Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 56

“Of course he’s an idiot. He doesn’t understand the rules at all. How can you ask  something like that directly?! Generally, these kinds of websites have a very high degree of exclusion, and internal members have fixed chat rooms,” Wang Chao said haughtily. “Okay, Captain, look at the previous comments. Is it clear that this live broadcast has a fee?”

Hearing this, Xing Conglian glanced at Lin Chen and said, “I’ll adjust the recording content.”

Lin Chen knew that Xing Conglian was worried he would be psychologically uncomfortable watching Xu Haozhen jump off the building again, so he said, “Don’t worry about me. After repeated stimulation, the psychological threshold will become higher, and it’s not so easy to get emotional.”

Xing Conglian frowned but still complied. He slowly dragged the recording back to the beginning.

“I’m afraid not only does it charge, but there are also rewards.” Xing Conglian pressed the pause button and pointed at a message in an indistinguishable language. “Here’s a reward for 10 bitcoins asking for more violent performances.”

“Shit, they’re rich!” When Wang Chao heard this, he stretched out his hand to cover the suicide recording and then took a closer look at the chat box. “It’s really 10 bitcoins. That’s 25,000 yuan!”

“Is the exchange rate that high?” Lin Chen was a little surprise.

“Yes, bitcoin is used as a common electronic currency on the deep web. Because it’s encrypted and has good anonymity, many users use it, so the exchange rate between it and real currency has been continuously rising…” Wang Chao’s voice sounded cold. He paused then said, “It also indicates business in the underground world is getting bigger and better, haa.”

“Wait, didn’t you just say you were offering a reward of 100 bitcoins on the forum?” Xing Conglian suddenly remembered something. “You just spent 250,000 of laozi’s money?!”

“Captain, take a good look at the messages and don’t mind the small details, okay?” Wang Chao said angrily. “For the efficiency of solving the case, a little money is nothing at all!”

“Well, money is for those who actually work hard and make a difference.”

Wang Chao: “……”

“So, someone has offered a reward if they can see more violent content? Have the website manager respond to the invitation?” Lin Chen interrupted the conversation between the two and pulled the topic back to its original place.

More violent content?

If this website was not only on demand but also took requests from the audience for more content, then if the bounty was high enough to satisfy the owner of the website, would there really be more violent and bloody content than the live broadcast of three people jumping off a building?

Lin Chen didn’t dare to think about it.

“I’m afraid money can make the devil push the millstone for you*.” Xing Conglian’s finger crossed another message, and his face turned ugly. “This person said this live broadcast was very satisfactory and more exciting than the last live burial…”

*(有钱能使鬼推磨) Idiom referring to if you have money, someone will do it for you (AKA money makes the world go round).

Lin Chen looked at the screen. It was another message that was in an indistinguishable language. “What kind of language is this? Is there any relevant content before and after?”

“It’s Norwegian. I remember another message mentioning the word buried alive.”

Lin Chen was shocked. Xing Conglian’s linguistic competency seemed to go beyond the sky.

After all, he himself had never had any linguistic training, and his English only improved after he was admitted to university and was exposed to various literature. Therefore, he was at a loss for words when faced with a god like Xing Conglian, who seemed to be proficient in Russian, French, Arabic, and even a niche language like Norwegian.

Xing Conglian scanned the chat box, where text was flowing like water. He suddenly stopped. “Here.”

However, after he finished speaking, he paused, as if the content of the message in front of him was incomprehensible.

“What does it say?” Lin Chen asked.

Xing Conglian glanced at him, shook his head slightly, and stabilized his breathing. “It’s saying that last time he watched the buried alive video, he came.”

As if a cold air had just blown above him, it rushed down Lin Chen’s spine, rendering him speechless. He looked at the dark website as if he were staring into a bottomless, dark world.

Suddenly he understood why Wang Chao wanted to avoid the dark web that was full of snakes and scorpions*.

*(蛇蝎) Metaphor referring to terrible/evil people.

This was an underground kingdom that couldn’t be regulated and was filled with countless violent criminals and psychopaths.

“So these three cases are really deeply related.” It took a long time before Lin Chen found his voice. “The question is, what about next time?”

Judging from the live broadcast, from the three people being buried alive to the jumping incident, the level of violence was constantly increasing. Among them, there had to be a deeper intention on the part of the broadcaster to grab more benefits. The problem was that this case was full of insufficient information. They were waiting for another case to occur without any recourse to prevent it.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, the campus of Yongchuan University was still quiet and peaceful. Occasionally, young men and women holding books walked beneath the shade provided by the trees. They talked and laughed, feeling comfortable and relaxed, but perhaps among those students, some had penetrated deep into the darkest side of the online world and were wearing dual identities. The hungry and thirsty perverts of the dark web were performing a play at the cost of lives, while the rest were lucky not to know what kind of darkness was breeding on this campus.

“Can you contact the person who gave you entrance to this website again?” Xing Conglian knocked on the table as he asked Wang Chao.

