Chapter 12 - Case 1: Dismemberment

This chapter is dedicated to Beverly. ヽ(◕ヮ◕ヽ)

Chapter 12

“I did it all by myself.” Zhong Qing lowered her head and said it softly.

South City Public Security Bureau, at 4:36 in the afternoon, Song Wen, who had just finished an interrogation, looked at the woman in front of him. The white light illuminated her without hiding, allowing Song Wen to see a few uncombed hair on her forehead and the fine lines around her eyes, which were covered by her eyelashes.

When Song Wen made Ma Minghui confess all the facts, he heard the news that Zhong Qing had surrendered to the police. He had never expected this to happen.

There was either no suspect or two suspects in this case. He had previously suspected Zhong Qing, but for some reason he did not lock in on her.

One of the reasons was that she had an aloofness about her, that made one think of four words – heart like dead ash. It was as if she was a butterfly drowning in water, floating along with the waves, without even the strength to struggle. It was hard for him to imagine that this woman would throw that fatal blow.

She did not have the passion to kill, and her life had been so devoid of life, living only as a shell. But now, this woman was sitting opposite him, unreservedly, without a trace of resistance or defense, as if she had cut her own life from her body and spread it open in front of others..

“You did all the killing and dismemberment?” Song Wen asked.

Zhong Qing nodded slightly again.

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“Why?”

“I’ve wanted to kill him for a long time. This kind of life, there’s no difference between being at home or in prison.” Zhong Qing took a breath, and only then did a slight ripple of emotion appear in her.

“Then after so long, why did you suddenly, this time…….?”

“Because of the money.” Zhong Qing raised her head, the expression on her face changed slightly. Like a painted ghost taking off her benevolent skin, making Song Wen feel as if he didn’t know the woman in front of him.

“I didn’t give him the money, he took the 100,000 yuan himself.” She laughed to herself and added, “I’m such a vulgar person, my feelings were already gone, so I have to leave something behind. He touched my money, he touched my life.” The long repression has long made her vulnerable and sensitive, the raised corners of her mouth made her look a little crazy.

“Tell me specifically how the crime happened.”

“That night at 8:30 pm, my son and I took a taxi to attend the Cram School. I went to the small coffee shop to kill time and found that the money from my bank card account had been transferred at 7pm…… I was very angry. I remembered that Lin Zhenghua rented a house in the community before and ran over to argue with him. I was so upset about him taking my money, that I picked up a knife during the argument and stabbed him in the chest……”

“I was, like, extremely scared and felt like I was dreaming. I went back to the coffee shop as if nothing had happened, waited until the Cram school was over, picked up my kid and took a cab home; then snuck over at night to dispose of the body.”

Zhong Qing ran a hand through the hair that hung down on her forehead, “My first reaction was to dump the body, so I cut up his body in the bathroom. But I realized that even after cutting up the body, the human body was bigger than I thought. I wanted to grind him up and flush it into the toilet, but the juicer is very slow and can’t squeeze the bones, so I only squeezed the internal organs. I was afraid of the smell, so I put ice cubes in the bathtub and kept changing the water. Later I cooked the chopped off ribs in a stew and threw them downstairs with some knives, along with washed and shredded clothes while it was still dark…… ” She said all this calmly, but her speech was getting faster and faster, as if she had returned to the rental house, back to the scene

“Then I washed away the traces I had left, and I realized I might not have the time or energy to completely destroy the body. I’ve been panicking and terrified for these past few days.”

There were many details that have not been disclosed to the public, and the fact that she was able to tell them this information, means that the person in front of them is probably the murderer, or at least that she had been to the scene of the crime and may be one of the accomplices.

“We also met this morning, why didn’t you tell the truth then?” Song Wen asked again.

“Before…… I still had a fluke chance, but then…… I felt that it was only a matter of time before I was discovered by you.” Zhong Qing suddenly turned her head and looked at the glass wall beside her, her eyes seemed to be able to penetrate the layer of fog, and fell on Lu Siyu’s body. Her secret was discovered, and after hastily making up for it, she became more and more disturbed. She had to change her plan and take the initiative, but it seemed that the little policeman hadn’t told her secret yet.

“What else do you have to say?” Song Wen was puzzled by her actions.

“Our case is a family dispute, can we apply for a reduced sentence if we turn ourselves in?” Zhong Qing withdrew her gaze and raised her head to look at Song Wen.

“You should first write down all the relevant circumstances, explain more and have a better attitude, the judge will consider it at his discretion in the trial.” Song Wen spoke, but it was still hard to imagine that the calm woman in front of him was the murderer.

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At 5 o’clock in the afternoon, the police station didn’t have the quietness of ordinary companies before work. Song Wen came out of the interrogation room, and Fu Linjiang said to him: “Old Jia and Zhu Xiao have brought Guo Zai here. I already asked him. The kid had all kinds of tricks, but he confessed to extortion and blackmail. But the murder should not be his work.”

