Chapter 32.2: Was it a crime motivated by greed or passion?
He paused before continuing, “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll take some people to the night school. You continue investigating at the factory. Start with a preliminary screening and sort out the victim’s relationships first. Find out what his relationships with women were like, whether he’d made enemies with anyone, and also check whether anyone at the factory has been absent from work without a reason. Once we’re done, we’ll pool our findings and decide which direction to pursue.”
It was a good plan.
There were simply too few clues at the moment. It would be better to conduct an initial screening and then decide which direction to investigate more deeply.
Jiang Xia agreed internally and immediately said, “No problem.”
“I’m fine with it too.”
Zeng Jun had no objections either. With Tan Bingyi having established a direction, he’d also moved on from his earlier opposition. He turned to Jiang Xia and said,
“I still think robbery is more suspicious. How about this? Old Qin and I will each take a plainclothes officer to investigate the factory workers. You and Chen Dong continue looking into his personal relationships. How does that sound?”
Jiang Xia genuinely had no objections this time.
No wonder he was capable of being a deputy Captain. Even when he disagreed, he really did tackle the problem head-on!
She agreed.
Once they’d finished discussing the plan, Tan Bingyi didn’t linger. He took his people and headed for the night school.
…
Jiang Xia, meanwhile, went with Chen Dong to interview the people who had been close to the victim.
Their first stop was his roommate.
Zhou Jingyun was from out of town and didn’t have a home in the city, so the machinery plant had arranged a dormitory for him.
As a cadre, he lived in a two-person room. His roommate was also a technician, though he had a lower level of education. He was a local child of a plant employee who had apprenticed himself to a veteran technician and worked his way up from apprentice to full-time employee.
Jiang Xia met him at the dormitory.
The man was surnamed Chu and wore black-rimmed glasses. He looked somewhat dull and reserved. When he saw two Public Security officers at his door, he froze for a moment.
“Uh… is there something I can help you with?”
Jiang Xia took the initiative. “Hello, Comrade. We’d like to ask you a few questions about your roommate, Zhou Jingyun.”
Chen Dong said, “Let’s go inside and talk.”
“Oh, all right.”
Technician Chu quickly stepped aside to let them in.
Jiang Xia entered the dormitory and looked around.
It was a single room with a balcony. There was a single bed, a desk, and a wardrobe on each side of the room.
Zhou Jingyun’s bed was neatly made, and the floor was spotless. There wasn’t even the slightest unpleasant smell.
Seeing the two officers enter, Technician Chu asked somewhat nervously, “Did something happen to Brother Zhou?”
Chen Dong stared at him and said bluntly, “Zhou Jingyun was murdered.”
“Gasp—!”
Technician Chu immediately sucked in a breath. “I didn’t believe it at first. I can’t believe what people were saying outside is actually true!”
Jiang Xia also watched his expression carefully. The shock that flashed across his face disappeared almost immediately, and he made no attempt to deliberately maintain it. She was certain he wasn’t lying.
“We’re here to ask whether anyone at the plant ever had an argument with Zhou Jingyun, or whether he’d offended anyone.”
Technician Chu thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. He’d only been here for a year. And our technical department is responsible for improving machinery, not quality control, so we don’t really have any conflicts of interest with the workers. Who could he possibly have offended?”
“What was Zhou Jingyun’s life like outside of work?”
“He drew blueprints, read books, went to night school, and played basketball or table tennis at the plant.”
“Didn’t he ever have any arguments while playing basketball or table tennis?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
“A man of Zhou Jingyun’s age—was he married? Was there any girl he liked? Or were there any girls who particularly liked him?”
“He wasn’t married yet. As for girls…” Technician Chu gave a sigh. “Come on, he was a college graduate, had a bright future, looked pretty good, and was athletic. There were quite a few girls who liked him. I even saw girls confess to him before, but he turned them all down.”
Mentioning this, Technician Chu’s eyes showed a trace of envy. As he spoke, several memories suddenly flashed through his mind, and he abruptly fell silent.
After hesitating for a moment, Technician Chu finally said, “Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but Brother Zhou was a little proud.”
“Oh?”
There was clearly more behind those words.
Jiang Xia pressed him. “For example?”
“I heard this, just something I heard.”
Technician Chu lowered his voice. “The announcer in our plant’s Publicity Department is the plant director’s daughter. Brother Zhou pursued her privately, but she turned him down.”
The words “romantic entanglement” flashed through Jiang Xia’s mind. She exchanged a glance with Chen Dong, then quickly continued questioning him.
“Did Zhou Jingyun keep pursuing her after that?”
“No. Brother Zhou had his pride.”
Technician Chu shook his head. “He was down for a few days after being rejected, but he didn’t continue bothering her.”
