Chen Heng quickly realized how urgent the situation was. Not daring to waste even a moment, he immediately contacted the community where Yan Yu’s family lived.
“I don’t know if we’re still in time.” Lu Anran was extremely worried. “But I have a question. What exactly is going on between Yan Xue and Yan Yu?”
They were biological siblings and weren’t that far apart in age. Could Yan Xue actually have a grudge against Yan Yu too?
“Why did Yan Xue attend the vocational and technical college?” Shu Yu suddenly asked.
She had already found something strange when she looked through Yan Xue’s résumé before. Judging from how hard Yan Xue had worked to improve her academic qualifications after graduation, she was at least someone who valued education. And the fact that she had managed to get into an in-service postgraduate program meant that her academic ability wasn’t poor either.
So why had a relatively hardworking girl like her failed to get into even an ordinary high school after graduating from middle school?
After all, when Yan Xue took the high school entrance examination, the policy of diverting fifty percent of students into vocational schools hadn’t existed yet.
“Anran, try to find Yan Xue’s high school entrance examination results.” The only possibility Shu Yu could think of now was that Yan Xue really did hate Yan Yu. That hatred might have something to do with the family she grew up in, or perhaps with her education.
Otherwise, Shu Yu really couldn’t think of any other reason why Yan Xue would hate Yan Yu so intensely that she would become the main force behind inciting cyberbullying against him.
Lu Anran’s movements paused.
She had also thought of the possibility Shu Yu hadn’t said aloud.
“My intuition tells me you’re probably right.” Lu Anran searched for Yan Xue’s high school entrance examination results as she spoke to Shu Yu. “C City might be a county-level city, but in many ways it’s still pretty traditional and conservative.”
Xiao Que had remained in constant contact with Chen Heng. Chen Heng also thought something might happen to Yan Yu, so he couldn’t sit still in the office and had gone with the community grid worker to Yan Yu’s home.
“We’ve reached Yan Yu’s residential complex,” Chen Heng told Xiao Que over WeChat. “The grid worker has been to his home before. The excuse we’re using this time is registration of information for people living with HIV.”
It was a very good excuse. At the very least, it shouldn’t make Yan Yu suspicious.
By then, Lu Anran had already found Yan Xue’s high school entrance examination results.
“Yan Xue scored 603. The maximum score was 700.” Lu Anran also found the admission cutoffs for several ordinary high schools in C City during the year Yan Xue took the examination.
“The cutoff for ordinary high schools that year was only a little over 530. Yan Xue’s score was enough to get into one of the top two high schools in C City. But the admissions system shows that she applied for the vocational and technical college’s five-year integrated secondary and higher vocational program. In other words, she actually studied there for five years.”
Shu Yu had already guessed this outcome when she asked Lu Anran to check Yan Xue’s examination results.
“Yan Xue probably couldn’t attend high school because of Yan Yu.” Lu Anran looked at Yan Yu’s scores. “Yan Yu’s grades were probably already terrible in middle school. He only scored 257 on the high school entrance examination, but his family still paid to get him into a high school. Then he scored 206 on the college entrance examination.”
The entire room fell silent.
The difference between the siblings’ grades was so enormous that, to a certain extent, it was possible to infer what kind of environment Yan Xue had grown up in.
Her family had probably strongly favored sons over daughters.
“Was the Yan family really that poor back then?” Feng Tang asked. “Supporting one more child until high school graduation wouldn’t actually have cost that much.”
“Before the Yan family moved into the city, they were farmers,” Shu Yu said. “And the village they used to live in was among the last batch to be lifted out of poverty. Even now, their family still lives in resettlement housing.”
Clearly, the Yan family’s financial situation still wasn’t particularly good even now.
“You could say Yan Xue’s entire life was ruined because of Yan Yu.” Shu Yu sighed. “But that doesn’t constitute evidence that she wanted to kill Yan Yu. We also have no grounds to say that Yan Xue orchestrated everything. Even if Yan Yu really died, Yan Xue technically wouldn’t have anything to do with it.”
