Huang Yi was startled. “A revenge designed by Shen Wei? How is that possible! Fu Shun’an has confessed everything. He wanted to send Shen Wei to prison, so he forged the recording to provoke Shen Wei. He was the instigator of this crime.”

Ling Lie propped his right hand on the edge of the desk, vaulted lightly onto Ji Chenjiao’s temporary workstation, and even crossed his legs.

“At first, I also thought Fu Shun’an was the instigator. His motive was logical. Life is short, and he and Chen Xiangli were so in love but couldn’t be together because of Shen Wei’s existence. Having reached his forties, he wanted to remove Shen Wei from his and Chen Xiangli’s lives. But… for this whole line of thought to work, there’s a prerequisite: Shen Wei must be very foolish and hold absolute trust in his friends.”

Huang Yi frowned. “Shen Wei did trust Fu Shun’an a lot.”

“It might not be a big problem for anyone else, but for Shen Wei, a man who got into the medical school of a renowned comprehensive university twenty years ago, a man who spent seventeen years hunting a killer, I don’t think his intelligence and reasoning ability should be underestimated,” Ling Lie continued. “And his trust in his friends is probably not that deep.”

“Shen Wei’s attitude towards Mou Dianpei carried a hint of annoyance and disdain. When the police cleared Mou Dianpei of suspicion back then, he might not have necessarily believed Mou Dianpei wasn’t the killer. But after so many years of investigation, the fact that he allowed Mou Dianpei to appear at ‘Old Shen’s Box Lunch’ should mean he had determined that Mou Dianpei was not the killer.” Ling Lie tapped his finger on the part of the report about the forged audio. “So here comes the question: for a smart and clear-thinking person like Shen Wei, would he believe it as soon as Fu Shun’an produced the recording?”

Huang Yi said, “But without special equipment for analysis, you really can’t tell the recording is a forgery.”

Ling Lie: “Then let me raise another question. From Shen Wei’s perspective, after hunting the killer for over a decade, he finally gets a recording of the suspect. Although this recording can’t be used as evidence, would he easily give up on handing the recording to the police just because of a few words from Fu Shun’an? And then hesitate himself about whether to take revenge?”

Huang Yi: “This…”

Ji Chenjiao: “That is slightly illogical.”

Ling Lie laughed. “Fu Shun’an is a lawyer, so his words might have had some effect on Shen Wei. But the most illogical part of this whole affair is actually that on that day, Fu Shun’an wanted Shen Wei to come to his car to talk, but Shen Wei insisted that Fu Shun’an come to the shop. Shen Wei said he forgot Lu Feixiang was still upstairs sick, but did he really forget? Why couldn’t he go to Fu Shun’an’s car? Because he ‘needed’ Lu Feixiang to hear their conversation.”

Ji Chenjiao nodded. “Yes, that’s the part that’s hardest to explain. Shen Wei is a very meticulous person. It doesn’t make sense for him to forget Lu Feixiang was upstairs.”

A chill ran down Huang Yi’s spine. The darkness and distortion of the human heart made even a man of iron will shudder. “If that’s true, then Shen Wei used Lu Feixiang’s gratitude towards him to completely drag a young man unrelated to the case into a world of crime! Did he plan this all along? Was helping Lu Feixiang all for this plan?”

Ling Lie said, “Not necessarily. Shen Wei said seeing the hopeless, withdrawn Lu Feixiang was like seeing himself when he gave up his studies. That might have been his only genuine display of emotion. It’s just that when he was formulating his plan, he discovered that Lu Feixiang could be useful, so he made Lu Feixiang a part of the plan.”

Ji Chenjiao thought of the scene where Shen Wei jumped out to take the blame for Lu Feixiang when Lu Feixiang wanted to confess after Zeng Shu’s apology. He couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. Shen Wei had truly played everyone like a fiddle.

“That Buddhist shrine in Chen Xiangli’s home.” Ji Chenjiao calculated the time Shen Wei gave her the shrine. “That might have been the first step of Shen Wei’s plan.”

Ling Lie crossed his arms in agreement. “Shen Wei had been investigating for over a decade. Just as Fu Shun’an said, after Shen Wei had eliminated everyone else, he would inevitably suspect him and Chen Xiangli. It’s just that Fu Shun’an realized this too late, and he only realized it under Shen Wei’s deliberate push.”