Since he hadn’t harassed her afterward, the possibility of a crime of passion was relatively small.
Jiang Xia was slightly disappointed. She couldn’t help asking, “Was that his only romantic involvement? Were there any others?”
Technician Chu hesitated internally, but eventually nodded. “Yes, that’s the only one.”
Unable to get anything more out of him, Jiang Xia could only make a note of the girls who had actively pursued Zhou Jingyun.
Those girls probably wouldn’t develop a grudge out of romantic rejection, but that didn’t guarantee that one of their admirers might not lose his mind.
And the female announcer, He, needed to be noted down as well.
After asking a few more questions and confirming that there were no other valuable leads, Jiang Xia stood up, said goodbye, and left the dormitory with Chen Dong.
…
“Jiang Xia.”
Once they were outside, Chen Dong said, “Even though Zhou only pursued her for a while, I think we’d better go to the Publicity Department and ask her ourselves. There might be things she knows that Xiao Chu doesn’t.”
Jiang Xia nodded in agreement. “I think so too.”
The two of them headed to the Publicity Department.
Perhaps because news traveled faster there, Announcer He wasn’t surprised at all by their arrival.
She led the two of them outside beneath a tree, folded her arms across her chest, and asked directly, “You’re here to ask me about Zhou Jingyun, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Jiang Xia looked the seemingly arrogant young woman up and down before asking, “Comrade He, if you don’t mind me asking, do you have many admirers?”
“Of course I do. They’re all after my father, after all.”
At the mention of this, Announcer He showed none of the shyness common among young women of this era. Instead, she spoke quite casually, even disdainfully.
“It’s the same with that Zhou Jingyun you were asking about. I could tell the moment I first saw him. Hmph, he actually thought I didn’t know.”
Jiang Xia’s expression remained unchanged. “Have any of your other admirers ever gotten into conflicts with each other over you?”
“Not really.”
Announcer He shrugged, her tone becoming even more contemptuous. “How could the men at the plant compare with him? They don’t even dare compete.”
Jiang Xia lowered her head and pondered for a moment.
Chen Dong, however, was a little more interested in the gossip. He asked, “Hey, Comrade He, if Zhou Jingyun had such good qualifications, why didn’t you like him?”
Announcer He’s brows lowered slightly, and a trace of disgust flashed through her eyes before she quickly concealed it.
“He’s too old. He’s already twenty-six, a full eight years older than me, and he still had the nerve to come after me. There’s something wrong with him. Why would I want some old man?!”
Chen Dong, who was already in his thirties, instantly felt as though he’d been struck straight through the knee.
Twenty-six was considered an old man?
At this rate, shouldn’t he be preparing to be buried?
Jiang Xia looked up and happened to catch the disgust in Announcer He’s eyes.
Huh. Did she really hate this guy that much?
Still, it was understandable. If Jiang Xia herself discovered that someone was pursuing her simply because they wanted to exploit her abilities to climb the career ladder and make money, she’d be disgusted too.
“Comrade He.”
Temporarily putting those thoughts aside, Jiang Xia continued questioning her. “Is there any man around you who keeps pursuing you, giving you gifts, and has such low boundaries that he’d do anything for you? Someone you could even curse at or hit and still couldn’t drive away? Or perhaps a man who frequently watches you from the corners, always keeping an eye on you?”
The description made Announcer He break out in goosebumps.
After thinking for a moment, she shook her head vigorously. “No. Absolutely not. Someone like that doesn’t sound like a good person at all!”
Girl, you got that right. He wasn’t a good person. He was a creep.
“It’s better that there isn’t anyone like that. If there ever is, be sure to tell the police, and it’s best to stay away from someone like that.”
Jiang Xia gave her a warning before asking a few more questions. Seeing that there was nothing else to learn, she stopped the interview.
The two continued questioning the technicians and veteran workers in the technical department, as well as the girls who had pursued Zhou Jingyun. They all gave essentially the same answers.
“An argument? What argument? I’ve never heard of one.”
“Zhou Jingyun is a very good young man. He’s eager to learn, and I’ve never seen him associate with any shady characters.”
“Pursue him? Well, I did pursue him. He’s an excellent guy, after all. But he turned me down, so I couldn’t exactly keep pursuing him.”
“Boys pursuing me? No, no, absolutely not!”
…
…
That afternoon, Jiang Xia and Chen Dong squatted outside the factory’s main gate, looking exhausted as they munched on peach pastries.
They’d been questioning people since morning. Not only had they not managed to eat lunch, they hadn’t even gotten a single useful lead. It was enough to drive anyone crazy.
Chen Dong helped himself to a piece of peach pastry as well.
This was good stuff. Unlike before, when he would’ve stuffed down an entire steamed bun in one go, he ate the pastry bite by bite, even holding his hand underneath to catch the crumbs.
