Chapter 113: Chat Records

Ren Chang’s family was very wealthy. According to investigations, his father was a company owner, and his mother stayed home to take care of him. Ren Chang was essentially a little rich second-generation.

Looking at the villa in front of him, Xiao Yu had a strange expression. 

It was widely known that the wealthier a person was, the more they cherished their life. How many rich second-generation individuals had committed suicide when their family hadn’t fallen into ruin?

A servant opened the villa’s door. As Xiao Yu stepped into the villa, he felt a wave of sorrow wash over him. He saw a distinguished middle-aged couple sitting on the sofa, their eyes hollow and lost, appearing soulless and lifeless. They were consumed by grief, as if their souls had left their bodies.

Ren Chang was their child, their only son. The loss of their son was a blow that no parent could withstand.

Ren Chang had disregarded even his parents.

Xiao Yu shook his head. Life was a gift from his parents. Did he ask for their permission before taking his own life? Did he think about them? 

A person who doesn’t respect life doesn’t deserve to have their life respected. 

What about the living? If it weren’t for Li Shu, the case, and the system task, Xiao Yu would never have cared about the life or death of someone like Ren Chang.

“Hello.” 

Xiao Yu had to interrupt the grief-stricken couple. He needed to investigate the case.

“What is the police doing here again?” The elderly woman suddenly screamed, “You took my son away. If it weren’t for you, he wouldn’t be dead!”

Unreasonable? No. Her son was dead. It was understandable.

Xiao Yu looked at the old man. He was watching him coldly, but with some reason remaining.

“There seems to be an issue with the case,” Xiao Yu said gently to the old man. “Although your son committed suicide, there are some irregularities. To put it simply, it was an unnatural death.”

Unnatural death? In plain terms, it refered to death caused by external factors or reasons. In contrast, natural death refered to death caused by health reasons, such as illness or old age.

If Xiao Yu’s deductions were correct, this seemingly straightforward suicide case was indeed very abnormal.

“What?” The old man suddenly stood up, shouting angrily, “Are you saying someone caused my son’s death?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Xiao Yu shook his head. “I mean that it’s very likely your son’s suicide was caused by external factors. There might even be criminal elements involved. We need to investigate to find out the truth, and I’m sure you want to know it too.”

Of course they want to know. If it was a suicide, it would be somewhat easier to accept. But if someone else caused his death, how could his parents ever forgive that?

Xiao Yu was led to the room where Ren Chang had lived. The room was luxurious but messy, a typical bachelor pad. There were lots of collectibles, toys, and gaming consoles that were quite valuable. These were all things that homebodies loved. With these things, they could stay home forever, game until they lose all their hair, and create psychological shadows for their girlfriends. 

Oh, wait, they don’t have girlfriends.

Xiao Yu gave a signal to Guo Qiang and the others. The search began.

For two full hours, the three experienced detectives found nothing suspicious. Xiao Yu then turned on Ren Chang’s computer and noticed the high-end beauty-enhancing webcam. He raised an eyebrow in confusion.

As a guy, he knew that most men didn’t care much about webcams. Even if they had one, it usually wouldn’t be a high-end beauty-enhancing type. Unless they were streaming or frequently video chatting with female friends and wanted to look good.

Wait, Ren Chang and Jiang Dan had an online relationship for eight years?

Ren Chang had autism and generally wouldn’t go out. So, over these eight years, most of their communication was probably through text, voice, and video chats, right? 

Can people maintain a relationship like this?

Yes, they can.

Xiao Yu remembered a determined individual from his previous life who had an online relationship with his girlfriend across countries for twelve years and finally made it work. However, such unusual cases were rare. Online relationships could indeed end up together, but their success rate was somewhat lower than that of traditional relationships.

Xiao Yu turned on the computer and saw a standard bachelor desktop. It didn’t have Tifa, Hatsune Miku, or similar characters, but there was a beautiful anime girl. He checked the computer’s hard drive and was shocked. The computer had four partitions, totaling 5TB.

Was he shocked because of the large hard drive? No.  It was because one of the partitions had 4TB dedicated to “wives”. 

Was this guy a devil? Trying to flood his brain with dopamine to fill his empty soul? If Ren Chang’s spirit knew someone was browsing his computer after his death, would he be so ashamed he’d explode on the spot?

Xiao Yu browsed through the computer. There were QQ, WeChat desktop versions…all these messaging tools. 

“Retrieve the chat logs,” Xiao Yu ordered.

QQ and WeChat maintained confidentiality principles, but when it came to a case, the police had the right to access chat logs. Guo Qiang called in cyber police. Soon, two network technology experts arrived. They checked the login accounts of the two applications and then used their own computer to contact the technical department of the respective companies.

Before long, a backup of QQ chat logs and WeChat chat logs was transmitted to the cyber police’s computer. The backup included not only desktop chats but also those from the mobile version, ensuring it was the most complete version available.

What? You say you deleted your chat logs yourself? 

You’re too naive. All your records, except for instant video calls and voice calls, are backed up on the company’s servers. 

How many chat logs were there?

Xiao Yu felt his scalp tingle and instructed the cyber police to first categorize the chat logs between Ren Chang and Jiang Dan separately.

Even so, eight years of chat records were massive. 

The later records mostly consisted of videos and voice messages. Only the earlier years had more text chats. Xiao Yu began to review them.

In the first few years, their interactions were very normal. They went through the initial love phase, the honeymoon phase, the stormy phase, the flat phase, and the mature phase.

The records from the first six years were very normal. Jiang Dan knew Ren Chang was a rich second-generation but didn’t ask for anything. However, starting from the seventh year… to be precise, from six months ago, Xiao Yu noticed Jiang Dan’s behavior changed. She started asking for money, being increasingly demanding.

From a few thousand, to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands. 

Xiao Yu narrowed his eyes. If she were a vain woman, how could she have held back for over seven years? Wasn’t this change a bit too sudden?