Chapter 328 Gossip

At this moment, the scale and depth of the investigation led by the second operation team are undoubtedly much higher than those of the previous task force.

Under this kind of investigation, Lu Ming soon discovered that the investigation at the network level was actually meaningless.

In the network, there is no overlapping of activity areas among the dead.

Because a considerable number of the deceased did not use the Internet at all.

Among the total of more than 500 dead, more than 30 people could not even use a computer. The mobile phone is only an old-age phone and has no functions other than making and receiving phone calls and text messages. How could such a person be active on the Internet?

Lu Ming had no choice but to give up the investigation in this area, and together with Zhang Dingshan and He Wei, joined in the investigation of the actual activity area.

In reality, the investigation is not difficult, but it is more cumbersome. They need to count the approximate activity area of ​​each deceased person, check every place he visited before committing suicide, and mark it on the map.

For example, Zeng Jian’s suicide case. The activity route of the deceased Zeng Jian was relatively complicated, and it required a large amount of surveillance and interviews to restore it one by one.

This is more recent. If the time is far away, it will not only be cumbersome, but also difficult.

For example, nearly ten years ago, Zhang Lu's suicide case was the first to be discovered with anomalies, which kicked off the investigation of the entire case. As a white-collar worker, Zhang Lu's daily activities were relatively fixed, ranging from renting to a residential complex. The company only has two points and one line, but in normal times, she also has a lot of random travel events.

Go to a certain restaurant to eat, go shopping, go to a certain park, etc.

Lu Ming knew that he could not completely restore the trajectory and scope of their activities. Trying our best to restore the existing data is already the limit.

A statistical map of the activity areas of more than 500 deceased persons was finally completed and presented in the internal office in front of Zhang Dingshan and the other three.

Looking at the map, the three of them noticed a location at the same time.

Nanlin Street.

Lu Ming saw that among the more than 500 dead people in total, more than 300 people had documented visits to Nanlin Street at least once in the year before committing suicide. Among the remaining approximately 200 people, most of them live not far from Nanlin Street.

Only a small number of people's activities are located in another area of ​​Blue Lake City, far away from Nanlin Street.

Nanlin Street is a pedestrian street and the food street of Blue Lake City. There are hundreds of restaurants on this approximately one kilometer long road, selling a variety of delicacies.

This is only for dine-in service. There are also a lot of small stalls that only do takeout.

It has a relatively long history. At least twenty years ago, there was a trend of gathering restaurants and food here, attracting a large number of diners.

People in Blue Lake City often come to Nanlin Street to meet up in their free time, order some crayfish, skewers, hot pot, etc., and have a few drinks.

Even tourists from out of town often come here.

"306 people have been confirmed to have daily activity areas including Nanlin Street. Among the remaining 209 people, 185 people have activities not far from Nanlin Street. We have reason to believe that they have also been to Nanlin Street, but we have no statistics. superior."

Such a place with many delicious food, entertainment and entertainment places is so close to you that it is unlikely that ordinary people will not go there once.

Even if the remaining 24 activity areas are far away from Nanlin Street, it is quite reasonable to visit Nanlin Street once in a while. After all, Nanlin Street is very famous throughout Blue Lake City.

Who in Blue Lake City doesn’t know that Nanlin Street has so much delicious food?

"Except for Nanlin Street, there are currently no overlapping areas of other activity areas."

He Wei said solemnly.

Lu Mingze said: "Among these suicide victims, the proportion of high-end people is much lower than the proportion of ordinary people. This seems to be evidence."

He Wei's eyes suddenly narrowed.

Indeed.

The food street must be a popular and popular existence, and it is more suitable for ordinary people to visit. It's not that high-end people won't come, but in their daily lives, they may prefer some higher-end hotels suitable for business banquets. Besides, the absolute number of high-end people is far lower than that of ordinary people.

If Nanlin Food Street is the source of the abnormality, then the phenomenon that the proportion of high-end people among suicides is lower than that of the general population can be explained.

"But... the food street has a huge flow of people, and it has some universality. This does not prove that that is the source of the anomaly."

