Yang Chaoyu did not understand the look in his eyes and even smiled.
Qi Yang really wanted to give her a three-hit Bian Que combo.
The two sat there for a while longer before light footsteps came from the stairwell.
“Wow! What the—cough, cough, cough!”
After Ke Xingyun came upstairs, he had intended to catch his breath first, but when he saw the strange thing lying on the floor, he nearly fainted. After choking on his own saliva, he coughed until his face flushed red. Yang Chaoyu walked over and patted him on the back.
“Big shot, you can walk now?”
“I have that thing to thank.” Yang Chaoyu nodded toward the corpse of that thing with her chin.
While the two were speaking, the baseball cap and Zou Qing also came upstairs.
When Zou Qing saw the corpse, she screamed and hooked her arm around the baseball cap’s, hiding behind him. Dragging along a fully grown person, the baseball cap still walked as leisurely as if he were strolling through a courtyard.
“You’re quite capable.”
He could tell at a glance how the monster had died, and a hint of surprise and curiosity appeared in his gaze as he looked at Yang Chaoyu.
Yang Chaoyu looked at him and asked, “Do you know what that is?”
“Obviously, it’s a monster.” He spread his hands.
“You said this isn’t your first mission. In your previous missions, didn’t you encounter this kind of monster?”
The baseball cap touched his chin through his mask and said, “No. However, that was a large-scale mission. Too many people died, and some bodies couldn’t even be found, let alone have their causes of death deduced. Perhaps a monster really was hiding among them, but none of us noticed.”
What kind of terrifying missions had he experienced? Yang Chaoyu could hardly imagine.
Zou Qing instead praised him, saying, “To come out of a mission with such a high mortality rate, you’re amazing.”
The baseball cap looked at her, seeming to smile, but said to Yang Chaoyu, “It was truly impressive that you thought of using the overseer to kill it.”
Yang Chaoyu still felt shaken whenever she recalled that moment.
She said, “It was just luck.”
If the monster had not happened to envelop her, or if the overseer had appeared one second later, the only things lying on the floor now would not have been the monster’s corpse, but hers as well.
Zou Qing could not help asking, “How did you know the overseer killed the monster?”
The baseball cap pointed at his own eyes. “I saw it.”
Zou Qing froze. “But you were clearly downstairs looking for clues with me earlier.”
The baseball cap snorted disdainfully, too lazy to explain.
“Was it because the monster’s head was obviously smashed apart?” Ke Xingyun guessed. “To create such a flat impact injury, that terrifying force was enough to shatter bone…”
As he spoke, he looked at Qi Yang.
Qi Yang’s breathing was weak, but he still glared fiercely at him.
The baseball cap suddenly said, “No wonder the monster took a liking to you.”
Yang Chaoyu: “What do you mean?”
“I mean it as a compliment.”
“Boring.” She ignored him and asked Ke Xingyun, “Did you get the clue?”
Ke Xingyun promptly handed the item to Yang Chaoyu, but stammered, “The clue was found by the baseball cap. Then I asked him for it, and he gave it to me.”
As if explaining, the baseball cap said, “He looked at me like a little dog and said that if I didn’t give it to him, the big shot would stab him with her death glare. He couldn’t take it.”
Ke Xingyun loudly protested, “I did not!”
“That’s because you can’t see your own expression.”
“I mean, I never said anything about a death glare! You’re such a troublemaker!”
“……”
Yang Chaoyu paid no attention to their bickering and examined the hidden clue—the cellphone.
The cellphone had no password and opened with a light press of the power button. From the applications, it was clear that it belonged to a child, because it had a card-drawing game and several educational apps. The phone’s built-in calendar had many schedules marked on it, with a livestream arranged every day. The livestream times were irregular: on school days, they were scheduled after school, while on weekends, they lasted all day.
Apart from these livestream missions, the only other marked entries were the birthdays of her parents and younger brother, along with some exam schedules.
After exiting the calendar, she could be certain that the cellphone belonged to Wen Shaoqiao.
She asked, “Have all of you looked through it?”
Ke Xingyun stopped his meaningless argument and leaned over. “When I came upstairs, I looked through all the applications. Apart from the videos and photos, there was no other useful information.”
After saying that, he saw Yang Chaoyu move to open the album and stopped her.
