There was no way Yan Xue could have known out of nowhere that Hong Guodong, the man who had once expelled Yan Yu, was going to die. Yet there was evidence proving that both she and Yan Yu had been in W City rather than C City when the crime occurred. This meant that someone had specifically informed them about it.
And there had clearly been someone other than Yan Xue monitoring Yan Yu. When Chen Heng started the livestream that day, it really had caught Yan Xue off guard. Their reactions at the time hadn’t been an act.
Yan Xue couldn’t have predicted that the police would start a livestream and confront them directly, nor had she prepared a plan in advance for dealing with such a situation. That was why, even though Yan Yu had looked outside the camera for help at the time, he had still been extremely flustered. Clearly, Yan Xue had temporarily asked the other side for a period in Hong Guodong’s schedule with no clear records.
That was obviously not something Yan Xue could have obtained on her own.
“Looks like Yan Xue’s social connections are the key focus of the investigation,” Shu Yu thought. “Hopefully Team Leader Liang and the others will think of that too.”
Her brain really couldn’t support any more thinking, so with her mind full of questions, Shu Yu drifted off to sleep.
When she woke up, it was a little after five in the morning.
There were too many things on her mind. Even though she was already extremely exhausted, Shu Yu still woke up very early.
She opened her phone and found that all the group chats were completely silent. Clearly, everyone was still resting.
So she sat down at the table and prepared to put on some simple makeup to cover her dark circles a little.
Staring at the dark shadows beneath her eyes, Shu Yu suddenly realized something.
Given the current direction of public opinion, Yan Yu’s reputation should have been completely ruined by now.
Then, while he was out on bail pending investigation, could he do something irrational?
The pressure of public opinion he was currently facing was far greater than what those handling the case were under.
If something happened to Yan Yu…
Shu Yu almost didn’t dare think any further.
The other side could very likely use that incident to generate another wave of attention, and there would be almost no way for them to separate the police from what happened.
Even though the police hadn’t actually done anything wrong.
Wait!
Shu Yu suddenly thought of something.
If the ultimate purpose of this whole incident was to smear the police, prosecutors, and courts while also having Yan Yu cyberbullied to death, then why couldn’t the people behind it be Yan Yu’s enemies?
The next moment, Shu Yu immediately called Team Leader Liang.
“Team Leader Liang, have you investigated Yan Yu’s enemies?” she said as soon as he answered.
Only after speaking did she realize that Team Leader Liang probably hadn’t rested yet at this hour either.
They were fellow sufferers in the world of overtime.
Shu Yu sighed inwardly.
“Yan Yu’s enemies?” Team Leader Liang was clearly taken aback. He raised his head and looked at the whiteboard in the special investigation team’s meeting room. As for Yan Yu’s social connections, they had only investigated his immediate family and his sister. They hadn’t paid much attention to his enemies.
“No. Yan Yu is still considered a suspect on our end. Our previous investigation into possible enemies mainly focused on Hong Guodong,” Team Leader Liang said. “What would Yan Yu’s enemies have to do with this case?”
Shu Yu told him about the possibility she had thought of that morning.
“If they didn’t have a grudge against Yan Yu, they shouldn’t have posted all of Yan Yu’s personal information online, including his residence in C City,” Shu Yu said. “And after that livestream, Yan Yu completely became the center of the cyberbullying. Almost everyone focused their attention on him, including us.”
“You think those crazed netizens might drive Yan Yu to his death?!” Team Leader Liang sounded incredulous. “If Yan Yu is in danger right now, we plan to summon him immediately.”
“If your procedures allow it,” Shu Yu reminded him.
Team Leader Liang fell silent.
Yan Yu was currently out on bail pending investigation, but they had no evidence proving that he would be in danger while on bail. And as long as he hadn’t violated any of his obligations, there was no reason to apply to revoke it.
Even if they wanted to apply for revocation, it would still require approval and several procedures. Going through the entire process would take at least a day.
“It might be difficult.” Team Leader Liang didn’t rule it out completely. “I can try, but…”
“But there isn’t much hope,” Shu Yu finished the sentence for him. “Team Leader Liang, I more or less understand your procedures. Since he has HIV and needs treatment, you couldn’t reject his request for bail pending investigation. And now that he’s out on bail, you can’t immediately bring him back either.”
Team Leader Liang’s silence on the other end confirmed it.
“It’s not completely impossible,” Team Leader Liang continued. “If we discover that Yan Yu’s enemies are connected to Hong Guodong’s death, we can summon him.”
“I think this may have something to do with the people he infected with HIV,” Shu Yu said, voicing her specific suspicion. “If you leave now, you might still make it in time.”
“When you said the ultimate target might also include Yan Yu, I immediately thought of those people,” Team Leader Liang said over the phone. “We previously considered whether this case might have something to do with them, but they had absolutely no reason to hold a grudge against Hong Guodong, so we didn’t focus our investigation on them afterward. But we know exactly where all of them are now.”