The report didn’t mention the shrine because it seemed like an insignificant item. Shen Wei gave Chen Xiangli a shrine for Tan Fabin. Chen Xiangli, with a guilty conscience, couldn’t face it and threw it onto the balcony to collect dust.

“The shrine was the key to Shen Wei’s plan,” Ling Lie said. “This year, or perhaps even earlier, Shen Wei had already begun to suspect Chen Xiangli and Fu Shun’an, but he had no evidence. Giving the shrine served two purposes. First, to test Chen Xiangli and confirm his deduction. Second, to push Fu Shun’an to ‘get rid of’ him.”

“Chen Xiangli’s reaction to the shrine was as good as the truth in Shen Wei’s eyes. From that moment on, Shen Wei’s plan officially began. I had been thinking about it over and over: Fu Shun’an and Chen Xiangli had lived a clandestine life for nearly twenty years, so why the sudden idea to send Shen Wei to prison? Fu Shun’an thought he independently came to the conclusion that Shen Wei would eventually target him and that their secret would be exposed sooner or later, but all of his ‘independent’ thoughts were within Shen Wei’s predictions.”

“Chen Xiangli was scared out of her wits by the shrine, her mood grew worse and worse, and she told Fu Shun’an about it. This led them to discuss—why did Shen Wei suddenly give her a shrine for Tan Fabin? Did he think Chen Xiangli was about to forget Tan Fabin? Was it a warning or a hint?”

“Once a person starts getting suspicious, there’s no end to it. Fu Shun’an looked back on the past dozen years and thought, damn, what kind of life have we been living? When will this life of hiding in the shadows end? Shen Wei will definitely suspect us one day. What should we do? Strike first! We can’t let Shen Wei know we’re the killers, so we’ll create a killer.”

“Fu Shun’an went through it again and again and decided that Mou Dianpei, who frequently visited ‘Old Shen’s Box Lunch,’ was the most suitable scapegoat. He predicted Shen Wei’s reaction upon getting the recording: anger? Excitement? Shen Wei would definitely take the recording to the police. But he absolutely could not let Shen Wei go to the police. Once that recording pen was treated as an important clue, the police would immediately discover it was a forgery.”

“So he instilled in Shen Wei the idea that the police were useless and urged him to end this feud through revenge. If the police didn’t trace it back to Shen Wei, that’s fine; Shen Wei had already identified Mou Dianpei as the killer and would no longer suspect him and Chen Xiangli. In another year or two, they could ‘naturally’ get together, and maybe even receive Shen Wei’s blessing. Of course, the most perfect outcome would be for the police to find Shen Wei. Given Shen Wei’s character, he would never confess his involvement. He would then find an opportunity to destroy the recording pen, become Shen Wei’s defense lawyer, and, while appearing to defend him, actually ensure the court gave Shen Wei the harshest sentence.”

“However, Shen Wei had anticipated all of his predictions. And the person who actually administered the poison was not Shen Wei, but Lu Feixiang.”

This was simply not the thinking of a normal person. Huang Yi swallowed, his palms breaking out in a cold sweat. In his many years as a policeman, he had caught many vicious criminals, but this was the first time he had felt such a sense of evil and cunning, like a venomous snake coiled around his spine.

He struggled to process it and asked, “But why would Shen Wei do this? He clearly…”

Ling Lie: “Clearly could have asked the police for help?”

Huang Yi opened his mouth. “He doesn’t trust the police?”

“He trusts them, of course he trusts them. If he didn’t, how could the police be the most important participants in his plan?” Ling Lie said. “But in the Tan Fabin case, he’s the one who has been involved the longest. He might have a bone-deep understanding that the law couldn’t punish Fu Shun’an and Chen Xiangli. And he also understands both of them. If he told the police the clues, the police would investigate Fu and Chen, but the most likely outcome would be an inability to convict due to insufficient evidence.”

Huang Yi said, “Under high-intensity investigation, Chen Xiangli might still lose control of her emotions and confess.”

But Ji Chenjiao shook his head. “When I was interrogating Fu Shun’an, he mentioned that he had done very thorough psychological preparation for Chen Xiangli. If the police had approached this through conventional means, it would have been very difficult to break their defense. The one who truly applied mental pressure on them was Shen Wei. Starting with the shrine, he introduced the police at every unexpected juncture, letting the police investigate the audio issue, investigate the clues of their cohabitation, until Chen Xiangli broke down.”