Yang Chaoyu looked at him. “What?”
“Big shot, how about I tell you what’s in the videos and photos so you don’t have to look?”
Yang Chaoyu frowned. “What could be in them that makes you so evasive?”
The baseball cap answered for him. “Mostly domestic violence, some sexual molestation, and a small amount of confession.”
“What’s wrong with your mouth…” Seeing that Yang Chaoyu did not look well, Ke Xingyun added, “They’re all evidence that Wen Shaoqiao had a terrible life. Still, I’m somewhat convinced now that she might not have committed suicide.”
Yang Chaoyu thought for a moment, then opened the album anyway.
Just as the baseball cap had said, most of the files were domestic violence videos. They had probably been secretly filmed, but there were not many—around ten. Yang Chaoyu did not open them one by one, afraid she would not be able to bear it.
She opened one at random, and the cellphone immediately rang with a young girl’s heart-wrenching sobs.
“Mom, I know I was wrong… I’ll wear it! I’ll wear that outfit during the livestream. Please, stop hitting me.”
“Do you think I’ll believe you again? You worthless money-loser, all you know how to do is scheme.” In the video, a neatly dressed woman grabbed the girl by the hair and kicked her repeatedly in the lower back and upper back. “I’ve already been fooled once, and you think I’ll fall for it again? Today, I’ll watch you put it on, and I’ll watch you livestream. If you put on an undershirt again or use something to block the camera, I’ll beat you to death!”
The girl wore only close-fitting undergarments, and her back was covered in purple bruises from the kicks.
Zou Qing could not help saying, “Don’t play it out loud. Watch it on mute.”
Yang Chaoyu glanced at her and closed the video.
There were two videos of the neighbor’s boy. They had probably been secretly filmed as well, because the camera was far away, but it was still possible to see that the boy’s hands were behaving improperly.
The thumbnail of the final video was a selfie of her. It was probably the confession the baseball cap had mentioned.
When she opened it, she heard the exhausted voice of a girl:
“I’ve had enough. I’ve been making money since I was five. I’ve made a lot of money for this family by now, haven’t I? My mother controls my income, and I don’t even know how much I’ve made… Every time I ask my mother how much longer I have to earn, she says just a little more, just earn a little more and she won’t make me work so hard anymore. This ‘little more’ has been going on for almost ten years. I don’t know when it will end, and I don’t want to wear those… clothes anymore. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with them before, but now that I understand, I think they’re disgusting. But no matter what I say, they all say I’m throwing a tantrum.” Her emotions gradually Ran Out of Control, becoming somewhat hysterical. “When I said I didn’t want the child next door to come over, they said I was antisocial and withdrawn. I clearly told all of you that his hands and feet were filthy, so why didn’t you believe me? Are academic performance and character linked? Is he a good kid just because his grades are good?! Is it because he didn’t steal your things? Because the places he touched aren’t on your bodies, you simply refuse to listen to me?!”
After venting, she calmed down somewhat and said, “I don’t want to live like this anymore. I’ll put an end to all of it.”
Zou Qing walked over and snatched the cellphone away.
“You don’t know that playing it out loud is immoral?” she said.
Yang Chaoyu usually wore earphones when watching videos in public places, but she had not brought any. Besides, strictly speaking, this place could not be considered a public place.
Ke Xingyun said, “When the baseball cap played videos out loud earlier, why didn’t you say anything to him? You even went over and watched with him. And now you’re suddenly getting all high and mighty? What a famous double standard.”
Zou Qing said angrily, “That’s different. Big shot baseball cap…”
“My name isn’t the baseball cap.” The baseball cap said impatiently, “Who came up with that nickname? It’s so unimaginative. My livestream alias is Sandao. You can call me that.”
Zou Qing followed his wishes and called him that once.
Yang Chaoyu instead said to Ke Xingyun, “After seeing these clues, why do you think she didn’t commit suicide?”
Ke Xingyun nodded repeatedly.
“Why?” Yang Chaoyu asked while watching Zou Qing hand the cellphone to the baseball cap.
The baseball cap took it and smiled. “Are we already choosing sides? Suicide or homicide?”
“No. Before that, I want to confirm a few more things,” Yang Chaoyu said.