After dinner, the first thing Lin Huang did when he got back to the hotel room was to look at the Hunter Association’s official website. He then submitted the app to look at the locations of the four men’s Emperor’s Heart Rings as well as the history and the messages on their phones. Later on, he started reading the documents of Brain Eater that Han Ji had sent him earlier.
The documents about the Brain Eater were detailed. In fact, they were even more detailed than the monster encyclopedia that Mr. Fu had sent him. The difference between them was a Ph.D. holder’s thesis and a primary school kid’s homework. The information alone was 1,000 times more complete than the monster encyclopedia. Before Lin Huang had the chance to look at the video of the first experiment, he received a couple of messages from the Hunter Association.
"Location request app for Emperor’s Heart Rings has been approved, please see attachment for details."
"Phone history app has been approved, please see attachment for details."
"Message request app for Emperor’s Heart Rings has been approved, please see attachment for details."
He turned off the Brain Eater’s documents and started reading the attachments in the messages. The first attachment was the images of the four men’s last seen location before they died. As Lin Huang opened the images, he opened Luoxi City’s map as well to compare the locations.
"They were all in underground hotels…" Lin Huang frowned.
The last location that appeared on the four men’s Emperor’s Heart Rings were in four different underground hotels. An underground hotel was not really beneath the ground or a filthy motel; it was a special hotel that exclusively catered to one night stands. Such hotels were usually well-decorated with ample equipment and the rack rate was expensive too. Many were willing to pay for such hotels as there would be no surveillance cameras around. There was no registration needed either, as all they had to do was to transfer credit points onto a trading chip and get a room that they wanted. There was a back door in each room so people could leave from the back anytime they wanted.
Such hotels were usually occupied before 11 and at night, business was booming. The owner of such hotels usually had a powerful background. If something bad happened, it was hard to get them to speak. That was why Lin Huang frowned when he saw that the four men had last appeared in underground hotels.
"This is tough…" Lin Huang was in a pickle as he knew that the hotel owners would not assist him in the investigation. Even if they did, there were no records of clues that he could investigate further.
Glancing at the whereabouts on the day that they were killed in fast forward mode, Lin Huang could not find any similarities. The only similarity was that the locations of the four of them were close to this area. Two of them had been staying in the same hotel before they died, which was the hotel where Mr. Fu had brought Lin Huang to earlier. Meanwhile, the other one stayed at the hotel that Lin Huang was currently in while the last one stayed in a luxurious hotel nearby.
Without a clue, Lin Huang opened the second attachment. It was the records of their calls and messages. All of the messages looked normal without anything about any one-night stands. No lusty messages could be found and this puzzled Lin Huang.
"How did they contact the murderer then? Could the four of them have had a different Emperor’s Heart Ring?"
Putting that thought aside, Lin Huang opened the last attachment. It was the browsing history of their Emperor’s Heart Ring including the time of whichever network they logged onto when they did any credit points transfer and the number of times the app was opened. However, there was no concrete information. All he could see was the main page of the network that they logged onto and he could not see what kind of information they were looking at. As for the credit points transfer, he could only see the transaction time but not the amount transferred. Meanwhile, for the app, he could only see the name of the app but not any other details including the amount of time spent on the particular app or the activities.
However, Lin Huang noticed that all of them had used the same app before they died.
"What is this Chilly Night? There’s this same app on all their Emperor’s Heart Rings and two hours before their death, the app was either opened all the time or sporadically…" Lin Huang then looked at the app.
"So, it’s an app for one-night stands…" After reading the description of the app, Lin Huang finally understand what it was for.
"That means the murderer must have used this app to lure all of them. No wonder there’s nothing on their phones as they never contacted each other using their phones."
Lin Huang was in yet another predicament as the attachment provided by the Hunter Association did not include the conversation on the app, so he could not find out who was talking to them. Helpless, Lin Huang replied to the Hunter Association, "Is it possible to provide more details on the app utilization?"
This time, he received a reply in a blink of an eye.
"I’m sorry, Mr. Ye. We are unable to go further into the user’s privacy to provide you with more details."
Although he had seen it coming, Lin Huang felt helpless when he saw the reply. After closing the attachments, Lin Huang gathered his thoughts.
"The messages on the phone were not helpful. Although I have identified their locations of death, the chances of obtaining information about the murderer from the underground hotels are slim. The only way to identify the murderer’s identity is by looking at the conversation history on the Chilly Night app…"
Lin Huang thought that Yang Ling was the only person he knew who might be able to provide him with that information, so he called Yang Ling straight away. After two rings, his phone was picked up. For the first time, Yang Ling did not look tired. He looked like he was full of energy this time and he was even dressed in new clothes with neat hair.
"Good evening, my regular customer." Yang Ling seemed to be in a good mood as he waved at Lin Huang with a smile.
"You look great today." Lin Huang smiled back at him.
"That’s because you always call me in the morning. I’m a night owl, I’m usually energized after eight at night." Yang Ling rolled his eyes.
Lin Huang then looked at the time, it was almost 8:30 p.m.
"Are you making a fake identity for your friend again?" Yang Ling knew that Lin Huang would not call for anything but business.
"It’s something else this time, I need your help." Lin Huang was aware of Yang Ling’s response as he spoke and he was worried that Yang Ling might reject him.
"What’s that?" To his joy, Yang Ling did not reject him straightaway.
"I’m sure you know about the app called Chilly Night," Lin Huang started.
"Of course, I do, I’m always using it. Do you use it too? Do you need me to recommend some chicks for you?" Hearing the name of the app, Yang Ling smirked at Lin Huang.
"I need you to get me a conversation history from the app." Lin Huang ignored Yang Ling and told his purpose of the call.
"You have such a fetish of looking at others’ conversation on the one-night stand app? Tsk tsk…" Yang Ling smirked again.
"I’m investigating a case whereby the four victims were on this app before they died. I’m suspecting that the murderer was the lady who asked them out," Lin Huang told the truth.
"Oh...I know which case that is! It’s the one in Luoxi City. Are you really that far away?" Yang Ling knew what was happening; it was clear that he read the news on the Hunter Info Network.
"Could you help me?" Lin Huang asked.
"Sure, I can, but my assistance isn’t free…I want half of the 3,000 Life Crystals reward!" Yang Ling demanded greedily.
"Sure. However, I have a condition. From the beginning to the end of the case, you are not allowed to reject my request, you are not allowed to add any conditions or ask for more Life Crystals," Lin Huang stated.
"You've got my word!" Yang Ling agreed immediately.