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墨書 Inktalez
Jiang He was a local of Dragon City, while Xu Yiman worked as a Forensic Doctor there. With Old Shao recently giving the project team members some time off, the two found themselves spending time in Wang Chao's hospital room. Wang Chao's wounds had mostly healed, but he remained unconscious and in a comatose state.
The doctor held a relatively optimistic view of Wang Chao's condition; the speed of his recovery indicated that his vitality was still quite strong.
Old Shao had taken Yuan Jun to handle some paperwork. Through this case, Old Shao realized that having someone skilled in combat within the project team was essential. During the pursuit of the suspects, Yuan Jun's contributions outweighed those of the others.
Guan Deng still struggled to adapt to crowded environments, spending his days in the apartment rented for him by the project team, glued to his computer. However, he wasn't idle; he was investigating the person behind these cases—the so-called Criminal Consultant. This individual appeared and disappeared mysteriously but always showed up at critical moments in front of the project team.
In the previous hostage situation and now with the curse case from Desolate Village, this Criminal Consultant seemed to be pulling the strings. The problem was that this Criminal Consultant appeared to have their own logic; their targets were primarily former victims and once-weak individuals.
As Old Shao put it, this person wanted to be a judge.
In this world, there were always many good people being bullied while many bad ones roamed free. In numerous places, some crimes remained undiscovered. Just like in Desolate Village, where so much evil festered, if it weren't for the Criminal Consultant leading the project team there, those abducted women might never have escaped.
The revenge logic of this Criminal Consultant was simple: an eye for an eye. This was also why Qiuju Niu's grandson Zhang Wenhua ended up being trafficked. Yet Qiuju Niu had once been a trafficker herself; her grandson was innocent.
From these characteristics of the Criminal Consultant, it could be deduced that they specifically targeted those who had been victimized by bad people but lacked the means or ability to retaliate. However, by doing so, they transformed from victims into perpetrators, and then other relatives of these new victims became aggressors as well. How could such a cycle ever end?
As Jiang He pondered these sociological issues with his eyes closed, he heard Xu Yiman sighing repeatedly.
Opening his eyes, Jiang He saw Xu Yiman staring intently at her phone screen.
"What are you looking at?" Jiang He asked.
"School violence," Xu Yiman replied as she handed him her phone. "These kids are really out of control—seven or eight of them surrounding one person and beating him."
Jiang He took the phone and noticed that Xu Yiman was watching a video on Weibo. He reopened the video and began to watch its content.
The video was clearly recorded on a mobile phone; it appeared that the shooter was positioned high up in a building, capturing footage from above.
The video began with a girl cornered by seven or eight other kids in a dead-end alley. The girl, appearing to be around fourteen or fifteen years old, looked quite youthful. She had her hair tied in a ponytail and was wearing a light blue dress, making her look very cute.
At that moment, she stood frozen against the wall, too scared to move.
The group surrounding her consisted of both boys and girls, all seemingly around the same age. They appeared to be middle school students, but none were wearing uniforms. From the video footage, it seemed they were shouting at each other, but the distance made it impossible to hear what these students were saying.
After about a minute of this commotion, a girl stepped out from the crowd. She was dressed in denim and had her hair down. Without hesitation, the cowgirl slapped the ponytail girl several times across the face. The ponytail girl immediately raised her hands to block the blows, but after a few words from the cowgirl, she quickly lowered her hands.
The cowgirl continued to strike her a few more times, and this time the ponytail girl did not resist.
Before long, another girl emerged from the crowd. She was wearing a T-shirt and shorts and seemed to say something to the two of them. Their exchange lasted for about another minute. After that, the rest of the group surged forward and began to pull at the ponytail girl's dress.
Despite her desperate attempts to fight back, it was futile; she could not withstand the force of so many people. Soon enough, they managed to strip her dress away. It was summer, and underneath, she was only wearing underwear, leaving her completely exposed.
The cowgirl then said something else to the ponytail girl before kicking her in the stomach, causing her to fall to the ground. That wasn't all; several others came forward and took off her shoes. Only then did she manage to escape from the alley with her companions, leaving even her dress behind.
The ponytail girl stood up; her ponytail had come undone, leaving her hair disheveled and covered in dirt, looking quite pitiful. She gathered her hair and brushed off the dirt from her clothes. After glancing around and ensuring no one was watching, she slowly made her way out of the alley.
