CH 68

“How are you going to do that? Are you going to screen everyone?” Jiang Chao sighed. “To be honest, I don’t think there’s enough time to visit and investigate everything.”

“Yes, so I need to find some people to come out and talk.”

“What?”

“If we are sure that there will be a live broadcast, which means in this school or this city, there are still people who want to commit crimes. We can use a method to find out who these people are and talk to them.”

“The question is, do you have any quick ways to find someone psychologically?”

“To be precise, we’re using math.”

Lin Chen took out three pieces of paper from his pocket. Those were the three things he had been carrying around with him today, and now it seemed he was glad he hadn’t thrown them away.

“Lend me Wang Chao,” he said to Xing Conglian.

“Why are you being so polite? As long as you don’t kill him, you can use him however you want,” Xing Conglian replied with a smile.

The teenager sitting on the side raised his head from the front of the screen while chewing on a pen in his mouth, obviously still trying to figure out how to catch these perverts. “Captain, you know I can easily mutiny, right?”

Lin Chen spread three pieces of paper flat on the table and said, “In fact, through the results of the MMPI, we found that Wang Shishi, Xu Haozhen, and Jiang Liu all have similar personality traits, so we can use this to screen for possible candidates who have similar characteristics.”

“Find people who might be interested in participating in the next live death broadcast.” Wang Chao leaned back on the table. “There are 30,000 teachers and students at Yongchuan University, and you want to find three people who will participate in the next live broadcast? A’Chen, this is truly a needle in a haystack.”

“You mean, first filter out people with introverted personalities greater than or equal to 70 points?”

Lin Chen nodded. After what happened just now, he didn’t feel surprised that Xing Conglian actually remembered the key words and scoring criteria.

He glanced at Wang Chao, causing the boy to spit out the pen in his mouth, and wiped the area that was bitten with his t-shirt.

After taking the pen, Lin Chen drew a circle on the paper and explained, “Suppose this is a group of people with introverted personalities in society…” Then, he drew a small circle intersecting it on the edge of the big circle. “These are the possible perpetrators,” he said as he blacked out the intersection of the two circles. “This is the potential group of people we may find.”

“I got it! You’re asking me to hit the library first and get out the information about this test, then screen the students who scored more than 70 on it. How many people are there?”

“What library?” Xing Conglian knocked on Wang Chao’s head. “We can transfer the data through due process.”

“70 points is probably two standard deviations from the average, so it’s conservatively estimated that there will be 4% abnormal people,” Lin Chen replied.

“Then, if you only screen Yongchuan University, there will be only about 1,200!” Wang Chao exclaimed.

“Is there any way to narrow that down?” Xing Conglian asked.

“Yes,” Lin Chen answered. “Have them take another personality test.”

Several suicides in this case all showed characteristics of major changes in their personalities, which meant that if the student showed major changes in their scores on the second personality test, it would look suspicious.

“I get it,” Xing Conglian said.

“However, there’s still a small problem.” Lin Chen looked at Xing Conglian. “Assuming we conduct the personality test on the students with great fanfare, won’t we spook the snake?”

“This isn’t a big issue. Now that there’s such a serious suicide incident at the school, isn’t it normal to check on the students’ mental health?” Hearing Lin Chen’s concerns, Xing Conglian continued with a smile, “And, when you really identify the suspicious students, doesn’t this provide enough justification as an excuse to interview them?”

Xing Conglian’s words made Lin Chen a little speechless. “You’re really…”

“What?”

Lin Chen shook his head helplessly.

“An old, crafty scoundrel. He’s insidious, treacherous, and shameless!” Little comrade Wang Chao answered righteously.

Xing Conglian didn’t seem to care about these labels. He frowned slightly and asked, “How long will it take you to complete the initial screening?”

“Very fast.”

“How much time does it take to implement a secondary application?” He asked Lin Chen.

“The test time will only take about an hour, but from organizing manpower, arranging the test location, to notifying the students, the process will be relatively long, and the student base is huge…”

Hearing this, Xing Conglian glanced at the time. “It’s 16:37 right now.”

“Yes, it’s almost time for the university to close for the day. Even if the counselor is notified now and the test is arranged, it will probably be around 19:00 before the first batch of students are tested.”

“Do you have an estimate? Which department and grade are the students we are looking for most likely to appear in?”

“Well, there’s no significant difference in the scores of the students in each department, but the proportion of psychologically unhealthy students that are majoring in psychology is relatively high…”

Xing Conglian couldn’t help but laugh. “Isn’t this self-criticism?”

Lin Chen hooked the corner of his mouth and continued, “According to the data of our school, there are also students from the school of medicine and the chemistry department…”

“About how many students total?”

“Reporting Captain, a total of 3,158,” little comrade Wang Chao quickly replied.

“It means that no matter what, the test can’t be completed today, right?”

