Conflict

Liang An, of course, wouldn't snatch a computer and damage the operational image.

Although Lu Dao was playful, it didn't affect her work. At this point, the computer was more valuable in the hands of the "professional" Lu Dao.

He was currently concerned with another matter.

It was already noon, the sunlight intense. Strangely, Li Lie Jun's contact information only contained his deceased parents' phone numbers. His social media applications only had university classmates and teachers, and most of them hadn't contacted him in years.

Only the class reunion organizer had persistently sent him invitations for the annual reunion in the same month.

But perhaps because he never received any replies, these messages stopped last year.

Since Li Lie Jun had no direct descendants, his closest relative—a distant cousin—had only met him once when he was a child and had agreed to come from a distant city to claim his body, incidentally also verbally consenting to the autopsy.

Li Lie Jun's body had been transported back to the team and examined on the autopsy table. Mo Yun Wan, who had started work early, had just called in, participating remotely in this brief meeting.

Liang An's team's time management was always incredibly efficient, having somehow arranged to temporarily borrow the security guard's duty booth.

The security guard's rest room was quite spacious and soundproofed well. It was indeed a luxurious residential area; its foundations were still solid.

“He really died from excessive blood loss. He was stabbed from behind, the weapon should be the same, a serrated dagger.

The stabbing was very brutal; the first few stabs should have created penetrating wounds. With this kind of force and restraining ability, the perpetrator is most likely a strong adult male, though we can't rule out a small number of specially trained women.”

Mo Yun Wan's phone narration was as rigorous and unsparing as ever. “Furthermore, if there’s anything special to note, this person really lacked exercise, didn’t resemble a retired soldier, and didn’t see much sunlight. He probably would have been thin and pale even if he hadn’t died—not the kind of powdered, celebrity-like paleness, but a sickly pallor without other vibrant colors.”

Liang An recalled Li Lie Jun's ID photo.

It was taken when he was in university, also after he had retired from the military. He was still a healthy young man, his skin having the color common among East Asians, tending towards bronze due to sun exposure.

Although his expression was slightly stern, intentionally creating a serious impression, overall, he was a robust, energetic youth.

Pale, sickly, thin, a cold corpse.

This was him four years later.

Past and present, like two people at two extremes. What had made him like this? And who had caused him to die in such a tragic way in his fourth year of self-indulgence?

“In university, he majored in finance. His grades were decent, basically maintaining an above-average standard. His relationship with his professors and classmates was also generally healthy; he didn’t have any particularly close friends, and no one ever heard him mention whether he had a girlfriend. He was probably the type who had a distant, gentlemanly friendship with everyone, very ordinary.”

“What kind of person was Li Lie Jun in their impression?” Liang An pondered for a long time, then looked up and asked.

“Very reliable in his work; nothing special, but if you needed something, he was definitely reliable. However, he rarely participated in group activities, always trying to put them off if possible. There’s also something very strange.”

Lu Dao pulled up Li Lie Jun’s high school student file. “After I finished asking, I compared it and found something amiss, so I specifically went to ask people. Look here.”

Li Lie Jun’s awards section for sports was dazzling: city-level high school men’s sprint gold medal, provincial-level high school men’s sprint bronze medal.

“He had a university classmate who was the sports committee member back then. I sensed that person had some opinions about Li Lie Jun, heard some conflict, so I asked a few more questions,” Lu Dao flipped through the various pieces of information she had gathered from individual interviews. “He said that during freshman year’s physical test, Li Lie Jun’s sprint results were particularly outstanding, just in time for the sports meet registration. For the class’s performance, he secretly approached Li Lie Jun to chat and see if he intended to compete in the sprint events.”

“And then?”

“Then, Li Lie Jun suddenly reacted with extreme intensity, described as being like a madman, flipping a table on the spot—literally throwing it, not a figure of speech—scaring people into thinking he was having an episode. Afterward, he apologized, saying he wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t suitable for strenuous exercise.

Isn’t that obviously a lie? He had just finished his military service then, full of muscles, and his physical test results were as impressive as an athlete’s. Perhaps out of fear he would flip another table, and also feeling that his lie was too half-hearted and uncomfortable, from then on, that sports committee member kept a respectful distance from him.”

“Could Li Lie Jun have some mental issues?” Shao Zi stroked his chin. “PTSD? Did he have any special experiences in the military?”

“If we want to investigate this in detail, it requires higher clearance,” Lu Dao tried to adjust her half-worn headset. She answered directly based on her quick memory scan. “At least from his current normal file, his three years in the military were basically normal military life. He participated in some sports meets as usual, and his results were not bad, just slightly lower than his high school results, which could be due to not continuing training.