The person advising Yan Xue from behind the scenes—getting her to cause Yan Yu’s death and then shift the blame onto the police—was extremely clever.
Under the current law, unless Yan Yu himself changed his testimony and explicitly identified Yan Xue as the person who had instructed him to spread rumors and defame government agencies, then without clear evidence, Yan Xue would have to be presumed innocent.
“Right now, I just hope nothing has happened to Yan Yu.” Feng Tang checked the public-opinion situation across several platforms and found no new developments for the moment. “Chen Heng and the others should almost be there by now, right?”
“They’ve already reached his building.” Xiao Que stared at his phone.
The next second, he suddenly cursed.
“Fuck! Yan Yu is standing on the rooftop!”
Shu Yu nearly jumped straight out of her chair.
She had felt all day that something was wrong, but she hadn’t expected the worst possibility to actually happen.
“Contact the police. Have them get to the bottom of Yan Yu’s building as quickly as possible, and bring a signal jammer!” Shu Yu said almost without hesitation.
If Yan Yu casually used some other account to start another livestream now, then everything they had done before could practically be considered wasted.
She absolutely couldn’t allow that to happen.
Lu Anran tapped rapidly on her computer, once again confirming that every account registered under Yan Yu’s and Yan Xue’s IDs had been banned.
Shu Yu called Team Leader Liang and told them to bring people over as quickly as possible.
“We need half an hour on our end. Hold on until then!” Team Leader Liang’s anxious voice came through over the sound of police sirens before he quickly hung up.
“What do we do now?” Feng Tang asked Shu Yu.
“We can’t go to the scene.”
That was Shu Yu’s first reaction.
Since the other side was targeting their Public Opinion Response Division, who knew whether someone was already waiting at the scene for them to show themselves?
“Xiao Que, tell Chen Heng to check whether Yan Xue is still at home.”
“Okay.”
Xiao Que immediately started a voice call.
For Yan Yu to suffer a complete emotional breakdown over the course of a single night, only Yan Xue, who lived with him, could have done it.
Chen Heng immediately rushed into Yan Yu’s home with the grid worker. They discovered that Yan Yu’s parents had been locked inside their room and couldn’t get out, while Yan Xue and all her luggage were gone.
“Yan Xue left!” Chen Heng immediately passed the news to Xiao Que.
“Try to stabilize Yan Yu’s emotions first.” Shu Yu took a deep breath. “We’ll deal with Yan Xue later.”
It would be extremely difficult to track Yan Xue down right now, and Shu Yu had no intention of wasting time on her at this moment.
Yan Yu stood on the rooftop holding his phone. When Chen Heng reached the rooftop, he didn’t dare approach him at all because Yan Yu was standing at the edge of a railing less than a meter high.
Two community workers stood closer to Yan Yu than Chen Heng did, trying to talk him down.
The firefighters arrived even faster. About ten minutes later, they had set up an inflatable rescue cushion downstairs.
But from a height of twenty floors, even a two- or three-meter-high inflatable cushion would have difficulty saving his life.
“Does he have a phone in his hand?”
That was what Shu Yu cared about most.
“Yes.”
Chen Heng’s answer made her heart sink completely.
“This is bad. Yan Yu turned on his phone. It looks like he’s trying to start a livestream!” Chen Heng’s tense voice came from the other end of the call.
“Anran, be ready to cut off the signal at any moment.”
Shu Yu had no better solution right now.
Chen Heng simply switched on video calling so the four people in the meeting room could also see what was happening on the rooftop.
Shu Yu looked at the somewhat blurry video window and quickly spotted Yan Yu.
On the rooftop twenty floors above the ground, Yan Yu stood at the edge in a worn-out T-shirt and shorts. The hand holding his phone was slightly unsteady.
His emotions seemed extremely unstable. At the moment, he was holding his phone and operating something on it.
Team Leader Liang’s call came in just then.
“We asked the middle school near the residential complex to bring over the signal jammer they use during exams. They’ll be there within five minutes!”
