Geisteswissenschaftliche Fakultät

Kapitel 44

Although her true form is undeniably incredibly handsome, the fox spirit Qing Tong, who works as a private detective, firmly believes that "the first essential for a detective is to conceal themselves; it's foolish to leave too deep an impression." Therefore, she habitually appears before others with ordinary, even slightly ugly, appearances, and this time is no exception.

With a square face, a flat nose, a large mouth and thick lips, and a few pimples on his face, Qing Tong's current appearance would probably be overlooked by most women. Although he faithfully retained his original blue eyes with a strong cunning look, the bowl-cut bangs covering his forehead and a pair of old-fashioned square-framed glasses completely covered this only highlight. Coupled with the outdated and inappropriate jacket and trousers, plus a pair of sneakers of unknown brand, Luo Lin believed that Qing Tong was definitely responsible for making him such a dazzling figure.

"Have you caught them red-handed?" Luo Lin asked seriously, trying to ignore the surrounding disturbances.

Two days had passed since the two received a message online from a mysterious person named "asdfasdf". Luo Lin, who had missed the opportunity to contact the person that night due to a strange machine restart, had logged onto QQ multiple times afterward, trying to find the ID but to no avail. Meanwhile, strange things began to happen. On the first day, while riding an escalator, Luo Lin was pushed by someone and nearly tumbled down several meters. On the second day, while peeling an apple, he accidentally slipped, the fruit knife leaving a deep scratch near a vein on his left wrist. In addition, he narrowly escaped being hit by falling debris or nearly hit by a drunk driver. All of this inevitably brought to mind the words of "asdfasdf".

If we don't follow that so-called incantation, will our lives definitely be in danger?

Qing Tong speculated that while the incantation itself might be fake, the curse itself might be real. To ensure Luo Lin's safety, Qing Tong used some method—without knowing its feasibility or the exact nature of the curse—to place a spell on Luo Lin, transferring all non-human forces that might be affecting Luo Lin to himself. Originally, it was all just a hypothesis, but the fact that Luo Lin was unharmed while Qing Tong's T-shirt was stained with blood was enough to prove it.

On the way to Chengnan University, the bus Qing Tong was riding was involved in an accident on the highway. A car traveling in the opposite direction crashed through the median strip, nearly knocking Qing Tong's bus off its side. Surprisingly, all the passengers on both buses were unharmed, except for those who were shaken and some who sustained minor injuries. Only Qing Tong's seat was completely destroyed, and Qing Tong was thrown out of the other side window by the impact. Shards of glass pierced Qing Tong's chest, with one piece even penetrating his lung. For a human, such a severe injury would almost certainly be fatal, but for Qing Tong, it was merely a minor injury. However, even so, her dignity as a nine-tailed fox was still challenged.

"Hmph, at least he ran fast." Qing Tong snorted coldly, her face darkening.

Luo Lin said "Oh," understanding. In other words, they hadn't caught them yet.

"Where do we go now?"

Last night, Luo Lin received a call from Qing Tong asking him to come to Chengnan University today, saying that she had something to take care of. However, Luo Lin still doesn't know what Qing Tong means by "taking care of something."

"Chengnan Information Center".

"The school's internet cafe?" Luo Lin thought for a moment. "Did you find that the other party's IP address was here?"

"More or less." Regardless of how hot the weather was, Qing Tong put her hands in her pockets and said, "I did not manage to catch that asdfasdf that night, and I even suspect that your computer restart may have been forced by some external force, but I can also find this information from other places."

Luo Lin lowered her head to avoid the probing gazes from the girls, waiting for Qing Tong to continue. However, Qing Tong stopped, took out a hand from her pocket, and stretched her fingers out in front of Luo Lin.

"What's this?"

"Hands," Luo Lin answered honestly.

"I didn't mean for you to look at your hands."

"finger?"

"It's not like I asked you to look at your fingers," Qing Tong said, her tone becoming impatient. "You're really slow-witted."

"Why can't you just say it directly?" Luo Lin sighed. Why did they have to play these riddles?

"It's five."

"five?"

“Yes, that night I suddenly realized that since the other party was spreading the spell through QQ, Jiang Jianjun should not be the only case. Afterwards, I conducted an investigation through some private channels, and the result was that there were five similar missing persons cases like Jiang Jianjun that were filed with the local police station last month alone.”

"That's astonishing." Luo Lin frowned. Five cases have been filed, so how many more haven't been reported?

