Chapter 36.1: Solved
This was indeed far more unexpected than he had anticipated, and for the first time, a trace of panic and unwillingness arose in Fu Zongyi’s otherwise calm heart.
How had they come so quickly? He hadn’t even had time to go find the reporter!
Fu Zongyi clenched his fist and struck the bed board.
Perhaps this was simply fate.
Just as Heaven had favored him by allowing him to find the person who had killed his son, Heaven was now no longer watching over him, but the police.
In any case, the culprit was already dead. It wasn’t entirely unacceptable that the police had found him first.
Suppressing the regret rising in his heart, Fu Zongyi got up and put on his coat.
Since they had already come to his door, there was no need to do anything else. He might as well leave early, so he wouldn’t wake the neighbors and make it impossible for everyone to sleep peacefully.
He dressed quickly and quietly, but his sleeping wife was still awakened. She opened her eyes and saw that the person beside her had already gotten up, and for some inexplicable reason, a tremendous sense of panic seized her.
She instinctively reached out to grab his arm, but all she caught was an empty sleeve.
“Old man, where are you going?”
“It’s nothing.”
Fu Zongyi stood up. He bent down to put on his shoes, then tugged at the coat draped over his shoulders.
“You go back to sleep.”
With that, Fu Zongyi walked to the bedroom door and pushed it open.
Outside the courtyard gate, Dong Weiguo was still pounding on the door knocker.
“Coming, coming! Stop knocking!”
His eldest son hadn’t even had time to fasten his waistband. Holding up his trousers, he hurried to the front gate, pulled back the latch, and opened the door.
Seeing the circle of police officers gathered outside, he was completely dumbfounded.
“Comrade Police, what are you doing here in the middle of the night?”
Jiang Xia raised her flashlight and shone it over.
She adjusted the angle slightly to avoid shining it directly into his eyes. Under the light, his face could be seen clearly. There was no trace of guilt or panic in his expression—only the irritation of someone who had just been woken from a sound sleep, along with surprise at seeing the police show up at his door.
Fortunately, he hadn’t been involved in this case.
Chen Dong stepped into the courtyard and asked the eldest son as he walked inside,
“Where’s your father?”
“I’m here.”
Fu Zongyi walked out of the house. He stood ramrod straight, his demeanor completely natural as he said, “You’re here for me, right? I’m ready. Let’s go.”
He didn’t say anything else, yet he had already said everything that needed to be said.
Chen Dong and Jiang Xia exchanged a glance. At this point, they were basically certain that he was the culprit.
His eldest son was still somewhat dazed, but instinctively sensed that this couldn’t be anything good. He stepped forward, wanting to stop his father.
“What do you mean, they’re here for you? Dad, what did you do?”
Fu Zongyi didn’t explain anything. He simply walked toward Chen Dong and said without looking back, “I didn’t do anything. You all go back to sleep.”
“Dad?”
Chen Dong’s hand rested on the handcuffs at his waist. After hesitating for two seconds, he ultimately decided not to put them on him.
He sighed.
“Let’s go.”
The group turned around and walked toward the gate.
“Old man!”
Fu Zongyi’s wife hurried out of the main house. She was running so quickly that she hadn’t even put her shoes on properly. She stumbled and nearly fell, but fortunately, her eldest son reacted quickly and rushed forward to steady her.
Fu Zongyi still didn’t turn around.
The group simply walked out like that.
In the alley, the bright moonlight spilled down from the sky. Yet by the time it reached the ground, only a faint glow remained. In the dim night, no one could see the expressions on the others’ faces.
Some cases felt immensely satisfying to solve, but there were others where even after catching the culprit, an indescribable sense of melancholy remained.
They continued walking forward in silence.
Suddenly, Fu Zongyi spoke.
“Can I meet the reporter first?”
At this point, Jiang Xia had already figured out the purpose behind his dumping the body.
He wanted the incident to receive as much exposure as possible, to completely ruin the victim’s reputation.
And that goal clearly had not yet been achieved. It had probably become his greatest obsession at this point.
She was silent for a moment before letting out a soft sigh.
“Even if you don’t meet them, they’ll report it.”
After thinking for a moment, Jiang Xia added, “The city government and the reporters are both paying close attention to this case. The outcome will definitely be in the papers.”
“That’s good.”