Team Leader Liang had finally brought them some good news.
Five minutes.
Shu Yu held her breath and said to Chen Heng, “Repeat exactly what I say. Distract Yan Yu!”
Chen Heng knew how urgent the situation was and nodded without hesitation.
“Yan Yu, we caught your sister, Yan Xue!”
Chen Heng’s voice came through from the other side of the video call.
Shu Yu was gambling.
She was gambling that Yan Yu’s psychological defenses had completely collapsed because he had learned that the destruction of his reputation had all been caused by the sister he trusted most.
Sure enough, those words caught Yan Yu’s attention.
“It’s you!”
He immediately recognized Chen Heng as the person who had confronted him during the previous livestream.
“I’m with the police. We already know everything about Yan Xue, and she’s now under our control,” Chen Heng said. “If you jump from here, then Yan Xue will forever be able to stay out of this. She won’t receive any punishment at all!”
“It’s useless!”
Yan Yu stared hysterically at Chen Heng.
“None of it matters anymore! My reputation is completely ruined! Do you know how many calls I got this morning from people cursing at me? Three hundred! A full three hundred!”
“They wouldn’t listen to any of my explanations. My phone never stopped ringing!” Yan Yu screamed wildly at Chen Heng. “They didn’t just call me! They called my parents, all my relatives and friends, even my elementary and middle school teachers and classmates! They’re never going to leave me alone! Never!!!”
Shu Yu frowned.
The information that had been doxxed only concerned Yan Yu himself. At most, some people might have found his parents’ contact information.
But there was obviously no way the phone numbers of his teachers and classmates could have been dug up overnight.
Someone had deliberately created this situation.
While Yan Yu stood on the rooftop laughing hysterically, firefighters who had already slipped onto the rooftop seized the opportunity and tackled him to the ground.
The conversation between Chen Heng and Yan Yu had completely diverted his attention.
The facts proved that Shu Yu’s guess had been correct.
Right now, the person Yan Yu hated most was Yan Xue.
A security guard from the nearby school hurried over carrying the signal jammer. When he discovered that the situation had already been resolved, he breathed a sigh of relief.
The firefighters restrained Yan Yu to prevent him from doing anything irrational again.
“Thank you for your hard work,” Shu Yu said to Chen Heng over the phone. “Team Leader Liang will be there soon. They’ll transfer Yan Yu afterward.”
Chen Heng let out a long breath.
Only then did he realize that his entire body was drenched in sweat from the tension.
Fortunately, Shu Yu had thought quickly and managed to distract Yan Yu. Otherwise, whether he had started a livestream or jumped directly from the building, the consequences would have been completely irreversible.
After hanging up, Shu Yu saw that Feng Tang had already checked several platforms to see whether any photographs or videos of Yan Yu attempting to jump had leaked online.
“How does it look?” Shu Yu asked.
“Not bad. There are a few photos taken from really blurry angles. You can’t even tell whether the person is male or female.” Feng Tang checked again. “Yan Yu went directly up to the twentieth floor through the fire escape. It’s too high up, and there’s a lot of clutter blocking the view. No one from above managed to capture his face clearly. These few blurry pictures aren’t enough to generate a public-opinion crisis.”
“Anran, contact the cyber police and clean up anything related to Yan Yu attempting to jump. Ban the accounts that fabricate or spread rumors.” Shu Yu stood up. “We’re heading to the special investigation team now.”
Yan Yu’s life had been saved.
This time, they had gotten ahead of the other side.
As usual, Feng Tang drove.
By the time they arrived, Team Leader Liang and the others still hadn’t returned.
Forensic Examiner Tan was waiting in the meeting room. When she saw Shu Yu and the others arrive, she handed them a report.
“The DNA and fingerprints both matched,” Tan Jingrong said after Shu Yu opened the report. “They belong to the two men and one woman who contracted HIV from Yan Yu. But there’s still one DNA sample that we haven’t been able to match.”