Huang Yi looked at his arm, where a patch of goosebumps had appeared. “This person is too, too terrifying.”

Ling Lie: “For someone who gave up his own life for the truth, someone who pursued it for seventeen years, ‘terrifying’ is too shallow a word to describe him.” With that, Ling Lie hopped off the desk and clapped his hands. “But all of this is still just at the inference stage. There’s no evidence, and it’s probably impossible to find any.”

Huang Yi thought for a moment. “At least the Tan Fabin case is solved.”

Ji Chenjiao frowned. “But Shen Wei’s evil lies in the fact that he dragged an innocent person into this. Lu Feixiang’s life has been changed by his plan.”

“But it’s a fact that Lu Feixiang administered the poison.” Ling Lie seemed somewhat cold at this moment. “Are you going to empathize with someone who administered poison?”

Ji Chenjiao sighed. “That’s not what I mean.”

Just then, a police officer ran over and said that Shen Wei was at the door of the interrogation room, saying he wanted to talk to Teacher Ling.

Ling Lie: “With me? In the interrogation room?”

Unlike their previous few meetings, Shen Wei’s brow was now relaxed, as if a huge burden had been lifted. He stood straight in the hallway and smiled at Ling Lie. Huang Yi was stunned, not expecting Shen Wei to be able to smile so gently.

Ling Lie said, “Did we pick the wrong place? This is an interrogation room.”

Shen Wei shook his head. “It’s here. I’m here to confess.”

Ling Lie: “Confess? Confess what?”

“Incitement? The principal offender in the poisoning case?” Shen Wei waved his hand. “My legal knowledge is still too shallow. When I get to the procuratorate later, I’ll let the prosecutor write the correct charges for the indictment.”

The various machines in the interrogation room were turned on, and the light shone on Shen Wei’s face. He was relieved, yet he had taken on a new burden. This burden was heavy, no lighter than the one he had carried for seventeen years, because it was a young man’s long life, a life he had ruined.

“I wasn’t telling the truth. The day Fu Shun’an came to give me the recording, I knew Lu Feixiang was upstairs. I deliberately let him hear. I was the one who incited him to poison Mou Dianpei. He was just grateful for my care and was brainwashed by me. The one who should be sent to the procuratorate is me.”

Ling Lie showed a very shocked expression and said, swiveling his chair, “You’ve played a very big game of chess.”

Shen Wei smiled bitterly. “In order to make the criminals confess their crime, I had to sacrifice my conscience.”

Ling Lie said, “All of Fu Shun’an’s actions were within your predictions, weren’t they?”

Shen Wei nodded and, after a moment, said, “The biggest regret of my life is bringing that ungrateful wolf, Fu Shun’an, before my older brother.”

The young Shen Wei never imagined that a classmate who had lived a poor, ostracized, and unloved life since childhood would, upon entering a near-perfect environment, crazily absorb all the nutrients in that environment, trying in vain to possess it all. Chen Xiangli was the sweetest honey before Fu Shun’an’s eyes. Together, they killed Tan Fabin.

But neither Shen Wei himself nor the criminal police at the time paid much attention to the two of them.

It wasn’t until last year that Shen Wei discovered a strange atmosphere when Chen Xiangli and Fu Shun’an were together. He followed them and found Chen Xiangli getting into Fu Shun’an’s car very naturally.

They were together? When did they get together? Why were they acting in front of him?

He had been hunting the killer for over a decade, and the suspects were eliminated one by one. Was there no killer?

Soon, he thought of the possibility closest to the truth. He felt his spiritual world collapse. His best friend and “sister-in-law” had taken away his only relative and were playing him for a fool.

He had to expose them, but how could he make them slip up? Confess their crime?

The plan gradually took shape this year. Fu Shun’an was more rational and intelligent than Chen Xiangli, so he had to start with Chen Xiangli, making her repeatedly convey fear and the unpredictability of life to Fu Shun’an.

He went to a temple and casually got a shrine, but he didn’t act on it for a long time. Because his plan included a sinful subplot—he had to use Lu Feixiang.

Lu Feixiang was him. When he saved Lu Feixiang, he held the hope that Lu Feixiang would inherit his own ideal of saving lives. Lu Feixiang was preparing for the self-study exam and might soon return to school.