Perhaps, in a city with a permanent population of over 14 million and a floating population of at least 5 million, this number seems insignificant. However, if there are five similar cases in just one district within a month, how many similar cases are occurring throughout this city, this country, and other countries, wherever QQ's network can reach? Furthermore, this isn't limited to instant messaging tools like QQ; it also includes MSN, online forums, and various other information carriers. Simply put, within the almost ubiquitous reach of the internet today, how many similar cases are occurring?

Thinking of this, Luo Rui couldn't help but shudder. Suddenly, he felt several pairs of eyes filled with strong negative emotions being fixed on him. Following that uncomfortable feeling, he saw three girls standing in the middle of the lawn not far from where he and Qing Tong were. In just a moment, after meeting Luo Rui's gaze, the three girls looked away and began chatting and laughing.

(V) A Familiar Back View

"how?"

"It's nothing, I was just lost in thought." Luo Lin withdrew her gaze from the profiles of the three girls—they had already left the lawn, chatting and laughing, heading in a certain direction.

"Then let's go in." Qing Tong followed Luo Lin's gaze and glanced at them. It was just a glance, but Qing Tong frowned slightly. "Those three girls seem a bit strange."

"You saw it too?" Luo Lin followed and stepped onto the steps outside the information center building, which was only about six or seven steps long. "They are clearly human, but they don't have a strong human presence. To me, they are no different from the metal lampposts on the roadside."

"Who knows? Maybe they're entangled with something." Qing Tong shrugged indifferently. "It has nothing to do with what we're investigating. Let them be."

"You're still so heartless." Luo Lin said this in a gentle tone, without any hint of blame but simply stating an objective fact.

Qing Tong does indeed like to meddle in other people's business, but only when it interests him. Although he's a detective, he'll still stubbornly refuse cases he's not interested in, without giving money or face to the client. As for the exact "degree" of his interest, even Luo Lin can't quite put his finger on it... It could be a bizarre murder case, a theft on a bus, or even a commercial fraud. So far, the cases Qing Tong has taken on are basically all over the place. Although there's no discernible pattern at first glance, once the investigation goes on, nine times out of ten, they uncover shocking truths. The case that led Luo Lin and Qing Tong to meet was like that. According to Qing Tong, it was "a kind of pure sixth sense that you humans call it that made me take on those cases." But cases like this one, which are full of unbelievable elements from the very beginning, are relatively rare.

“There were five missing persons last month,” Qing Tong explained his findings to Luo Lin as they ascended the wide, dimly lit staircase, which lacked direct sunlight. “These five missing persons included three men and two women. They were of different ages and professions, did not know each other, and had virtually nothing in common. However, one thing is noteworthy: they were all very keen on going online. Of course, most people living in this city nowadays probably rely on the internet to some extent.”

"So, you found something similar to Jiang Jianjun's QQ records in their computer logs?"

"It's an isolated case. One of the two missing women was a white-collar worker, and the other was a high school student. According to the police records, their disappearance dates are estimated to be June 3rd and June 17th, respectively. The former's laptop seems to have disappeared along with her, so I can't find any records of it. The latter's desktop computer, quite coincidentally, had a hard drive failure shortly before I went to investigate. Although it has been sent to a data recovery company, even if it is recovered, I don't think it will have much reference value..."

"So you've already decided that the best you can get is the same result as Jiang Jianjun's QQ records?"

“That’s right. The data can only help me confirm whether the missing person encountered the same thing as Jiang Jianjun before the incident, but if nothing unexpected happens, there certainly won’t be any extra information about the other person left in those records.”

"What about the other three missing people?"

"One person went missing on June 10th, but yesterday morning the police found the body of this missing person near a garbage dump in a neighboring district. The body had four or five stab wounds. Based on the scene, the police judged that it was likely a robbery and murder, and have identified the target and issued an arrest warrant, so it can basically be ruled out. The other person was an unemployed youth, a social hoodlum. He didn't have his own computer, but he often went to internet cafes to play games. Because the internet cafes have software that clears chat history, I can't access the chat history. However, according to the internet cafe staff, the missing person did chat with someone at the internet cafe on the 14th of last month. The staff remembered that he inexplicably cursed and threatened, 'Whoever dares to take my life, I'll chop him into eight pieces and sell him in the butcher shop.' So I guess that the missing person may have also received similar messages. Due to his unstable interpersonal relationships, it is impossible to deduce the exact time of his disappearance."

"The last one..."

