Ke Xingyun took out his phone and held it up for her to see. “When I was joking around, I saw someone use a word I didn’t understand. I subconsciously searched for it and discovered that I could actually access information online. But I tried Penguin Messenger, Nailwing, Kangaroo, Black Cat, and so on, and found that only the browser worked.”
Yang Chaoyu took the phone and saw that the headline read: 《14-year-old child star’s indecent video leaked; claims she was controlled by her parents and that it was not her intention》.
She swiped upward and skimmed through the contents.
The article said that Wen Shaoqiao had been reported for making suggestive remarks during a livestream, and that her past of filming indecent art photos had also been dug up. There was a photograph of a girl crying bitterly, with a personal account written below it: I was forced into it. I didn’t want to do that. I feel so ashamed too... Please believe me. I really didn’t want this.
The comments below were also completely one-sided.
Some said she was young but already learning bad habits, some said she had taken the path of courting infamy after failing to become popular, some said she had persecutory delusions, and some called her a gold digger... There were even uglier comments, all brazenly listed at the top because they had received many likes.
Yang Chaoyu felt that something was wrong, but could not put her finger on what, so she exited the article and glanced at the search bar.
Ke Xingyun’s search term was: “Wen Shaoqiao suicide incident.”
She knitted her brows and was about to ask how he knew that the little girl’s name was Wen Shaoqiao. After thinking it over, she decided to check his browsing history first.
Then she discovered that the first term he had searched was “LSP.”
Yang Chaoyu: ...
After that, the subject matter changed completely, from “strange incidents at Liutang Residential Complex” to “girl’s suicide at Liutang Residential Complex,” then to “child star surnamed Wen,” and finally “Wen Shaoqiao suicide incident.”
Mystery solved.
She returned the phone to Ke Xingyun.
Ke Xingyun said, “I had just finished reading this news when MN sent me a message.”
She glanced at it again.
The first text message on his phone read: 【MN】Congratulations on obtaining clue No. 9. Score: 300.
“The score for your clue is very high. It must be important.”
Ke Xingyun chuckled twice before asking, “Who are 520 and 662? They’ve found so many clues.”
Hearing him say that, Yang Chaoyu blushed slightly.
She was also working hard to find clues, but had found nothing. She was even worse than the stay-behind personnel, Ke Xingyun.
Yang Chaoyu told him the numbers assigned to the old man and the baseball cap, then explained the scoring system.
Ke Xingyun was silent for a while before asking, “So what exactly is this place supposed to mean? They locked us in here just to find out why this little girl committed suicide? In my opinion, the reason Wen Shaoqiao... committed suicide is very simple.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the back of his neck suddenly felt cold.
Yang Chaoyu also felt uneasy for a moment and said, “the deceased deserve respect. Do not speak ill of them.”
Ke Xingyun tried to shrink into himself and whispered, “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean it. My mouth ran ahead of my brain. I deserve a beating.”
As he spoke, he slapped himself several times.
Seeing his affected expression, Yang Chaoyu could not help asking, “Didn’t you try asking the people watching the livestream for help?”
He stiffened and asked, “Can I?”
Afraid that he might actually try, Yang Chaoyu shook her head and then told him about those three rules.
He let out a sigh of relief and looked at Yang Chaoyu reproachfully. “Then why did you ask me? Did you want me to get beaten too?”
Yang Chaoyu: ...
“When you see someone watching the livestream, isn’t your first reaction to ask for help?”
He frowned. “Of course my first reaction would be to ask for help.”
“Then you...”
“But people have brains in addition to instincts.”
Yang Chaoyu: I feel offended.
Ke Xingyun looked completely justified. “Think about it. There’s no signal here and no Wi-Fi, so how could we livestream? And considering that bloody... girl we saw earlier, asking for help would be completely useless, wouldn’t it?”
At the end, he leaned close to Yang Chaoyu.
“Besides, that old man and the one in the baseball cap weren’t surprised at all. They could even predict Qi Yang getting his leg broken. They’re obviously veterans. If none of those veterans asked for help, why should I join in? Do I look like I’m tired of living?”
After hearing this, Yang Chaoyu patted him on the shoulder.
“I wronged you.”
“For what?”
“Nothing. I was just being too stupid.” She stood up directly. “Since you’ve earned points, I’ll go look on my own. I don’t even have a single point guaranteed yet.”
“Mm, go ahead, go ahead. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
As Yang Chaoyu walked into the room, she glanced at Zou Qing.
Zou Qing was still muttering incoherently. Her fashionable clothes had become completely wrinkled, and even her carefully arranged hairstyle was a mess, yet she clutched the diary tightly, her eyes full of wariness toward Yang Chaoyu.