Could he remove this subplot? He thought long and hard and found that he couldn’t. Lu Feixiang was indispensable.

The moment the plan began, he felt he was a demon. Seeing Chen Xiangli’s face turn pale because of the shrine, a sense of pleasure welled up inside him.

Originally, Fu Shun’an was quite satisfied with his current life. Although he couldn’t be with Chen Xiangli openly, he had more or less gotten used to it. But when Chen Xiangli tearfully told him about the shrine, and the ensuing panic about the unpredictability of life, Fu Shun’an also gradually became anxious.

When people get anxious, they look for a way out.

How could Fu Shun’an have known that the way out he had worked so hard to find was actually a dead end that Shen Wei had meticulously laid out for him after repeated deductions?

Lu Feixiang’s illness was also Shen Wei’s doing. He had put a laxative in Lu Feixiang’s food. When Lu Feixiang felt unwell, he tampered with the thermometer to make Lu Feixiang think he had a cold and a fever.

He lured Fu Shun’an to the shop and deliberately spoke loudly, with the purpose of letting Lu Feixiang hear everything.

Lu Feixiang’s greatest trait was his gratitude, especially since he was the only one who had extended a helping hand. Lu Feixiang easily stole the recording pen, of course, because he had deliberately let Lu Feixiang steal it.

As for using paraquat for the poisoning, that was an accident.

Shen Wei couldn’t have predicted that Mou Dianpei would buy paraquat and bring it to the shop. He had already prepared another poison, just waiting for Lu Feixiang to find it.

But Lu Feixiang had stolen Mou Dianpei’s paraquat first.

Ling Lie asked, “Was there any reason why Mou Dianpei had to die?”

Shen Wei was stunned for a moment, then smiled and shook his head. “I know, he wasn’t the killer.”

“But you still wanted to kill him.”

“…I had no other way.”

“The plan proceeded smoothly according to your thinking. The law can’t punish you. Why did you have to come ‘chat’ with me?”

Shen Wei was silent for a long time. “I did all this indeed to expose Fu and Chen while extricating myself. But just now, downstairs, when I saw what Xiao Lu said to his classmates, I suddenly felt that I was even more heinous than Fu Shun’an. He could have actually returned to the right path. It was I who made it so his mistake could never be rectified. I… I should do something.”

Shen Wei later revealed many more details, which were more or less the same as Ling Lie’s initial deductions.

“Mou Dianpei didn’t die because of Xiao Lu’s poisoning. This might be a chance for me and Xiao Lu. I am the mastermind. I incited Xiao Lu. Please record it this way.”

Shen Wei had already explained the case very clearly. Huang Yi was about to take Shen Wei away. But Ling Lie suddenly said, “Wait a moment.”

Shen Wei turned around. “Is there anything else?”

“You’ve investigated for seventeen years. You should have also looked deep into the Bi Jiang case.” Ling Lie folded his hands and rested them under his chin. “Any thoughts?”

Shen Wei sat down again. “It was a copycat crime. The killer is definitely not Chen or Fu. And I think Bi Jiang most likely learned some secret while working abroad and was silenced.”

Ling Lie frowned. “Country L?”

Shen Wei nodded. “I’m good at using the process of elimination. I’ve investigated all of Bi Jiang’s relationships before and after he went abroad. He’s different from my brother. My brother had many enemies, but Bi Jiang was gentle-natured, not very ambitious, and wasn’t in anyone’s way. Ruling out a domestic cause, it must be that he made an enemy in Country L. But based on his personality, I still think the possibility of him making an enemy is low. And he himself probably didn’t know what fatal trouble he had gotten into. So it’s possible he unintentionally learned a certain secret and had to die.”

Ling Lie said, “But he had already returned to the country…”

Shen Wei: “That’s the key point. Even if he knew some incredible secret, he had already left Country L. Why would the other party still pursue him relentlessly?”

The two said in unison, “Because that person also returned to the country!”

Shen Wei let out a breath. “That is my conclusion.”

Ling Lie: “Thank you.”

“Will we have a chance to meet again in the future?” Shen Wei said. “Actually, the day you came to treat me to watermelon, you had already seen my position in this plan, hadn’t you?”

Ling Lie shrugged. “You still want to see me?”

Shen Wei chuckled. “Since we’ve come this far, I’ll share one more of my thoughts.”

“Please speak.”

