The relaxed and lighthearted tone of the post, that apathetic and nonchalant att.i.tude… Even Quan Shaoteng shuddered when he saw that post."D*rn!" He took Salimu"s phone and put it on the table, face down before looking at everyone. "Even my hairs are standing on ends—"
"What is it?" Bai Muchuan showed a puzzled frown on his face.
"It"s better for everyone to not know, especially women…" Quan Shaoteng revealed a spooky smile. "At least, let"s have our dinner first before looking at it."
Salimu wanted to take back his phone. "But…"
Quan Shaoteng gave him a glare and stopped him from taking the phone. "Young lad, just heed my words!"
"…"
Everyone could more or less guess what Salimu and Quan Shaoteng saw.
"Is it something really b.l.o.o.d.y?" Mei Xin asked in bewilderment, "a corpse cut by chainsaw, visceral dissection, or organ dissection?…"
Quan Shaoteng: "…"
He pointed to some meat dishes before him with his chopsticks, then looked at the hotpot soup which was starting to boil. "Miss Mei, can"t you leave some dignity for this food?"
"Eh?" Mei Xin still looked as confused as ever. "Food, dignity?"
She did not understand at all.
Quan Shaoteng sighed. He felt that he was playing a lute to a cow as Mei Xin couldn"t understand at all.
"I mean, these foods are also considered corpses, internal organs and organs."
"Yeah!" Mei Xin answered seriously, "Which one of our food is not?"
When the two of them were talking between themselves, the rest of the group could hear them very clearly. Their expressions were frozen and cracks seemed to have formed on their faces.
"Excuse me," Salimu looked at Mei Xin and Quan Shaoteng, "Can"t we just talk properly?" The young fellow had a bitter expression. He was the youngest among them and the bulk of his work was mainly "hacking" and a.n.a.lyzing. There were not many opportunities for him to go to crime scenes and observe b.l.o.o.d.y corpses. When the two of them talked about corpses and internal organs, he felt that the delicious hotpot before them had changed its flavor.
"I have made sure not to eat earlier so I can eat more hotpot. Are you two trying to make me leave this place with an empty stomach?"
Xiang Wan gulped. She had the same feeling as well.
She had been missing the taste of hotpot. However, their topic sparked off a vivid imagination in her head that thwarted her appet.i.te.
"Urrgh! Orh, sorry—" Fang Yuanyuan had a more direct response. Her stomach was churning and she felt like vomiting. She covered her mouth and looked at everyone apologetically. After that, her gaze moved to Xiang Wan. "I need to go to the ladies, but… I"m scared."
Xiang Wan: "…"
She accompanied Fang Yuanyuan to the ladies" room.
After was.h.i.+ng her hands, she calmed herself down and by the time she got out, her mood was much better.
"Do you think we can still swallow the food?" she asked Xiang Wan.
"That depends on how you feel."
"What about you?"
"Me?" Xiang Wan ran her fingers through her hair. "I"m not really hungry."
Fang Yuanyuan cracked up in laughter after a second. A feeling of empathy took the edge off her fear. She put an arm around Xiang Wan"s shoulders as they walked out of the Ladies. "This is actually a psychological thing. I feel that we should train ourselves more as we are the wives of detectives. Something like this should be a common occurrence going ahead, right? We shouldn"t let the good food down because of this…"
"Why do you want to do that?" Xiang Wan glanced at her from the corners of her eyes. "Isn"t it good to go on a diet?"
Fang Yuanyuan pulled a long face. "You"ll lose me like that."
"I"m wrong. Please continue to protect your 120 pounds of meat."
"Hurhur! Let"s eat! I still want my dinner!"
The two of them chatted while on the way back to the private dining room. It was not easy to calm down and overcome the feeling of nausea. Yet the moment they pushed open the door, Fang Yuanyuan felt like her stomach was starting to churn again.
"My goodness… Excuse me, I still want to eat my dinner."
…
Everyone was now discussing that post.
Even though Quan Shaoteng wanted Salimu to say it after dinner, the curiosity of human nature was difficult to suppress.
Mei Xin did a search on the internet and found that post. She also posted the link in the Gossip group chat.