“Tired?”
He glanced at the weariness on Jiang Xia’s face and smiled. “This is what investigations are like. Sometimes we spend the entire day running around until we’re half-dead, only to end up with nothing to show for it.”
Jiang Xia sighed.
Of course she knew that. But knowing about it and actually going through it were two different things. Only after running around all day did she truly understand what it meant to be exhausted both physically and mentally.
She sighed again as she ate, going over everything she’d heard that day.
Overall, the people around Zhou Jingyun had a very good impression of him: hardworking, eager to learn, modest, and easygoing. The only thing was that he seemed somewhat ambitious when it came to choosing a partner.
But even then, he hardly seemed like the sort of person who would make enemies with anyone.
This was strange. Could it be that she’d been wrong from the very beginning?
As Jiang Xia ate, she repeatedly went over the people she’d questioned that day in her mind.
Announcer He’s expression of disgust quickly resurfaced in her memory, and Jiang Xia suddenly remembered a detail she’d overlooked earlier.
That disgust had seemed a little too intense. And hadn’t she deliberately relaxed her expression afterward?
Wait.
Why did that expression look so familiar?
No, that’s the expression she used whenever her master caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to do—pretending nothing had happened!
Announcer He had been hiding something!
She definitely knew something else but hadn’t told them!
“Look at you, Old Chen! We’ve been investigating until now without even getting a sip of water, and you’re sitting here eating peach pastries!”
Zeng Jun approached with several people. He was holding several sheets of white paper densely covered in writing.
Chen Dong looked up when he heard him. “Oh, Deputy Captain Zeng. Looks like you’ve got quite a haul?”
“A whole pile of work!”
Zeng Jun didn’t mind sitting down right on the ground. He wiped his face and said, “I found quite a few people whose whereabouts at the relevant time were suspicious. Some have already been cleared because their coworkers can vouch for them. But there are still more than thirty people we can’t rule out. We’ll have to go door to door and question them.”
After saying that, he asked, “What about you, Jiang Xia?”
“We didn’t find any useful information, but I have a feeling someone wasn’t telling the truth.”
Jiang Xia suppressed her excitement. “I’m planning to go back and question her again.”
“What could they possibly have kept from you?”
Zeng Jun shook his head and patiently advised her, “Jiang Xia, don’t be stubborn. There’s nothing wrong with making the wrong judgment. Anyone who investigates cases is bound to have moments like that.”
Jiang Xia was helpless. “Deputy Captain Zeng, I really do think someone wasn’t telling the truth.”
Zeng Jun looked unconvinced.
Someone wasn’t telling the truth? If that were really the case, Old Chen would’ve backed her up long ago. Clearly, she just couldn’t accept that she’d been wrong.
He shook his head slightly, beginning to think that perhaps Jiang Xia wasn’t quite as capable as he’d thought.
Then he suddenly saw another figure approaching in the distance.
It was Technician Chu.
There was a hint of hesitation on his face, but he still walked over to the group of police officers. Seeing that both Jiang Xia and Chen Dong were there, he seemed to relax somewhat.
“Technician Chu?”
Jiang Xia swallowed the last bite of her peach pastry. Surprise and an inexplicable sense of anticipation welled up inside her.
“Did you come over because there’s something you wanted to tell us?”
“There is.”
Technician Chu hesitated, clearly struggling with how to put it. “How should I say this… I’m not even sure myself. Anyway, before Brother Zhou started pursuing Announcer He, he was actually quite close to another girl. But no one else knew about it. I happened to see them together once outside the plant. I didn’t think much of it at the time, and I eventually forgot about it. Then you asked about his relationships, and it suddenly came back to me. But since they never made it public, I didn’t think it really counted, so I didn’t mention it. After you left, though, I thought about it again and felt that I shouldn’t keep it from you. So I came back to tell you…”
Huh?
Zeng Jun froze.
Wait, someone really had been hiding something?
Something wasn’t right.
Jiang Xia hadn’t even heard the whole story when her internal alarm started blaring. Based on all her experience catching students secretly dating back in her previous life, she could swear there was definitely something suspicious here!
She immediately asked, “Do you know who the girl is?”
“She works as a clerk in the Finance Department. Her name is Guo Xiaohui.”
Technician Chu hesitated before adding, “She’s very pretty, like one of those TV presenters.”
“Huh? Her surname is Guo?”
At that, a name immediately flashed through Zeng Jun’s mind. He quickly asked, “Is she related to Guo Zhitang, the director of Workshop Three?”
“He’s Guo Xiaohui’s father.” Technician Chu looked puzzled. “Why?”
Zeng Jun’s expression became more serious. He waved the list in his hand.
“He happened to be off work four days ago. And he hasn’t come to work yesterday or today.”
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