There are so many things that you wouldn't even think have cameras, but they ...
It's not all nefarious. It's just unexpected is all like ovens a lot of smart ovens
They have cameras inside the oven to utilize AI to detect what type of food you're putting in there So that they can cook it to completion without you having to think Which I guess inside the oven is much less invasive than say like a robot vacuum Those things have cameras and as they roam around cleaning your hardwood floors The camera is scanning to make sure that there's no obstacles in the way like you're getting out of the shower
But naked Even those little automatic pet feeders for your cats They typically come with cameras And I do think that that's a feature that a lot of people want They want to see their cats eating
They want to make sure that their cats are getting fed if they're at work Unless you're this guy who posts on Reddit Okay, so this is kind of a complicated one, but here goes my girlfriend got a new job So she got one of those auto feeders for her cat because she's going to be a way a lot more now And it's like a doctor feeder, so it has a camera in it and it can connect to Wi-Fi
And doctor feeder, you say?
“I think it's one of those fancy cat feeders”
And he says you can connect to Wi-Fi
She can actually look at the camera while she's at work and even talk through it
And send the cat treats and it comes through the cat feeder I said initially, I don't like the idea of you having a camera in the living room But she was like, it's my place, so you shut the fuck up So I said, I shut the fuck up Anyhow, flash forward a couple of weeks on a Friday
I get out early and I was supposed to go to her place that night But I just went out like two in the afternoon to chill until she got back home from work I laid out on the couch I completely forget about the camera And I eventually start self-pudging
Because that's something that I just do And apparently she's at work talking to her colleague about this cat And decides that she wants to show her colleague how she feeds at a treat And see if the cat comes over So she turns the camera on with her colleague over her shoulder
And here I am on the couch Just beating it She's obviously very pissed off like, how often do you do this? Which is not often
And she would say things like you violated my space
And all of this and we've been fighting on and off for a few weeks now And then to top it off, her colleague found my Instagram And has been liking some of my photos Like even ones that my girlfriend is not even in
“And it's just kind of got me thinking like, am I the asshole?”
I mean that feels honestly more like a user problem Than a cat feeder with a built-in camera problem The cat feeders will just capture the cat Sprinting to the feeder typically And you'll hear the food come out
The kittens being startled by the new There's a lot of viral cat feeder videos The cat feed will tumble out And then the kittens will get so scared they jump like three feet in the air Like a circus animal
It's usually just like more on the wholesome spectrum People just love the cat videos Which is exactly why Tony and Ivy This is a couple with two cats They get a cat feeder
So Tony and Ivy and their two cats And they get that cat feeder and they put it in their house And on this particular day, this cat feeder is picking up something Just a lot of things, alarming things But there's no built-in system to call the authorities
Because something is alarming Or even call the people who own the pet feeder All this cat feeder does is just record So this cat feeder records by itself? Yeah
Oh, like a security camera? Almost They keep a data log A little past midnight at 1221 The wife, Ivy, she's in her 20s
“She walks into the kitchen to close up shop for the night”
If you will, I mean she's cleaning up She's turning off all the lights And by 104 am It just seems like the whole house is going to bed The lights are off
There's not really action, the cat camera is not picking up anything But it's just downstairs It sees the living room, it sees the kitchen But it's not seeing the entirety of the house And then 443 AM
This is really early in the morning Tony, the husband, suddenly appears in the cat feeder camera And his shirt looks like Almost like he's been painting There's just deep red colours
Everywhere, some sort of pigment He goes out of the frame And when he comes back, he's holding one of those circular One of those wood saws that you turn on And the blade just starts rotating to cut the wood
But it's not rotating, it's turned off right now And he's looking at it And he brings it up to his neck And his fingers on the button to turn it on And he's about to press down
And he's very tense, it's almost like he's just waiting for the courage to press it And then he doesn't And then he walks off Then the next time he's caught on the pet feeder His entire arm is swollen, there's like this thick red liquid on him
And it's very clear that it's blood Like there's just blood everywhere But Tony himself is not injured Not even a little bit Like that circular saw, he didn't do anything
There's no injuries on him There's not even a cut or a bruise really Other than his swollen arm So where's all this blood coming from? And what has he been doing all night
And why is it that we haven't seen ivy since midnight And what is he gonna do when he realizes that this cat feeder
Is recording his every move?
We would like to thank today sponsors who have made it possible For rotten mango to support the national network to end domestic violence And any dv is a nonprofit dedicated to ending workplace relationship And stalking violence This episode's partnerships have also made it possible to support rotten mango's team of dedicated researchers
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As always, fashion notes are available about rotten mangopodcast.com
Today's case involves topics like dv So please watch with discretion We also worked with our professional Chinese translators Since the news was it takes place in the US But there was a lot more discussion in Chinese media about this case
But a lot of quotes statements may be translated and shortened or condensed for brevity So with that being said, let's get into it Chinese is arguably one of the hardest languages to learn And I'm not just saying that as somebody who has been trying to have Hardedly learned this language for the past 12 years of my life being with my Chinese husband
I just know how to say very important stuff Like yes, no, thank you, and that's way too expensive But there are words in the Chinese language that mean one thing But also sound like another thing, and there's a lot of these So for example, cup sounds like tragedy
Uh-huh Can you say cup?
