Chapter 101
Summer. The air in the south was humid and hot.
The crew had moved onto filming the next storyline. Li Chu sat inside the studio, enjoying the air conditioning. Filming had been delayed because a few props had issues due to the weather, so the prop master was urgently repairing them.
Qian Duoduo brought over a small box of chilled watermelon. Li Chu didn't like watermelon-flavored things, but she loved eating watermelon, especially in the summer. Chilled watermelon was the ultimate treat.
However, Tang Congnan wouldn't let Li Chu eat too much because it could upset her stomach. So even if Li Chu was craving it, Qian Duoduo didn't dare give her too much, afraid she'd get sick from the cold. She only provided a small box each day.
The small box wasn't much, and Li Chu finished it quickly, still feeling a bit unsatisfied.
She thought indignantly, once she retired from the entertainment industry, she would eat a whole damn watermelon! As much as she wanted!
Li Chu savored the sweet taste of the watermelon, wiped her lips, and picked up the script again to memorize her lines.
In the story, the second case had surfaced.
After Yu Jia's execution, Rong Yun, using the pretext of searching for clues in Cen Lan's case, investigated Yu Jia's social connections and belongings, hoping to find evidence linking him to the person behind it all. Unfortunately, she found nothing.
But Rong Yun knew there would be a follow-up. It was just that the other party was in the dark while she was in the light. But being in the light wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Half a month passed uneventfully. During this time, Rong Yun entered a normal work state, just like any other detective. Until half a month later, a suicide case caught her attention, and indeed, the entire bureau's.
The deceased was female, a Beta, a second-year university student living off-campus.
The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning, initially determined to be suicide. The person who reported it was a neighbor who smelled something strange. After knocking for a long time with no response, they called the property management to open the door, becoming the first witness along with the property staff.
This wasn't a particularly unusual case. After all, Haijia was a big city with a lot of pressure, and the suicide rate wasn't low.
If they hadn't found a love letter in the deceased's arms, perhaps this case would have been simply closed as a suicide.
Unlike the Anhe Building case, the chapter titled "Love Letter Suicide Case" involved a case from five years ago, traceable back to seven years prior.
The director used the narrative of a veteran detective, Lao Chen, as the starting point for filming, because Rong Yun hadn't been involved in any related cases. After she arrived at the police station, she had only casually glanced through the files.
Haijia seven years ago was far less developed than it was now. Lao Chen back then was just Xiao Chen. The reason he remembered these cases so vividly was because the first "Love Letter Suicide" case was handled by him.
Lao Chen still remembered that the girl had drowned herself. Her body floated downstream from upstream, bloated from being in the water. There was nothing on her to identify her, only a letter.
The envelope was blank and made of waterproof material, so even though the body had been in the river for two or three days, the letter inside was still intact.
The contents of the letter couldn't be entirely described as a love letter, because it was a love poem, describing the beauty of a lover and the longing in her heart. It was full of youthful sentiment.
Lao Chen compared it to missing person reports and quickly confirmed the girl's identity.
Sixteen years old, not yet an adult, first gender unknown. She had a beautiful smile in the photo, about the same age as Lao Chen's younger sister, so he felt a pang of sadness.
At the time, the police ruled it a suicide for love, because after handwriting analysis, the love poem in the letter was confirmed to be in the girl's handwriting. Moreover, there were no external injuries on her body, and the investigation into her social connections revealed no conflicts. So the case was closed.
Two years after this suicide case, which was five years ago in the current timeline, Lao Chen handled another similar case.
It was also a suicide, also with a letter. Only this time, the content of the letter wasn't a love poem, but a passage from an opera, still expressing love for a sweetheart.
This time it was a young Beta male, found by his father cutting his wrists in the bathtub. His expression was calm and peaceful when he died.
There were no suspicious points. Even the deceased's family felt that it was possible for him to commit suicide, because the young man liked fantastical and romantic things, and he was also in a rebellious phase. He had a big fight with his father the night before because his father warned him not to fall in love early and to focus on his studies.
Lao Chen was puzzled. His detective's intuition told him that this might not be a coincidence, but there was nothing unusual on the surface. Without any evidence, he could only suppress these thoughts.
But at the end of the same year, another such incident occurred.
This time it was jumping from a building. The deceased was a minor with a male secondary gender and an unknown primary gender. He was just a few days shy of adulthood, but he jumped from the school's tall building.
When Lao Chen saw the envelope in the deceased's arms, he felt a sharp pain in his head.
Clearly, this was a suicide that happened in front of everyone, with no doubts. The school said it might be due to academic pressure, because the young man had always been in the top three in his grade, but his test scores had dropped to around 100 in several exams, and his family was also quite dissatisfied with his grades.
The content of the envelope was from a famous book, roughly about the protagonist writing a confession of his troubles to his sweetheart, writing about his desire for complete freedom.
Lao Chen really felt that something wasn't right. He collected the files of the three cases, wanting to report that these weren't simple suicides, but premeditated instigated suicides, and the instigator might be the sweetheart mentioned in all three love letters.
