Attending ex-girlfriend's wedding, arresting the groom's officer on the spot

The assault team led by Wang Shuai crawled through the weed-covered backyard and found that the side door of the warehouse was ajar. The sound of goods being moved could be faintly heard from inside.

"Action!" Lu Chuan gave the order, and the assault team rushed into the yard like a cheetah. The team members at the front door kicked open the iron gate at the same time, shouting: "Police! Don't move!" Li Qiang jumped up from the recliner in shock, and his cell phone fell to the ground. He turned around and wanted to run to the warehouse, but was knocked to the ground by Wang Shuai.

"Li Qiang, you are suspected of murdering Zhao Jianguo. You are now officially arrested!" Lu Chuan showed the arrest warrant, and two team members quickly handcuffed him. Li Qiang struggled frantically, screaming: "Why are you arresting me? I am innocent!" But he was quickly controlled by the team members and put into the police car.

Back at the Criminal Investigation Brigade, the atmosphere in the interrogation room was so oppressive that it was suffocating. Li Qiang was pressed into the interrogation chair, with the glaring incandescent light shining directly on his face. Lu Chuan and Zhang Hui sat down on the left and right, with thick case files and photos of physical evidence in front of them.

"Li Qiang, tell me, why did you kill Zhao Jianguo?" Lu Chuan went straight to the point.

Li Qiang stiffened his neck, his eyes full of ferocity: "I don't know what you are talking about! Zhao Jianguo and I have no grudges against each other, why are you framing me?"

Zhang Hui sneered and projected the dashcam footage onto the wall. "This is the video of Chen Hu transporting the body. He has confessed everything. And this..." He held up the torn pages of the account book he had found at the scrap yard. "It clearly says 'Zhao Jianguo's hush money'. How long are you going to keep quibbling?"

Li Qiang's face turned pale instantly, but he still pretended to be calm: "Chen Hu is talking nonsense! I don't know what he is doing!"

Lu Chuan suddenly threw a stack of photos on the table, all of which were the tragic scene of Zhao Jianguo being killed: "Zhao Jianguo followed you for more than ten years, helped you steal things, and took the blame. Why are you so cruel?"

Li Qiang's lips trembled slightly, and his eyes began to evade. Zhang Hui took the opportunity to press on: "We have already found out that after Zhao Jianguo was burned in 2019, you threatened him to steal materials from the factory. Later, he wanted to stop, but you were afraid that the matter would be exposed, so you wanted to kill him, right?"

Faced with the irrefutable evidence, Li Qiang's psychological defenses began to waver, but he remained silent. The interrogation room was in a stalemate, with only the clock on the wall ticking. Lu Chuan knew that this was a test of endurance, and they had plenty of time and patience until the truth came out.

The incandescent light in the interrogation room was buzzing. Li Qiang's hands were handcuffed to the iron table. The reflective metal handcuffs and his gloomy eyes intertwined to create a cold atmosphere. Lu Chuan and Zhang Hui sat across the table, with a thick stack of case files in front of them. The top photo was a facial reconstruction of Zhao Jianguo, which was pale blue under the strong light.

"Li Qiang, tell me where you were on the night of August 8." Lu Chuan spoke first, his voice steady but with an unquestionable sense of oppression.

Li Qiang pulled the corner of his mouth and showed a contemptuous smile: "I'm sleeping at the scrap yard. If you don't believe me, go ask the neighbors." He crossed his legs and tapped the ground with the soles of his leather shoes rhythmically. "Comrade police, did you arrest the wrong person? Zhao Jianguo and I haven't been in touch for 800 years."

Zhang Hui pushed the dashcam video screenshot in front of him. In the video, Chen Hu, wearing a baseball cap, was carrying a waterproof cloth package. "Then how do you explain this unlicensed van? The owner's route happened to pass through the cornfield in Qinggang Village." Li Qiang's eyelids trembled slightly, and then he regained his composure: "How should I know? There are so many cars on the road now." He lowered his head and rubbed his shoulder. "Besides, what does this have to do with me?"

The interrogation lasted for two hours, and Li Qiang kept using this rhetoric to prevaricate. When Zhang Hui took out the blood-stained rubber gloves he had found at the scrap yard, he even sneered, "There has to be some technique to frame someone, right? Are there any fingerprints on these gloves?" He suddenly raised his voice, "I want to see a lawyer!"

Lu Chuan was silent for a moment, then pulled out a document from the file bag. When the recording of Chen Hu's confession sounded in the interrogation room, Li Qiang's toes stopped shaking. "Qiangzi said that Zhao Jianguo knew too many secrets, and we must get rid of him in the warehouse near the steel plant and beat him to death with an iron rod." Chen Hu's crying voice echoed in the confined space, and Li Qiang's Adam's apple rolled violently, and veins popped out on his forehead.

"Do you want to continue pretending?" Zhang Hui pushed the half-broken iron rod in the evidence bag in front of him. The mottled bloodstains on the metal surface glowed fluorescently under the ultraviolet light. "This was found in the mezzanine of your warehouse. The DNA test results are a perfect match with Zhao Jianguo."

Li Qiang suddenly shook the handcuffs wildly, causing the iron table to clang loudly. "Chen Hu, that bastard! We agreed to carry him together!" His voice suddenly changed. He grabbed the water cup on the table and smashed it to the ground. The glass fragments splashed on the corner of the wall. "Zhao Jianguo deserves it! Who told him to call the police!"

The air seemed to freeze for three seconds. Lu Chuan pulled out a yellowed IOU, on which Zhao Jianguo's crooked handwriting read "Today I borrow 2019 yuan from Li Qiang": "Since the burn accident in , you have used debt to control him and forced him to steal scrap metal from the factory, right?"

Li Qiang slumped in his chair, staring at the incandescent light on the ceiling, his eyes gradually blurred: "That kid is too naive." His voice was hoarse, "After the burn, he couldn't do heavy work, so he was fired by the factory and begged me to find him a job. I introduced him to stealing waste materials and selling them for money, giving him 30% each time - but he took the money for two years and suddenly said he didn't want to do it anymore."

Zhang Hui opened his notebook: "So you killed him?"

"He's going to report it!" Li Qiang suddenly became excited, and the handcuffs made a harsh sound on the iron table. "That night, he ran to the warehouse to find me and said that he had a guilty conscience and wanted to turn himself in." His nails dug deep into his palms. "Turn himself in? What should I do if he goes to jail? Those customers who buy scrap materials, and the holes in the account books."

Lu Chuan retrieved the steel plant surveillance video: "During the 2020 Spring Festival, you drove Zhao Jianguo away, actually forcing him to leave, right?"

In the video, Zhao Jianguo, carrying a woven bag, looked back every few steps as he got on Li Qiang's pickup truck. Li Qiang looked at the screen and suddenly laughed out loud, with a bit of madness in his laughter: "He thought he could get away with it by hiding for a few years? In the past three years, he has been doing odd jobs in the surrounding area, and I have been keeping an eye on him. In July this year, he secretly contacted his former co-workers and said he wanted to collect evidence."

Zhang Hui pushed the phone in the evidence bag over, and an unsent text message draft was displayed on the screen: "After you dumped the body in the cornfield, do you still want to put the blame on someone else?" The content of the draft was "Zhao Jianguo's death has nothing to do with me, he offended someone himself."

"I didn't want to kill him." Li Qiang suddenly covered his face, tears seeping out from between his fingers. "That day in the warehouse, he said he would call the police, and I got anxious and picked up an iron rod..." His shoulders trembled violently. "After beating him to death, I panicked and called Chen Hu, giving him 50,000 yuan to ask him to help dispose of the body." (End of this chapter)