Sure, I guess cups is like bay, bay, bay, jue
How do you say tragedy? Tragedy, bay, jue So these sounds so much like that they're now saying in Chinese
“Where they say life is like a cup if it's washed, it breaks”
Life is like a tragedy if it's washed It breaks, it's like a play on words They say porridge sounds like like So on social media, a lot of younger people will say things like I porridge you instead of I like you
Can you say porridge? Oh, what sifan, sifan like like okay, siwan, sifan and siwan, alright, okay The fruit pair sounds a lot like pressure, they say So people say like you feel a mountain of pear So the fruit, the pear leaves
Does it sound like pressure, stress, pressure Leeds leaves Just the food pear Yeah, fruit pear Apparently they'll say I feel a mountain of pear right now
Instead of saying I feel a mountain of pressure right now Because pear sounds like - Oh, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, the word clock, the words give a clock,
also sound like a 10 to funeral. - Yes, so on, so on. - So when you give a clock, that's really bad. So a lot of the times, if you gift somebody a clock or a watch, they will give you a dollar in return.
So it seems more like a purchase, a trade, versus giving somebody a clock, because you're almost wishing them death. And to make it even trickier, there are even number sounds.
So five, two, zero sounds like I love you. People will text five, two, zero instead of texting, I love you, and everybody knows exactly what it means. There's the long one, what's the long one?
It's like that. - It's like five, two, zero, one, three, one, four. Like I love you, my whole entire life, something like that. - So people will just send a sequence of numbers and just think that you get the most deep
as profound confession of love.
“- And May 20, May 20, is the Chinese Valentine's Day now?”
- Because it's five, 20, yeah, I love you. Because numbers just mean a lot of things. Like a lot of Chinese buyers will make sure that house number doesn't sound or mean anything else, that sounds negative.
Lots of people don't like the number four because it sounds like death. But when you're in the Bay Area in San Francisco and you're buying a house where all the tech people are buying a house, it's very difficult to be picky.
There's not a lot of options. And the options that are there are already in the midst of bidding wars. You have to act fast. For a four bedroom, two bathroom house,
that's less than 2,000 square feet, by the way. 1800, yet about 1,800 square feet, which is okay. That's on a bad size, it's just the fact that
it's over $2 million for less than 2,000 square feet.
$2 million and it's a 20 minute drive from Google's campus in SF, it's going to get snatched up. So regardless, if the house number is 714, because 714, it sounds in Chinese, like wife will die. Regardless of that fact, you're going to want to get the house.
January 15th, 2024, police are inside a house 714, trying not to flinch at the metallic scent. The officers testify later that it just, you walk into the house and it smells like blood. There's no other way to describe it.
Everything smells like blood. You can't smell anything else, because everybody's house has a very unique scent.
“Not that that is important to the officers,”
but it can tell them a lot. If you smell lots of feces in urine,
You could probably come to the conclusion
that there is someone that is not well-capped here
and maybe not even a mentally good state. If you smell other things like the scent of a dead body, you can also, people pick up on the smells. They can't even smell anything, but that's strong eye-watering metallic scent.
They're performing a wellness check when they find a suspect in a nearly catatonic state.
“That's the only way they can describe it,”
just they're on their knees staring. The officers, they broke down the door and there's just a suspect on their knees. They're staring at the wall. It is a matter that the officers are slamming down the doors
to get in. They're just all screaming, like, "Get your hands in the air." None of it matters. The suspect, it seems like they saw nothing, heard nothing, don't care about anything.
They're just catatonic, they're just staring. They're staring, staring, staring, and right next to them is a dead body. The police, they walk the suspect out with their hands firmly behind the back.
They're walking past a little cabinet and this cabinet has a bunch of trinkets on top. They're guiding the suspect out of the house, like a dog. And the suspect leans down onto the cabinet. So he leans towards the cabinet
and with their mouth bites the top of this picture frame and chucks it, like a dog ripping apart a squeaky toy. Just chucks it onto the floor. The picture frame shatters everywhere. There's glass everywhere.
“And inside the picture frame is a photo of Ivy.”
The same Ivy that is now caked in blood, laying on the bedroom floor. Her face is completely unrecognizable. And she's dead. The photo is it just Ivy in there?
Just Ivy. The wife of the house is now dead. Tony and Ivy are a 27-year-old couple from China and they put $500,000 down on this house. They mortgage the rest, which is a pretty substantial
down payment. They're able to afford it considering both of them are software engineers at Google. They buy the house one year into getting married. They get two cats.
They even have a dedicated Instagram for their cats, named Cooper and Kiwi. By all accounts, I would say that they seem like a very standard software engineer tech couple. They're obsessed with their cats.
They commission artwork for their cats. They buy those cute little party hats for their cats during their birthdays. The cats lay on their laps as they're working from home. And when they're not taking pictures of their cats
for the Instagram pages, they're going skiing, they're going snowboarding, they're going hiking with their other software engineer couples in the Bay Area. Tony's Instagram bio lists that he's into photography,
volleyball, skiing, rock climbing, and a bunch of other sports. Ivy's ads, yarn, and gardening tours. And they're both Chinese. So just to like, paint a picture of both of them.
Tony gives the very first impression you give of Tony is quiet academia focused nerd. There's really no other way to describe it.
He's always wearing black framed rectangular glasses.
His hair is very short and neat. It looks very efficient. Like he doesn't want to spend too much time on his hair. He's very slender-billed. He's very unassuming face.
The most noticeable thing about him is that he's six feet two inches tall. But other than that, he just kind of looks like a software engineer. He also has a very rigid look to his face. It's not necessarily cold.
