Animal Detective

Chapter 137: Cloud-Piercing Arrow

Inside the interrogation room, Zhao Tianxing had yet to play his trump card.

He continued to ask about the deleted videos.

"You know Wang Lei’s Kuaishou account, right? What I don’t get is that we found videos on his computer that were edited and ready to be uploaded, but he never ended up posting them."

Zhao Tianxing took out his phone and opened Wang Pao Fu’s account.

"Look here. He posted a video on October 18th, and another on the 14th. There were no updates in between. However, among the deleted files, we found a video with a creation date of the 16th."

"So, did he finish editing it and just not upload it, or did he upload it and then delete it?"

Zhao Tianxing asked with a smile.

But Zhang Qingpeng, sitting opposite him, was like a tightly wound spring, clenching his fists and saying nothing.

When Zhao Tianxing’s questioning became more pressing, he finally stammered, "I don’t know. He probably didn’t upload it. It was his account, I wouldn’t know."

"Is that so?"

Zhao Tianxing smiled again, then suddenly slammed his hand on the table. "Zhang Qingpeng, do you think we came to you for fun? If we didn’t have enough evidence, do you think we would’ve traveled all this way to find you?"

The sound made Zhang Qingpeng tremble in fear.

"I’m asking you now to give you a chance. You went to college, you’re a smart guy. Think carefully. Are you going to talk or not? If you don’t, and I have to be the one to lay it all out, the nature of this situation will change completely," Zhao Tianxing continued, piling on the pressure.

Shen Xin watched in silence.

’This seems like a pointless question.’

But from the suspect’s perspective, things were different. He had a guilty conscience and had no idea how much the police knew. Under these circumstances, it was possible for his psychological defenses to crumble, leading him to confess.

However, Shen Xin felt the chances were slim.

This was a murder case—the kind that meant a dead end.

A suspect like this would have a very strong psychological baseline: he knew that once he admitted to murder, he would be sentenced to death. There would be no way out.

Sure enough, even though Zhang Qingpeng was terrified to his core, he still claimed he didn’t know. He said Wang Lei probably hadn’t uploaded it, and that he had no idea why Wang Lei would delete those videos.

"You don’t know? I don’t think so." Zhao Tianxing snorted, quickly searched for an account, and showed it to Zhang Qingpeng.

"This is your Kuaishou account, isn’t it?"

Before they came, Shen Xin and the other two had done their homework. It wasn’t just about the key suspicion of there being two dogs.

"’Zu’an’s Number One Blind Monk.’ This was your account name back when you were a League of Legends streamer, right?" Zhao Tianxing opened the account’s ’following’ list. "You said you didn’t pay much attention to Wang Lei’s short video career, but you’re clearly following his account."

Zhang Qingpeng bit his lip and argued, "I followed him a long time ago."

"Is that so?" Zhao Tianxing chuckled. "But looking at your ’liked’ list, you’ve liked quite a few of Wang Lei’s videos."

"Also, we contacted Kuaishou and pulled the data for both of your accounts. You said you didn’t know if Wang Lei had uploaded the videos, right? Well, that’s not what we found."

"The platform’s records show that Wang Lei not only uploaded those videos, but also deleted them one after another around 4 p.m. on the 23rd."

"At that time, if I recall correctly, Wang Lei should have been in the hospital receiving treatment! He was already having hallucinations by then, yet he could still operate his phone and specifically delete those videos. Doesn’t that seem a little hard to believe?"

Once they confirmed the possibility of two dogs, some old suspicions regained their attention.

For example, why were a bunch of videos about the husky deleted from the computer?

The most logical inference was that Zhang Qingpeng was afraid Wang Lei’s footage might have captured the hidden husky, so he simply deleted all the videos.

That’s why they had contacted the platform again and uncovered this information.

Although the content of the deleted videos couldn’t be viewed, the account’s log clearly recorded that Wang Lei had indeed uploaded them. The video captions matched the ones on his computer.

The activity log for Zhang Qingpeng’s account was the same, clearly showing that he had liked these now-deleted videos.

So he knew about the videos.

"You... you pulled the data?"

Zhang Qingpeng asked nervously. A panicked, cold sweat broke out across his body, and his face went deathly pale.

