Chapter 1

Hearing Tang Rannuo's instructions, the golden retriever barked twice, its nose sniffing the ground as it headed toward the entrance of the residential complex.

Wanrong Residential Complex had just changed its property management company, and the entrance's access control system was still under repair. The two Wan Jia Xiong Meng players openly walked into the complex, posing as an ordinary married couple walking their dog, and headed toward the building where the incident occurred.

The two mingled among the onlookers. Tang Rannuo quietly released the dog's leash, letting the golden retriever run off on its own.

As it ran, the dog cocked its head, shaking it as if dancing to some strange music, and darted into the trash pile behind the complex, digging frantically.

Li Ang raised an eyebrow and said softly, "What's it doing?"

Tang Rannuo smiled. "It's releasing a skill. You'll see in a moment."

Li Ang nodded, then suddenly thought of something and reminded her, "Walking a dog without a leash is like the dog walking itself.

Aren't you going to stand by the trash pile with it for a while?"

"..."

Tang Rannuo's eyes twitched, her beautiful face behind sunglasses betraying no emotion.

She pretended not to hear Li Ang's words, acting like an ordinary resident of the complex, curiously peering past the police line, listening intently, trying to glean information from the idle gossip of the neighbors.

The deceased, Xia Junqiang, lived in a rented apartment. His landlord happened to be among the onlookers.

According to the landlord, Xia Junqiang had signed the lease agreement about half a year ago. He seemed honest and decent.

His job seemed to be that of a freelancer, making a living by writing programs. He was quiet and not very sociable.

According to the neighbors, Xia Junqiang always liked to stay at home, only going out on weekends.

He rarely had any friends or relatives visit. Even when he went downstairs, it was only to pick up takeout or buy daily necessities at the supermarket.

Someone had seen him pick up a package at the complex's express delivery locker a few days ago. Who would have thought he would die so inexplicably... and with an unknown cause of death?

The residents of the complex didn't know that Xia Junqiang was suspected of murder, and they were chatting idly,

discussing how young people these days often stayed up late and didn't care about their health at all, always in danger of sudden death.

The landlord was also sighing repeatedly, complaining in a low voice that

it would probably be difficult to rent the apartment out again after someone had died there,

and even if he found a tenant, the rent would have to be lowered considerably.

This part of the conversation wasn't valuable. Li Ang shook his head,

noticing that the official criminal investigators still seemed to be examining the scene upstairs, with no intention of coming down.

According to the information he had heard at Wang Congshan's house,

Xia Junqiang's strange death had probably attracted the attention of the Special Affairs Bureau investigators, who were now upstairs assisting the Yin City criminal investigators in their investigation.

Li Ang didn't intend to make direct contact with the Special Affairs Bureau, even through a pseudonym, as it would be too dangerous...

He sensed something, turned his head, saw Tang Rannuo give him a look, and immediately understood. He withdrew from the crowd with her and went to a small path at the edge of the complex.

"What's the word?"

Li Ang spread his hands and said, "There's no way to get Xia Junqiang's corpse information directly right now. I suggest going to the stairwell of another building and using a pocket telescope to get a clear view of the room Xia Junqiang rented."

"Wait a minute, Mao Mao hasn't come back yet."

Tang Rannuo shook her head, raised her phone, and looked calmly at Li Ang. "By the way, I have Xia Junqiang's personal information here. Do you want to see it?"

"No need, I have it too."

Li Ang smiled and took out a disposable smartphone for his pseudonym from his pocket, quickly swiping the screen to browse.

To find out the cause of death of the programmer Xia Junqiang, you naturally have to know his social connections first,

and the best way to find out his social connections is to buy resident information.

In the age of online information, people have actually lost their personal rights on an objective level.

Registering for an app requires a mobile phone number, online shopping requires bank card information and a detailed address, and entering internet cafes, high-speed trains, and hotels all require facial recognition and ID card scans.

Name, gender, phone number, address, education, travel records, hotel records, SMS records, online shopping records, driver's license information, bank card information, current location...

All of this information is stored by various companies and network operators.

In theory, this information is located in various places and will not be leaked,

but the huge demand for gray market information has spawned the birth of the information peddler industry.

The debt collection industry needs the debtor's phone number, address, and contact list information, the fraud group needs a large amount of citizen information, and the real estate agency needs the buyer's information...

Demand creates profit,

profit creates industry.

Companies in charge of private information sell the citizen information within their system to information peddlers, who then build giant databases and sell them to customers who come to buy them.

This database is so large, complex, cumbersome, and all-encompassing that it can even provide customized services for customers who can afford it.

Just pay a few hundred or thousands of yuan, along with a mobile phone number, and all the information of the mobile phone number owner can be provided within a few hours.

Household registration, hotel records, criminal records, ID card track, work track, education track, mobile phone location, mobile phone fee bill, payment software bill, real estate certificate, marriage certificate, birth certificate...

In the age of online information, everyone is transparent.

Before Li Ang was even in high school, he knew about this giant database system that existed in the gray area and used it to do some small experiments.

As early as when he was taking a taxi, he used his pseudonym's disposable anti-tracking and positioning phone to enter Xia Junqiang's name and the name of the residential complex into the information peddler's database.

Finally, he found Xia Junqiang's citizen information—the entire database system was set up in the dark web. From inquiry to purchase, all processes were automated, requiring no manual intervention. All that was needed was to transfer the money to the system backend (using a network currency similar to Bitcoin).

He already knew most of Xia Junqiang's information but didn't tell Tang Rannuo. There were two reasons.

First, to test whether the other party knew how to find personal information data, to see if the other party was astute.

Second, to shock and threaten the other party—Li Ang already knew Tang Rannuo's address and name. Even if she was currently using a pseudonym, which could be discarded at any time,

the longer the pseudonym was used, the higher the possibility of revealing flaws,

and the higher the possibility of finding her real identity.

Presumably, the reason Tang Rannuo told him that she had found Xia Junqiang's citizen information was the same—both sides had the ability to expose the other's real identity.

Unfortunately, Li Ang, as the one who acted first, had changed his appearance in advance and concealed his whereabouts, giving him a natural advantage in "concealing his identity."

The mutual suspicion and scheming between Wan Jia Xiong Meng players will not be discussed for the time being.

Li Ang ignored Tang Rannuo's slightly changed expression and swiped his phone, quickly browsing all of Xia Junqiang's information, roughly piecing together his life trajectory.

Male, 29 years old, from Handong, parents divorced, raised by his father, a freight driver, from an ordinary family, excellent grades since childhood, father died of illness in high school, attended university in Yin City, computer science major, won awards in the ACM-ICPC competition with his team, no hotel records (indicating he was a single dog),

contracted a serious illness during his senior year, entered a small and medium-sized internet company as a programmer after recovering,

worked for 6 years, was fired by his boss, and is currently working as a freelancer, supporting himself with his programmer skills and past savings.

Without a doubt, the Xia Junqiang on the data was quite harmless, and had quite a lot of savings in his bank card.

There was no reason or motive to pick up a knife and commit a home robbery.

Unless, those two dead people knew Xia Junqiang...

Li Ang frowned, realizing that things were not so simple.