But he appears guarded. He doesn't seem like the type and by all accounts, people say he is not the type. To engage in small talk in the elevator. He's not going to be smiling at you when you're a random co-worker
that gets into the Google elevator and he's in there. He's probably going to give you like a curtain out of anything. Whereas his wife Ivy, she looks a lot softer. She's not super expressive, people say.
She's also not very expressive with her face. But she looks a little bit more open. People say that she's the type that will smile at your jokes even though they're really not funny. But it's not like a over the top.
Like, oh my god, you're so funny. Like, where did you learn that joke? It's just like a very polite smile so that you don't feel awkward. She also has very bookish qualities to her.
She feels very approachable and unapproachable all at once. The way everyone describes her is, she's the one that will get you coffee one day in the office. And then she's going to remember your coffee order three years later. And you're not even her friend.
You're just like the person that works in the room next to her. She feels very approachable in that sense because she's very kind and sweet. But also unapproachable because she will probably score in like the top 1% of a Ivy League school at all times.
And somehow be the smartest person in the room at the same time and you feel like you can't talk to them because maybe you feel insecure that you're not that smart. But she doesn't make you feel that way. The two of them that get married in 2022, in 2023,
they buy this $2 million house in the Bay Area.
And both of them are now working at Google as software engineers. But just because everything appears to be near perfect from the outside, does not make it true.
“Do you know people who are obsessed with their first loves?”
It's like a thing, okay, they don't marry their first love in the way that, I mean, the way that they think about their first love, you would think that they're possessed. To the point where they almost idolize their first love in a way that everybody around them is very confused.
They talk about their first love as if this is a member
Of black pink and idol that is untouchable.
Somebody that would never grace plan it Earth ever again.
“And everyone around them is just thinking,”
I mean, they're great. But like, are we talking about the same person right now because this is so crazy? I don't know what you're saying. It's like this longing that they have this unreachable love.
And you're like, Neuro, they're pretty reachable. Like I saw him working at the vape shop down the street. Like he hasn't gone anywhere. I don't know why we're trying to make him out to be this prince charming that ran away.
He's down there selling vapes. You can go get him tomorrow if you want. Probably tonight, I don't think he has plans. By the way, that they talk about their first love, you would think that they were the one that got away
and became an Oscar winning actor and actress that they'll never be able to connect to again. It's never that serious. But some people just idolize their first love. Chinese says the same call.
So guys will describe sometimes not even like first love, but even like a girl that they loved. The white flower? The white, they call it like, why moon light? Yes, why moon light.
Why moon light. That's what I'm just about to say. So they call it white moon light.
“And then there's the other aspects where they call it”
like the red rose or something like the red moon light. So some people idolize their first love as this white moon light. So pure, so innocent. Just, yeah, pureness.
And then a lot of people will start idolizing this red rose, which is a very passionate love. So this comes later in life. But this is a passionate love that they don't end up with. But they remember this relationship.
And so there's almost this very annoyance
that people have in China of when guys are always haunted
by either the white moon light or the red rose. And it's just like get over yourself. It's not that big of a deal. There's even books written about this in China where a female author writes about how men tend to have two loves.
The white rose and the red rose. They have two love interests, and they're going to pick between one of them. So the white rose is the first love. But if he marries his first love,
she's no longer going to be the white rose. She becomes a grain of sticky rice on his clothes, just dull and irritating. And then he's going to year and after, because he married the white rose,
he's going to year and after the red rose. The red rose is the passionate mistress that makes him feel alive and sensual and burning with love.
“But here's the thing, if he had chosen the red rose”
and doesn't marry the white rose, if he married the red rose, she will become mosquito blood on the wall. So did marriage, he will consider her ugly and venomous, even. And then he will daydream and idolize
about what life would have been like. How do you manage the white rose? The eternal pure moonlight before his bed type of woman. It is a very deep outlook on males need to conquer women, stating that this is the type of system
where no real woman can win, because the moment she's possessed by the man, she gets downgraded and then the other woman is almost like a mythologized. It's about how men only fantasize about those who
he cannot conquer and how men tend to construct women as symbols and then they blame the woman once they become symbols for them. But it's also just a very interesting concept, and I'm sure it's not taken seriously, but it's so widely known that people will even use
the categories to determine what kind of ex they were. So like your last ex, are they your white rose or your red rose? To the point that the question can even be asked at dinner parties, would your rather be a white rose to your ex or a red rose to your ex?
- Like asking a girl. - Yeah. - Okay. - There's even memes about it with some people hating the concept of the white rose,
because a lot of girls have been compared to a guy's first love, and it's really fucking annoying because typically first loves, they say, it's not even a real relationship. So like you're in this relationship
when you're in middle school high school sometimes college,
you never even have a real relationship
with that person to see all the bad things that come from being in a relationship, because there's a lot of hardship. So of course you idolize the relationship that has no disappointment in it,
because you weren't old enough to be disappointed by the relationship. It's just, people are saying it's very annoying to be compared to the first love in relationships. - That's so interesting.
These are very like Chinese specific struggles of couples in relationship. I know exactly what they're talking about though. - Yeah, and I feel like you don't really hear that a lot in the US.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because in China, like I think even up until, okay, so before college, relationships pretty much forbidden by school and by parents. You're not allowed to publicly be dating, right?
Very different from here. So there are a lot of these relationships is like underground. It's forbidden. So it's like very settle.
You pass a no, maybe. You look at someone, you barely touch hands when you're going out. It's this very settle type of relationship. So people have this like their pureness frame of lens
When you're looking back at it, maybe.