“We finally found the killers.” Shu Yu breathed a sigh of relief. “We can ask Yan Yu about the rest.”
Forensic Examiner Tan nodded, while Shu Yu stared silently at the report.
Now they could finally learn the full story of why these people had killed Hong Guodong.
This complicated and confusing case could finally be considered to have reached its final stage.
Fifteen minutes later, Team Leader Liang returned with Yan Yu and two criminal investigators. Chen Heng, who had only just recovered from the shock, came back with them as well.
“You people really are fast.” Team Leader Liang was clearly in a good mood, and there was a little more of a smile on his face. “Forensic Examiner Tan just told me that the samples matched. You should already know, right?”
“We just saw it.” Shu Yu raised the report in her hand. “Have those people all been brought in?”
“That’s right.” Team Leader Liang pointed toward the neighboring office building where the interrogation rooms were located. “After you called me this morning, I arranged for people to bring them in for questioning. We also compared their fingerprints and DNA.”
“Why would it be them?” Chen Heng was equally puzzled.
“We don’t know yet either,” Team Leader Liang said. “We’ve already sent people to track down Yan Xue. As for what exactly happened here, we can only let them tell us themselves.”
With ironclad evidence like the DNA and fingerprint matches, there was no room for them to deny it.
And so, still full of questions, Shu Yu and the others followed Team Leader Liang and Forensic Examiner Tan to the interrogation rooms.
“I’m going in.”
Team Leader Liang said this to Shu Yu and the others before entering the interrogation room with the report.
Shu Yu nodded, then began observing the three people being questioned in three separate interrogation rooms.
“They’re all so young.” Feng Tang unwrapped a lollipop. “That girl looks only eighteen or nineteen.”
“That’s right. She isn’t even twenty yet,” Tan Jingrong said. “Yan Yu repeated a year in both elementary school and middle school, so he graduated from high school and entered vocational college later than most people. Normally, students in their second year of higher vocational education are only around nineteen.”
Unlike Yan Xue, Yan Yu hadn’t entered the vocational and technical college immediately after graduating from middle school.
His parents had paid to get him into the worst high school in the county. Yet after four years, forget university—he hadn’t even managed to get into a junior college.
A score of just over 260 was truly embarrassing.
“Wait. Yan Yu was seeing both boyfriends and girlfriends at the same time?” Feng Tang only now reacted.
“You can understand it that way.” Forensic Examiner Tan frowned as she looked at Yan Yu, who was also sitting dazedly inside an interrogation room. “Of course, you could also use a few more fashionable terms these days. For example, hookups.”
Forensic Examiner Tan had seen plenty over the years.
Once she put it that way, Shu Yu understood what she meant.
“According to the police officers who handled the matter before, whenever Yan Yu hooked up with them, he sweet-talked them into not using condoms. But they did consent to the encounters, so there was nothing we could do to punish Yan Yu. We could only mainly criticize and educate him and inform the school.” Forensic Examiner Tan sounded somewhat helpless. “There are still loopholes in the law regarding this area.”
“But there are only two men and one woman. Where did the third DNA sample come from?” Shu Yu frowned.
“That depends on whether they’re willing to tell us.” Forensic Examiner Tan didn’t have any better solution either. “We investigated Yan Yu’s social connections. There are clear records showing only these three people were infected because of him.”
“Wait, then why did they kill Hong Guodong? Hong Guodong was the one who expelled Yan Yu.” Feng Tang couldn’t understand the logic at all.
“I don’t know either. That’s exactly why our investigation didn’t focus on them before. Even Team Leader Liang, with decades of criminal investigation experience, couldn’t find a motive for them to kill him.” Forensic Examiner Tan sighed. “But this obviously wasn’t an impulsive killing.”
Shu Yu nodded.
They had found the killers now, but the matter still hadn’t been clarified.
There was no way they could close the case and issue an official statement like this.
At the very least, they had to find the owner of that final unmatched DNA sample.
So all they could do was patiently wait for the interrogations to finish.
An hour later, the smile on Team Leader Liang’s face had disappeared.