"We're here, let's go in." Having finally reached the fifth floor, Qing Tong temporarily paused their conversation. Before Luo Lin stood an iron gate spanning the stairs. The gate was now open, revealing a pair of wooden double doors behind it. Looking through the frosted glass, they could vaguely see figures moving about. A gleaming gold metal bar hung above the double doors, and below it hung a shiny sign that read "South City Information Center." The bright red lettering and dazzling metallic sheen contrasted sharply with the old wooden double doors, suggesting the sign had been recently put up.

"I am Zhou Qiang, and this is my assistant. We contacted your school's principal before we came." After changing into shoe covers and zipping up her out-of-season long-sleeved jacket to the top to prevent the bloodstains from being noticed, Qing Tong walked directly to the service desk at the entrance and showed the staff member who looked like an intern teacher one of the business cards she used when handling external affairs. This time, it was a forged police officer's work ID.

"District Public Security Bureau... Oh, I see. The principal just called. Is there anything we can do to help?" After carefully examining their work IDs, the young male teacher looked at Qing Tong and Luo Lin with some curiosity.

"Here's the thing, we're officers from the Cybercrime Investigation Bureau. We received a report the day before yesterday that someone used the computers here to break into a company's database and steal a batch of confidential data on the night of the 9th of this month, so we're here to investigate. Could you please show us your registration information?"

"Hackers?" The male teacher seemed quite surprised. "We are a liberal arts school. Even the computer science department was only established a few years ago in response to the national call. It's unlikely that there would be any hackers here."

"Whether it's possible or not isn't something you can decide. Just show us the registration record. Don't obstruct us from performing our duties." Judging that the other party seemed inclined to continue, and also not wanting to attract the excessive attention of the students who were online, Qing Tong directly suppressed the other party's arrogance.

Sure enough, several students had already begun to peek and watch the situation unfold at the entrance. If it weren't for the screen separating the service desk from the internet cafe inside, the people spying wouldn't be limited to just the first few people at the entrance.

"Tch, what's with the attitude?" the male teacher muttered irritably, then turned to the computer and brought up a program.

"Our internet access records are all from card swipes. Which time period's registration records do you need?"

"All records from 5 p.m. on the 9th of last month until you closed on the 9th of this month."

"Last month?" The male teacher looked up in confusion. "Why do you need to adjust last month's..."

"The police will be useful, so don't ask unnecessary questions."

With a disgruntled glance at Qing Tong, the male teacher quickly typed a string of characters on the keyboard. Soon the printer started working, and A4 sheets of paper were transmitted one by one. A few minutes later, about twenty sheets of paper had accumulated on the desk.

“There aren’t many people online lately,” Luo Lin said, picking up the last few A4 sheets of paper that had been printed.

"Of course, although many departments haven't started their summer break yet due to extracurricular teaching and internship arrangements, more than half of the students have already left. The students who stay here to kill time are either poor students from other places who mostly go out to work during the summer vacation, or those with coursework don't come here too often. As for last month, with exams approaching, who would still be hanging around here all the time? If I had to give an analogy, June and July are like the off-season for our Information Center, just like the off-season for department stores." Clearly proud of his analogy, the male teacher answered with some self-satisfaction.

"Can we find the information of the people who use these cards?" Qing Tong casually clenched the paper in her hand and asked her next question.

“That’s possible,” the male teacher replied dismissively, seemingly deflated by Qing Tong’s indifference to the analogy. “The cards are issued based on the students’ student ID numbers, but we can’t rule out the possibility that the person using the card isn’t actually the student. You know how students always like to borrow things from each other…”

"Print out that document for me as well."

"You..." After being swept over by Qing Tong's cold gaze, the male teacher, who was about to protest, only muttered a word and obediently pulled up the file.

It was also about twenty pages long. Qing Tong glanced at it briefly and grabbed it.

"One last question. If I want to access the chat history from a certain machine on the night of the 9th, is that possible?"

"Chat logs?" The male teacher paused, clearly not understanding the connection between infiltrating a commercial database and chat logs, but he still answered Qing Tong's question, "You mean QQ, MSN, or internal network conversations, like IPMESSENGER?"

"former."

"It's practically impossible. While theoretically, with your police's permission, I believe your experts might be able to access the records without a password, the entire information center's computers are equipped with anti-recording software, and we regularly clean up the logs on the 10th of every month, so I'm afraid there are no records left."