Lao Chen worried that more children would become victims if this continued, because the other party almost always chose minors or those who had just reached adulthood. Children at this age, whose thoughts were not yet mature and whose worldview had not yet been fully formed, were the easiest to manipulate and control.
But the police station rejected his report, because the evidence wasn't strong and the time span was large. The later cases could have been imitations after hearing about the previous ones. In addition, there were no suspicious points when the three cases were closed, and the families had no objections.
Lao Chen had to suppress those thoughts, but he would occasionally look at the files. Five years had passed, and he hadn't handled any similar cases. He hoped he was overthinking it, but now another one had appeared.
After reviewing the files, Rong Yun also tended to believe that it was the same person committing premeditated crimes, and there might have been more than these four cases in seven years. It was possible that the perpetrator had gone to another city, or wasn't in Lao Chen's jurisdiction.
If that was truly the case, then this case would be particularly tricky.
Because under the premise of suicide, everyone had already assumed that the deceased had killed themselves. If the deceased had cleared the evidence according to the instigator's instructions before committing suicide, it would be very difficult for the police to track them down, and the case could only be closed as a suicide.
Compared to the scope and population flow of the Anhe Building case, the love letter suicide cases had no scope, no obvious harm, and the perpetrator's methods were skillful. Now with the internet so developed, online relationships were everywhere, and the perpetrator could even issue instructions from abroad.
Compared to the psychologically twisted act of murder and dismemberment, this type of case was like a murder needle as fine as hair, even more chilling.
Human thoughts were actually very difficult to control, because even the smartest and most insightful person couldn't always know what the people around them were thinking at any given moment. But thoughts weren't completely uncontrollable. When one person could sufficiently influence another person's way of thinking, they could also influence that person's behavior patterns.
"Sister Li, the props are ready. We can start now."
The shout from not far away interrupted Li Chu's thoughts. She immediately put down the script and went to work.
Filming went late into the night again. Li Chu yawned as she walked out, and seeing the person standing outside the set, her yawn got stuck halfway, making her a little uncomfortable, just like the feeling that person gave her.
Li Chu said expressionlessly, "Is she still pulling the same stunt?"
"Yes, treating everyone to late-night snacks under the guise of visiting you."
Qian Duoduo whispered, sighing inwardly.
At first, she thought this person was a good friend of Li Chu's, because she would come to visit the set about twice a week. It wasn't too frequent, but every time she came, she would spend lavishly, treating everyone to good food in Li Chu's name, and even giving out red envelopes.
Qian Duoduo thought at the time that this was a godsend friend, and she was also good-looking. Until Li Chu angrily said that she wasn't close to this person at all, Qian Duoduo felt that this person was really something.
More importantly, now the entire crew, including the neighboring crew, thought they were good friends. Fortunately, that person was an Omega, otherwise who knows what kind of pursuit rumors would have come out.
Li Chu clicked her tongue softly. Dealing with a high-level green tea was actually quite tiring, because she would intentionally create an atmosphere of closeness and subtly make people owe her favors. If things went south, public opinion would basically be one-sidedly in her favor, with comments like, 'She's so good to you, and you're not appreciating it, are you paranoid?' and leaving a bad impression of oneself.
If things didn't go south, and one didn't return the favor, she would use it later, politely returning the favor, and then confirming in front of others that they had a good relationship. Then the green tea's goal would be achieved, making it easier to manipulate things in the future.
Mu Qinxi wasn't just giving gifts, she was building a good reputation for Li Chu. This also meant that Mu Qinxi could very easily destroy this good reputation.
The brilliance of this tactic was that if you didn't realize she was a green tea, you would think she was an absolute sweetheart, and then become a pawn in her hands. If you did realize she was a green tea, you couldn't do anything about it, only feel disgusted, and if you wanted to completely cut ties, you'd have to go through hell.
But Mu Qinxi wanting to manipulate her? It was still too early for that.
"Yuanzi, go see the guest out. However much she spent, return it double. The extra is for your trouble. We're not stingy people."
Li Chu didn't want to go herself, too lazy to put on an act. The reason she asked Yuanzi to go was because Yuanzi was suitable. Although Qian Duoduo had spent some time in the entertainment industry, she was still no match for Mu Qinxi. A Yao was a woman of few words and would probably make these words sound like a provocation.
Yuanzi was different. She had a natural air of bluntness, able to say sarcastic things in a righteous tone.
Yuanzi took the order and went towards Mu Qinxi. Li Chu got into the car.
It was a joke. Who in the entertainment industry hadn't been subjected to gossip? She wasn't afraid of Mu Qinxi's tricks. There was no need to exchange pleasantries with a green tea. It was pointless.
Li Chu returned to the hotel refreshed. Ning Manqing, on the other hand, frowned as she looked at the messages on her phone.
Why was that Mu family Omega being so attentive to Li Chu? Could it be that she had taken a liking to her Tao Tao?
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