Chapter 30: Reopening the Investigation

Ye Sangsang’s move left the audience watching the live stream wide-eyed and stunned. It was a path they had never considered, and no one had ever questioned that the culprit identified by the game instance could be wrong.

They had watched Ye Sangsang click "Close Case," assuming she had simply given up on the investigation!

To their surprise, she had deduced that the culprit designated by the game instance—Qin Jiang—was incorrect, and she had chosen the "No" option within the case-closing menu to file an error report.

Zhao Tianqi’s testimony, Feng Lian’s deleted chat logs, phone call records, and finally, Ye Sangsang’s own written logical deduction.

She wrote: These are sufficient to prove that there are doubts surrounding this case involving Qin Jiang.

She had used this evidence to report an error to the game instance.

The super-intelligent system’s verdict was that she had succeeded; the case was indeed questionable, and the derivative deduction was re-run.

In other words, the super-intelligence also concluded that the culprit was someone else.

[My God, does this mean that in reality, Qin Jiang was wrongly identified as the culprit?]
[If everything is based on reality, then this is a case of a grave injustice!]
[Sister Sang, you are my one and only hero. I thought you had given up, wuwuwu.]
[Qin Jiang is so tragic. He is such a good, good police officer. We must find the real culprit; even if justice is delayed, it must be served!]

Heartache, distress, and shock filled the barrage of the live stream. The screen was almost entirely obscured by the overwhelming flood of comments, and only through intelligent adjustment could one see Ye Sangsang on the screen.

Ye Sangsang looked at the reward of one non-attribute point and added it to her stamina.

[Player ID: Ye Sangsang]
[Mental Power: 8 (10)]
[Intelligence: 8 (10)]
[Stamina: 7 (10)]

Her original stamina of 3, combined with the 3 points from the previous instance, plus this new addition, brought her to an astonishing 7 points.

She looked at the shimmering interface, quite satisfied with the data she saw; it made all her efforts worthwhile.

In reality, she could not walk or possess a robust body, so in the game, she would add as much strength as she could.

She wasn't particularly happy, but having confirmed her previous hypothesis, she still felt sorry for Qin Jiang.

He was a good officer, yet he had been schemed against by malicious actors. She wondered what the outcome would be in reality.

Hopefully, it wouldn't be too bad.

She didn't have much in the way of emotion, but someone had once taught her to carefully distinguish between right and wrong.

She told herself that if she didn't understand, it was fine—she would simply mimic it.

Ye Sangsang felt the changes in her in-game physical data and stopped the case-closing process; she wanted to continue searching for clues.

To her, this kind of difficulty was where the fun of the game lay.

However, before she could continue, her scheduled logout time arrived. Without realizing it, she had been playing for eight and a half hours.

She logged out amidst the wailing of her viewers.

[Sister Sang, my go-my-own-way Sister Sang!]
[I stayed up all night just to get this result? Wuwuwuwu, come back quickly!]
[Sister Sang needs rest too. It seems her health isn't great; didn't you all notice her initial stamina was only 3?]

When someone mentioned the stamina of 3, everyone realized they couldn't be too demanding. They stopped wailing and logged off one after another.

However, the ripples caused by this live stream turned into a tidal wave after the sun rose.

#The first bug report and fix in the holographic game "Crime Archives"!#
#Star Ring Games issues an explanation at 7:00 AM.#
#Is the prototype of the "Brutal Carnival" instance a case of a wrongly accused police officer?#

After reading the content of these three trending topics across major platforms, onlookers were completely stunned.

Many netizens fell into silence after reading.

An unexpected way to overturn a verdict had arrived.

Many people began searching for the case, but unfortunately, too much time had passed, and because it had been a case in a small city, the files had never been made public.

What caught their eyes, however, was that the Chennan Municipal Police Department issued a notice to reopen the investigation at 8:00 AM, right on time for the start of the workday.

This brought relief to many, who then flooded the comments, tagging the live stream of Ye Sangsang they were following.

Jiang Chengxin gasped as she opened the live stream and handed it to her superior's superior, feeling her heart trembling.

When she had looked at the case file yesterday, it had frightened her, and she had immediately called the other party. But it was too late, and the other party had agreed to discuss it the next day.

Jiang Chengxin thought that was the right approach and decided to wait until the next morning.

But before she could even sleep until 7:00 AM, a frantic phone call woke her up like a death knell.

She was picked up by a colleague and brought to the Chennan Municipal Public Security Bureau; heaven knows she was just a junior criminal investigator.

She recounted what she had seen again and, through her colleagues' words, learned about Ye Sangsang’s evidence submission and error report.

She regretted not staying up all night yesterday to watch the stream.

The leader soon asked about the live stream, and she had no choice but to take out her phone, enter the stream, and show the key information to the leader.

Leaders, after all, are busy; how would they have time to watch it bit by bit?

Soon, the leader gave the order: reopen the investigation.

He also promoted her, a junior investigator, to a member of the investigation team, telling her to contact the Publicity Department’s official account after she left and have them tag Ye Sangsang to assure netizens that they would investigate thoroughly.

Criminal investigators were quite idle nowadays. Since 2025, the internet had seen a qualitative leap in development.

Previously, there were many scams, and most of their cases were related to that, but now there were very few. Because the intelligent network was so powerful, the perpetrators couldn't cause trouble within the network of the Central Continent.

Therefore, this meant Jiang Chengxin finally had work to do.

For her, this was quite good; it was better than being seconded to the Economic Crimes Division.

She finally had a real job.