Song Wen hummed, seemed not to be listening. He went straight to his desk, pulled out the chair and sat down.

The other people in the office were all relaxed at this time. Old Jia took a signed document and said, “Case closed, it’s over. Everyone should be happy. You can now go home after work today and have a good night’s sleep.”

Zhu Xiao also ridiculed, “This time it was unexpectedly smooth. No, Captain Tian is probably going to be very angry.”

Song Wen caught Zhong Qing, but he didn’t have a sense of accomplishment.

Every time he solved the case, he approached the lives of some people. From being strangers, to step by step checking all kinds of personal information, interrogating them over and over again, then becoming familiar with them, even though the familiarity was hostile.

What kind of a family was this? A homosexual director who appeared to be glamorous, but was actually hiding a secret; a co-wife who appeared to be a good wife and mother, but was actually a snake with a heart full of hatred; and a male mistress who appeared to be in love, but was actually blackmailing the person next to his pillow.

There were no innocent people.

In any case, if you commit a crime, you will have to pay the price.

But he felt that there was something else wrong with this case.

Song Wen raised his head and looked at Lu Siyu through the office glass. He had summarized all the interrogation records. At this time, he was reading the book he bought during lunch time. His head lowered and he was looking through the book with his inscrutable, expressionless dark eyes.

From Song Wen’s point of view, he could only just see part of the book’s title – Suspect X……

In an instant, Song Wen’s eyes suddenly widened, and the knot in his brain instantly untied.

He went out into the hallway to make a phone call, and when he came back, he addressed several people, “Team one, gather. Assemble in the small conference room.”

Several people were waiting there to get off work for the day, and when they saw Song Wen’s reaction, they didn’t know what their leader was going to do.

As soon as he entered the conference room, Song Wen said, “I checked. Lin Shang was with Zhong Qing at the English Cram School that day, but Lin Shang was late for a while…it was about 8:40 when he arrived. The address, and the place where the victim was killed was very close, only separated by a community.”

“So?” Fu Linjiang was puzzled and did not know what this had to do with the murder of Lin Zhenghua.

“This case has been solved so quickly, that we’ve been unable to tell one thing: why did the killer go through so much trouble and cover it up?” Song asked again.

“This……” Everyone else was at a loss for words. Only Lu Siyu was standing behind everyone, his expression indifferent, as if it was none of his business.

“Anyway, Zong Qing has admitted to the crime and the details were also matched. Why did she identify herself as the murderer?” Old Jia said again.

Song Wen smiled bitterly, “Yes, why would someone identify themselves as the murderer? Unless it’s to cover up for someone else.” After he finished speaking, he erased the clues they had listed before on the whiteboard in the conference room, “We sorted through the case earlier and there were a lot of things that didn’t match up, but what if the time and place of the crime were false?”

“What do you mean, it’s fake?” Zhu Xiao was confused.

“We got the first message that the deceased’s car was parked in the underground garage of the community around 8:30 in the evening. It was the surveillance video that disrupted our view.” Song Wen said and then he waved his hand, “Lu Siyu, come here and draw a timeline on this whiteboard.”

Lu Siyu was stunned for a few seconds before he stepped forward, picked up a whiteboard marker, drew a vertical line on the whiteboard, and began to label it.

“We now know that the deceased withdrew money from the ATM at around 7:00 p.m. The way Guo Zai and Ma Ming Hui extorted the money, was to have him leave it in a bag at a Pizza Hut restaurant and then pick it up later. My guess is that Lin Zhenghua saw Guo Zai this time. On the way back, Lin Zhenghua recalled seeing Guo Zai at Ma MingHui’s place, and went back to confront him. If Ming Hui Ma wasn’t lying, the confrontation and conflict between him and Lin Zhenghua probably took place between 7:15 and 7:30 p.m. Lin Zhenghua was sure that Ma MingHui was the one blackmailing him, they had an argument, and Ma MingHui left. Then we learn that at 8:30 p.m., the deceased’s car was parked at Yuting Huayin, which seems to be consistent with Zhong Qing later going to meet Lin Zhenghua and killing him.”

On the blackboard, Lu Siyu took notes very quickly, as if he knew what Song was thinking, and marked all the times and events on it.

“But what if Zhong Qing lied?” Song Wen took the pen from Lu Siyu’s hand and drew a circle between 7:30 and 8:30, “Where did the deceased go during this period of time?”

“Could it be that…” At this point, Fu Linjiang seemed to finally understand what Song Wen meant.

“We had only the punch out time of the deceased, as well as the surveillance video of the withdrawal. I boldly made a hypothesis: the deceased did not drive that day for some reason. At 8:30, the deceased was already dead. The car was just transporting the body of the deceased over……” Song Wen spoke, and drew a triangle next to him, marking the three locations of home, company, and Yuting. The drive between the three locations takes up to 15 to 20 minutes.