If there’s anything special to mention, it’s the loss of his parents. But in the military, at least basic psychological health is monitored. If there were problems, it shouldn’t have gone unnoticed for an entire year afterward.”

At this moment, Lu Dao’s computer played a "ding-dong" notification sound. Lu Dao quickly picked it up.

“What about the deceased’s current social relationships?” Shao Zi pointed to the newly downloaded game icon on Lu Dao’s desktop. “For example, did he have any friends he often played games with?”

Shao Zi, who was somehow at the forefront of fashion, was ultimately several steps removed from most people here and not very familiar with these young people’s gaming habits.

“How is that so easy to investigate?” Lu Dao complained while clicking open the game icon. “Brother Shao, you don’t know, these large-scale MMORPGs, frankly, are large-scale matchmaking social platforms, possibly also moonlighting as leek-harvesting paid services; their schemes are too deep.

The number of friends starts at two hundred. The communication information ranges from discussing dungeon clear strategies to romantic entanglements, all of which need to be sorted out.

And that’s not all. Some people simply chat in public channels without a corresponding chat partner. Extracting this information is like finding a needle in a haystack; who knows who he was talking to, or who he was talking to… Even sending an emoji can be called socializing, let alone those who chat using emoji packs.”

As she spoke, the screen displayed the character information of the account Lu Dao had borrowed from a friend in the same server.

It was a blonde, blue-eyed priestess girl, her fashion sparkling blindingly. Non-mainstream bangs covered more than half of her visibly beautiful custom-made face, and a large green butterfly was perched on her head.

Seeing Shao Zi’s instant frown, he wondered what kind of new aesthetic young people had.

It turned out that Lu Dao had indeed played this game, and was a player since its launch.

But as someone with a "three-minute passion," a veteran gamer whose knowledge came from playing countless games, her own account had long been abandoned. She had only temporarily borrowed an account from an old online friend in the game's group that was on the same server as Li Lie Jun.

Entering the game interface, the character was surrounded by a very realistic, vast forest. In the distance, at the end of the flat horizon, stood an ancient Western-style castle.

“A lot of related chat data has been retrieved from the game company. We’re trying our best to filter out effective social messages,” Lu Dao skillfully manipulated the character, riding a horse to a safe zone, and conveniently found some horse feed in her backpack to give it.

“This game is subscription-based, but Li Lie Jun really wasn’t afraid of burning money. It pained me to watch; he was practically burning real gold and silver while playing. For a subscription game, a large portion of the online time is pure AFK, but he also played a lot.

I saw he frequently had PVP or dungeon clear records, and many guild activity records, not missing a single one. He must have been a dedicated, veteran player. Generally speaking, this kind of player should have their own circle, but I can’t guarantee that the perpetrator isn’t within that circle.”

“But for this person who lacked normal social interaction, this is our only possible direction of investigation right now. Continue,” Liang An took over the conversation, conveniently moving aside to let Shao Zi lean in and examine carefully.

“Can’t this outfit be matched with something else?” Shao Zi finally couldn’t help but ask.

Song Qiao Yu, using his height and superior eyesight, stood behind Shao Zi, unimpeded, watching.

He had just returned from outside; his verification efficiency was indeed very high, but he had a sour face, his clothes were a bit dirty, and there was even a leaf stuck on his hood.

“Li Lie Jun’s ID is… Crazy Jack?” Lu Dao smacked her lips, typing the name into the friend search bar. “This name is a random ID. If you don’t change it yourself when you enter the game, they’re all like this: an adjective plus a random common Western name, like Bill, Susan, Lucy, etc.

Usually, only those who don’t play seriously or play alt accounts are so casual, but his real-name information indeed only has this one character… This game has a real-name verification system; you have to be of age to play, and you can’t enter other games. He could change his name for a few coins, which shouldn’t be anything to Li Lie Jun, he just didn’t have the idea.”

“His character name is basically on all the ranking boards for this server, either top three or top ten. Wow, this game’s fishing system is so boring and perfunctory that it was mocked out of the circle, yet he could even get first place on the fishing leaderboard. He must have been first or second thirty-something times. How bored was he normally?”

Lu Dao returned to the social relationship investigation, handing the computer with the logged-in game character to Shao Zi, who was very interested in new things. She frowned at the thousand silent friends on the friend list, steeling herself to filter them out one by one.

“How do we find the people he knew?” Song Qiao Yu couldn't bear Shao Zi’s operation and instead looked at Lu Dao’s dense, dazzling files. “These thousand-plus people, could he really know so many?”

“These are the sum of his guild members and friend list. A normal user’s limit is only two hundred. But paying players, of course, are different; a thousand limit is full.” Lu Dao rubbed her aching head, looking at the colorful, long and short IDs. “I’ll contact his guild master first and ask about the situation.