He walked out dejectedly.
“Team Leader Liang, what happened?” Shu Yu noticed that something was wrong with his expression.
“We got nothing.” Team Leader Liang shook his head bitterly. “They all said they killed Hong Guodong simply because they couldn’t stand him. But that can’t possibly be the real reason. And they refuse to tell us who the fourth person is.”
The case, which had only just taken an unexpected turn for the better, had once again reached a bottleneck.
Xiao Que looked up at the people inside the interrogation rooms.
They had probably coordinated their stories long ago.
On the other side, Yan Yu sat there in a daze, looking as though he didn’t want to say anything at all.
Back in the meeting room, Team Leader Liang was completely out of ideas.
“Based on our interrogation just now, they all admitted that they killed Hong Guodong. Their descriptions of how they committed the crime were also consistent. The two boys restrained Hong Guodong, while the girl used a belt to strangle him until he lost his strength. After that, the two boys sexually assaulted him. During the process, the girl strangled Hong Guodong to death,” Team Leader Liang explained simply. “It completely matches the cause of death in the autopsy report.”
“Then that means Hong Guodong really did die that way.” Shu Yu was utterly confused. “Right now, all we can determine is that this fourth person is the key connecting everything together.”
“Exactly. There’s a connection between Yan Yu and Hong Guodong, and there’s also a connection between Yan Yu and these three people. But these three people alone have no clear connection to Hong Guodong.”
Team Leader Liang drew a question mark on the line between Hong Guodong’s photograph and the photographs of the three suspects on the whiteboard.
“This person needs to be connected to Yan Yu, Hong Guodong, and all three of these people at the same time.” Xiao Que’s brows knitted tightly together. “I really can’t think of anyone who could have a common connection with all three.”
“Could that person also be living with HIV?” Feng Tang suddenly had an idea. “Think about it. There’s only one thing connecting all three of them—the HIV that spread from Yan Yu.”
“Now that you mention it, that does make sense. Yan Yu and these three people are all living with HIV, while Hong Guodong had previously handled a case involving an HIV-positive student.” Shu Yu looked at Team Leader Liang. “Why don’t we ask the Center for Disease Control for a list of registered HIV patients in the city?”
“At this point, we might as well try.” Team Leader Liang also agreed with Feng Tang’s idea. “C City is only a county-level city. There aren’t that many registered patients receiving medication here.”
Since they had a direction, they needed to investigate it.
Meanwhile, Shu Yu was thinking about what exactly Yan Xue had said to Yan Yu to make him suffer such a severe emotional breakdown.
It probably wasn’t only those harassing phone calls.
Yan Yu’s parents were later asked to come to the station as well. After Team Leader Liang finished his call, he had someone take them to the office next door.
They weren’t criminal suspects, so they couldn’t be questioned in an interrogation room.
For convenience, Team Leader Liang simply left the voice call connected, allowing everyone in the meeting room to hear their conversation.
“What did Yan Xue say to Yan Yu after she came home yesterday?” Team Leader Liang asked directly. “We need to know why Yan Yu suddenly suffered an emotional breakdown and attempted suicide.”
“We don’t know either,” Yan Yu’s mother said. “After Xiaoxue came home yesterday, she went into the room with Xiaoyu. The two of them talked for a long time inside. I couldn’t really hear what they were saying. They wouldn’t even come out when I called them for dinner.”
“They didn’t come out at all?” Team Leader Liang pressed.
“Xiaoxue came out sometime after ten at night. Xiaoyu kept his door locked the whole time. No matter how much I knocked, he wouldn’t open it.” Yan Yu’s mother sounded somewhat anxious. “What exactly happened to our Xiaoyu? Early this morning, he suddenly locked our bedroom door from the outside. We couldn’t open it from inside at all. He even took our phones, so we had no way to call anyone for help. Thankfully, you police came later. Otherwise, we wouldn’t even have known something had happened to Xiaoyu.”
Team Leader Liang paused for a moment before continuing.
