Chapter 128: Today (4)

“Actually, I’ve heard that a lot of crimes happen on the dark web, but the evil of that site still shocked me. It used the Tor network, with servers located overseas, hiding users’ identities through multiple layers of encryption and global relay nodes. This is one of the most common types on the dark web—and also the type easiest to crack. I got angry in the moment… and destroyed it.”

Orff had succeeded.

Although the poor girl was very likely beyond rescue, which left Orff feeling frustrated, at least he could cause trouble for the site’s operators and users.

After the dark web site he had attacked collapsed, the people running the live-streamed t*rture rooms would have to spend a lot of time rebuilding the site and regrouping their users. This would slow them down in harming others—in a way, it was a good deed.

“I saved a recording of the live stream and intercepted some user information. But the dark web itself layers users’ real identities and IP addresses in so many wrappers that it’s impossible to trace their communication path from a single node. Even I couldn’t do it alone; it would require working with law enforcement and cybersecurity experts. So I packaged the evidence and brought it to the city police station.”

“And then the police ignored you, right?”

“Oh, Everly, you’re amazing—you guessed it. Yes, just like you said, the police examined the video and said it was special-effects makeup, a prank. I gave them the dark web URL, but it was already defunct after my attack, and since the servers were overseas, the police obviously didn’t want to bother—they just kicked me out.”

“So you couldn’t find the operators behind that dark web site?”

Orff nodded reluctantly.

“Do you still have the evidence you kept?”

“Of course. I made several copies and hid them in different places… do you want them?”

Everly nodded. “Yes. I need to verify something.”

Orff was a cautious person—well, only in the digital world.

The materials and videos he had copied from the dark web weren’t just stored together. He split them across several external hard drives, hiding them in different locations around the school, and he also backed them up on several online storage sites.

He used Everly’s computer to log into an encrypted cloud storage site, accessed the secondhand account he had purchased, and downloaded the content onto Everly’s laptop.

“The recording is pretty graphic. Brace yourself,” he warned.

Everly nodded and opened the video, frowning as she dragged the playback bar forward until the screen showed the face of the girl being t*rtured.

Seeing the girl’s face, Everly’s expression darkened sharply. “Misha, come look at this.”

“What?” Misha leaned over the screen, glanced at it, and her face instantly registered shock and fury. “It’s Senior Barbara! But… how could she—how could this happen…”

“Don’t you have her contact info? Try reaching out to her,” Everly said.

Misha nodded and opened the chat window with Barbara.

Since her work had started to settle into a routine and she had been busy with school, Misha hadn’t been in touch with her senior for a while. But Barbara had helped her before, and Misha was still grateful for it.

In her mind, Barbara was a cautious person; she shouldn’t have been deceived over a part-time job.

Hope she’s okay… hope it’s not her… hope…

Misha clenched her phone tightly, her hands turning pale, fingers trembling as she typed.

But after waiting anxiously for what felt like forever, Barbara’s call went unanswered.

Misha tried calling Barbara’s close friend, Nori, but again, there was no answer.

She couldn’t hold back anymore. Tears welled up in her eyes. Gritting her teeth, she typed furiously, mobilizing every connection she had, searching through every campus group she had ever joined for anyone who might have news about the two girls.

Finally, thanks to Misha’s efforts, someone provided a lead:

[Nori went missing at the beginning of last month. Barbara reported it to the police and searched like crazy for Nori, but never found her. At the start of this month, someone saw her muttering something like “she must be there” while leaving school with a backpack on her back. After that, no one ever saw her again. The police said she might have run away with Nori…]

Misha could no longer hold back her tears. They fell with a “plop” onto the screen of her phone.

Everly leaned in and hugged her friend tightly. “It’s not your fault… This is the fault of those criminals. They treat human lives like toys for their amusement. They deserve to be punished!”

“Yeah… we have to find every single perpetrator, including those paying viewers,” Misha sniffled, her face hardening with resolve.

Barbara’s disappearance acted like a link, directly connecting the recent wave of missing girls in the city to the dark web t*rture live-stream site.

If one were to tally the number of women who had gone missing in Dalami City over the past two years, the severity of the situation would have long been enough to alert the state police. Yet in reality, the city police had always taken a passive approach to the missing persons cases, never once seeking help from the state police. Their investigations were so lethargic that it made people suspect someone inside might have been bribed.