The trembling started to spread through his body, completely beyond his control.

In the monitoring room, Shen Xin was suddenly taken aback.

’Zhang Qingpeng’s reaction is wrong.’

All of his previous answers had been passive, evasive deflections.

Even if his story didn’t add up, he was still just trying to argue his way out.

But this time, for the first time since the interrogation began, he had actively asked a question back.

And his focus wasn’t on the deleted videos, but on the fact that Zhao Tianxing had pulled the platform’s data.

’He’s instinctively more concerned about that.’

Combined with his intense, panicked reaction, Shen Xin couldn’t help but speculate, ’Is there something in the platform data that Zhang Qingpeng is worried about?’

Back in the interrogation room, Zhang Qingpeng immediately shook his head again. "I don’t know. He probably deleted them himself."

Zhao Tianxing didn’t seem to have noticed this detail and began talking about the hospital’s surveillance footage.

Zhang Qingpeng had gone to the hospital with Wang Lei, and he was the one who paid for the hospitalization fees.

At that time, Wang Lei’s phone and personal belongings were all given to Zhang Qingpeng for safekeeping.

Therefore, Zhang Qingpeng had the opportunity to use Wang Lei’s phone to delete the videos at that time.

Having lived together for so long, Zhang Qingpeng probably knew Wang Lei’s lock screen password.

This was because Zhang Qingpeng had used Wang Lei’s phone to contact his parents that day.

Unfortunately, the hospital’s surveillance cameras hadn’t captured any footage of Zhang Qingpeng deleting the videos.

So Zhao Tianxing was still bluffing.

Shen Xin took out his own phone and opened Wang Lei’s account.

’The videos that needed to be deleted are already gone. So what else could there be that’s making Zhang Qingpeng so anxious?’

Scrolling through the videos, Shen Xin’s heart skipped a beat when he saw a video announcing a future live stream. A guess formed in his mind.

’Could it be the live streams?’

After Wang Lei became popular, he started live streaming frequently.

’Is it possible that something was captured during one of the live streams?’

’But live stream videos are real-time, right? They should be gone after the stream ends. Even if something was captured, there wouldn’t be any evidence left.’

Frowning, Shen Xin dialed a number.

"Manager Li."

The person on the other end was a customer manager at Kuaishou, the same one he had contacted to pull the data earlier.

"Hello, Officer Shen." The man greeted him and asked what he could do for him.

Shen Xin said, "Manager Li, I have a question for you. When a streamer on your platform finishes a live stream, is the video deleted immediately, or is it saved?"

Manager Li replied immediately, "Oh, that. Our platform’s policy is that after a stream ends, the streamer has the option to save the video. This makes it easier for them to edit highlights for their video content."

"Besides the streamer saving it manually, our backend also saves all live stream videos because viewers give gifts during the stream, and there’s a risk of disputes over those donations later on. The retention period is 30 days. After 30 days, if there are no issues, the videos are automatically deleted."

A "Holy shit!" escaped Shen Xin’s lips.

’I actually guessed right.’

And in that instant, Shen Xin suddenly understood why Zhang Qingpeng had been stalling and refusing to cooperate with the police investigation.

’Could this guy be trying to drag things out past the 30-day mark so the platform deletes the videos?’

Today was already the 6th.

They had previously speculated that Wang Lei was bitten before October 10th.

That meant the relevant live stream videos could be automatically deleted by the platform in just four more days.

If there was any evidence, it would be gone for good.

"Manager Li, I need you to do something for me. For that same Wang Pao Fu account we inquired about, please send me all of the saved live stream videos you still have," Shen Xin said immediately.

Manager Li agreed and said he would send them right away.

Inside the interrogation room, Zhang Qingpeng was still trying to talk his way out of it, one moment saying he didn’t know, the next saying he couldn’t remember.

Zhao Tianxing was about to use the deleted videos to bring up the matter of the two dogs.

Shen Xin quickly sent him a text message.

This was the final trump card they had prepared before coming.

But now that there was a new development, Shen Xin felt they couldn’t play it just yet.