The universality is that as a citizen of Blue Lake City or a permanent resident of Blue Lake City, whether you like Nanlin Street or not, you will always have the opportunity to come here once in your long daily life.

Even though you don’t like it or don’t feel it, if someone invites you to a friend’s gathering, will you come? After all, it's not to the point of disgust.

From this point of view, it should be reasonable that most of the victims of unreasonable suicide cases have been here.

I'm afraid if a hundred people were randomly selected from the street for a survey, more than 90% of them would have been here.

Lu Ming frowned slightly.

This is indeed a problem.

Just like a certain statistics on criminals shows that more than 99% of criminals are born in hospitals. Does this mean that being born in a hospital increases the probability of committing a crime?

This obviously cannot be the case. This is an obvious attribution error. Because most ordinary people are born in hospitals.

Lu Ming looked at the map carefully and thought silently.

For a moment, he shook his head: "No. He Wei, your statement is wrong. Statistics show that most of the deceased's activities are not far from Nanlin Street. From this, it can be inferred that the frequency of their visits to Nanlin Street should be relatively High. With Nanlin Street as the core and spreading outward, the further away from Nanlin Street, the fewer the number of unreasonable suicide victims."

For the vast majority of ordinary people, a place like Nanlin Street should conform to the statistics of "the closer the distance, the more visits there are, and the further away, the fewer visits there are."

Combined with the statistical data, we can clearly draw a conclusion: "The more times a person goes to Nanlin Street, the higher the probability of becoming the victim of an unreasonable suicide case. The fewer the times, the lower the probability."

He Wei thought for a while and had to nod: "Yes."

"Let's go to Nanlin Street and have a look."

Lu Ming made suggestions. Zhang Dingshan said solemnly: "Then go and have a look."

In any case, now that things have developed, it is very necessary to conduct an on-site exploration of Nanlin Street.

But this matter is not urgent. It was getting late now, so they decided to wait until the next day to go.

The meeting is not over at this point. After determining that Nanlin Street was a certain suspect, several people immediately retrieved information about Nanlin Street, including Nanlin Street architectural structure diagram, historical evolution, flow of people, business conditions, number of permanent residents, crime reporting rate, and the occurrence of criminal cases. rate and so on.

But a few people did not notice any abnormalities in these data. All data shows that Nanlin Street is a normal food street, just like other cities.

The next day, in the morning, the three of them came to the entrance of Nanlin Street together.

There are already a lot of people on the street in the morning, but compared to noon and evening, there are many fewer people.

There were only some breakfast restaurants open at the moment, and the people who came to dine were in a hurry, and most of them just took a bite and left.

Several people walked slowly forward from the Nanlin Street end, constantly looking at the environment and buildings on both sides, and at the people who were coming and going in a hurry.

There was a tricycle parked in front of a restaurant. The restaurant staff came out and carried baskets of vegetables, meat, seafood and other ingredients inside. On the left, a cleaner is slowly cleaning the street.

Further ahead, a young man was holding a bun in his hand, eating it while walking, and looking at it on his mobile phone in the other hand. There is a hot pot restaurant next to it. The door is open and the waiter is mopping the floor with a mop.

Everything is just a common sight in daily life.

A few people walked from beginning to end like this.

Nothing unusual. Not at all.

Lu Ming believed that the members of the original task force must have also discovered the distribution pattern of the deceased in unreasonable suicide cases. They found that most of them were distributed around Nanlin Street, and as the distance from Nanlin Street increased, the number of them increased. It also decreased accordingly.

They should have doubted this too. But apparently they found nothing suspicious here. Therefore, this point was not reflected in the investigation report.

Now, three of us have also set foot here.

After looking at it casually, a few people turned around and walked back. When passing by an open restaurant, Lu Ming stepped forward and stopped a restaurant staff member who had just dumped the garbage into the trash can and turned to leave.

After showing his ID, Lu Ming asked, "How long have you been working here?"

The hotel boy seemed a little nervous.

