Chapter 66.1: Everything Has Been Confessed
The police officers had already harbored their suspicions. Now, seeing Luo Youben’s reaction, they became even more certain that he was the culprit behind the corpse theft. What no one had expected, however, was that he would be even more stubborn than they had imagined.
Despite the fear in his heart and the strange look on his face, Luo Youben quickly regained his composure and stubbornly refused to admit anything.
“Comrade from the Public Security Bureau, you can’t just make jokes like that! This stuff is all covered in rust. How could there be any human cadaver fluid on it?!”
It was obvious that Luo Youben was the backbone of this corpse-stealing gang. Although the other two were also somewhat flustered, seeing that their big brother/brother-in-law still refused to admit anything, they kept their mouths tightly shut and didn’t say a word.
“It’s fine. If you don’t want to confess, then don’t.”
Seeing that she hadn’t managed to trick the other party into confessing outright, Jiang Xia didn’t mind. This wasn’t a formal interrogation, after all. With all three of them together, backing one another up, it really would be difficult to get anything out of them.
But once they were taken to the commune and interrogated separately, the prisoner’s dilemma would come into play. At that point, she was absolutely certain that all of them would spill everything.
However, seeing that Luo Youben clearly had only a vague understanding of chemistry, and seemed to have actually believed her claims because she had the technical knowledge to back them up—and that the other two had believed her as well—Jiang Xia continued to apply pressure.
“We’ll know once the test results come back. You can keep your mouth shut then, too. As long as there’s evidence, you can still be convicted even without a confession.”
After speaking, Jiang Xia paused briefly, giving the three of them some time to think things over and weigh their options. Then, in a regretful tone, she continued:
“What a pity. If you confess honestly, you might still qualify for lenient treatment, and your sentence might even be suspended for a while. But refusing to admit the facts of your crimes counts as resisting law enforcement, which is an aggravating circumstance. Your sentence will be increased by years. That’s quite a difference, isn’t it? I wonder what will happen to your wives and children when that time comes.”
As soon as Jiang Xia finished speaking, she saw Ren Yongqin press his lips together. He seemed about to say something, but when his eyes turned toward Luo Youben, he hesitated for a moment and ultimately remained silent.
Good. One of them is wavering now.
Once they got to the commune and questioned the three separately, he would probably confess almost everything.
Jiang Xia nodded in satisfaction. As she turned slightly, she saw Zeng Jun giving her a thumbs-up.
Well done!
“Why waste so many words on them?”
Zeng Jun smoothly took on the role of the bad cop. He barked at the three men, “Move it! All of you, hurry up!”
Although he was urging them along, they had now caught three more suspects in one go, and there was no way they could escort everyone on foot. Fortunately, Luo Youben had a bicycle at home. Zeng Jun pulled off the belt around the man’s waist and used it to tie Ren Yongqin’s hands. He then had Luo Youben ride the bicycle with his brother-in-law following in the middle of the group, while a police officer escorted the remaining suspect.
Meanwhile, Jiang Xia took the opportunity to buy a wide-brimmed straw hat from one of the villagers nearby.
No wonder Captain Zeng and Brother Chen were wearing those suffocating, broad-brimmed police hats despite the scorching weather. She’d barely gone out around noon during the past two summers, and she’d completely forgotten just how fierce the sun could be!
The group soon arrived at the commune.
Bashang Village fell under the jurisdiction of Xin’an Commune, which was situated next to a farm and right beside a primary school.
Neither building was particularly large, though. The school consisted of two long brick buildings, with a large open space in front. Xin’an Commune, right next to it, was little more than three ordinary brick-and-tile houses. The walls hadn’t even been plastered; the dark reddish-gray bricks were exposed, and quite a few had crumbled away around the corners.
The motorcycle was so noisy that several commune staff members poked their heads out through the doors and windows curiously before the group had even arrived. The commune secretary then came out to greet them of his own accord.
“Captain Zeng! It’s been ages! You’re here to catch the tomb raiders, aren’t you?”
He had already heard about the graves that had been illegally dug up in one of the villages under his jurisdiction. As he spoke, his eyes swept over the four villagers who had been brought in handcuffed or bound, and he looked a little surprised.
“You’ve already caught them?”
Hadn’t the crime only been reported yesterday? And they’d already caught the suspects today?
That was incredibly fast!
“They’re only suspects for now. Nothing’s been confirmed yet.”
Zeng Jun struggled to keep the corners of his mouth from curling upward as he said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to impose on you for a bit. We’ll need an open space to conduct some more interrogations, make a phone call to the city, and trouble you to help us find a few more people.”