Zhao Tianxing glanced at the text, immediately changed his tune, told Zhang Qingpeng to think it over carefully, and then left the room with Ding Yuwei.

"Shen Xin, what’s up? I felt like the kid was about to crack," Zhao Tianxing said.

He thought that dropping the bombshell about the two dogs would be enough to shatter Zhang Qingpeng’s psychological defenses.

Shen Xin wasn’t so optimistic.

’This is a murder case, after all. Zhang Qingpeng’s last line of defense will be solid.’

"There’s been a development."

Shen Xin explained his speculation, then went to the next office, borrowed a computer, and waited for Manager Li to send the videos.

He had already sent them.

Wang Lei’s last live stream was on the 21st.

Before that, he had basically streamed once a day, with each session typically lasting one to two hours.

Because of the 30-day retention period, the earliest available live stream video was from October 6th.

The next one was from the 8th.

Shen Xin immediately started downloading them.

The stream from the 6th was over an hour long.

There were over three hundred viewers in the stream.

Sure enough, the husky made an appearance.

So did his cat.

The stream was likely broadcast from his bedroom at night.

The content was mostly casual chatting and sharing stories about his cat and dog.

Of course, people would occasionally send gifts, and Wang Lei would then grab the cat or dog to interact with the viewers.

Like making them "wave hello" in response.

Shen Xin fast-forwarded through it, watching quickly, but didn’t find anything unusual.

Ding Yuwei said, "That dog should be Tuantuan, right?"

She was referring to the dog Shen Xin had brought back from the shelter.

They had named it Tuantuan.

Thus, the other husky in the video, the one suspected of having rabies, was named Yuanyuan for easy distinction.

Shen Xin found a few frames, paused the video, and examined them closely.

That’s right, it was Tuantuan.

But there was nothing wrong with the video.

The stream from the 8th had also finished downloading. Shen Xin opened it.

This stream had a similar turnout, quickly reaching over two hundred viewers.

At the beginning, only Wang Lei and his cat were on screen.

The live stream replay included the bullet comments and chat.

Someone asked about the dog.

Wang Lei answered, "That little bastard was wrecking the house again today. He even got aggressive with me, almost bit me. I’ve got him in his cage to think about what he’s done."

Shen Xin’s heart leaped. ’Almost bit him?’

Among the deleted files was a video from the 8th, with the caption, "Stupid dog never learns, started wrecking the house again."

Analysis had shown that the dog in the video from the 8th was not Tuantuan, but Yuanyuan.

Shen Xin continued playing the video.

The content of the stream was similar, mostly casual chatting.

Just then, someone in the chat asked about the dog again, saying they wanted to see it.

"Huh, this account... isn’t this the same one that asked at the very beginning?" Shen Xin asked, pointing at an ID that was a random string of letters and numbers.

Zhao Tianxing nodded.

But Ding Yuwei said decisively, "It is. I remember."

In the video, Wang Lei seemed to have given in to the request and brought Yuanyuan over.

Shen Xin and the other two gasped.

Yuanyuan, on camera, was clearly agitated and restless, especially when Wang Lei spoke loudly or grabbed its paw to make it "wave" to the audience.

"Don’t tell me this is when he got bitten," Zhao Tianxing breathed, a chill running down his spine.

Shen Xin didn’t speak. It was obvious that something was wrong with Yuanyuan’s state.

But Wang Lei hadn’t noticed.

At that moment, the same account from before commented again, saying they wanted to see Wang Lei kiss the dog. If Wang Lei did it, they’d send a Cloud-Piercing Arrow.

As they said it, a Cloud-Piercing Arrow appeared on screen. 288 yuan.

That was a pretty sizable donation.

Wang Lei instantly perked up, shouting into the camera about how generous the "big boss" was, boasting that for that price, he wouldn’t just give the husky a kiss, he’d dance a waltz with it.

Then, he pulled the husky in front of him, held Yuanyuan’s head in his hands, and planted a kiss on it.

In that exact instant, Yuanyuan lunged, its jaws snapping at him.

Wang Lei instinctively flinched back.

A bone-deep chill shot straight up Shen Xin’s spine.

yuan. One Cloud-Piercing Arrow. And just like that, it had cost Wang Lei his life.