In just a short time, that post became one of the top trending topics.
However, the original post got deleted by the social media platform.
What was left were the retweets or screenshots of the post.
From the screenshot, it was clear that in less than half an hour, that post had gathered more than 20,000 votes and messages…
The netizens loved to look out for drama. They were mostly unbothered about how the matter would be blown out of proportion. The keyboard warriors even helped to come up with all kinds of suggestions for the murderer"s script instead. They left comments to inform the microblog owner that the poll was not exciting enough. They showed off their creativity and thought of all kinds of strange and bizarre methods of killing someone. They simply voiced their thoughts so casually without any careful consideration…
This topic was really hot.
The discussions were mixed with criticism. It quickly became a vortex that swept the Internet, drawing in the attention of countless numbers of people.
Whether people were eating, working or socializing with their friends, many of them were looking at the news with their phones.
"This world is like an ice cellar. n.o.body sees death coming, nor does anyone see the imminent pain that the victims will face. People indulge in their own self-created fantasy that they are addicted to… Evil feeds on the lives of fellow humans, and they will still continue to eat with relish with the stench of human blood in the air… The world is not worth it, men are not worth it. You devils should go die!"
Ten minutes later, the microblog owner of the original post which got deleted made another post.
The resentful tone of the owner lamented about the mercilessness of human beings before a warning was issued.
"The votes have been tabulated and the script will meet the public very soon… What everyone wanted, will come! Everything will come! Darkness will come! Death will come! Until all of the sins are swallowed up!"
A countless number of remarks were made under that post.
"Wow! I"m so looking forward to it. To the owner, please make it come fast!"
The first remark received several thousands of likes and hundreds of replies.
"I hope the script can come out first before the real thing starts. Otherwise, there"s no excitement at all."
The second remark also received a similar amount of likes, similar to the first remark as well as hundreds of replies.
"The Internet is not a lawless land. Netizens, open your door, water meter check!"
The third remark did not receive a lot of likes but received more comments—which were basically verbal abuses at the one who made the remark.
"Dear owner, I have a suggestion! If you want to kill someone, then kill those wealthy ones. People like Xu Siqi are not interesting as they were not as rich and famous. At least, kill someone like Xie Wanwan which could be a test of nerves and create more topics of interest… Heheh, everyone please like my comment so the owner can see this."
This comment received so many likes and replies…
In no time, it became the top comment.
The more one read, the more chills they would feel.
The comments and replies of the keyboard warriors were mostly toxic and negative.
They hated everything so much that they wished everyone would be annihilated.
They hated everything so much that they wished they were the only ones left in this world.
They dumped all of their disappointments and frustrations in reality on the Internet like dumping rubbish and spread such negative thoughts like a plague.
Positive energy was overwhelmed by negative energy…
Hardly anyone would go deep to understand the real intention of the one who created this post. The keyboard warriors were dysfunctional in their brains. In order to gain attention, they insult and destroy relentlessly without qualms. They hide behind their screens; their hearts have already become rotten, leaving only the body to continue to do evil…
The world under this post was cold and indifferent.
If someone disagreed with them, he or she would be jointly attacked by these keyboard warriors.
There were more who chose to be the silent majority.
They were unconcerned and detached.
That was all there was to it.
Xiang Wan read the post on her mobile phone. Her blood had turned cold. For a moment, she thought she had fallen into an ice cellar.
"We really shouldn"t have chosen to eat hotpot."
"Does it matter what we eat?"
"If only we had chosen to eat vegetarian!" Xiang Wan sighed softly. "In this way, we could reduce the sins of these fellow humans."
"…"
Bai Muchuan had been staying quiet since earlier. After he finished reading all the relevant posts, he turned to Salimu.
"Find out the ident.i.ty of that microblog owner when we get back later."
Salimu nodded his head. "Our Captain has already sent this in our Intelligence Teamwork chat. They have started to look into this!"
Bai Muchuan put down his phone and calmly placed food into the hotpot as though nothing had happened.
"Let"s eat."
Everyone looked at him.
"Come on everyone, let"s dig in!"
"Yeah everyone, help yourselves to the food…"