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

Song Yao's Adam's apple bobbed violently, and she suddenly raised her voice: "Wang Lei lied to me! He said it contained Li Yunfeng's pay slip and told me to take it quickly before Zhao Jianguo found out!" Her nails dug deeply into her palms. "I only noticed the bag was bleeding when I got to the elevator, and I was so scared that I threw it directly into the trash can—you can check the security camera footage of the trash can if you don't believe me!"

Wang Shuai had indeed checked. The surveillance footage from the trash can showed that Song Yao threw away the bag at 0:40 a.m. and left in a hurry. However, the bloodstains extracted by the technicians from the inside of the trash can matched Li Yunfeng's DNA after comparison. "How do you explain the bloodstains on your coat?" He pulled up the spectral analysis report. "Type AB blood, which matches Li Yunfeng's blood type, and the bloodstain pattern is splattered, not simply seeped in."

These words were like a key, unlocking Song Yao's taut nerves. She suddenly slumped into her chair, the Longines watch chain digging into her wrist until it turned red: "It was me... I pushed him down." Her voice trembled with tears, the muscles in her right eyebrow twitching. "On the night of July 12th, I caught him arguing with Wang Lei in the garage. Li Yunfeng was holding an account book, saying he was going to report Zhao Jianguo. When Wang Lei pulled out a knife, I lunged at him to grab it, and ended up pushing Li Yunfeng against a warning post..."

Wang Shuai asked the technician to retrieve the 3D reconstruction map of the garage. The "location of the warning post" described by Song Yao was exactly 1.2 meters north of where Li Yunfeng's body was found. There was indeed a fresh scratch measuring 3×2 centimeters on the dark red paint of the post. The DNA of the remaining skin tissue fragments matched Li Yunfeng perfectly. This formed a complete chain of evidence with the conclusion in the forensic report that "the deceased had blunt force trauma to the back of his head".

"What did you do after you pushed him down?" Wang Shuai pressed, his gaze falling on the belt buckle of Song Yao's dress. The scratches on the metal buckle matched the wear marks on the buttons of Li Yunfeng's pajamas very well.

Song Yao's breathing suddenly quickened, as if an invisible hand was choking her: "He hit the back of his head on the post and didn't move at all." She gestured wildly in the air with her fingers. "Wang Lei said, 'It's too late to stop now.' When he dragged Li Yunfeng to the corner, I saw the ledger fall to the ground, so I just stuffed it into my bag—I wanted to keep it as a keepsake for the child."

This detail solved the mystery of the missing ledger. Technicians found the blood-stained ledger in a hidden compartment in Song Yao's wardrobe. The teeth marks on the edges of the pages perfectly matched those on a model of Song Yao's teeth—she had attempted to bite through the binding thread to destroy evidence. Page 17 of the ledger recorded Zhao Jianguo's tax evasion in March 2023, and the dark red spots mixed in with the ink were identified as Li Yunfeng's blood.

"You were there when Wang Lei stabbed Li Yunfeng with a utility knife, weren't you?" Wang Shuai suddenly raised his voice and pressed play on the recording of Wang Lei's confession. "...Song Yao was watching from the side. She was even more ruthless than me, saying, 'Let's just kill him...'" Wang Lei's voice came through the speaker in the recording, and Song Yao's face instantly turned ashen.

She suddenly covered her ears and screamed, "He lied! He forced me to do this!" Her screams echoed in the interrogation room, making the light bulbs buzz. "After Li Yunfeng found out about my affair with Wang Lei, he beat and verbally abused me every day," she said, her nails digging deeply into the table. "That day he said he wanted to divorce me, that he wanted me to leave with nothing, and that he would make sure our child could never hold their head up high again... I hate him!"

This explosive confession perfectly matched the forensic findings that "there was female skin tissue under the nail of Li Yunfeng's right ring finger." DNA testing showed that the gene sequence of those skin fragments matched Song Yao's saliva sample by 99.99%, and the skin tissue showed obvious signs of tearing—confirming that Song Yao scratched Li Yunfeng during the argument.

Wang Shuai pulled up Song Yao's call records. At 9:07 PM on July 12th, a text message she sent to Wang Lei was clearly visible: "Make our move tonight. I'll lure him to the garage." This message was sent exactly ten minutes after Zhao Jianguo's call with Wang Lei. "You not only knew about it, but you also participated in the plot." He pushed a copy of the insurance policy in front of Song Yao. "This 500,000 yuan insurance coverage is your real motive for murder, isn't it?"

Song Yao's defenses completely crumbled, tears and snot streaming down her face: "Zhao Jianguo found me. He said that as long as Li Yunfeng died, the insurance money and company shares would all belong to me." Her voice cracked. "He gave me a key and said it could open the side door of the garage... I only wanted to scare Li Yunfeng, but he called me a bitch and said he would sue Wang Lei... This will ruin his whole family."

This explanation details the source of the splattered bloodstains on Song Yao's coat. The forensic report indicated that three drops of blood had a flight trajectory angle of 35 degrees, consistent with the characteristics of blood formed while standing 1.5 meters to Li Yunfeng's right, perfectly matching Song Yao's statement that she was "standing beside him watching." Furthermore, Song Yao's fingerprints were indeed found in the lock cylinder of the garage side door, perfectly matching the tooth marks on the key Zhao Jianguo had given her.

"You asked Wang Lei to dispose of the bloodstained pajamas, actually to destroy your traces, right?" Wang Shuai drew a line under the words "Song Yao's torn coat." "Those pajamas were bought for Li Yunfeng," Song Yao's voice was low, almost a whisper. "The torn cuffs were cut with scissors last week, so he could throw them away and buy new ones... I was afraid the police would recognize that I gave them to him, so I asked Wang Lei to sell them quickly." She suddenly laughed, but her tears flowed even more fiercely. "I didn't touch the 50,000 yuan at all. I hid it in my child's teddy bear, thinking that if something happened, it would be a way for my child to survive."

The air conditioner in the interrogation room was turned back on, and the cold air whipped up Song Yao's disheveled hair. She confessed that she had contacted Zhao Jianguo multiple times after the incident, and he promised to arrange for her and her child to be smuggled abroad. "He said that as long as I insisted I knew nothing about it, the maximum sentence would be a few years..." The voice recorder faithfully recorded every word. When she mentioned the line in Li Yunfeng's diary, "If something happens to me, it must be them," Song Yao suddenly covered her face, her shoulders trembling violently: "I'm so sorry to him, and even more sorry to my child..."

Wang Shuai watched as Song Yao signed the arrest warrant; the sound of the pen scratching the paper was strikingly similar to the scratches on the last page of Li Yunfeng's diary. A technician entered, his report showing traces of titanium-containing coating remaining in the gaps of Song Yao's Longines watch bracelet, identical to the composition found in the lock cylinder of the apartment complex's garage—ironclad evidence of her involvement in moving the body.

As Song Yao was being escorted away, she suddenly turned back to look at the clock on the wall of the interrogation room. The hands pointed to 3:17 PM—the time Li Yunfeng usually went home after get off work. Sunlight streamed through the iron bars onto her handcuffs, casting dappled patterns on the floor, like her life, which could never be pieced together completely. (End of Chapter)