Li Lie Jun’s average daily chat messages were over thirty. It seems like a lot, but spread across his all-weather game time, it doesn’t seem very frequent.

The content was also very sparse, usually just ‘yes,’ ‘oh,’ or ‘good,’ basically not exceeding one word.

The slightly longer parts were either collecting materials, recruiting dungeon teammates, or directly throwing Tieba links for dungeon guides.

It’s no wonder that despite his long hours in the game, the actual intimacy with his supposedly close friends was not much, not enough for Lu Dao to immediately identify his familiar contacts.

“Select the parts where he replied ‘good,’” Liang An instructed.

“Good.”

This word often serves as a reply to someone else’s mention of an event. But compared to common interjections like “hmm” or “oh,” it carries an additional layer of more active meaning.

For someone who, from the data, appeared not outgoing, even somewhat overly reclusive, even the smallest, almost imperceptible initiative could represent a relatively closer, or more positive, attitude compared to others.

In contrast, “hmm” often implies receiving notification, while “oh” generally adds a slightly negative attitude on top of the former.

Although these attitudes don’t necessarily apply to everyone, using them as a simple method of judgment usually doesn’t lead to major problems.

This attitude isn’t necessarily directed at people; it could also be directed at events. For a player who treats the game like a single-player offline game, many game activities, from start to finish, require only operation and no communication whatsoever. Generally speaking, what is valued is more significant, and what is significant is unusual.

Unexpectedly, the “good” replies in Li Lie Jun’s conversations were even more numerous than the other two specific examples combined.

Lu Dao filtered out several relevant conversation snippets.

Most of the conversations occurred within game guilds, concerning guild versus guild battles, pioneering new dungeons after their release, and player-versus-player (PK) combat.

The process showed astonishing consistency: someone would send an invitation to “Crazy Jack,” and “Crazy Jack” would accept the invitation, replying with a “good.”

But he was a rather “aloof” high-level player. He didn’t have any special relationships in the game’s intimacy system, nor did he ever have substantial chat content.

“Based on these records, he never refused anyone’s request, but he also had no other social interactions, even ignoring others’ greetings and attempts to get closer,” Liang An finally spoke, asking searchingly, “Why?”

“Because he’s just not good at socializing, but relatively amiable?” Song Qiao Yu, who was neither amiable nor knew whether he could socialize, clearly couldn’t understand this behavior, only attempting to analyze it.

From the moment she heard Song Qiao Yu’s question, Lu Dao lowered her eyes to the screen, seemingly deep in thought. “Normally speaking, even the most amiable person has a bottom line. This frequency of acceptance is abnormal.”

“Being able to stay cooped up in his room playing games non-stop for years clearly means he’s not an ordinary person.”

Liang An gestured for her to continue.

“Two possibilities: one, Li Lie Jun had strong feelings for the players in this game but was too shy to get closer;

two, Li Lie Jun had a certain obsessive compulsion about accepting others’ requests.

But clearly, Li Lie Jun had no loyalty to his own guild. Look here: Li Lie Jun’s guild had a rival guild that they fought every three days. Although Li Lie Jun always participated in activities with his own guild, he frequently joined fixed high-level player dungeon teams from the rival guild to clear dungeons.”

“Collective conflicts don’t necessarily link to individuals.”

Shao Zi frowned. He truly didn’t understand these in-game feuds and grudges, but the relationships could be similar.

“Exac—tly, there is such a situation,” Lu Dao emphasized the words, raising her eyes, thoughtfully. “But in reality, if you found that your grateful good friend maintained a long-term, stable cooperative relationship with your sworn enemy, would you have no reservations in your heart?”

Liang An coughed twice.

“How big of a grudge can there be in a game? Is it really that exaggerated?” Shao Zi folded his arms.

“Emotions in games are much more outwardly expressed than in reality,” Lu Dao frowned. “In a game, if you lose because someone AFK’d or played poorly, you can go kill them a few times to vent, or curse them for hours. But in reality, if someone sabotages you, you still have to gently persuade them.”

“This probably indicates,” Liang An gazed at the colorful game interface and the vibrant messages scrolling across the World Chat, “that Li Lie Jun played this game not because he loved the game itself, or as a substitute for social interaction, but because of an obsession with accepting requests. It was also for a unilateral, closed social behavior.”

He wasn’t addicted to the game itself, nor its social attributes, but to the act of responding to others’ requests within the game.

Doing something like this was, for him, a person who couldn't leave his home for some reason, incredibly simple.

At this moment, Liang An suddenly had a bold idea.