Chapter 202: Chapter 201: Waiting for Me to Puncture the Tire_1
"What unexpected joy?"
From her pocket, Cui Lili pulled out another report. Mr. Zhao reached out for it, but Cui Lili slapped his hand away and glared at him; he didn’t dare say anything more.
"Come on, Big Sis, tell us what the unexpected joy is all about."
Cui Lili exhaled, but she couldn’t hide the joy on her face.
"The yellow electrical wire with three loops that you sent for testing, I attempted multiple extractions. Surprisingly, on the eleventh extraction, I indeed found a set of male DNA, which, after comparison, turned out to be that of Zhang Yu.
The sampling location was on the wire’s metal filament; presumably, he accidentally cut his hand while dismembering the body, or he already had a wound on his hand, which rubbed against this part and was preserved."
"That’s incredibly lucky, or rather, Mrs. Cui, you’re amazing for doing eleven samplings. Anyone else would have given up by now; it’s your attention to detail that did it."
Zhou Ning’s praise seemed to please Cui Lili. She slapped the report into Zhou Ning’s hand and quickly left, but not without leaving a parting remark at the door.
"I’m off work. If anyone else gives me more work to do, wait for me to come and puncture your tires!"
Looking at the report, Zhou Ning smiled.
...
Inside the interrogation room.
Xu Dayuan, carrying a stack of reports, walked in and placed them on the table, gesturing to Zhou Ning and Mr. Zhao behind him.
"Come on, let Doctor Zhang have a look at them. Mr. Bai, you guys help."
With so many people flooding in, Doctor Zhang’s eyeballs trembled non-stop. After all, he’d been ignored here for hours; such a sudden change must mean something, and he was no fool.
"What are you guys doing?"
Zhou Ning rolled up his right sleeve, revealing two scratch marks on his wrist and the outer side of his upper arm. The vertical scratch on the upper arm was very faint, while the horizontal scratch on the wrist was dark in color.
With a raise of his hand, Zhou Ning stopped everyone’s actions, and Mr. Bai and the others retreated. Mr. Zhao, holding a camera, moved in close to photograph the two wounds.
Xu Dayuan crossed his arms, still leaning against the table. From the time he had come in, his movements hadn’t changed, just standing there impassively.
"Tell us, how did you get these wounds?"
Zhang Yu was very composed as he used his left hand to pull down his sleeve.
"Athletes sometimes get hurt, and I often massage them to relax their muscles. There are many occasions when they, in pain or making abrupt movements, scratch me. I really didn’t notice when these scratches happened; after all, it’s been a while, who would remember that?"
Mr. Zhao passed the camera to Zhou Ning, who found the photo of the skin flake under Tan Ran’s fingernails and held it up to Zhang Yu.
"This was found under the victim’s fingernails. The shape of the skin flake matches the scratch on your wrist exactly. Do you have any other explanation?"
Upon hearing this, Zhang Yu paused, looking down. Xu Dayuan nodded at Zhou Ning and they left the interrogation room, with Mr. Zhao dragging Zhou Ning directly into the observation room next door.
Upon entering, they realized that quite a few people were there, including Mr. Hu. Mr. Zhao halted, appearing a bit awkward, uncertain whether to enter or retreat. Mr. Hu, seeing Zhou Ning, quickly gestured for him to come over.
"What are you standing around for? Come here. If it weren’t for your trip to Xiaofudao, this case might have remained unsolved for many years. You’re something else, Zhou Xiaozhou."
Zhou Ning’s face twisted in embarrassment, given that this hardly seemed like a compliment—how unlucky to run into this during a vacation.
"Can we please not talk about this, boss?"
Everyone burst into laughter, but the people beside Mr. Hu also made room for Zhou Ning and Mr. Zhao to come closer, with Mr. Zhao wearing a look of grievance.
"Mr. Hu, can we get compensated with leave later? During the national holiday, we wanted to go camping, and to avoid being disturbed, we specifically chose an isolated island. Who would have thought we’d run into this mess there? And that too-trusting Mr. He, he just had to open the box to check. I’m at a loss for words. So, can we get our leave compensated?"
Mr. Hu hummed and hawed for a while, then waved his hand.
"Just save them up, save them up. Don’t worry, I’ll keep this in mind."
Mr. Zhao sighed and muttered.
"Forget it, this compensation is never going to happen."
Mr. Hu kicked out, and Mr. Zhao instinctively jumped away towards Zhou Ning, narrowly avoiding it. Relieved, Mr. Zhao looked gratefully at Mr. Hu.
"Why would a leader hit someone?"
"If you’re here to watch the interrogation, keep quiet. Who else would I kick if not you for spouting nonsense?"
Zhou Ning was now glued to the one-way glass, and Mr. Hu handed him a headset. This treatment was really quite good. Zhou Ning glanced at the people behind him, who were all frantically waving their hands to decline; they were seated alongside the leaders, and if they were asked something and couldn’t answer, it would be embarrassing. No one wanted to go through what Mr. Zhao had experienced, but if they didn’t watch, they felt restless.
At this moment, inside the interrogation room, Xu Dayuan had lit a cigarette.
"Cut the crap and stop trying to stall. Do you know how pointless it is? This whole stack is forensic reports. I can tell you that we’ve found Tan Ran’s head and limbs, and we’ve found the interior trim and mats from your car. On your car seat cover, we found your dander and Tan Ran’s DNA—no need for me to say what you did.