“That’s no problem at all.”
Grave robbing was a serious offense that earned people’s hatred. It was downright disgraceful to have such a thing happen in the area. If the commune didn’t cooperate and help catch the culprits as quickly as possible, word would spread among the commune’s cadres, and plenty of people would be pointing fingers at him and cursing him later. The commune secretary didn’t dare drag his feet, so he readily agreed to everything.
“Feel free to use the phone. I’ll have the people in the next room come over and work out of this one for now. You can use whichever room is freed up for your interrogations. As for finding people, that’s easy too. The militia members don’t have much to do at the moment.”
As he spoke, he glanced at the sun again, then asked warmly, “You comrades have been busy all this time and still haven’t eaten, have you? We’ve just finished preparing a meal here. Why don’t you join us for something?”
“No need. We’ve brought our own food.”
Zeng Jun waved a hand.
They’d been out on field assignments so many times that they’d long since learned to come prepared. Fortunately, this time they’d brought steamed buns with fillings instead of plain mantou.
Still, perhaps it was better not to mention them. Just thinking about the food made him feel a little hungry.
After all, eating a bun only took about ten minutes. They could finish their meal before questioning the suspects without delaying anything.
With that in mind, Zeng Jun turned to the others behind him.
“How about we eat first and interrogate them afterward?”
Chen Dong had a hand pressed against his stomach. He readily agreed. “Sure. I’m starving right now.”
Zeng Jun immediately pulled a large bag of steamed buns out from beneath the motorcycle’s cargo bed.
“These are vegetarian buns the cafeteria steamed yesterday. I took all the leftovers. There are all kinds of fillings, so help yourselves—but no picking and choosing. Whatever you get, you eat!”
Chen Dong wasn’t picky about food. He reached straight into the bag and grabbed one. The familiar taste traveled from his tongue to his brain with the first bite. He didn’t even need to look at the filling before his spirits sank a little.
“Why is it green beans again?! I eat these things every single day at home. I’m practically sick of them!”
“Ugh, tell me about it. Who isn’t?”
Zhao Zhaoxiang sighed. “My family grows some loofah gourds, too. For the past month, it’s been nothing but green beans and loofah gourds. I’m practically sick just looking at them now.”
As he spoke, he picked up a bun but didn’t bite into it right away. Instead, he cautiously broke it open to check the filling.
His heart sank.
Green bean filling.
Zeng Jun picked up a bun as well and took a bite. Sure enough, he hadn’t escaped the curse of green beans either.
Seeing how things were going, Jiang Xia decided there was no need to rush. She called out, “Xueling, come wash your hands with me first.”
The commune had a well, and not just any well, either—it was a more sophisticated pump well. The only catch was that there was no basin underneath, so someone had to help pump the handle whenever they wanted to use it.
“Sure,” Huang Xueling replied. “I need to wash my hands, too.”
“I’ll come as well.”
Li Henjian had handled soil, so his hands were dirty. He followed them over to wash up, too.
While the three took turns washing their hands, the accompanying local police officer tied the four suspects up separately beneath trees and inside an empty room behind the kitchen. After making sure they had no way to coordinate their stories, he came over to get a bun.
The officers didn’t mind that the buns had green bean filling. After all, they were getting a free meal, and they were lucky to have anything to eat. It was certainly better than having to pay for plain mantou.
After washing her hands, Jiang Xia shook off the water and returned to take a bun from the cloth bag.
She had already resigned herself to eating green beans yet again for lunch. Imagine her surprise when she took a bite and discovered that the filling was actually eggplant!
“Huh?”
Beside her, Huang Xueling had also taken a bite. She looked slightly surprised. “Mine has radish and glass noodles in it?”
Chen Dong gazed enviously at the buns in their hands. “How come neither of you got green bean filling?”
“Maybe the other fillings ended up at the bottom when they packed them?”
Zhao Zhaoxiang approached with his half-eaten bun. “Let me grab another one and see.”
With that, he took another bun from the bag and eagerly broke it open to check.
Green bean filling again.
Zhao Zhaoxiang felt his heart seize up.
Seeing someone else suffer a bit of bad luck always made life feel a little brighter. Watching Zhao Zhaoxiang end up with two green bean buns, Chen Dong couldn’t help the corners of his mouth from turning upward.
“Old Zhao, your luck is just terrible!”
Zhao Zhaoxiang stubbornly insisted, “There must just be too few buns with other fillings!”
