I See Murders Before They Happen

Chapter 163: Chapter 161: The Phone’s Contents

That evening.

After Wu Liang’s autopsy was complete, everyone gathered in the conference room once again to discuss the case.

The surveillance camera in the elevator at Jinrong District captured the suspect.

Judging by her build and gait, it was a woman.

She was dressed all in black with her hair in a topknot and a black mask over her face.

Her entire face was covered, making it impossible to see anything.

It was the same person Su Miaoyi had seen kill Xiao Xia.

The killer entered the elevator just like that. After reaching Wu Liang’s floor, she even glanced at the camera inside.

Then she exited the elevator.

The time of her exit was 1:28 a.m.

The time she re-entered the elevator was 4:57 a.m.

After exiting the elevator, she wasn’t captured again by any of the surveillance cameras in the district, at the entrance, or in the surrounding area.

Once outside, she deliberately avoided the cameras, and her whereabouts are unknown.

”She was so thoroughly covered, not a thing was exposed except a few strands of hair. No wonder she was arrogant enough to stare right into the camera,” Chu Xingrou said, her brow furrowed so tightly in worry that her whole face scrunched up.

”We’ve unlocked all of Wu Liang’s phones. This is the content from them.”

Everyone watched as the content was displayed page by page on the screen.

”The notes stuck to the back of the phones correspond to information about the contacts inside each one,” Qi Feng explained. ”The seven contacts on these seven phones are all people from the gift-giving leaderboard on Wu Liang’s livestreams.”

”So he was just chatting with them to maintain the relationships.”

Su Miaoyi jotted down notes in her notebook.

A question formed in her mind.

’Couldn’t he do all of this with a single phone?’

’Why use so many?’

’All those phone numbers, and he had to register that many messaging accounts.’

’Can one person even register that many accounts?’

’Was he afraid of mixing up his conversations, or was it just a personal habit to use so many phones?’

Su Miaoyi’s mind was filled with questions, but with Wu Liang dead, it seemed unlikely this particular puzzle would ever be solved.

”These chat logs go way beyond just ’maintaining relationships,’ don’t they?” Chu Xingrou said, looking at the screen. ”This is way too intimate. I’d say he was basically dating them.”

Everyone turned to look at Chu Xingrou.

Chu Xingrou explained, ”I watch some livestreams myself and occasionally send gifts. I’ve gotten thank-you messages from streamers in my DMs, but they’re always very polite and know their boundaries.”

”This guy... it feels like he was dating all seven of them. The conversations are too explicit, too risqué.” Chu Xingrou frowned. ”I have a really bad impression of this Wu Liang.”

Zhuang Yanzheng, leaning back in his chair with his legs crossed and fingers pressed to his temple, glanced at Chu Xingrou. He suddenly felt it was a real asset to have young people on the team who were more in tune with modern trends.

He then looked back at Qi Feng.

Qi Feng continued, ”We’ve contacted these seven individuals and are in the process of gathering information.”

”And this is the phone Wu Liang used for his personal life.” Qi Feng took a breath. ”We found something in his chat history.”

He swiped his hand across the screen, scrolling through the content.

Su Miaoyi stared at the screen.

It was a group chat.

The chat log was from half a month ago.

Judging from the conversation... all five people in the group were streamers.

They were discussing Shi Rutang, also known as Shi Xiaoru.

They were saying they had seen her in person and that she was much prettier than in her livestreams or videos.

Then, the five of them suddenly made a bet.

Whoever managed to win her over, the other four would go to his livestream and drop three ”gifts.”

Zhuang Yanzheng, Su Miaoyi, and Yan Cheng all suddenly looked at Chu Xingrou.

Meeting their gazes, Chu Xingrou explained, ”That ’gift’ is the most expensive one on their livestreaming platform. It costs three thousand yuan each.”

Su Miaoyi also watched short videos and livestreams, but she never sent gifts because it cost money.

Besides, she didn’t use the same platform as them.

The team nodded and turned their attention back to the screen.