We found blood and fingerprints on the bags that were used to wrap the head and limbs, everything that should be there. Most fortunately, we found your blood on the wire used to strangle Tan Ran at the scene. Do you understand what this means? The chain of evidence is complete.
As for the surveillance footage of you entering the dormitory on September 7th and the bloody fingerprint you left at window 201, the footage of the car you tried to disguise, and even the blood you dripped into Wang Ligang’s truck in a bid to shift suspicion, along with your fingerprints on the trunk lid— we found all of that.
Furthermore, I can tell you that we’ve reviewed all the bank accounts in your name. From February 10, 2009, to yesterday, aside from your salary, performance bonuses, and other incomes, there’s an additional 750,000 yuan in your personal account at Qindao Commercial Bank. Explain to me, where did this money come from?"
Zhang Yu fell silent.
From Zhou Ning’s perspective, he could clearly see that Zhang Yu was slowly sliding down in his chair as if he had gone limp, knowing in his heart that he had no chance for excuse since the evidence was conclusive.
Xu Dayuan didn’t bother with any psychological tactics; after all, these things were ironclad facts. He just patiently smoked, one cigarette following another, until the entire interrogation room was shrouded in smoke.
After an indeterminable wait, Zhang Yu weakly uttered.
"I didn’t mean to kill her!"
"Then let’s start with the money issue, shall we?"
Zhang Yu pursed his lips, falling silent once more, though not for long this time.
"Tan Ran came from a wealthy family that didn’t control her spending. After her injury, she wanted me to help hide it from Wang Ligang, but I didn’t agree. I was going to call Wang Ligang immediately because the injury was too severe.
But Tan Ran just handed me a card with two hundred thousand yuan in it. The password was six sixes. She said as long as I helped keep it a secret, the money was mine. I was afraid to take it, I really was afraid to take that money. Tan Ran said she didn’t want to affect Xing Xiaoli."
Xu Dayuan nodded.
"Now that you’ve started talking, don’t make me ask every single thing. You’re tired, I’m tired. Just start from her injury and explain the process leading up to the murder. No point in hiding anything now—we already know the sequence of events."
Zhang Yu asked for a cigarette and, after smoking it, began to speak slowly:
"Regarding her injury, Tan Ran said that they had just had an argument, so she trained with emotions, and throughout the process, she was distracted, which is why she failed to keep up and collided with Xing Xiaoli in the opposite direction.
I accepted the money, but I couldn’t really enjoy the New Year because Tan Ran’s injury was severe. She didn’t realize, but I knew all too well that her athletic career could be ended if not handled properly. However, she recovered well.
After Wang Ligang returned, I said Tan Ran would need at least twenty days before she could start physical training. I came up with more excuses afterward, like her wound re-opening, and so on, dragging it out for almost two months. Wang Ligang became impatient and insisted that Tan Ran must participate in training.
I advised Tan Ran against training like that, but she wouldn’t listen and secretly removed her cast. Without training for two months and taking medication to heal her wound, which included hormone drugs, she gained thirty pounds.
Wang Ligang broke up their pair, and Tan Ran was desperate. She pleaded with Wang Ligang and Zhuang Chunlan, but it was no use. I told her not to rush to them; as long as Xing Xiaoli was treated well, it didn’t matter whether they were a pair or not.
Upon hearing this, Tan Ran’s mood improved. She wanted to get prettier but controlling her weight wasn’t easy. She sneaked out to get a fake sick note from me and went for liposuction. But after losing weight, her chest was gone too, so she then went for breast augmentation.
After all that trouble, her weight was under control, but her physical fitness had vanished. Her foot was fine when immobile but painful when moved. During last year’s medical check-up, she didn’t dare to get an X-ray, afraid of detection. For all this, she gave me fifty thousand yuan to make fake sick notes for her.
I urged her to have the metal pins removed. But she started training immediately after the removal without resting, and her foot condition worsened. I was terrified, since I had started the cover-up and if I lost my job over this, the regret would be unbearable.
Tan Ran started to become self-destructive and neurotic, either arguing with Wang Ying or biting Xing Xiaoli, even fighting with the younger teammates and showing a bad temper to everyone. Her training was intermittent, and before Christmas last year, I wanted to buy a house but was short of funds, and she volunteered to lend me five hundred thousand yuan.
After that, she kept using her injury to threaten me, even wanting to tell Wang Ligang about all of it. I was terrified and pulled her out to drink, hoping she would cool off since I couldn’t come up with five hundred thousand yuan to pay her back in the short term.
She didn’t agree. Tan Ran asked me to get some hormone drugs for her. I asked what for. She said she wanted to slip them to Wang Ying. She’d previously added prednisone, prescribed for a cold, into her milk tea, and the person didn’t gain any weight. Tan Ran wanted Wang Ying to get fat to see if Xing Xiaoli would still like her."
Zhou Ning stared into Zhang Yu’s eyes as he reached over for another cigarette offered by Xu Dayuan. Revealing secrets buried deep within one’s heart can sometimes be a form of relief for oneself.
Those who have killed are often startled awake by cold sweats during midnight terrors—the internal torment that continually plagues them, growing stronger with time and turning into an unbearable agony.
Xu Dayuan gestured towards Zhang Yu with a tilt of his chin and asked indifferently:
"Did you give it to her?"