“Then do you know when Yan Xue left?”
“No. That wretched girl hardly stays at home anyway,” Yan Yu’s mother replied coldly. “So our Xiaoyu is all right, isn’t he? When can we take him home? He hasn’t eaten for more than a day.”
Everyone in the meeting room fell somewhat silent after hearing Yan Yu’s mother.
It seemed their previous guess had been correct.
Yan Xue really was practically invisible in this family.
Having grown up in a family like this and been deprived of the right to continue her education, Shu Yu couldn’t be certain how deeply Yan Xue now hated her parents and younger brother.
But she definitely had a motive.
Team Leader Liang asked several more questions afterward, but Yan Yu’s parents knew nothing about any of them.
“Yan Yu still needs to answer some questions here. You can go home first.”
Team Leader Liang quickly sent Yan Yu’s parents away.
When he returned to the meeting room, he saw everyone going through the list they had obtained from the Center for Disease Control.
“I haven’t found anyone connected to Yan Yu on my side.” Lu Anran held the list in one hand while typing with the other. “The ages don’t match, and none of them have any interaction with Yan Yu.”
“Nothing on my side either.” Feng Tang shook her head as well.
“You’ve already started checking?” Team Leader Liang joined them.
Shu Yu handed him the complete list.
“There are more than sixty people under thirty on it. About half of them only have household registration here, so we’re checking the rest right now.”
“I don’t recognize any familiar names.” Team Leader Liang shook his head.
There were only a little over thirty people in total, so checking them was fairly quick.
After confirming that they had found nothing, they expanded the scope again.
Still, they couldn’t find anyone who appeared to have any connection to Yan Yu.
For a while, the investigation reached another bottleneck.
“Our direction and reasoning are correct.” Shu Yu pushed all the documents aside. “Wait. Do we have records for HIV patients who have already died and had their registrations canceled?”
“I don’t know either. Let’s call the Center for Disease Control and ask.” Team Leader Liang looked at her. “You suspect a family member took revenge?”
Shu Yu nodded.
If their direction was correct, yet they couldn’t find a possible suspect among the existing list of HIV patients, then the most likely possibility was that the person who had been infected—and who was simultaneously connected to Hong Guodong, Yan Yu, and the three killers—was already dead.
“If that’s the case, the number of people we need to check will actually be smaller,” Team Leader Liang said. “HIV medication is dispensed monthly nowadays. As long as people take their medication properly, they can generally live for many years. Not many people in our city die from the disease each year.”
That was one of the few pieces of good news.
Half an hour later, the Center for Disease Control sent them another list.
This time, there were only a little over a dozen names on it.
“There really are a lot fewer.” Feng Tang took the list and glanced through it. “Huh? There’s an eighteen-year-old girl on the deceased list.”
“Eighteen?” Shu Yu immediately felt that they might finally be on the right track. “Check whether she ever attended the vocational and technical college.”
Lu Anran had already begun searching for information on the girl named Han Ya.
Her household registration had been canceled two months ago, which also lined up with the time Yan Xue had returned.
“Han Ya died in March.” Lu Anran displayed the death certificate on the screen. “Cause of death was a severe lung infection caused by AIDS.”
“That’s a very common cause of death among AIDS patients.” Shu Yu glanced at it. “This girl was pretty unlucky.”
Generally speaking, it was rare for someone living with HIV to die from the disease only a year after becoming infected.
“She was registered in September last year?” Shu Yu suddenly noticed the date.
“When was Yan Yu registered?”
Lu Anran had thought of the same thing. She pulled up the previous list and discovered that Yan Yu’s registration date was less than half a month later than Han Ya’s.
“Their registration dates are way too close!”
“Han Ya has an older brother.” Team Leader Liang had also uncovered new information. “We just don’t know exactly what relationship Han Ya had with Yan Yu.”
“Summon her brother directly. I’ll run the DNA comparison as quickly as possible.”
Forensic Examiner Tan suddenly stood up.
“There’s a high probability it’s him.”