Once she exited the alley, she disappeared from view on the phone screen, marking the end of the video.
The entire video lasted about five minutes. Although filmed from a distance, due to its elevated angle, everyone’s faces were visible except for those of two individuals who were obscured by others.
There were eight attackers in total: five girls and three boys, with two of the girls' faces not clearly visible.
As the video ended and automatically closed, Jiang He noticed some heated comments below it on Weibo.
"Damn it! Just watching this makes me angry. If I were there, I would teach those scumbags a lesson."
"Look at how those kids are dressed; are they really middle schoolers? They're just a bunch of bitches. And those three boys? I’d beat them up every time I see them."
"Let's hunt them down."
"Is anyone organizing a group to deal with those troublemakers?"
After Jiang He finished reading, Xu Yiman said, "The kids these days really don't know how to hold back."
Jiang He replied, "I just find the comments below quite interesting. To me, the actions of those who leave hot reviews are nothing more than a form of violence. Both verbal and physical violence deserve attention. These matters should be handled by us police, not by the methods of internet users."
Xu Yiman shrugged, "Come on, Jiang He, how long have you been a cop? You’re already saying 'us police.' If you're interested, let's investigate and see what's really going on. With your intelligence, you should be able to analyze this place quickly."
"Sure thing." Jiang He nodded. "I just need to take another look at your phone."
"Alright." Xu Yiman handed her phone to Jiang He.
Taking Xu Yiman's phone, Jiang He opened the profile of the video’s uploader. The video was shared by a larger marketing account, but the uploader was an individual account. Jiang He opened the uploader's Weibo and read her bio.
As he looked at the phone, he said, "From the title, it’s clear that the video was originally filmed by her. Her Weibo profile shows she is female. When I checked her photo album, I noticed she has taken quite a few pictures. Some of those photos suggest she is from our Dragon City."
"Dragon City?" Xu Yiman responded. "What a coincidence."
Jiang He nodded. "There are some iconic buildings that I think you would recognize as well. From the captions accompanying the images, it seems she isn’t just visiting; she lives here. I noticed that the environment she filmed is in a district, indicating this is her home."
"This is an old district. Look at her window frames; the white paint has already yellowed, which means this place has been around for a while and isn't newly built. From the empty lot in the distance, it’s clear they are doing some demolition nearby."
"And then?" Xu Yiman asked.
While scrolling through Weibo posts, Jiang He continued, "Every summer vacation when she returns home, she walks back from the train station to see how her hometown has changed. This means her home isn’t far from the train station—probably about an hour's walk."
"So this area near the train station that's undergoing demolition should be easy to locate. Now we have a few answers: Nanyuan District, Jingdong District, Shulin District, and Iron Three Bureau District. These districts share a common characteristic."
"What characteristics?" Xu Yiman asked.
Jiang He returned the phone to Xu Yiman and said, "That means the children in these districts should all be attending Dragon City Fourth High School. The nine-year compulsory education is divided by districts, and these children belong to this school zone. There’s about a week left until school starts, and this place isn’t in the city center, so there aren’t many entertainment venues. The chances of a child from another district being caught here are very low."
"So, these children should all live nearby, and they are all middle school students at Dragon City Fourth High School," Jiang He continued. "We just need to check the student records at the police station for Dragon City Fourth High School. There are at most two thousand children; we can find them in less than half an hour."
"Shall we set off now?" Jiang He asked.
Xu Yiman looked at Jiang He’s resolute demeanor and couldn’t help but say, "Is it really that urgent…"
Jiang He replied, "People in modern society have long posted all their personal information online. As long as you put in some effort, no one is truly untraceable."
At that moment, a text message suddenly arrived on Jiang He's phone. Upon opening it, he saw it was from Guan Deng: "I saw Wang Chao's arm move through the surveillance footage; he might be waking up..."
Jiang He looked up at the camera in the corner, which moved slightly up and down towards him. This made him realize that Guan Deng had hacked into the hospital's surveillance system. It made Jiang He think that if it were Guan Deng, he could directly find the girl's address through her IP address without going through all this trouble…
But the key issue was that Wang Chao's arm had moved.
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