Yang Chaoyu: That diary was something I found, though. But she was genuinely afraid that what Ke Xingyun had said might happen—if she got into a fight with a mad dog, this weakling would definitely be more seriously injured... It would be a terrible trade-off.
She stopped paying attention to her and continued walking inward while thinking.
What was known so far: Wen Shaoqiao had jumped from a building, but it was unknown whether it was suicide or murder. Her family relationships might not have been harmonious. She might have been controlled by her family, or she might have had a psychological disorder.
The instant she saw the report, her first thought was:
The girl had grown up and loved being beautiful, so she started Livestreaming, was misunderstood and mocked by everyone, and finally became suicidal and took her own life.
But she quickly realized: If this were a normal family, would they let their daughter livestream and even take that kind of art photo?
As long as the child was a minor, the legal guardian would have to approve it before she could take those photos. The same applied to Livestreaming. Besides, at that age, she should not yet have completed nine-year compulsory education. Not attending school was illegal.
She suddenly wanted especially badly to know what clues the others had found.
When she entered the small bedroom, she saw that the baseball cap and the old man were both there.
The one in the baseball cap asked naturally, “What was written in the diary?”
“Zou Qing snatched the diary away. I didn’t see what the clue was.”
The one in the baseball cap frowned and then left without saying a word. The old man gave an ambiguous chuckle.
Yang Chaoyu made a round of the room and first focused on the wardrobe.
She opened it, only to find it filled with boy’s clothing. She frowned and looked toward the cabinet.
“This bedroom doesn’t look like it was occupied by two people.”
The old man said flatly, “It was originally occupied by only one person.”
This was the boy’s room, while the master bedroom belonged to the parents. Where was the girl’s room? Was it the storage room?
Thinking this, she first made a round through the master bedroom. Feeling that there were no clues there, she headed toward the storage room.
After the girl died, this room had probably been converted into a storage room.
Before she even entered, the sight of boxes blocked her path. She turned sideways and squeezed inside, looking at the various food boxes and miscellaneous items piled almost to the ceiling. For a moment, she wanted to give up.
She was hopeless at housework.
If the diary and that news report both counted as clues, then there were still two obvious clues and one hidden clue remaining.
She did not have many chances left.
She could not search randomly anymore. She had to hit the mark in one strike!
She sat down where she was, but accidentally sat on something soft and yielding. When she picked it up to look, her face turned scarlet.
Something like this should not be in a minor girl’s room, should it?
But she soon thought that perhaps, after this room became a storage room, her mother had stuffed all the unused things in here. Still, judging from the photo frame, her mother was not very old. She could actually still use it.
“Ahem...”
She carefully set the object aside and cast away her chaotic thoughts.
But then she suddenly realized that something was wrong.
According to the report, Wen Shaoqiao had been approximately sixteen years old when she died.
In the photograph, her mother looked young, but her father appeared to be nearly fifty. By that logic, her mother had to be at least forty as well. The boy looked young, probably seven or eight years old.
Yet in the photograph, Wen Shaoqiao looked about the same age as the boy...
And Wen Shaoqiao in that report also looked only about ten years old, truly around the same age as her younger brother, Wen Shaojun.
Unless the family photographs had been taken when they were much younger, while the report had used a still from Wen Shaoqiao’s early days as a child star.
Otherwise...
A long time ago, Yang Chaoyu had read a report about a foreign girl who was already in her twenties but weighed less than sixty pounds, had no menstrual cycle, and had barely developed any secondary sexual characteristics. After psychological counseling, everyone learned that because she had always performed poorly in school, she had deliberately refused to eat in order to maintain the appearance of a minor. That way, her teacher would pity her and give her higher grades.
But if Wen Shaoqiao truly did not want to grow up, then how did those suggestive livestreams and art photos come into existence?
Wasn’t that contradictory?
Yang Chaoyu felt as though her head was about to explode. She did not understand it at all.
She was terrible at reasoning.
She suddenly stood up and decided to search under the bed and in the wardrobe first. Those were places where an ordinary girl would probably hide things.
The wardrobe had already been damaged.
It was probably the work of the one in the baseball cap.
This wardrobe was smaller than the one in the boy’s bedroom, but it was still spacious enough to hide two people. Yang Chaoyu rummaged through it and found that it was filled entirely with children’s clothes, all of them very small. Comparing them with herself, Yang Chaoyu felt that she would not have been able to fit into these clothes when she was sixteen.
As she held them against herself for comparison, she heard a very soft “puff.”