Exploring Immortality Cultivation-Chapter 488 - 242 Approaching [Seeking Support]

How do you predict a pedestrian's movements? Or rather, is it even possible to predict this process?

Most people would say "feasible" at first thought. Because, more often than not, people would walk straight towards their destination.

Just a straight line after all!

But is it really that simple?

No.

Because there are always more than one pedestrian on the street.

Pedestrians automatically avoid others, and every individual's every action influences those around them to some extent.

Furthermore, humans also have an unconscious tendency to follow others moving in the same direction. This tendency is very slight, and two people do not get too close to each other. Nevertheless, it is a subtle presence.

Additionally, not everyone realizes the approach of others and reacts by taking evasive action at the same time.

The speed at which people walk is not constant.

In every moment, the magnitude and direction of each individual's movements and their effects on those around them vary, and the overall magnitude and direction change constantly. There are too many uncertainties, too many unpredictable factors. On a macro level, these influences cancel each other out, forming a massive "crowd."

Just like Brownian motion.

Brownian motion is also known as the Wiener process in mathematics and is a random process. Its independent increments and Gaussian entropy ensure its mathematical expectation is always zero. It is an absolutely random, irreversible process.

However...

"Fortunately, on the whole, it's not a Wiener process," Wang Qi muttered as he stared at the repeating influences, considering, "Pedestrians always have a destination... the basis of a pedestrian's choice of route is either biological instinct or subjective optimal expectation."

At least it's not absolutely random.

At least the mathematical expectation isn't absolutely zero.

Good, as long as there's a sliver of possibility, that's enough.

Under Wang Qi's command, thousands of Mechanical Birds scattered, focusing on tracking individuals who appeared repeatedly before and after the murderer struck. And those whose movements didn't fully conform to the main direction of the crowd.

This was a part of Wang Qi's consciousness.

One part of his consciousness now stood on the streets of Divine Capital, which had been converted to cellular automata, observing, calculating.

For Jarvis, the burden of cellular automaton of pedestrian flow in a city was too great. Without hesitation, he tapped into Ten Thousand Immortals Illusion Realm, appropriating some of the unused computational resources from the Ten Thousand Immortals True Mirror.

To put it simply... he hacked in.

Such an overt act of self-destruction was impossible to hide from Feng Luoyi. But Wang Qi understood that while the Ten Thousand Immortals Illusion Realm was powerful and its unused computational resources plentiful to the extreme, research institutions across Shenzhou relied on these resources and countless research data were processed there. Who knew how long it would take if he applied to queue.

Fortunately, he now belonged to a kind of privileged class. On the day he appropriated the computational resources of the Ten Thousand Immortals True Mirror, he received a message from Feng Luoyi. She mentally scolded him severely, and then informed Wang Qi that for this occasion of using the unused computational power of the Ten Thousand Immortals True Mirror, he would be charged double the standard rate.

Double, Wang Qi felt the cost was worth the time he gained. Not a loss.

Meanwhile, another thread of his consciousness was calculating possible routes of action for the murderer, in places beyond the reach of surveillance cameras.

Apart from the "the murderer must be here during a certain time period" established by the time of the crimes, there were no known conditions.

Where would he encounter the victims?

By what pattern would he move?

At what time would he leave the surveillance range of the Great Road and enter a small alley?

All unknown.

But one thing was certain.

This guy generally committed his crimes at night, brazenly killing in the open on the roads. Furthermore, his motive was unclear, but since he hunted randomly, he would surely take a bit of time to select his victims.

This period couldn't be too long, as he needed to hide his tracks well.

"Everyone in Divine Capital with irregular lifestyles and idle habits is being watched by the Judicial Department," another thread of Wang Qi's consciousness scoured through the investigation results of the Divine Capital Criminal Law Department: "He might walk around daily, committing his crimes during these walks. Or maybe on his way to or from work."

"He can't go blatantly collecting information on riffraff. Heh, if there were such a person, always asking about the local thugs, anyone investigated by him would surely disappear... that rumor would become more popular than the murderer himself."

"He's unlikely to be someone frequently bullied... damn, he has the strength to murder yet gets bullied? This isn't Earth, where the state's violent machinery is extremely powerful; this is Shenzhou, a world where individual martial prowess is paramount!"

"He must have the potential to attract those riffraff... flaunting wealth, pretending to be a fool with more money than sense, or perhaps using allure?"

"Upon an encounter, he kills them to vent his **."

"His wandering time is limited and his speed won't be very fast. He'd travel through the Great Road, then lure these local roughnecks into the alleys."

"Since there's no chance of multiple killings in one incident, it can be conjectured that after killing, he would take a certain path back to the Great Road, back to his peaceful life."

Combining the analysis of the Divine Capital Criminal Law Department, Wang Qi made such a judgment.

Study the behavior patterns of the riffraff and riffraff, speculate under what circumstances these two individuals might meet at a particular location, and hence deduce the likely roads he could have passed through.

Even with thirty cases, thirty different outcomes could be obtained. But comparing the thirty different sets of suspects and focusing on the repeated ones proved futile.

Because there were far too many.

However, Wang Qi didn't expect to solve it this way. And even if this solution—which was purely mathematical and without tangible evidence—were obtained, it would be hard to gain acceptance.

But that didn't matter.

"The time it takes for this perverted murderer to reach the crime scene from his departure is within a certain range."

"The duration can't be too long nor too short. And he must have set times that he leaves his house daily."

"Otherwise, anyone with abnormal outings recorded only on the day of the crime would have already been apprehended by the Divine Capital Criminal Law Department."

"Based on pedestrian flow patterns, calculate the routes that this guy might have taken."

"Plus his likelihood of wandering in non-surveillance areas..."

"Combining these two factors gives a map brimming with possibilities."

The convergence points on this map are the places the guy inevitably passed through.

Although this "inevitable location" might refer to many spots. But... freeωebnovēl.c૦m

"I feel like I'm getting closer to you, you scumbag..." Wang Qi gently tapped his fingers on the table, guiding the thread of his Physical Body while fiddling with a special Memory Body in his hand.

This was Wang Qi's last idle thread. The rest of his over forty threads were devouring related books, papers, and academic monographs, desperate for just a hint of Inspiration.

"Now it's just a matter of grinding it out..." Wang Qi muttered under his breath, "I should prepare some suitable gear." (. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to continue reading.)