“Even if 20 classrooms are opened, only 800 students can take the test at the same time, which will take 5 hours to complete.”

“So it’ll be tomorrow morning at the earliest.”

But even if it did take until tomorrow morning, 20 hours had already passed.

Xing Conglian nodded and continued, “Can you narrow it down even more?”

“From the grade level, freshmen have just taken the entrance test, so there’s no need to take another one. Many senior students have started internships and are no longer on campus. They are directly excluded. Therefore, it’s best if we target the sophomores or juniors.”

As soon as the two of them spoke, they heard Wang Chao press a button.

“Yooooo, there are only 1,342 people total!”

It was indeed extremely pleasant to work with efficient partners. “I need to trouble you to pick out the sophomore and junior students from the psychology department, school of medicine, and chemistry department, and compile them into a list for me,” Lin Chen said.

“That’s but a trifle.” When the teenager heard this, he knocked on the keyboard a few times. He looked at the generated data for a while, then said to Lin Chen, “A’Chen, I have to say, your psychology department is really special, huh.”

“Yes, I’ve been wondering about that too.” Lin Chen shrugged his shoulders and said, “Send me the list of these people, their resumes, and their test results.”

“Sent.”

Lin Chen probably understood why Xing Conglian had taken Wang Chao with him. His work was simply too outstanding.

After the boy finished speaking, he took out a tablet from his backpack and handed it to Lin Chen. “You can use this to look at it.”

“If we have this list in hand, can’t we cross-compare the circles of friends of the six deceased in this case to see if there is any overlap?” Jiang Chao asked suddenly.

“Yes, we can.” Wang Chao pulled out a piece of candy and tossed it into his mouth. “You can find someone to do it. I still have a lot of things to do.”

Even though Wang Chao looked relaxed and carefree, it had been an extremely stressful investigation so far for him.

Large-scale population screening with a tight time limit was naturally contradictory.

He continued to connect to the dark web and pressed the refresh button every few seconds, irritably, as if he were waiting for a response from someone on the other end at any second.

“If Captain Jiang has a directory, can you help him with the comparison analysis?” Lin Chen patted the teenager’s hand and spoke in a gentle voice.

“The comparison will take a while, and there hasn’t been any response over there yet, so I have to keep an eye on the post.”

It was rare that the teenager would refuse Lin Chen. He was probably eager to play a role as if he were trying to defeat something because his own abilities were almost useless in the dark web.

As if seeing through the teenager’s mind, Lin Chen shook his head and said, “You should do more important things.”

“Did you hear that? Let Ren Xian come and look at the post later. At any rate, since you were the one who taught him, his level shouldn’t be bad.” It was rare for Xing Conglian to sound so tough. “However, if we haven’t received any response within half an hour, we need to take some more extreme measures.”

“What do you want to do?” Lin Chen asked.

“Our current fishing nets are too small…” Xing Conglian looked at Lin Chen. “Mainly because you inspired me to find a needle in a haystack, assuming that the mastermind behind the scenes is using the live broadcast to make money, they can’t be too exclusive to newcomers. There are many underground forums on the dark web. We can write some topic posts and…”

“Are you trying to say that I should imitate the tone of a psychopath, write a topic post, distribute it on major websites, and widen the fishing net?” Lin Chen keenly noticed the trap.

“You’re more professional.” Xing Conglian looked a bit embarrassed, so he took the initiative to say, “I can be responsible for the translation.”

Although he was speechless, he had to admit that Xing Conglian’s opinion was still reliable. He was just about to reply when he heard the other party say, “Does Consultant Lin know where the bathroom in the office building is? Please take me there?”

Even if he was probably looking to talk to Lin Chen alone, he had to consider the mood of everyone present in the room.

Lin Chen went out with Xing Conglian. Sure enough, the captain of the criminal division didn’t have any intention to solve his physiological issue at all. He walked towards the window, opened it halfway, and then lit a cigarette.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Lin Chen was a little surprise. He didn’t expect Xing Conglian to specifically call him out to ask about Wang Chao’s psychological problem.

“He must be nervous.”

“Are you nervous?”

The question changed so quickly that Lin Chen couldn’t react.

“Not yet.”

The pale smoke rose as Lin Chen stared at it uncomfortably.

“No matter what, I hope you don’t feel too much pressure. If you have any questions, you can tell me.” Finally, Xing Conglian spoke.

At that moment, Lin Chen suddenly understood Xing Conglian’s intention, and he shook his head almost helplessly. Xing Conglian really understood.

From start to finish, Xing Conglian didn’t ignore the most critical issue. He was aware that Zheng Dongdong and Butler Chen had grievances against him and was able to use these two people to set up a massive trap. Such a mastermind seemed to be too familiar with everything about him.

“If you’re eager to know, you can buy me a drink after this case is over.” Lin Chen raised his head and looked into Xing Conglian’s eyes as he said this.