the command hall. “A four-hour window… If he really threw her into the deep mountains and old forests, how could he dare to give such a precise countdown? This is not like his personality and behavior.”

Wang Xi frowned. “Do you suspect that the hostage is not here?”

Shen Yiyi nodded, but then she frowned again. “Can you let me talk to Li Peipei?”

***

Li Peipei was summoned this time and was sitting on an iron stool. But the police did not want to put pressure on her, so they did not handcuff her.

The atmosphere was not relaxed. Rescuing the hostage was a race against time. The interrogator’s attitude was serious as he held up his phone screen to the woman.

“You and Zhan Luo met in prison.”

Shen Yiyi did not want to beat around the bush and stated her attitude as soon as she came up: the police had already found clues that they had committed the crime together, and it was best to confess honestly.

But Li Peipei was unmoved.

She looked at the Shen Yiyi on the screen calmly. “Yes, we did meet very early on, but we just knew each other.”

The second half of the sentence was a little superfluous.

“Shang Yi is already dead. Your goal has been achieved.” Shen Yiyi’s tone was calm. She clearly did not want to continue to deal with her. “But Liu Jia was implicated by you. Zhan Luo could have not touched her.”

Li Peipei frowned, her body bent forward. “Who implicated her?”

“You were the one who spread that post that had first fermented.” Shen Yiyi said bluntly, “You also didn’t expect Zhan Luo’s killing intent to be so great. Besides killing Shang Yi, he also killed Qi Yingjun. And at this time, the police happened to be investigating you. Therefore, on the night before you were taken away, you wrote a post exposing Shang Yi, with the purpose of making the public opinion lean toward him deserving to die, to force the police to investigate the case quickly.”

Li Peipei tilted her head to the side and insisted, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have nothing to do with Shang Yi’s death.”

“I didn’t say you had anything to do with Shang Yi’s death.” Shen Yiyi seized the opportunity and emphasized, “I’m talking about Qi Yingjun’s case.”

Li Peipei blinked a few times and finally compromised.

She turned around and admitted with a helpless expression, “I didn’t do anything. I just asked Dadihua for a list of live stream selections for him. Who knew that Zhan Luo wanted to kill someone?”

Wrong.

Shen Yiyi smiled lightly. “It was you who had already determined that he was going to kill Qi Yingjun, and then you decided to induce Zhan Luo to kill Shang Yi as well. You had already noticed that something was wrong with him.”

Li Peipei also smiled. “You seem to be telling a story. Do you have any evidence?”

This was the first time since the interrogation that Li had shown a strange emotion. The interrogating police officer could not sit still and slammed his palm on the iron table.

Clang—

Li Peipei was so scared she trembled.

“This is an interrogation, not a vegetable market. You can be arrested even without evidence. You’d better confess honestly.”

Li Peipei shrugged her shoulders and simply said, “Since you can arrest me without evidence, then why bother interrogating me? You might as well just send me to the police station and wait for the process.”

Seeing that the atmosphere was tense, Shen Yiyi stepped in to mediate. “Shang Yi is dead. Your goal has been achieved. You’ve already escaped the cage.”

Li Peipei snorted coldly and still denied it. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”