While Zhang Heng watched the livestream, the golden hamster on the table finally regained its stamina after a long rest, and it started to run on the wheel. It looked like it wanted to go out for a stroll. Unfortunately, no matter how fast it ran, it could never leave the cage.
After a while, it got tired from running. So, it laid down in the cage again and began to play dead.
Zhang Heng looked at it, and a sudden thought crossed his mind. The studio’s door opened at a quarter past twelve, and Xu Qian walked out. Seeing that Zhang Heng was still watching the livestream, she could not help but ask, “Do you have any updates about the stalker?”
“Well, I have a couple of suspects right now.”
“That fast?” Xu Qian was bewildered. Although she asked Zhang Heng about the investigation’s progress, she wasn’t expecting any results. She only wanted to remind Zhang Heng. He was, after all, paying a great deal of attention to her stream and managing her fans. This caused her to be a little flattered. Still, Xu Qian was paying the security company to ensure her safety.
“Yeah,” Zhang Heng nodded. “I took a look at the mall’s surveillance footage. The stalker is good at hacking. He hacked the mall’s cameras and escaped before we could catch him. However, it looks like he hasn’t done anything like this before. And could also be his first time risking arrest. He must be extremely nervous right now since he isn’t sure if he made a mistake.”
“So?”
“So, he will try to find out how much information we have about him.”
“Do you think he will watch my livestream later or join my fan group? No wonder you made me stay silent about me being stalked on the livestream. Are you trying to draw the stalker out? And you have been on my livestream and fan group for a rather extensive amount of time recently. You are trying to look for the suspect, right?”
Xu Qian realized that she had probably misunderstood Zhang Heng’s actions before this. She treated him as one of her ordinary viewers who watched her livestream every day. In order to make up for her mistake, she took the initiative to offer some help. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Of course.” Zhang Heng circled a few IDs in the fan chat room.
“Do you recognize these people?”
Xu Qian squinted when she looked at the names. Three of them had joined the group after the day she was being followed in the mall. Two of the members she completely did not recognize, but as for the other member, Xu Qian remembered that he sent her a lot of gifts before. However, she still knew nothing about his background.
But when she saw the last name, she was taken aback.
“Him? Does he have any problems?”
The ID with the handle “E-Goat” circled by Zhang Heng last was the creator of this fan chat room.
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Xu Qian was quite familiar with E-Goat because he was with her the longest among all the other fans. He had been watching her livestream since the first day she started streaming. She had only a handful of fans at that time; hence she could remember all their names.
However, E-Goat usually spoke little in the chat room. Hence, Xu Qian thought that he should be a very timid person. He would often watch her stream in silence and send her gifts from time to time. E-Goat once ranked as the top viewer that sent her the most gifts. But as Xu Qian became more and more popular, he fell from the top spot since there were more wealthy individuals who joined her fan group.
Despite that, he had no complaints at all. He still offered to help Xu Qian with some background work, including establishing a fan chat room and helping her with her publicity. E-Goat had done so much for her, which was why she had a good impression of him. She could not figure out why Zhang Heng would include him in his list.
“I heard a fan majoring in computer science mention that E-Goat’s is a computer network expert. There was this once, he helped your fan solve a question his teacher failed to in one night,” Zhang Heng said.
“But you can’t be treating everyone with excellent computer networking skills as stalkers, right?” Xu Qian reasoned. “And I know E-Goat. He seems to be a network engineer of a company, and he is a very good person.”
“You are right. But you can’t explain why he didn’t come to the chat room in the past two days.”
“Hold on. You are confusing me. I remember that you told me that the stalker would come to my chat room very often. And now the reason why you suspect E-Goat was because he didn’t come to my chat room for the past two days?”
“There are two possibilities. If a newcomer joins the chat room, he would most likely stay all day long. But for E-Goat, the first to join the chat room when it was first established, guilt might cause him to stop talking in the chat room. Instead, he would appear offline and pay attention to everyone’s messages,” Zhang Heng explained patiently.
But Xu Qian still found it unacceptable.
“Well, let’s go and ask him tomorrow,” Zhang Heng suggested.
“Hmm?”
“The computer science major in the chat room said that he knows E-Goat’s address. After E-Goat helped him solve the problem, he invited him for dinner, and he also ordered two bottles of beer. However, he did not expect E-Goat to have an extremely low tolerance to alcohol. He got drunk after drinking half a bottle of beer. After that, he kept calling your name. Left with no other option, the computer science major had to send him home. And that’s how he acquired his address.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea” Xu Qian still seemed a little hesitant. E-Goat had been with her for a long time, after all. He witnessed her rise and fall. It was why Xu Qian no longer treated him as an ordinary fan. Instead, she considered him as a good friend who she had never met before. Now, they were about to meet for the first time for all the wrong reasons. Zhang Heng suspected that E-Goat was the one that had been stalking Xu Qian.
Zhang Heng seemed to know what she was thinking. So, he added, “We can choose not to talk about the stalking matter. Anyway, you are going to quit the streaming line soon. Why don’t you take this opportunity and say goodbye to him.”
Xu Qian was finally moved by Zhang Heng. After that, Zhang Heng asked the fan to make an appointment with E-Goat. However, he did not mention that Xu Qian would tag along with him.
After finishing the work at hand, Zhang Heng looked at Xu Qian again. He was thinking of the right way to phrase the question he was about to ask: How much do you know about human cloning?
“What?” Xu Qian did not expect Zhang Heng to suddenly ask such a question.
Zhang Heng’s expression still remained very calm. “Let me rephrase my question. Am I a clone?”