Only then did Fu Zongyi finally relax.
…
Late at night, at the City Public Security Bureau.
The entire building was pitch-black.
Chen Dong brought Fu Zongyi into the interrogation room, then turned around and went upstairs to notify Tan Bingyi.
Tan Bingyi had made a makeshift bed on the floor of his office and was fast asleep. When Chen Dong woke him, he was still groggy, but the moment he heard that the culprit had been caught, he instantly became wide awake.
“What? You really caught him?!”
He rubbed his face, still wearing a look of disbelief. Bracing one hand against the floor, he quickly flipped himself upright, grabbed his coat, and strode toward the interrogation room.
“So it really was just like Jiang Xia guessed—the victim’s family member did it?!”
“What? You caught the culprit?!”
Hearing the commotion, Zeng Jun, who had been sleeping, jolted awake. He immediately opened his eyes and saw the others hurriedly heading downstairs. He quickly chased after them.
Old Qin couldn’t sleep either. He promptly got up and followed them downstairs.
The four of them hurried down the stairs with a series of thudding footsteps.
“That’s right, Captain Tan. We’ve brought the culprit back. He admitted it on the way here. Just like Jiang Xia said, he really had assumed a false identity. The name was right there in the records, and his household registration had been changed to Fenjin Subdistrict—the area where the machinery factory is located. There was even a name attached to it, so we found him as soon as we checked.”
As they descended, Chen Dong continued explaining:
“I figured we should strike while the iron was hot and get everything cleared up tonight. Otherwise, if he regrets it tomorrow and refuses to say anything, we’d be in for trouble.”
Tan Bingyi was stunned by the answer.
They’d found the man just by looking through a file?
That had been way too easy!
Thinking back to how everyone had spent yesterday running to night school and then going around questioning the students, with their legs barely getting a rest all day, and then comparing that to how easily they’d caught the culprit tonight, Tan Bingyi genuinely didn’t know what to say.
“Old Chen, I think you’re absolutely right. Looks like Jiang Xia really has something special about her. She’s no ordinary person!”
A young woman who wasn’t even twenty yet—people her age were either still busy carrying tea, pouring water, and sweeping floors to make a good impression, or sitting with their books studying. Some were still making rookie mistakes.
But her?
Her sketching skills were impressive enough, but her approach to solving cases was even more extraordinary. She dared to think, dared to make guesses—and the most incredible part was that she actually guessed correctly!
“Forget whether a cat is black or white—as long as it catches mice, it’s a good cat.” Tan Bingyi figured that from now on, they could afford to listen to Jiang Xia’s suggestions more often. Who knew? They might actually come in handy.
With that thought in mind, he agreed.
“We should interrogate him as soon as possible.”
The longer the night dragged on, the more things could change. Criminals’ mindsets could shift rapidly. Someone might want to confess one moment and regret it the next. It was better to get the details of the crime scene and the murder itself nailed down as soon as possible, rather than risk anything going wrong.
…
Interrogation Room.
Jiang Xia sat inside the interrogation room, wide awake and full of energy, a notebook in her hands.
She had more or less pieced together the case as a whole, but some of her guesses about the finer details still needed to be confirmed by the culprit. Since Chen Dong had called Captain Tan over to conduct an interrogation through the night, she shamelessly took the opportunity to sit in on it.
Click.
The interrogation-room door was suddenly pushed open, and Tan Bingyi strode inside.
He first glanced at the culprit.
He was an elderly man who looked to be around sixty. His temples were graying, and his face was etched with deep wrinkles, yet his eyes were exceptionally sharp.
He leaned back against the chair. There was no panic after committing murder. Instead, he was unnaturally calm, his composure almost frighteningly steady.
A tough nut to crack.
Tan Bingyi took a deep breath. He quickly walked over to Dong Weiguo and sat down beside him. When he turned his head, he spotted Jiang Xia sitting against the wall, still holding her statement notebook. She actually looked rather convincing.
Putting on an act.
Old Dong was already the recorder for this interrogation. They already had one person doing the job, so what was the point of having another?
Still, Tan Bingyi said nothing.
She was the one who had caught the man, so if she wanted to sit in on the interrogation, then let her.
Click.
Tan Bingyi switched on the desk lamp.
“We’re criminal investigators from the Municipal Criminal Investigation Division. We are questioning you in accordance with the law. Please state your name, age, occupation, and address.”