"Okay, thank you." Qing Tong thanked the male teacher briefly and left the information center first. Luo Lin followed closely behind, only glancing briefly at the center before leaving. Dozens of computers were arranged vertically in rows. Although it was daytime, the ceiling was blazing with fluorescent lights due to the lack of sunlight. A dozen or so students were sitting inside. He didn't seem to notice anything special. As he turned around, his eyes inadvertently swept over the back of a girl sitting with her back to him. She looked vaguely familiar, Luo Lin thought. However, he only paused for a moment before turning back to chase after Qing Tong without hesitation.

(vi) Zhang Anqi

"Were you just trying to ask me about the last missing person?" Sitting in a McDonald's near South City University, Qing Tong casually asked Luo Lin while examining the documents she had just received.

“That’s right.” After taking a sip of cola, Luo Lin slowly replied, “But you didn’t answer me just now.”

“Now I’m going to tell you.” Qing Tong put down the paper in her hand. “The last missing person provided much more information than others, which is why I was able to find out about Chengnan University.”

"How so?"

"The last missing person was named Ye Miao. He and several other missing persons received messages from the mysterious person, but the only difference was that he had spoken with the mysterious person twice."

Ye Miao? Upon hearing this name, Luo Lin was slightly distracted and began to think about it because it seemed vaguely familiar. However, he quickly stopped searching his mind because the name wasn't particularly unique. Compared to the name, the information contained in Qing Tong's last sentence was clearly more shocking.

"Twice?!" Luo Lin frowned. Based on all the information so far, the mysterious person seemed to only contact the missing person once. This could be concluded from the fact that although he/she left chat logs, he/she erased the real ID, and although he/she issued warnings, he/she refused to answer many questions and usually logged off immediately after issuing warnings. It's normal to be afraid of being found, but why was the last missing person able to contact the other party twice?

"When did the second contact occur? Was it Ye Miao who found the other party?"

"Of course not."

Even though she knew this was the answer, Luo Lin was still somewhat disappointed.

For Luo Lin, if the mysterious person could be identified through human means, then it would mean that he/she was at most a highly skilled hacker with a degree of paranoia and delusions, leading to murders. Conversely, if the person could be identified through supernatural means, then he/she had to consider the possibility of supernatural forces. Although the car accident Qing Tong suffered this morning and his own mental turmoil over the past two days already suggested the presence of non-human factors, Luo Lin, who longed to be an ordinary person, held onto a firm belief that if something could be explained by science and human effort, he would never consider the possibility of supernatural forces. Although in most cases he ultimately had to surrender, this occasional escapism could be seen as a weakness in Luo Lin's character, or perhaps it was his last remaining hope for maintaining his human identity.

"Although I learned from Ye Miao's personal diary that he had tried to find out the other party's identity—oh right, I forgot to mention that Ye Miao is a programmer at a game company and has some hacking knowledge—no matter what methods he used, he couldn't find any information about the other party at all. The ID 'asdfasdf' either didn't exist or wasn't the person he had previously spoken to. Under these circumstances, Ye Miao had a bad day. In just that one day, he encountered many low-level but hard-to-defend attacks, just like you and me. So Ye Miao began to believe that the curse was real and decided to distribute the message to twenty people as requested by the mysterious person. It was on the evening of the second day that he opened QQ to send the message to others when the mysterious person appeared and had a second contact with him. It was at that time that the mysterious person inadvertently revealed his information."

"So if I obediently pass on the message to others, is it possible that I might encounter the mysterious person a second time?" Luo Lin proposed a hypothesis.

"I can't say for sure, but based on the cases of the other missing persons, Ye Miao's case is very likely just an isolated incident. In addition, Ye Miao's contact with the other party occurred on the 9th and 10th of last month, which means that Ye Miao was the second of the five missing persons last month to go missing."

Luo Lin finally understood why Qing Tong had asked the teachers at the information center to print out the records from the 9th of last month to the present. It turned out that this day had such significance.

"This is a record of Ye Miao's second conversation with the mysterious man."

Qing Tong took a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Luo Lin.

Date: 200X-06-10

Information about the mysterious person with a blank name: 22:10:12

Did you send the message I asked you to send last time?

Miaomiao Miaomiao 22:12:25

I...I'm sending it now, trust me, I'll do it!

Information about the mysterious person with a blank name 22:12:37

Do you believe me now?

Miaomiao Miaomiao 22:12:48

I believe it, I believe it now, I don't want to die!!!

Information about the mysterious person with a blank name 22:13:55

That's good. As long as you do as I say, you can survive, perhaps...

Miaomiao Miaomiao 22:13:00

Perhaps?! What, what do you mean?!

Miaomiao Miaomiao 22:13:03