- It's very bizarre. - It's really weird, yeah. - It's really weird. Because I feel like in the US, when you think of relationships in a high school,
you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. - It's so strange. But I just think that the comparison is very toxic.
And Ivy hates the fact that Tony will always compare her
to his high school ex-girlfriend that he dated on and off in high school and in college. His first love, and her name is Zhang, Zhang the ex-girlfriend. Was that in US or was that in China?
- In China, but they all come to the US. All three of them. - When did they come to the US? - This was during their PhD years. - Oh, so they finished college and all that.
- I mean, they all went to the same college in China and then they all immigrated to the United States. And then they all start working for alphabet. So all of, yeah, we'll some of them work for Google,
some of them work for subsidiaries of alphabet, which is the parent company of Google. - Wow, that's messy. - Yeah, very messy, but that will come up. But Tony will compare Ivy to his very first love, Zhang,
comparing their appearances, their education, which was practically the same. Their income, hobbies, interests, even their personality traits. Even going as far to imply that if Ivy was not his wife
and had he married Zhang the ex-girlfriend instead of Ivy, he probably would be living better now. - Look. - I don't think it's very easy to cheat on your partner these days.
I feel like everything has a digital footprint. Text messages, emails, Instagram DMs, Snapchat. Yeah, you can make the messages go away, but they can still see when you were last active.
“I think you can see like top friends or whatever”
that's changing, you can delete as much as you want. But there's going to be ways that you're gonna get caught. Maybe they're not gonna see the exact messages, but they're gonna see something that's weird. - Even things that you think don't have a paper trail,
or you forget that they do like Venmo a few years ago. Even Uber, you were not able to delete a ride from your ride history on Uber. You can do that now, I think they got a lot of complaints. I don't know why you would need to delete it,
but who's deleting it? But now they've fixed it so that you can actually delete specific rides from your ride history. So when you go to your account and go to ride history,
you can delete specific rides. But one of the more common ways, as a recently, is in the files. - The what? - People will cheat in the files.
- What file? - Google documents. It sounds so strange, but it's rather common these days. - People will use a Google doc. - Like a shared doc to have conversations in real time.
- Oh my God. - Because when you share a Google doc, people can comment, they update instantly. - Yeah. - So the user has a text message.
- Yes. And no one goes through their partners, Google Docs, because you're like, what's in there? Nothing. Work stuff.
- I guess that's very on brand with their job. - Right. - So, I mean, but one person on Reddit posts, my husband used Google Docs for three years to communicate with his a fair partner.
They had a shared Google doc where they would talk and make plans. I mean, a simple but effective, I read it all.
“The virtual sex, the I love used the secret meetings.”
I had my soon to be ex-husband's password, and I would occasionally snoop on his phone to ease my mind.
But in three years, I never thought to check Google Docs.
In a shared document, you can type back and forth like a chat, even leaving comments to things, and it gets updated in real time. Because typically, people use it to collaborate on work or school projects, and it's unconventional,
but that's a whole point. That way, nobody will know who you're talking to. Your partner's going through your text messages. Highly unlikely, they're going through your Google Docs to make sure you're doing anything weird there.
So, she's just letting everyone know, hey, just so you know, check the Google Docs. - Wow. Well, we know someone who use cash transfer app, right? - Yes.
- So, there's like this cash transfer app where you can message someone, I guess, to like send money, and they were using that chat, which is crazy. - Yeah.
- But it's not public, but still. And Google Docs is also, I think, both of them are equally so insane. Especially if it's titled like Google Docs, if it's titled something as boring
is like budget sheet for Q2, Q3, who's going to look at it.
“If you want to look at something very private,”
someone's inner thoughts, something they're hiding, you might even go through the Apple Notes app. You're not going to go into Google Docs. You're not going to go through somebody's Google Docs unless, unless you're Ivy.
And you happen to stumble upon a Google Doc file
between Tony and his first love from college.
Jung the ex-girlfriend. It is a nearly 20,000 word document detailing how Tony and Jung the ex-girlfriend miss each other, how right before Tony proposed to Ivy, he had first asked Jung the ex-girlfriend
if she would consider transferring to work at Google, instead of working at Waymo, which is all part of the same umbrella company. But instead of working at Waymo, yes, that's like the driverless cars, which works at Waymo.
Transfer to Google, move to the Bay Area
because she's working at Waymo in Seattle,
move to the Bay Area, and they could buy a house together. They talk about how Jung the ex-girlfriend said no. I don't want to do that.
“And that's why he does everything else with Ivy instead.”
So once the ex-girlfriend said no, he proposes to Ivy, he gets married to her, and they buy a house in the Bay Area together. But he was still be commenting and writing in the Google dog, saying things like, "I miss the old days."
Which is already bad enough, because, you know, why are they still talking to each other? Jung the ex-girlfriend also writes that this is supposed to be like a, she started this Google dog to send it as a,
let's get rid of the past feelings and get some closure on our relationship. She says it's more like a personal diary for herself, to just hold on to the things, and then write it down and let go of the past.
Which she feels the need to send this Google dog to Tony, and that's how they start this weird conversation. This 20,000-word conversation on Google Docs. - Wait, so this whole dog was sent by Jung? - The ex-girlfriend.
- When did she send this? - This is way after Tony's married, but the house has two cats everything. - Oh. - This is like two, three months before Ivy is killed.
- So, Jung reached out first?
- Yeah. - Really?