Then there was Orff’s experience reporting the case. Any investigator with even a little experience should have recognized that the t*rture video was real footage, not some fake prop production. Current props weren’t advanced enough to replicate something like capillaries being cut and blood seeping out.

Yet when Orff went to the police, they immediately dismissed it as makeup effects and prop filming. This went far beyond mere negligence—it seemed more like a deliberate cover-up.

Everly began to suspect that there was a mole for the dark web within the city police department.

Following this line of reasoning, one could conclude that the main base of the t*rture live-stream site was very likely in Dalami City.

They “used local resources,” directly abducting young girls from the city, streaming the t*rture online, and bribing the police to provide a protective shield. That’s how their crimes had gone undetected for two years.

This also explained why Orff had been ambushed by unknown assailants—his hacking and destruction of the live-stream site had been reported to the site operators by a mole inside the police. His identity as a hacker was exposed, and the operators realized he was in the same city as them.

Such an opportunity was too good to pass up—of course, the operators wanted revenge.

“Ahhh! So that’s it! No wonder! I’ve been so careful, leaving no trace at all. Normally, the site operators wouldn’t be able to find me through counter-tracking… and yet, I was being targeted for revenge! So the police are working with them!” Orff clutched his head, shouting in frustration, painfully realizing how cruel the world could be.

Everly nodded. “Once they knew the hacker who destroyed the site was nearby, they gathered together—both to vent their anger over the site being taken down and to eliminate a dangerous variable who could run around with evidence at any time. They decided that today was the day they would kill you.”

She then pulled up the chat screenshots she had saved when hacking Ronald’s phone earlier. “Look at the wording here from A. He calls the process of killing you a ‘execution performance.’ Doesn’t that sound strikingly similar to the live-streamed t*rture? I suspect they’ve already rebuilt a new live-stream site and intend to film your death—and possibly stream it live—turning it into a grand show to attract viewers.”

“…” Orff no longer felt frustrated.

Hearing that the ones targeting him were such a ruthless, violent black-ops group, he wrapped his arms around himself, pitiful and trembling. “Save me… Everly, and Misha… you have to save me… boohoo…”

“I promised to save you, so of course I’ll do my best. But you have to obey us—whatever Misha and I tell you to do, you do it, understand?”

Orff nodded furiously, like a pestering drum.

“Good. The first thing I need you to do is find Ronald—go directly to him or call him, any way you can. I need you to help lure him into my car.”

“Me?”

“Of course. We’re not close to him, after all.”

Orff scratched his head, thought for a moment, and pulled out his phone. Somehow—or maybe by sheer luck or cunning—it only took a few minutes before a sharply dressed, self-important Ronald strutted over to Everly’s Grand Cherokee.

A minute later, he was securely bound by Everly and Misha, all electronic devices and suspicious items removed, and tied into the back seat.

Everly’s plan was simple: interrogation.

Since Orff couldn’t identify the other dark web operators, including A, they needed someone who knew the answers.

As for the interrogation method, Everly preferred a peaceful approach. She wasn’t going to turn him into a bloody mess—she loved her car too much for that.

Instead, she employed an extremely, extremely, extremely “gentle” form of waterboarding.

She folded down the back seat, positioned Ronald head-down and feet-up on the seat, secured him tightly with ropes, and then brought paper towels and purified water. She soaked the towels, covered his entire face, and poured water over it continuously from a bottle.

This is a brutal form of punishment that can be traced all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition. On the surface, it appears bloodless, but the combination of physical and psychological torment it inflicts is hardly any less severe than punishments that draw blood.

Physiologically, the continuous pouring of water can cause a large amount of water to be inhaled into the stomach along with each breath, triggering feelings of suffocation and nausea. In severe cases, it can even lead to loss of bladder or bowel control—though Everly would try to avoid that, as she cared far too much about her car.

Psychologically, the interrogator controls both the timing and duration of the waterboarding. The terror of having one’s life completely controlled, the fear of the unknown, and the repeated shock and stress all amplify a person’s mental anguish and trauma to extreme levels.

For this reason, waterboarding became an extremely efficient interrogation technique. Statistics suggest that about 80% of victims confess shortly after experiencing it. The remaining 20% do not resist because of sheer willpower—they simply die from prolonged t*rture.

Of course, it bears repeating: Everly is a peaceful person. She would not use excessively extreme methods on Ronald. His willpower was not strong to begin with; after pouring just two bottle caps of water, he was already crying and confessing everything.