The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 276 Chatting Habits
The room fell completely silent.

Qi Fei picked up two cell phones and pointed the lit screens at Huang Xuewen: "These past two months, Huang Ruifen's messages have been sent to you by Sheng Tianbao."

Huang Xuewen seemed not to understand Qi Fei's words: "What, what do you mean?"

Qi Fei patiently analyzed the chat history on his phone for Huang Xuewen: "Everyone has their own habits when sending messages. Although these messages to you are trying their best to imitate Huang Ruifen's tone, you see, none of the messages have punctuation marks, they are all spaces. Huang Ruifen's previous messages all had complete punctuation marks."

“What, what punctuation…” Huang Xuewen, who was not well-educated, obviously had a hard time understanding it.

"See these?" Zhong Kui stepped forward and pointed to the commas and periods in the chat history. "Huang Ruifen used to have these in her messages to you, but she hasn't had them for a month. This shows that the people who sent the messages have different habits."

Qi Fei opened Sheng Tianbao's chat history and scrolled through several of them: "Sheng Tianbao never uses punctuation in his messages, but this is even stronger evidence."

He then opened the chat history between Sheng Tianbao and Huang Ruifen: "Sheng Tianbao and Huang Ruifen haven't exchanged any messages for the past two months."

Hearing this, Huang Xuewen panicked: "What does this mean?"

Qi Fei's expression was solemn: "This means that Sheng Tianbao knows that he and Huang Ruifen no longer need to exchange messages. This is not a simple disappearance case."
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After listening to Qi Fei's report, Liu Tong opened the thermos on his desk, took a sip, and said, "I didn't expect a simple medical dispute case to become so complicated?"

"Captain Liu, it's not uncommon for murderers to use the victim's phone to send messages to their relatives to cover up the victim's death. It seems we need to hurry up and track down Huang Ruifen." Qi Fei frowned. "A girl not even twenty years old with an eight-month-old baby..."

The gentle smile that usually graced Liu Tong's face vanished: "Although Sheng Tianbao is dead, don't we still have two important witnesses we can investigate?"

Qi Fei had just returned to his office when he saw Zhong Kui and Wu Shanqiu intently looking at Sheng Tianbao's phone.

"What are you looking at?" Qi Fei also joined in.

“Brother Fei, this Sheng Tianbao really has a lot of weird tastes!” Wu Shanqiu immediately said.

"Huh?" Qi Fei leaned closer to take a look and saw an extremely bloody and violent video playing on the phone screen. "What the hell is this?"

“I had Shanqiu and me check out Sheng Tianbao’s video accounts. We found them in his browsing history. I found short video accounts quite interesting, and I think I could consider expanding into online fortune-telling,” Zhong Kui said with considerable insight.

Qi Fei scrolled through Sheng Tianbao's video history, growing increasingly uneasy: "This guy only watches news about his family suing Dr. Li and these violent videos. He's really into this kind of bad habit! If he's into this, then Huang Ruifen's claim of being beaten is definitely not just a simple argument." He took a deep breath, grabbed his ID, and said, "Let's go! Let's go to Nancheng Hospital to find Zhang Yingdi."

In the hospital ward, Zhang Yingdi was not immersed in the grief of losing her son as one might have imagined, or rather, Qi Fei could not understand her way of expressing grief.

In the hospital room, Zhang Yingdi was telling her tragic story of losing her son to her phone, tears streaming down her face.

Wu Shanqiu whispered in Qi Fei's ear, "I've been following Zhang Yingdi's video account. Ever since she found out Sheng Tianbao died, she hasn't stopped. She's posted at least twenty videos. I don't understand why, after such a huge change in her family, the first thing she does is go online and post videos..." Qi Fei shook his head: "She's hopeless."

Zhong Kui, standing to the side, had a different perspective: "There's nothing strange about it. I've been learning a lot about this unfamiliar area these past two days and found it quite interesting. In Zhang Yingdi's understanding, it used to be the only time the death of the crown prince was announced to the world. Now she can do it too, releasing information about herself to everyone. This strong sense of presence is something no one can refuse. Humans, these social animals, always have the desire to be seen."

"I don't care whether she exists or not, I just want to know if Huang Ruifen is alive or dead." Qi Fei said, striding towards Zhang Yingdi.

Suddenly, a large hand covered the camera on Zhang Yingdi's phone.

Qi Fei came into her sight.

As soon as Zhang Yingdi saw that it was Qi Fei, she immediately pleaded, "Police leaders, they won't let me see my son, I beg you, please let me see my son, my poor Tianbao!" She cried and pounded her chest.

"It seems you've recovered quite well. We can arrange for the identification of the body today." Qi Fei's tone was much colder than last time. "Also, we received a report that your daughter-in-law, Huang Ruifen, has gone missing. I need to get some information from you."

Zhang Yingdi was clearly caught off guard by this question and was stunned.

"What did you say? Afen? Then, what about my grandson?" Compared to Huang Ruifen, Zhang Yingdi was clearly more concerned about her grandson.

"Both mother and child have gone missing."

Zhang Yingdi slumped onto the bed, muttering, "What's wrong with my family? One bad thing after another..."

"Based on what we know, Sheng Tianbao frequently beat Huang Ruifen, is that right?"

Zhang Yingdi vehemently denied it: "That's not true! It was Afen who started it. Tianbao couldn't fight back. My daughter-in-law has a fiery temper, and our Tianbao has suffered a lot!"

Qi Fei knew he couldn't get an objective answer from Zhang Yingdi, so he could only ask more specific questions: "On what day did Huang Ruifen return to her parents' home?"

“Well, it was around the middle of July, but I forgot the exact date.” Zhang Yingdi said with some complaints, “I’ve been thinking about my grandson for the past two months. I tried to video chat with her, but she wouldn’t answer. I even asked Tianbao if the two of them had another fight, and Tianbao defended her, saying that she was busy taking care of the baby alone in the countryside and told me not to bother her.”

"You saw her leave with your own eyes?"

“No, not at all. I remember that day, her dad and I went out to collect recyclables. When we came back, Ruifen and the child weren't home, only Tianbao and my mother were there. Tianbao said Ruifen took the child back to her parents' house. I even complained, saying she didn't even discuss it with us before going back, but Ruifen is just a very willful girl.” Zhang Yingdi replied, gradually realizing something was wrong, and looked at Qi Fei with concern, “Why are you asking me if I saw it with my own eyes? Didn't Ruifen go back to her parents' house?”

Seeing that Qi Fei didn't speak, Zhang Yingdi suddenly gritted her teeth and muttered to herself, "Could it be that this girl has run away! I'm going to find that Huang guy and get my grandson back."

Qi Fei put away the notebook and said to Zhang Yingdi, "I'll take you to see Sheng Tianbao."