“- She reached out first, because she said,”
she was just going through a really tough time in her life. She says out of everyone in her life, he's really the only one that she can confide in. She writes in the document that before all of this, before Tony married Ivy,
before Jung the ex-girlfriend got engaged to her boyfriend. Tony was the only one that was there for her, and there were just at different places in their lives, she thought it would be okay to move on. But then she found out that her boyfriend turned fiance
that she's dating, he also works for Alphabet, he works for Deep Mind, Google Deep Mind, yeah. - This is crazy. - Yeah, they all work in the same building? - No, no, no, no, no.
So, they live in Seattle. Jung, the ex-girlfriend, and her boyfriend live in Seattle, so their offices are in Seattle. And then, Tony and Ivy, they work on the Google campus in the Bay Area, but it's massive.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And they don't really run into each other a lot at work, you'll see why later, but it's just interesting that they all work for the same parent company. - Interesting, oh, yeah.
- Well, September 2023,
“Jung, the ex-girlfriend, finds out that her fiance”
has been soliciting sex workers and the two of them end their engagement. She's distressed. She's in need of emotional support and comfort. And the only person that she can think of reaching out to
is her ex-boyfriend, Tony. - Apparently it's like a thing in these tech-centered areas. So the Bay Area, Seattle, where a lot of the tech companies are centered, they have a lot of these massage parlors that are just fronts for sex work.
And a lot of the clientele that go there are just engineers. Software engineers, tech-brows, they go, they get their massages done. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, yeah.
- They get these massages done. And for the police, it's very easy. It's kind of like what they do on Canal Street, where they bust the counterfeiters. It's like a routine.
They'll go there every once in a while and just make a bunch of arrests at these massage parlors. And Jung's now ex-fiance was arrested at one of these massage parlors
for soliciting sex work. So she finds out, and I'm sure there's a humiliation aspect to it because all these tech people they run in the same circles. She's in need of emotional support.
She's a need of comfort. And the only person that she can think of reaching out to is her ex-boyfriend, Tony. She sends him this very lengthy Google document and she says that this is just me trying to get closure
on our relationship. As I'm just categorically thinking about every romantic relationship that I've had and what led me to this point in my life where I'm now ending my engagement, I am now also looking back at our very long relationship
and I'm having a lot of thoughts and feelings. I didn't even want to send it to you, but I'm gonna send it to you. She writes in the document, "If I had known I would have been betrayed
by my fiance like this, I might as well have accepted your request to get back together a few years ago before you married Ivy." You know, there were requests to move to California
by a house together. The only problem is, if Tony were to divorce Ivy and start over with Jung the ex-girlfriend, she says there would be way too much drama. And Jung the ex-girlfriend is not ready for that drama.
She also doesn't want that type of reputation to follow her around. And she's like, "You and Ivy bought a house together." So I feel like there's gonna be a lot of financial splitting of the assets and like no offense.
I don't really wanna date you if you're broke. - Dang, she said that. - Yeah, basically. - Why the hell are you sending this letter then? - Yeah.
So she's like, you're gonna have a bad reputation. You're also gonna be broke. So I can't be with you, but I just wish I could turn back in time and then take your offer from years ago
before you married Ivy and that would've been much easier. I just do not have a single clue about the inner workings of such a woman and her mind. But they're both commenting back and forth after she sends this Google document
and it's almost like they're texting. And in the document, it's very clear that the two of them have even met up in person.
Ivy's reading this, yes.
They've met up after Ivy's married has the house.
“They actually meet up two months before Ivy is dead.”
We had to, Ivy find this. - There's two variations. Some people suspect that she decided to go looking because there were lots of things sending her sensors off that there was an affair happening.
And then there's another version where some people speculate that maybe Tony showed her the document to say, see, she's the one that reached out to me. I wasn't the one that was trying to seek her out. - But we know for sure Ivy saw this.
- Because she comments on this Google doc later. They met about two months before Ivy is killed. And this is around Ivy and Tony's wedding anniversary. Tony decides that he's going to meet his ex-girlfriend. When Ivy sees this Google document,
she makes a comment of her own with her own account. And she writes, I hate you. I hate all of you. And she will be dead by the end of that week. - Wang and our husband are very nervous.
They're waiting outside the front door. They already rang at once. And Wang is, she's reaching for the doorbell again. And she's hesitating, she's debating whether or not
she should bring it a second time.
Or is that, that's way too clingy. When the door opens, standing there at the entryway is Ivy, which is Wang's really good friend. So Wang and her husband are standing there. And Ivy just opened the door.
Ivy and Wang have been close girlfriends for years. Now their parents even know each other. They have the same trajectory of life. They both immigrated from China and they both work in the tech industry.
And they kind of get along in that sense where they just click. Both of them came to the US. They have a bond and naturally Wang's husband and Tony become friends, but they're not as close as Wang and Ivy.
They're just friends because they're the husbands, really. So Wang is checking in on Ivy and she just knows that Ivy is not doing well. When Ivy opens that door, her eyes are bloodshot. It looks like she's been crying all day.
And Ivy lets the couple in. Wang and her husband awkwardly sit on the couch in the living room. Tony's also there. He's barely engaging.
He's for the most part, very quiet, giving short answers to any and all questions
“that Wang and her husband ask, such as everything OK?”
OK. Neither Tony or Ivy mentioned that they were just fighting. Like 20 minutes before Wang and her husband came unannounced. But they don't really need to say anything
because this is the most awkward living room gathering that they've ever had. Wang and her husband tried to steer the conversation to where cows work been because you were talking about work. And Tony will barely respond to any of the questions.