Lu Ming saw it but did not become suspicious. It is normal for ordinary people to be a little nervous when they are suddenly questioned by security guards.

"Me? I've been here, two, no, three years."

"In the past three years, has anything strange happened here on Nanlin Street? Or have you heard any bizarre rumors or legends?"

"Strange? What kind of strangeness?"

"Whatever you think is weird is fine."

The hotel boy thought for a while and finally shook his head: "No. It's all normal... huh? No, there is one, I remembered it."

His face was full of excitement.

"Oh? Tell me."

"About three months ago, it was still winter. At night, there was a beautiful woman. Wow, she was so beautiful! She had a good figure. She was wearing a pair of underwear, underwear! It was winter, and there was still snow on the roadside, so she just wore The lingerie ran past the door of our store, shouting for help while running! It’s murder! Someone is trying to kill me! Then two security guards showed up and knocked her down and took her away."

The hotel boy's imitation was vivid, his eyes full of desire for knowledge: "Officer, do you know what happened? Is someone really trying to kill her? But I saw that no one was chasing her at all. .”

Lu Ming was speechless.

You don't need to look him up to know what's going on. Either he was drunk, or he was high, or this person was abnormal. Anyway, my mind was definitely not clear at the time.

"The Sheriff's Department will take care of it."

Lu Ming did not answer him, but asked: "Is there anything else?"

"There's nothing else...nothing else."

Seeing that he couldn't ask anything from his younger brother, Lu Ming ended the questioning and continued to move forward.

Along the way, I randomly asked some people, but the answers I got were all of little value.

Some people said they didn't know, some people talked about some unusual events that obviously did not involve "supernatural forces", such as beautiful women running naked, and some people said some bizarre things, such as a private room in a certain hotel at three o'clock in the morning. Someone is singing, you see someone walking on the street in the middle of the night, and they disappear in the blink of an eye. Which restaurant has bad feng shui, and whoever takes over will lose everything in the end.

This kind of rumor basically exists in any city and has no verification value.

At noon, the three of them were a little hungry, so they settled down directly on Nanlin Street.

After a brief discussion about what to eat, Zhang Dingshan and Lu Ming didn't care, as long as they could fill their stomachs. He Wei chose carefully, and finally chose a noodle shop that claimed to be a century-old authentic Blue Lake noodles, and the three of them walked in.

"There are not many opportunities to taste local delicacies while investigating a case."

He Wei was very interested and kept chattering: "This noodle is very famous. I have bought the instant version online before and it tastes good. It will definitely taste better when eaten dine-in."

After the three large bowls of noodles were served, accompanied by side dishes, Lu Ming took a bite and unexpectedly found that they tasted really good. He Wei became more and more proud: "Look, follow me, that's right."

While chatting casually, Lu Ming finished eating the noodles. When Lu Ming went to check out, he saw a Bagua mirror on the table inside the cashier, and an incense burner in front of him, with several burnt incense sticks inside.

Lu Ming couldn't help but look at it a few more times and asked casually: "Bagua mirror? Why do you put this here? Is it special?"

Every place has its own customs, which is not surprising. Lu Ming just asked casually.

The cashier also casually replied: "I heard from the boss that showing this can ward off evil spirits."

After that, several people left the noodle shop.

It was noon, and although it was still not the busiest time, there were already quite a lot of people there. Every restaurant is full of diners, people are calling friends, drinking and drinking. The streets are full of people and full of life.

The three of them continued walking forward. Passing by another restaurant with its door open, Lu Ming took a look and saw a Bagua Mirror placed on the cashier bar table beside the door.

Lu Ming realized something and continued to move forward.

The cashier bar of the restaurant in front, which specializes in crayfish, is inside. Lu Ming walked in and ignored the waiter's greeting. He looked around and found the cashier. After searching again, he saw another Bagua Mirror.

Lu Ming began to observe deliberately. He visited seven or eight houses and found that every one was like this.

He couldn't help but feel a little doubt in his heart.

"Is it the custom here on Nanlin Street that a shop must have a Bagua Mirror?"