“Did the deceased go home in the middle of that hour?! Or was he killed at home ?” Fu Linjiang suddenly realized.

“But if he was killed in his home, I don’t believe Zhong Qing would be able to move the body!” Old Jia called out. After analyzing the situation, he still hadn’t quite caught up with Song Wen’s thoughts.

“So she has an accomplice, or she’s just an accomplice.” Song Wen said, taking a step back and looking at the case sorted in front of him, which made the whole process much clearer.

“We’ve been wrong all along, because the one who killed and the one who cut up the body are not the same person at all.”

Song Wen straightened everything out and concluded, “I think Zhong Qing did those things not to destroy the corpse, but to maximize the disruption of our sight and make us have make incorrect judgments about the time, place, and cause of death of the deceased.”

She dismembered the body with hatred for the man, but she was rational. The missing stomach, the missing heart, soaking the corpse in the water, the repeated use of ice water, seemed to be in a disorderly order, but every step destroyed the traces on it, making the forensic team not able to make the correct judgements due to the lack of physical evidence on the body.

Because the time of death was false, the place of death was also false.

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With all his thoughts cleared, Song walked into the interrogation room where Zhong Qing was locked up. Zhong Qing was still sitting there, seemingly in the same position as the last time Song Wen left her.

“Lin Zhenghua died in your house that day, and then you drove the body to the rental house and then mutilated it.” Song Wen asked directly.

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Zhong Qing raised her head in surprise: “Officer Song, what are you talking about? I don’t even know how to drive.”

“You don’t know how to drive, but your son, Lin Shang, does. Lin Shang is still a minor and doesn’t have a driver’s license, but Lin Zhenghua taught him before.” Song Wen still remembered that one of the photos of Lin Shang and Lin Zhenghua he saw at the home, was taken by a car. He continued to point out the loopholes in Zhong Qing’s story, “Moreover, when a normal person hears the question I asked you, they would immediately deny that their home was the location of the crime; instead of telling the details of not being able to drive.”

At that moment, her face changed, as if a bullet had hit her heart, and she was shaken.

“You’re left-handed, and Lin Zhenghua should have been stabbed on the right chest side when he was confronting you. Lin Zhenghua was not killed by you, but by your son, Lin Shang. In order to help Lin Shang exonerate and give your son an alibi for being in the Cram school, you cut up the body, destroyed the traces, and confused the time and place of the crime. In order to stop the police from pursuing the case, you turned yourself in and tried to take the blame for your son, hoping that the case would be closed.” Song Wen’s words pressed on.

Zhong Qing pursed her lips and stopped speaking, but her eyes dimmed.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t say anything now, we already have people searching your home and arresting Lin Shang, and soon everything will be revealed.” After Song Wen finished these words, it was six o’clock and it was the end of the day. At that moment, he finally found the real murderer, turned around and walked out, feeling relieved.

The door closed in front of her, and Zhong Qing sighed as if she had come to life. She hated Lin Zhenghua, but the child was innocent, and she had always loved her son very much. After the incident, she was still negligent. When she and Lin Shang were frantically putting him into the suitcase, they forgot to bring his shoes……..

The pair of shoes that belonged to Lin Zhenghua were still facing the door when Song Wen and Lu Siyu visited her at home.

Everyone said that she was just like her namesake, she was called Zhong Qing, and she had fallen in love at first sight. In spite of the opposition of her parents, she married Lin Zhenghua and has since fallen into hell.

For a long time, the couple had kept the fact that Lin Zhenghua was gay well hidden from their son, Lin Shang. But that day, when Lin Zhenghua went home in a rage and took it out on her, the two of them unintentionally mentioned the tens of thousands of yuan missing and the fact that Lin Zhenghua was living with a man outside of the house in the middle of a fight; when the red-eyed Lin Shang came out of the house and asked Lin Zhenghua if he was gay, she knew that the family was over.

The image of the father in his heart has been shattered, the collapsed Lin Shang stabbed his father’s chest. Zhong Qing and Lin Shang transported the body to the rental house, and then she did what she had done in her dreams millions of times.

She cut that man to pieces.

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Translating team shenanigans

*sigh*

Mochi: When I first read till here, I felt a multitude of emotions. Sadness for the real life co-wives, disappointment, frustration and eagerness. Disappointment cause it ended all too soon and frustration cause I disliked the way Lu Siyu handled it. He saw how everyone was working hard to find the killer with everything they had, but despite finding the killer, he chose to let it go. Reasons unknown.

Eagerness cause I understood the Author was setting up the characters and showing everyone’s working style in this case. We still have 200 chapters to uncover a lot.

Next chapter we have a little show down which further solidifies my opinion and I can’t wait to translate it. ~(˘▾˘~)