Of course, we didn't see Zhang. Because of Chen Xiaoqiu and Chen Yihan's relationship, the police treated us courteously and didn't regard us as suspects. Of course, we weren't suspects to begin with. Zhang had no personal connection to us, and we didn't even know his college classmate. Zhang had committed this crime entirely on his own.
The information we gave them was that Zhang had believed the "rumor" online and thought Truth or Dare really could kill people, so he'd come to us to complete his dare. Afterward, he'd gotten worked up and become even more extreme because of his parents' accident.
That was basically true. The only thing we'd hidden was the truth that no normal person would believe: for a time, Truth or Dare really had been able to kill people.
Judging by the police officers' expressions, they clearly considered Zhang another victim of internet-induced delusions. These days, it wasn't unusual for people to become so absorbed in the internet that they treated it as reality. In the past, most people had only believed a few rumors. At most, some teenagers had become violent because of online games. Even that claim had become less credible over the years. More and more people now thought online games were just a scapegoat the media used to attract older readers and viewers whenever something terrible happened. Today, as the internet generation gained more and more influence and became the largest consumer group, the media's audience no longer bought that story, and it had lost its value.
Still, this incident had some social significance.
Truth or Dare could no longer kill people, and the media had been given the green light to publish report after report about the dangers of online rumors to young people.
I even saw reporters at the