“The funeral and white affairs industry is a place that hides filth.”

Ling Lie raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not saying all of it, but you must know about that famous case—the funeral home worker who killed and cremated bodies. Being in this industry, having contact with a large number of corpses, and having the innate convenience of access to crematoriums and cemeteries, does indeed provide convenience for some criminals to destroy bodies and erase traces.”

“I’m not demeaning this profession. My older brother was a leader in the funeral industry. I’m just stating a fact. In this line of work, it’s much easier to use the rules and conveniences to clear away traces of a crime than in other industries.”

After Shen Wei was led away, Ling Lie remained seated in the interrogation room, pondering the two pieces of information Shen Wei had given him. The task of solving Wei Zhiyong’s cold cases was now only half complete. He had to find Bi Jiang’s killer to completely close the case.

The recording equipment in the interrogation room was still on. Huang Yi had forgotten to turn it off when he left. Ji Chenjiao saw from the monitor that Ling Lie was still sitting there, so he might as well continue watching.

This was a very special perspective. Usually, the atmosphere in an interrogation room was tense and confrontational, but now there was only Ling Lie sitting there idly.

What was Ling Lie thinking?

Ji Chenjiao suddenly remembered a time when they went to a town to investigate a case. As soon as An Xun got off the autopsy table, he eagerly took out his phone to watch a monitor, smiling as he watched. He glanced over and saw it was a still video.

What was so funny about that?

An Xun noticed him looking and quickly said, “Captain, look at my daughter!”

Ji Chenjiao: “…” When did you get married?

It turned out that the daughter An Xun was talking about was a delicate Ragdoll cat. An Xun had installed cameras and a full set of smart cat devices at home. When he was on business trips or too busy to go home, he would watch his cat through the camera.

Ji Chenjiao didn’t quite understand it back then, but now, watching Ling Lie spinning in his chair in the interrogation room, he had a sudden flash of insight and understood the joy of “cat” watching.

The “cat,” as it was spinning, seemed to notice the camera was still working. It walked over, got close, and its face filled the entire monitor. Then, the next second, the monitor went black.

Ji Chenjiao sighed with regret and decided to go downstairs to see the “cat” in person.

After turning off the monitor, Ling Lie became even more relaxed, even putting his feet up on the table. When Ji Chenjiao appeared at the door, he looked over drowsily. To others, he might have looked like he was spacing out, but Ji Chenjiao could tell at a glance that this was the expression Ling Lie had when he was deep in thought.

Ji Chenjiao walked over and swatted Ling Lie’s legs off the table. “You’re on someone else’s turf, have some manners.”

Ling Lie reluctantly put his legs down. “Then is your Major Crimes Division my turf?”

“?”

“You don’t intervene when I put my feet up in the Major Crimes Division.”

Ji Chenjiao thought about it and clicked his tongue. Was he being wrapped around this “cat’s” little finger?

Now that Ji Chenjiao had arrived, Ling Lie didn’t want to stay cooped up in the interrogation room anymore and wanted to go out for coffee with him. Ji Chenjiao found it strange. “I thought you weren’t a big fan of coffee?”

Ling Lie: “Doesn’t Starbucks have other drinks? I want cake too.”

Ji Chenjiao had originally thought he was about to be fleeced for another meal, but when they entered Starbucks, Ling Lie rushed to pay, ordering him a venti cappuccino and a Frappuccino for himself, plus two desserts.

Ji Chenjiao looked at Ling Lie suspiciously. Had the sun risen from the west, or was the world ending? The “cat” was treating its owner to Starbucks?

Ling Lie even wanted to clink glasses with him. “Xiao Ji, why are you dodging?”

Xiao Ji: “…Do you need a favor from me?”

Ling Lie waved his hand like a retired old man. “I’m the one who dragged you into investigating the Feng’an County case, right? This matter had nothing to do with you in the first place.”

It was a fact, but Ji Chenjiao felt something was off about how he said it.

Was it because of the phrase “had nothing to do with you”?

Ling Lie: “We’ve investigated this far, and the truth of the Tan Fabin case has been found. All that’s left is the Bi Jiang case. Shen Wei just gave me some ideas. For this stage of progress, treating Little Snake to a cup of coffee is only right.”

Author’s note:
The case of the funeral home worker killing people mentioned by Shen Wei is a real case, which caused a huge sensation at the time.