A veteran criminal investigator really was a veteran criminal investigator.
Shu Yu couldn’t help feeling impressed.
Although these people connected to Yan Yu hadn’t become a major focus of the investigation, they hadn’t been completely overlooked either.
Still, Shu Yu also wanted to know whether these people truly had anything to do with Hong Guodong’s death.
This was merely one direction she had guessed at. There was actually no clear evidence at all.
Team Leader Liang’s investigation happened to have reached a bottleneck, so after hearing Shu Yu’s theory, they decided to give it a try.
After all, they had relatively little exposure to matters involving the internet, and it was even less likely that they would have considered the possibility that the ultimate target of this murder case was Yan Yu.
At least from everything they had seen so far, Yan Yu and Yan Xue really did look like they had simply jumped in to ride the attention.
After hanging up, Shu Yu picked up her phone and checked the time.
It was already six o’clock.
So she ordered some breakfast on her phone. Only after the delivery arrived did she go from door to door, knocking and waking everyone up.
“Why are we up so early today? Did something happen?”
When she finally knocked on Lu Anran’s door, Lu Anran asked with her long hair in complete disarray.
“Get up first. I’ll explain everything in detail later,” Shu Yu said.
Lu Anran realized that something probably really had happened and washed up as quickly as possible.
By the time everyone gathered in Shu Yu’s room, it was almost seven.
“You woke us up this early, so there really is a problem.” Feng Tang drank soy milk as she asked, “Did something happen to Yan Yu or Yan Xue?”
“It’s only my guess.” Shu Yu thought for a moment, then told them what had occurred to her when she woke up that morning and about her conversation with Team Leader Liang. “I might not be right, but we still need to prepare for this possibility in advance. If their ultimate goal is to use cyberbullying to drive Yan Yu to his death, then this matter is far from over.”
“That idea of yours…” After listening, Lu Anran didn’t know how to evaluate Shu Yu’s wildly imaginative train of thought. “It sounds far-fetched, but it’s not impossible.”
Every lead they currently had had gone cold.
If they really had to rely on a single artificial nail to find the murderer, who knew how long that would take?
And since the other side had chosen this case to stir up public opinion, they couldn’t possibly allow the case to drag on for too long until public attention cooled.
The internet’s attention span for any particular case was limited. No matter how sensational an incident was, it wouldn’t remain in the public-opinion arena for more than two weeks. Before long, some newly emerging hot topic would steal away the attention.
Since the other side had already chosen this case to stir up public opinion, they absolutely wouldn’t allow it to cool down and disappear completely from netizens’ sight.
Today was already the sixth day.
They would definitely make another move.
“Yan Yu doesn’t look like someone who might commit suicide at any moment,” Xiao Que objected. “At least when I saw him in the interrogation room yesterday, his emotions seemed relatively stable. And is he really the kind of person who would be driven to death by cyberbullying?”
Of course Shu Yu wasn’t certain.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have told Team Leader Liang that it was merely a guess.
“No one can be certain about that, but it’s the only direction I can think of for how they might continue steering public opinion.” Shu Yu sighed. “If Yan Yu really dies, then they can say he was indirectly driven to his death by the police. We all know that’s nonsense, but as long as the other side guides the narrative well enough, a person’s death can still stir up the anger of netizens.”
“Even if those same people were among the ones cyberbullying Yan Yu in the first place,” Lu Anran said somewhat mockingly. “Of course, they’d never admit that. They’d dump all the blame on our livestream instead, then loudly condemn us. That way, yesterday’s livestream could even push this public-opinion crisis in an even more uncontrollable direction.”
Although none of this had happened yet, anticipating what might happen was one of the most important parts of their work in public opinion.
“Is there any way to prevent it?” Feng Tang was deeply conflicted. “If Team Leader Liang’s side can’t find relevant evidence in time, they have no reason to summon Yan Yu. And if he stays at home, we have absolutely no control over what he might do.”
“His social media accounts have already been banned across every platform.” Lu Anran pulled her laptop over. “But he can use someone else’s ID to create an alternate account at any time. Bans like this can’t really stop much.”
“Then our only option is to go to his home.”
Shu Yu picked up her phone and called Chen Heng.
“Do you have the contact information for the community grid worker responsible for the area where Yan Yu lives?”
Of course Chen Heng didn’t have the contact information, but he could look it up through the internal network.
Very soon, a contact number was sent to Shu Yu’s phone.
After seeing it, Shu Yu called Chen Heng again.
“What’s going on?” Chen Heng still sounded half asleep, his voice full of confusion.
“Come up with any excuse you want. It doesn’t matter what it is. Make a call and have the community staff and grid worker go to Yan Yu’s home,” Shu Yu said. “Make sure it’s something where they absolutely have to see him in person.”
“Even if it’s just the community paying him a welfare visit.”