Ivy starts responding for him. That, oh, he's just anxious with all the ongoing layoffs in the industry. He's just worried about getting laid off. And if he does, he's going to have a hard time finding
another job in the industry. And then the doorbell rings. Because Wang and her husband had ordered food. And she thought, maybe if we just eat together, it's going to make it less awkward.
Like, eat some of the tension. They thought it would help. Whatever is happening between Tony and Ivy, it's just very tense and Wang wants to help. So they sit down, they open up all the Tico boxes.
And Tony is just quiet the entire time. The only time he responds is they go, Tony, do you want some rice? Yeah, that's it. No other response, nothing.
He's not even engaging.
“During dinner, Ivy tries to answer all these questions”
that Wang and her husband are asking, oh, yeah, he's just stressed from work. He was saying that he was having some like auditory hallucinations recently and muscle tension because he's been so stressed. Wang and her husband don't really know
how to respond exactly because this is the first time
that they're hearing about something like this, but they want to be supportive. But they say it was just weird because Ivy said that he's experiencing all these crazy things from the stress of work.
But they don't see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing indicates that he's like listening to the walls and hears voices where they're not coming from. He just seems quiet. He just seems like he's pissed off even
or just got into a fight with his partner. Nothing about it seems like he's having a full mental breakdown. So maybe that's just something he told Ivy. Nobody knows. The rest of that dinner largely silent.
Nobody's really talking. Wang and her husband, they're just offering surface level comfort at this point because what else can they do? And as they're about to leave,
after the most awkward dinner that they've ever experienced, when they get outside, Wang's husband goes to the car. And Wang is standing there. Ivy pulls her aside and she's telling her, I think I'm gonna divorce Tony.
What? Why? He's still talking to his ex-girlfriend. And we had a fight earlier today and he said things like,
my life would have been so much better if it weren't for you. When was this in the timeline? This is a few hours before Ivy is dead. This is the Nio?
The Nido. And Wang wants to stay, but Ivy's like, just go. Like, I'll text you tomorrow, just go, it's fine. Like, you guys already stayed long enough.
I mean, what are they gonna do? Go through another awkward dinner. So Wang gets in the car with her husband. They drive off.
They just feel really off about this.
I mean, the only reason that they even showed up today
is because earlier that day,
“so they just had dinner with Ivy and Tony.”
But earlier for lunch, they were hosting this huge lunch gathering with like nine of their closest friends. It's been on the calendar for a while, but Ivy texts Wang last minute, telling her,
hey, we're not gonna be able to make it to lunch. She's like, what do you mean? Why? We've been planning this for so long. All of our friends are coming.
You have to go. She's like, no, it just Tony's really stressed about work. And so I just don't wanna go. The whole lunch, Wang feels really weird about this. She's feeling very uncomfortable.
And then a few hours right after lunch, Tony's parents call Wang, 'cause all their parents know each other. Back in China. All their parents live in China,
but they all kind of know each other,
and they know that all their kids are friends. The parents from China is calling her? Yes, so they're not, it's not like, oh, their parents were all family friends, and then the kids were friends.
It's like, all these kids became friends, and then they introduce their parents all to one another. Okay. And they all have each other's, we chats, numbers. So Tony's parents are we chat calling Wang.
And she's like, what's going on? This is so random. She picks up and Tony's parents are like, hey, listen, I would not have called you unless something serious is happening, but have you spoken to Tony
or his wife Ivy recently? Tony's, he hasn't been in touch for like the past month, and this is very unlike him. And when I tried to talk to Ivy, it seemed like they were going through a fight.
It seemed like they were just not doing well. So I don't know what's going on. Wang is like, well, I was supposed to see them for lunch, but they didn't show up. She hangs up, and this seems to be
the biggest factor of why she goes over for dinner.
“I think that if she, if her friend just said,”
I'm not going, maybe she wouldn't have gone for dinner, because it's very intrusive for her to just barge and be like, why are you guys fighting? Tell me about your fight. Let's talk about work.
It seems like a lot, right? But it's the fact that Tony's parents even call her. So she's like, I'm going to do something. She gets her husband in the car and is like, we have to go visit Tony and Ivy.
Like, I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight, unless we go visit Tony and Ivy. They even ordered the food almost as an excuse to stay longer and try to get more answers and try to help more, but it just is so uncomfortable.
There's no talking, there's no reasoning, there's no comforting, there's nothing. The whole night throughout the entire dinner, even after their demeanors are off, they both seem unusually quiet.
Ivy, there were moments where Ivy would be responding, and then she would just zone out. Tony's even more quiet than normal. So, while going to her husband, they drive home that night,
and they just cannot shake this feeling that something bad is happening. Tony and Ivy's relationship has been really rocky since the beginning. Technically, on paper,
I would say that Tony and Ivy are perfect for each other, at least most people would think that. Both of them graduated from Qinghua University, which is one of China's top universities, it's like their Yale, it's their Harvard.
- Yeah. - And even, there's, you know, the little quizzes that give you impossible options,
like you can pick to have one, five million dollars.
Your pet gets to live forever. You get to marry your soulmate. You get to graduate from Qinghua. Most people would choose Qinghua, because it's not even just like you get the respect,
the reputation, it is the most elite school that you can get into. - And education is weighted much heavier in the Asia, yeah. - It doesn't just make you a better work prospect, it's just the prestige.
So they both major in computer science and engineering at Qinghua University. Then both of them immigrate to the U.S.
“- Does that mean like his first love also is Frenching Juan?”
