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

"Li Baoquan discovered that your building materials store was selling inferior goods and threatened to report it, so you paid him first and then thought you could get away with it once and for all?" Sun Zhiguo suddenly coughed violently. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and finally stopped trying to deny it: "He was too greedy. He wasn't satisfied even after taking the money."

As Sun Zhiguo confessed, the details of the case gradually became clear. Three months earlier, Li Baoquan, while sweeping the streets, happened to witness Sun Zhiguo's building materials store loading substandard cement onto a truck and transporting it to a construction site. "He was recording with his phone, saying he was going to report it to the quality inspection bureau," Sun Zhiguo said, leaning back in his chair, looking exhausted. "I pleaded with him and gave him 10 yuan first, but he kept coming back every few days asking for more money, saying he needed it to pay for his daughter's university education."

When recounting the crime, Sun Zhiguo's voice became mechanical. Late on the night of November 12th, he lured Li Baoquan to an abandoned factory under the pretext of "one last negotiation." "I put sleeping pills in his tea; he drank half a cup and passed out." His fingernails dug deeply into his palms. "I only intended to tie him up, but he suddenly woke up, struggled desperately, and scratched me."

Sun Zhiguo grabbed an enamel mug from the table, his Adam's apple bobbing violently: "I grabbed a steel pipe and smashed it down, once, twice." His eyes were vacant, as if he had returned to that bloody night, "The blood splattered on my face, it was warm. Later I used a chainsaw to dismember the body, I learned it online, thinking that if I disposed of the body separately, I wouldn't be discovered."

The interrogation room fell into a deathly silence, broken only by the hissing of the recording pen. Lu Chuan noticed a scabbed scar on the web of Sun Zhiguo's right hand, which matched the location of the skin tissue extracted from under Li Baoquan's fingernails. "Why did you choose the ditch to dump the body?" he asked coldly. Sun Zhiguo wiped his face: "It's secluded there; the water would wash away the traces. I used a truck to transport the body parts, and I deliberately took a seven or eight-fold detour."

When asked about the 30 yuan in cash, Sun Zhiguo suddenly burst into laughter, a laugh tinged with despair: "That was money I was planning to use to flee. I've made a lot of money selling substandard building materials over the years, and I was thinking of leaving the country once things calmed down." His laughter abruptly stopped, and he slammed his fist on the table: "It's all Li Baoquan's fault! If only he had known when to quit while he was ahead!"

Wang Shuai pushed a photo of Li Baoquan's daughter in front of him: "This is Li Mengmeng. She got into a top high school this year. She doesn't know about her father yet. What do you want to say?" Sun Zhiguo stared at the girl's bright smile in the photo, then suddenly covered his face and burst into tears, his shoulders shaking violently: "I'm so sorry to her, I deserve to die, but I had no choice. Those construction site bosses forced me to supply goods; if I didn't adulterate them, I wouldn't make any money."

The interrogation continued until the early hours of the morning. Sun Zhiguo provided detailed accounts of the location where the dismemberment tools were hidden, the transportation route, and even drew a diagram showing how the body was disposed of. When the police found the chainsaw at a suburban landfill based on his confession, human tissue was still visible on the saw teeth. By then, Sun Zhiguo was slumped in the interrogation chair, his eyes vacant, as if his soul had already vanished along with the crimes he confessed to.

Stepping out of the interrogation room, dawn was breaking. Lu Chuan looked at the case report in his hand, recalling the yellowed remittance slip in Li Baoquan's rented room, the words "for stationery" blurred by water. In the distance, Li Mengmeng might be walking to school with her backpack, unaware that the father who silently saved for her tuition and secretly wrote blessings on the remittance slip would never see her pass the university entrance exam. And awaiting Sun Zhiguo would be the harshest punishment of the law; this tragedy, born of greed and desire, had finally come to a bloody end.

Fifteen days after the incident.

The gloomy clouds hung low, as if they would crush the entire city. Sun Zhiguo, handcuffed and shackled, was escorted off the police car by two officers. His greasy hair clung to his forehead, his once-shiny leather shoes were now covered in mud, and his once-crisp suit was wrinkled beyond recognition, much like his disheveled and twisted soul at this moment.

The abandoned factory's iron gate creaked in the cold wind, rust peeling off like scabs. Sun Zhiguo stared at the faded signboard, his Adam's apple bobbing violently, his face turning deathly pale. "This is it," he said hoarsely, as if a shard of glass was stuck in his throat. "On the night of November 12th, I tricked Li Baoquan into coming here."

Lu Chuan gestured for him to continue. Sun Zhiguo took a deep breath and moved forward mechanically: "I put sleeping pills in the green tea beforehand. He started to get dizzy after drinking half a cup. I helped him into the workshop and tied him to that rusty pillar." He pointed to the iron pillar in the corner, which still had a few dark red stains on it. "I only intended to lock him up for a few days until he gave in, but he suddenly woke up, struggling and shouting that he was going to report me."

Sun Zhiguo's eyes turned fierce, as if he had returned to that bloody night: "He headbutted me, his fingernails scratching several bloody marks on my face. I panicked and grabbed the steel pipe next to me." His voice stopped abruptly as he raised his handcuffed hand and gestured as if to strike. "I don't know how many times I hit him. By the time I realized what was happening, his head was already dented, and blood was splattered all over me."

The wind howled through the dilapidated windows of the factory, stirring up dust from the ground. Sun Zhiguo staggered and was helped up by a police officer. "And then?" Zhang Hui pressed coldly. "Then...then I got scared." Sun Zhiguo slumped onto the oil-stained floor. "I searched online for ways to dismember a body, and drove to a hardware store that night to buy a chainsaw." He looked up, his eyes vacant. "The sound, buzzing and whirring, made my head feel like it was going to explode, but I couldn't stop. I had to destroy the evidence."

He struggled to his feet and walked to the other side of the workshop: "I dragged him here, right on this concrete platform." Brown marks were still visible on the edge of the platform, gleaming eerily under the survey lights. "First I sawed off the legs, then the arms, and finally..." He suddenly gagged violently, his body trembling uncontrollably, "and finally the head. Blood and bits of flesh were splattered everywhere, so I wrapped the body parts in plastic sheeting and stuffed them into the back of the truck."

After identifying the dismemberment scene, the group went to a small warehouse behind the factory. Sun Zhiguo pointed to an iron box in the corner: "The chainsaw and plastic sheeting were hidden here. Later, under cover of darkness, I threw them into the river in the suburbs." His voice trailed off, "I thought that would be the end of it, but every night when I went to sleep, I could hear the sound of the chainsaw and Li Baoquan's screams."

The convoy then arrived at a ditch on the outskirts of the city. Sun Zhiguo stood beside the reeds where the body parts had been found, his legs trembling, almost collapsing to his knees: "I drove the truck along the ditch, and seeing this secluded spot, I threw the body parts in one by one." He pointed to the water, "The legs were thrown in first, then the arms, and finally... finally, I buried the head in the reeds. I even weighed it down with stones, afraid it would be washed away." (End of Chapter)