Su Miaoyi saw some extremely disrespectful language in the chat logs.

[”She’s so pretty, so rich, and has so many fans. She’s definitely not going to be easy to get.”]

[”What’s so hard about it? We’re all in the same business; we know how it works. She’s been doing this for five years. Who knows how many ’number one fans’ she’s gone through? Who knows how many guys she’s slept with? Going after her is doing her a favor.”]

[”If it weren’t for the fun of the bet, who would even bother? I think she’s dirty.”]

...

”This conversation took place during an event held by the short-video platform. They must have met offline,” Qi Feng said. ”And there’s more after that.”

Everyone continued reading the chat log.

The gist of it was that none of the five men had succeeded in winning over Shi Xiaoru.

[”What’s with the high-and-mighty act? Who knows what kind of stuff she gets up to in private. Acting all aloof with us, looking down on us.”]

”The chat records from this point on were recovered by the tech department. Wu Liang had deleted them,” Qi Feng stated.

[”Five Silvers had it the worst. Shi Rutang almost called the cops. What did you do? @Five Silvers.”]

Five Silvers: [”I got drunk, lost my head, and grabbed her. She slapped me. Damn it, I was being too nice to her. Just you watch. See how I’m gonna deal with her. So what if she has a lot of fans? I’ll make her lose them all.”]

[”Suddenly I’m very curious what you’re planning to do, @Five Silvers.”]

Five Silvers: [”How hard can it be to deal with a woman? I’ll start some dirty rumors about her. Doesn’t matter if they’re true or not. Enough people will believe them, and she’ll be finished.”]

[”That’s enough. Don’t blow things out of proportion, or it’ll come back to bite you.”]

Five Silvers: [”Don’t worry about it. I know what I’m doing. I’ll make sure she regrets this. She thinks she’s the only one with fans? I don’t have fans? All I need to do is stir them up a little, and my fans will take care of it.”]

...

SNAP.

Everyone turned to find the source of the sound.

Zhuang Yanzheng glanced at Su Miaoyi’s hand.

Su Miaoyi placed the pen she had just snapped in half on the table. ”Sorry, that just made me a little angry. Please continue.”

Qi Feng glanced at the broken pen. If he wasn’t mistaken, she had just snapped it with one hand. ”These are the direct messages from Wu Liang’s short-video app account.”

There were so many DMs.

Su Miaoyi narrowed her eyes, trying to read them.

Some were comforting him, others were cursing him out.

There were far too many messages to read through.

So Qi Feng had filtered them to show only the ones Wu Liang had replied to.

He had only replied to the ones comforting him. Wu Liang comforted his fans in return, but between the lines, he was constantly hinting at how he had been wronged.

”This is a chat app we found on Wu Liang’s phone. It’s the same one from Xiao Xia’s phone,” Qi Feng said. ”Wu Liang used this app to contact four people. This is the content of those chats.”

Four people... One of them was Xiao Xia’s ID on that same chat app.

Wu Liang had found four people on this app and asked them to spread rumors about Shi Rutang.

Wu Liang told them to focus on her having a messy private life, being a homewrecker, and knowingly being the other woman, but said they were free to improvise on the rest.

”The tech department is working overtime to identify the other three people,” Qi Feng said.

That’s why they weren’t at the meeting.

”So, besides the other people who contacted Xiao Xia through this app, Wu Liang also contacted four people using it.”

”Correct.”

”We need to identify them as quickly as possible. If the killer is targeting these people for revenge, they are all in danger.”

”The hair found under the sofa leg in Wu Liang’s home was tested for DNA, but there was no match in the gene bank,” Yan Cheng reported. ”Shi Xiaoru is currently a suspect, but she isn’t in Jinghai. So, we collected DNA from her parents, and the comparison showed no biological relationship.”

This only proved the hair wasn’t Shi Xiaoru’s, but it didn’t rule her out as a suspect.

”We’ve made contact with Shi Xiaoru. She’s flying to Jinghai tomorrow afternoon,” Zhuang Yanzheng announced.

...