- Yeah, then they both immigrate to the U.S. and both Tony and Ivy, they finish their PhD in computer science at UC San Diego. So once they graduate from UC San Diego, they go naturally to the Bay Area to join,
well, they were just trying to join one of the mango companies. They used to call it something else, but now they call it mango. So it's meta-apple, Nvidia, Google, and open AI. - When you say that like they were not dating in college
in China though, right? - They were not dating at Qinghua University. They start kind of becoming close to our UC San Diego. - Okay, okay, were they friends? - Some people say that they knew of each other at Qinghua,
but he was still on and off with his ex-girlfriend at Qinghua University. - I see. - Then at UC San Diego, they were friends, they were kind of new each other,
and then they started slowly dating. - Got it. - So right after graduating, both don't actually immediately go to Google. Tony goes to Google, and Ivy actually goes to Amazon
as a software engineer, and Tony specifically starts working at the YouTube shorts algorithm department of Google. So on paper, it seems like the two of them are on the same page, their resumes are stacked,
but for the very super cut-throat Chinese matchmakers, they would say that Tony is marrying down. Which makes me want to punch the nearest car salesmen in my vicinity, but they're just, I just really dislike East Asian culture sometimes,
certain aspects obviously, but they say that for high school.
Tony attended Chengdu number seven high school.
It's widely regarded as one of the top schools
in the province or even the entire country of China.
“So Chengdu number seven is known as key point high school.”
So they receive priority when it comes to funding and resources. They get the best teachers. They're the most funding for educational resources. They have a stunning campus that looks more like a college campus than a high school.
They have many parks and coi ponds on the campus of a high school. They also have the highest number of kids going to the Ivy League in China. In 2022, that one high school had 70 students
admitted into Chenghan Beijing University. In 2023, 79 students, 2024, 90 students, they also have a study abroad program, which Tony went to for a senior year of the high school. It's $50,000 this semester.
Just so we can study in the US. Classmates remember Tony coming from a very, very well-off family. They believe that his dad was a leader in some sort of government-affiliated organization. He had a thing for model airplanes.
He was like a key member of the school's science technology association that his parents were involved in. He would also write these like study tips for other classmates of how to systematically remember material.
Yeah, he even won a province-wide state-wide award when he was in elementary school for outstanding youth citizen of Sichuan Province. So they're saying, he went to this high school, and his parents are very powerful in the government,
and they seem very well-off. Ivy also comes from a very good high school,
“a key point high school in her province.”
Really cut their school. The school has a very brutal hierarchy, starting in middle school. Where you get a rolling class system. So students aren't ranked in a reshuffle
based on exam performance. You're ranking?
Yeah, so class one is known as the key point class.
They get the best teachers and the best resources. The brightest students toward the end, all the way to class 27, you really have students that are like left to fund for themselves, if you will. And this high school is already
like the smartest of the smart kids. So if you're in the more advanced classes, the elite and key point classes, you typically end up studying a lot more. It's relentless.
It's normal for students to forego lunch breaks and routinely study past midnight. Some of them will stand up against the walls in the hallway to stay awake to memorize material. The school though, this school specifically,
that she went to. So Tony's school, most of the kids were really well-off. Ivy's school, there's a huge wealth gap. Some students come from very privileged backgrounds, similar to Tony.
They get to eat whatever they want, spend as much money on school supplies as they want, get the latest technology, everything, where as students who don't do well, you know who they are, because most of the time, they're studying and eating steam buns and pickles.
Is it Ivy? Yeah, Ivy comes from an average family. It's not, she doesn't come from a family that's not doing well, which honestly, you would think that this is a better catch because--
Yeah, it's more impressive. Yeah, but I guess when you are talking about East Asian culture of prestige and family lineage, they're like, well, Tony's a super catch. And Ivy is just a poor girl who clawed through it
to become even more successful, who cares about that. So she comes from a very average family. I mean, they were okay. So much so that even during Ivy's senior year of high school, Ivy's mom quit her job for a year,
which is actually very common amongst the more average families in terms of socioeconomic status for the privileged families, usually one of the parents don't work, but for the average families, one of the parents will take off for a year,
because it's not like the schools in the US where you naturally live very close to your school, especially if you're in the public school system, because that's how it's zoned. You go to a school because you live in that zip code.
“But in China, you have to travel to certain schools,”
especially if you get into one of these key point high schools.
So her mom quit her job, so they rented this tiny little apartment near the high school campus so that she could support her full time. They're known as full time study support moms. There's like a whole culture and language
and groups about it. Parents relocate because they want to eliminate long commutes. They want to make sure that the kids don't have to do laundry, commute, they're cooking all the food. Ivy maintains consistent high rankings all through high school
and ultimately, she scores 702 out of 750 on the 2014 Galka. Galka, yeah, like the exam of the college entry exam. And she is the city's science top scholar. So she scores the highest in science.
With one teacher saying about Ivy, she's very well behaved and introverted, not usually expressive, but she's particularly outstanding in the science subjects. Still balanced across the others,
including English and Mandarin, her grades are excellent and the Galka was exceptional. She also holds herself to very, very high standards. The teacher recalls that one time she forgot to bring her books to class and the teacher is like,
okay, I know you Ivy, you're not one of those kids that's messing around and forgetting carelessly. Like, it's just one day that you forgot your books. She was like sobbing, just in the corner because she was so disappointed in herself.
She was so upset with herself from making it dumb mistake like that.