Jiang Chengxin quickly contacted the relevant people and began waiting for the investigation team to be formed.

She only hoped that everything would go smoothly!

...

Compared to Ye Sangsang’s detached attitude, the streamer known as "Internet Detective" had gone mad.

He had been mocked.

Previously, after he logged back in, he had frantically pushed the progress, only to be ridiculed by the audience for copying Ye Sangsang’s homework.

His fans had argued back and forth with these people, and he had even made wild claims, saying everything was his own idea, that Qin Jiang was definitely the culprit, and that he would surely complete the game instance before Ye Sangsang.

He felt victory was within his grasp; after all, he had obtained a great deal of information from Ye Sangsang.

He was smug and arrogantly declared that he would make those netizens who mocked him eat their words.

The moment he clicked "Close Case," he thought he had won.

And then, the clown turned out to be himself.

Ye Sangsang had reported an error! She had actually reported an error!

He watched this scene, his face turning dark on the spot.

The original fans in his live stream fell silent, letting the ordinary viewers mock him.

As fans, their silence was the greatest kindness they could offer.

The Internet Detective forced a smile, gave a few words of praise, and logged off, only to start pulling his hair out in a frenzy inside his room.

After seeing the trending topics, he went even crazier.

Damn it! He couldn't even deduce this case at all.

He had dug a hole and buried himself in it!!!

However, he also sincerely admired Ye Sangsang for resisting the temptation to complete the instance perfectly a second time, choosing to report an error instead of closing the case.

Ye Sangsang sat under the window, continuing to read, letting the wind and rain outside pass her by, having turned off her phone and blocked 99% of notifications.

The remaining 1% came from the nurses’ gossip. They knew about Ye Sangsang obtaining the beta-testing qualification and had also learned about her through yesterday’s trending topics.

Their eyes were always drawn to her, but due to some lingering reasons, no one dared to gossip or chat with her.

This saved Ye Sangsang from a bit of annoyance.

She continued her daily routine.

With the problems regarding the door and the nursing aide resolved, Ye Sangsang was in a good mood and decided to log in for two or three hours during her lunch break.

Upon logging in again, she followed her usual routine of checking the status of the live stream and the comments, responding briefly before entering the game.

Ye Sangsang looked at Zheng He, who was feeling frustrated and thinking he had done all that work in vain. "I said before, the culprit is watching us. We have investigated everything, but we haven't closed the case; the other party will grow vigilant."

Because the case hadn't been closed for so long, Ye Sangsang guessed that, given that person’s hatred for Qin Jiang, they might take a desperate gamble and try to pull the plug.

Gu Ling agreed: "Yes."

"If we can't find out who it is, and time passes, will this case be defaulted to..." Zheng He couldn't finish his sentence; he lowered his head to hide the irritation in his eyes.

Ye Sangsang said calmly: "Therefore, we must work harder to avoid reaching such an outcome."

"I thought you would comfort everyone," Zheng He said, his expression easing slightly.

Ye Sangsang didn't answer; she prepared to report the thoughts of Team Leader Chen and the others to them.

Team Leader Chen hadn't expected that what he considered to be the truth was actually part of someone else's trap.

After reflecting, he narrowed his eyes and tapped the table. "Since the other party is waiting for a result, then we will give them a result. I will contact a reporter from the *Chennan Evening News* and subtly leak the news that the case is being closed, stating some ambiguous procedures. Don't worry, I won't let them report who the 'culprit' is."

"If they want to play along, then we’ll play with them properly!"

Above all, this could prevent the other party from taking further action and avoid causing more loss of life or property to ordinary people.

Not only that, but Team Leader Chen reassigned someone to join the investigation.

They had to get a result as soon as possible.

What Ye Sangsang didn't expect was that the reporter who came to do the story was Zhao Yue, the one who had cried so bitterly after being deceived by her boyfriend and nearly falling into the abyss.

She had already recovered her bright, generous, and enthusiastic image. Ye Sangsang looked at her and confirmed that she hadn't been infected with HIV.

Dressed in a rainbow-colored camisole and a long skirt, she sat down beside Ye Sangsang and asked questions very professionally.

Ye Sangsang answered the questions, and Zheng He brought Zhao Yue a glass of water.

The interview ended quickly, and Zhao Yue said: "I thought we wouldn't see each other again. I didn't expect to meet so soon!"

"It's a coincidence. Congratulations," Ye Sangsang replied while thinking about who Qin Jiang’s nemesis could be.

Zhao Yue asked: "Why don't I see Team Leader Qin?"

"He's on leave," Ye Sangsang said with a very natural expression.

Zhao Yue nodded, looked at Ye Sangsang’s face, took a deep breath, and said: "I haven't thanked you for what happened last time. If it weren't for you, I would still be in the dark."

Being around a murderer and someone with that kind of "thing"—what was the difference between that and hiding a time bomb?

Ye Sangsang shook her head at her. "This is what the police should do."

Zhao Yue smiled and stood up to say goodbye.

Ye Sangsang was still thinking when Zheng He went to see her out.

Just then, she turned to look at Zhao Yue and said: "Wait, could I trouble you with one thing?"

Zhao Yue turned back out of curiosity, looking at Ye Sangsang in confusion.

Ye Sangsang smiled and began to explain the favor she needed.

"You mean, you want to be the main investigator for this case and claim that the culprit was so sloppy that it was effortless to solve?" Zhao Yue looked at Ye Sangsang, feeling a hint of surprise, because she didn't seem like the type of person who was so eager for credit.