Fu Zongyi opened his mouth and answered slowly.
“Fu Zongyi, sixty-three. I’m an officer in the Security Department of the Machinery Factory. I live in East Alley, Fenjin Subdistrict. I’m the third house down.”
Good. The culprit was cooperating fully and showed no signs of resistance.
Tan Bingyi relaxed inwardly and continued questioning him.
“Do you know why we brought you here?”
“I do.” Fu Zongyi’s tone was flat. “I killed someone.”
“Who did you kill?”
“Zhou Jingyun.”
“Why did you kill him?”
“Because he caused the death of my third son, then impersonated him and went to college in his place.”
Tan Bingyi paused slightly, his gaze involuntarily drifting toward Jiang Xia.
Her guess was way too accurate.
But if Zhou Jingyun really had killed someone, why hadn’t it been discovered back then?
After pondering for a moment, Tan Bingyi asked again, “When did your son die, and how?”
Fu Zongyi’s hand suddenly clenched into a fist.
“He died seven or eight years ago. He was a sent-down educated youth at the time. We received a call from Hongqi Brigade saying that my son hadn’t gotten into college, so he’d been drinking to drown his sorrows and had accidentally fallen into the river and drowned.”
Drowned?
Jiang Xia, who had been pretending to take notes, instantly looked up.
Then that explains it.
“Natural death”—the brigade only needed to report it, and that was that. The police wouldn’t even come, so naturally no one would investigate.
“Drowned?”
Tan Bingyi frowned slightly.
“That was a normal accidental death. Why are you saying someone killed him?”
“Normal?”
Those words seemed to hit Fu Zongyi’s deepest nerve. His voice instantly rose.
“What do you mean, normal?! My third son nearly drowned when he was a child. Normally, he was so afraid of the water that he wouldn’t go anywhere near it. Even if he’d been drinking, there was no way he’d have gone to the river. Someone clearly did it to him on purpose!”
Tan Bingyi analyzed his words. After a moment of thought, he continued questioning him.
“So you went to Hongqi Brigade to verify what happened?”
Fu Zongyi suddenly fell silent.
After a long while, he said, “Yes, I did.”
“I told them he wouldn’t go near the river.”
“But no one at Hongqi Brigade believed me. And when I got there, there had been a heavy rain, so there weren’t any traces left by the riverbank. The educated youths stationed with the brigade were all busy with their own work, and they all said they hadn’t seen him.”
Tan Bingyi looked up, fixing his eyes on the other man’s.
“So, basically, you don’t actually have any concrete evidence that someone killed him?”
“I don’t. But so what if I don’t?”
Fu Zongyi raised his head as well, meeting his gaze. There was now a trace of anger in his eyes, and he said sharply, “You police need evidence to solve cases. I don’t! Even if Zhou Jingyun wasn’t the one who directly killed my son, if he hadn’t stolen the admission notice, my son wouldn’t have gone drinking to drown his sorrows! He wouldn’t have drowned in that river! He’s the one who caused my son’s death!”
Tan Bingyi fell silent for a moment.
Indeed, from that perspective, even if Zhou Jingyun, who had stolen Fu Jianjun’s identity, wasn’t the direct killer, he had indirectly caused his death. Having lost his son, Fu Zongyi had more than enough motive to seek revenge against Zhou Yun.
“Then how did you discover that Zhou Jingyun had impersonated your son to attend college?”
“It was Heaven finally opening its eyes.”
Fu Zongyi took a moment to calm himself before continuing.
“For the past several years, I’d always suspected there was something strange about my third son’s death. But no one would believe me if I brought it up, so I could only keep it buried in my heart. There was nothing I could do.”
“Then, after I went to pay respects to him during the Qingming Festival this year, I dreamed that night that he told me he’d died unjustly. The next day, while I was on patrol, I happened to see Old Zhang from the archives taking some files out to air them. I lent him a hand, and by coincidence, I saw Zhou Jingyun’s file. The name on the student records was my third son’s!”
“I went through all the files. The address where he’d been sent to work in the countryside, his household registration—they all matched. At that moment, I understood everything. He’d killed my son just to steal his chance to go to college!”
A ghost had appeared in his dream?
Something like that suddenly coming up in the middle of the night was genuinely eerie.