In both of them end up at Qinghua,
but because Tony's parents are high up in government positions
and Ivy's parents are just normal well to do people, the matchmaking, according to a lot of people, was not equal. According to a lot of people that you would maybe want to punch in the face,
but they're not working with matchmakers. They're just naturally meeting each other at either Qinghua or UC San Diego. They start dating officially around the time that they're at UC San Diego
and a fellow classmate says, "There relationships seems really respectful "and harmonious."
“I mean, that's really the only way that you can describe it.”
They're not really people that tell you a lot, though. So it's not like everyone would know about their dating history. They're not really someone that like post-loved everything's on social media.
They're not going around just like making out and hallways. They're just very private. They say that Ivy barely spoke. I mean, she's very quiet. She's not the type to be like,
"Oh, this is my boyfriend. "This is who I'm dating. "Let me tell you about my relationship." So people don't really know, but it just seemed like a good match
just based off their energies. So when they graduate, they're still dating, now working at separate companies. And Ivy decides that she's going to make the very unusual choice of leading Amazon to go work at Google.
Now, I will say, I have heard that Google is a better working environment than Amazon. However, Ivy was up for a promotion when she left Amazon. - So they are all making very, very good money.
- Yeah, it estimated probably total compensation to $300,000 a year. - Each. - Yes, each. - Yeah.
- Okay. But he was comparing her to her ex in money and income, right? She was talking about that. - Yeah, so I was looking at, I mean, I couldn't get a exact, but based off of their job descriptions,
it seemed like maybe the ex girlfriend was making a few tens of thousands of dollars more a year, which is a lot, but not really when you're making $300,000 a year. - No.
- It's not like one of them is making $300,000 and the other ones making $50,000. - Yeah, it's almost like he just wanted to put her down for whatever everything, right?
“- Everything, because that's what he does at Amazon.”
So she's working at Amazon. And like I said, yes, I have her that Google is about her working environment. So naturally, a lot of people might leave Amazon to work at Google, depending on the position
that they want to get into, but Ivy is up for a promotion at Amazon. So technically, a lot of people are saying, it would be a lot more advantageous how she stayed at Amazon.
Got the promotion, maybe even worked in that position for a little while and then she actually, yes. - To Google, and she could probably get in at a better position and a better pay total comp. - Yeah.
- But that's what a normal person would do. But why did she move to Google all of a sudden? Like, did she just really want to work at Google? Was there an opening and she was like, you know what? I don't mind taking a pay cut and I'll just go work at Google.
But people who are really close to the couple say, that's probably not why. They say that Tony is very calm, but he seems really controlling. And there are lots of from what people remember
tense fights about Tony doesn't know anyone at Amazon. And he doesn't know if Ivy is talking to or potentially even flirting with a lot of male colleagues
because he would never know.
“He just always seemed very anxious that Ivy was cheating on him”
which seems like a masterclass in just projection. But one person close to the couple states that Ivy was not excited to work at Google. I mean, she likes Google, but she was really excited to get promoted at Amazon.
She was about to be up for this promotion. And she had her whole career track that was going well. It would make more sense to get the promotion and then move to a different company. The only reason she moved was to maintain her relationship
with Tony. There were rumors that Tony at gatherings with people, a former classmate of theirs would say, OK, it was weird. During gatherings, he would constantly be glued to her side.
And he would just watch her closely. But it doesn't come off as the kind of closeness that you expect from a very affectionate couple. I was like, oh, he just wants to be by her. Oh, he just wants to help her when she's grabbing something.
It almost seems like he's analyzing every single person that she's talking to, every single thing that she's saying, it feels like he's monitoring her. It didn't feel sweet. It didn't feel like he's just a little protective.
It just felt creepy. It felt overbearing and uncomfortable. Like, aggressively possessive to the point where the two of them would get into some sort of argument at the gathering.
They're never fighting in front of people.
But it's like, you can tell that they fought at the gathering. Because suddenly the energy shifts, everybody's uncomfortable. It's just something happened. He felt like she could easily form close bonds
with male employees. So there were rumors that he's constantly accusing her of cheating on him with male colleagues. He wouldn't even let her go shopping with female friends without his presence there.
So he convinces her to come to Google. And he's like, it's actually going to be a lot more convenient for us, too, because we could commute together. And like, we have the same perks. Like, it's just, and Google's better.
Everybody likes working at Google more, which again, invalid. But like, you know, meanwhile, Ivy misses out on a potential promotion starts a whole new job. Tony is out there telling friends while this is happening. She's giving up all of this.
Tony is out there telling friends, I don't even really want to get married to begin with. I just kind of felt pressured because everybody around me
Is getting married.
Everybody around me is buying a house.
Everybody's having a kid.
“So I just thought that that's what I have to do.”
And I just thought the person that I would do that with is Ivy because she's the one that I'm dating.
And with that, I'm going to leave you
with part one of this audio podcast. Part two is going to be up ASAP, but in part two, we're going to go through the trial. All of the victim blaming that happens because everybody,
“I think the reason is, no one can really understand”
or grasp why Tony did what he did.
- And then we know what happened that night yet? - Yes, we know how he killed her. And it's worse than what most people will think. And then all the victim blaming comes afterwards
“because nobody understands why he killed her.”
And there are people out there who genuinely think, well, there must be a reason. And it's just so sick. The trial was a mess. A lot of Chinese netizens, they came to court in person.
A lot of Chinese Americans who have nothing to do with the tech industry, they showed up to the courthouse in ASAP to just figure out what the hell is happening. - Was ex girlfriend there? - Ex girlfriend testified.
She was forced to testify and people hate her. So with that being said, stay tuned for part two and stay safe. I'll see you in the next one. (gentle piano music)