“Probably, if I have enough money. I’ll try a few hundred thousand to see if it works?” Wang Chao asked tentatively.

Xing Conglian was noncommittal and only said, “Try to enter their private forum. It’s better if you can determine the time when their next live broadcast will start.” He paused, then asked Lin Chen, “Do you have any clues?”

Lin Chen held the coffee cup, took a sip, and retracted his gaze from the boys and girls on campus.

“There are two questions. First, why did these incidents take place on the campus of Yongchuan University. Second, what motivated these people to give up their lives willingly?”

Rather than murder, it looked like suicide, and because it was willing, it was even more creepy.

“Why?” Wang Chao slumped on the table depressingly. “Is there any clues that can be investigated now other than letting me fish and skirt around the law?”

Xing Conglian thought for a moment, then said, “It’s now certain that the first live burial incident was also a suicide, and as you inferred before, it was the deceased who dug the grave with his own hands, so there must have been someone who covered the last person…”

In other words, there had to be witnesses or accomplices.

“But it’s also possible that that person, or those people, have already committed suicide,” Lin Chen said coldly.

The problem stopped here, and they once again fell into a dead end.

Like the dead Cheng Weiwei, it was very likely that the person who covered the last layer of soil also became a corpse that could no longer speak before they were found.

That person could perhaps be Jiang Liu, or maybe Xu Haozhen, or possibly even the boy who had jumped with them, or even all three of them together.

“Ah, my head hurts so much.” After thinking about it for a long time, Wang Chao couldn’t help but bang his head on the table distressingly.

Once the deep web was involved, it was as if he had been shackled and all his powers were emptied out.

“Actually, there’s another clue that isn’t really a clue.”

Lin Chen held the teenager’s forehead and took out three sheets of thin paper from his pocket. Those were the personality test profiles he had previously pulled out of Wang Shishi’s, Jiang Liu’s, and Xu Haozhen’s files.

“Although we’re no longer able to communicate with the dead, they have left some psychological imprints.”

“What’s this?” Wang Chao cranked his neck and watched Lin Chen arrange the three pieces of paper in order on the table. There were numbers and zigzag lines connecting them printed on it, making it look like an electrocardiogram.

“MMPI, by far the most widely used personality test in the world. It’s mostly used to identify mental illnesses.”

“I mean, if they’re committing suicide, if it’s not mental problems, then what could it be?”

Lin Chen glanced at the psychological files in front of him and said, “Unfortunately, the results of their personality test when they enrolled in school show that the mental health of the three of them was healthy.”

“Is it accurate…” The teenager smacked his lips.

Hearing what Wang Chao said, Lin Chen lowered his eyes and looked at the data again.

In fact, when he first saw the personality profile curves of the three of them, he was also extremely surprised. Whether it was hypochondriasis, depression, psychosis, paranoia, mental weakness… The indicators of the three girls were all within the normal range. Their SI was the only thing that came close to an outlier, which he found odd.

“What do you think of this?” Xing Conglian asked suddenly.

“It’s simple. The upper line is 70 points, and the lower line is 30 points. 50 is the middle value. The closer to 70, the more abnormal.”

“Then what does this SI mean?”

“Social introversion.”

“Introverted personality?” Xing Conglian rubbed the stubble on his chin. “This point seems to fluctuate a lot. It’s very close to 70, which means…”

“It means that the three of them are introverted, timid, withdrawn, unsociable, yield easily, and would get nervous easily…”

Thinking about the bubbly and cheerful girl at the Tianren Club that day, Xing Conglian flashed an incredulous look. “This is not like Xu Haozhen.”

“But it’s the same as their state when they enrolled in school. I’ve seen their self-introduction videos. How to put it. They are extremely timid and quite introverted.”

“But if they’re all introverted girls, how would they dare to do such a deviant thing?”

“No, in fact, the personalities of the three of them have undergone major changes during college. This is the only clue I can grasp now.”

“What prompted them to change?” Xing Conglian was keenly aware of the key point.

“Rather, the question we should be asking is, did the reason for their change also cause them to commit suicide?” Lin Chen said.

Did such a thing exist?

Something that could energize you, transform you, and make you feel like a brand new person every day but at the same time was extremely evil, like a drug that would make you willingly pay with your life.

“Let’s go back to the rooftop and have a look,” Lin Chen said.

When the three of them left the café, Wang Chao deliberately fell to the end. When the revolving door turned, he suddenly grabbed Xing Conglian just as it separated them from Lin Chen.

“Captain, I’m afraid this is a big multinational case. Do you want to notify the ICPO?”

“No need for the time being,” Xing Conglian replied as he looked at Lin Chen’s back.

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Kinky Thoughts:

I’ve never seen social introversion abbreviated with SI… but in fact, there is an abbreviation in psychology that uses SI to refer to suicidal ideation, often called suicidal thoughts/ideas. It’s a broad term used to describe a range of contemplations, wishes, and preoccupations with death and suicide, which is quite applicable to this chapter.

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