“That’s true, actually. I saw that the cafeteria had quite a few green bean buns left over yesterday, but hardly any of the other kinds.”
Li Henjian reached into the bag and took one out. He broke it open and exclaimed in delight, “Oh! Mine’s chive and egg, and there’s quite a bit of egg in it, too!”
“Hey, none of you got green bean filling! I told you it was just Old Zhao having bad luck!”
Chen Dong swallowed his last bite and confidently stepped forward. “There must still be some buns with other fillings in the middle. Let’s see what kind I can get—”
As he spoke, he rummaged through the bag with his eyes, eventually picking out the bun that appealed to him most. He took it out and broke it open. His face immediately turned the same color as the filling.
How are they green beans again?!
“Hahaha! Old Chen, you were making fun of me!” Zhao Zhaoxiang mercilessly burst out laughing. “You carefully picked one out, and you still ended up with green bean filling!”
As the saying went, once you started pulling for a prize, it was hard to stop. Chen Dong refused to believe his luck could be that bad. Knowing he could still manage another bun, he reached in and took one more. He broke it open and looked inside.
Green beans again!
Chen Dong instantly fell into despair.
Having witnessed the entire spectacle, Jiang Xia silently offered him a moment of silence.
His luck was truly something else.
After finishing her bun, Jiang Xia turned to Huang Xueling and asked, “One bun isn’t enough to fill me up. I’d like another half. How about we split one?”
“I was just about to say I wanted another half, too.”
Huang Xueling set down her water bottle. “Go ahead and take one, Jiang Xia. Just give me half afterward.”
“Got it!”
Jiang Xia stepped forward and casually picked another bun from the cloth bag on the motorcycle. When she broke it open, she discovered that it was filled with diced mushrooms and meat.
Her luck was absolutely through the roof today!
Jiang Xia split the bun in half and handed one piece to Huang Xueling.
“It’s actually diced mushroom and meat filling?”
Huang Xueling looked quite surprised. “How did you manage to pick that one out, Jiang Xia? Your luck is incredible!”
“A meat bun? But I only took vegetarian ones!”
Zeng Jun was also a little surprised. He looked up and said, “This was probably mixed in by accident. There should only be one like this.”
At those words, Chen Dong’s eyes immediately widened.
Seriously, these buns were showing blatant favoritism!
Squatting beneath a tree, he silently ate his bun, finding it harder and harder to swallow with every bite.
“I think so, too.”
With Zhao Zhaoxiang and Chen Dong’s misfortune as examples, Jiang Xia, who had just pulled an SSR—or a rare card, in gaming terms—couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from rising.
She had to admit, these diced mushroom and meat buns were delicious.
And they tasted even better when paired with the expressions on Zhao Zhaoxiang and Brother Chen’s faces.
Jiang Xia happily finished her lunch and drank the water in her bottle. She was just about to head inside to get some hot water when the roar of a motorcycle suddenly sounded in the distance.
Jiang Xia stopped in her tracks.
She raised her head and gazed into the distance.
A tiny green figure was gradually approaching from afar. As it drew closer, the figure grew larger, and its features slowly became clear.
It was Lu Yixing.
About a minute later, he slowed down and rode into the open space in front of the commune. He stopped four or five meters away from the group, kicking up only a light cloud of dust that barely rose above his shins.
Lu Yixing dismounted and walked over with the document bag that had been hanging from his handlebars.
“Captain Zeng.”
After greeting Zeng Jun, Lu Yixing’s gaze instinctively fell on Jiang Xia, who was holding a water bottle. He paused for a moment before speaking.
“There was only one medical college and three health schools in the city. Brother Guo and I visited all of them. We found that the number of donated human skeletal specimens had increased quite a bit over the past two years. Something about that doesn’t seem right. But judging from the paperwork, everything appears to be in order. They all have official seals and signatures. I don’t think something’s right, so I brought all the documents back.”
As he spoke, Lu Yixing took a stack of papers out of his document bag and turned to Jiang Xia.
“I’ll need you and Forensic Trace Examiner Li to verify whether these are authentic.”
Looks like there was more work to do!
“Let me see.”
Jiang Xia walked over to Lu Yixing, took the papers from his hand, and began flipping through them.
They were all donation agreements.
The documents were very simple. They merely listed the donor and the recipient, then bore personal seals along with the official seal of the neighborhood committee or, alternatively, the production brigade. They looked fairly legitimate.
Personal seals would be difficult to verify, but the official seals were another matter. They all had anti-counterfeiting features, so their authenticity could be confirmed by comparing them with the official records.
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