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

“Li Youcai was initially defiant,” Zhao Xiu’s voice trembled, “saying he would go to the police station to report us for adultery. Zhang Feng got angry and hit his leg with a steel pipe. When he fell, his head hit a rock and he died on the spot.”

Wang Shuai pulled up the forensic report, which confirmed that Li Youcai did indeed have a 3×4cm blunt force injury on his left temporal region, consistent with the injury characteristics of "hitting the head with a stone." "Why did you dump the body in the pigsty?" His pen paused at the "motive for dumping the body" column. "Zhang Feng used to work at the farm, he knew the surveillance cameras there were broken, right?" Zhao Xiu suddenly coughed violently, as if choking on her own words: "He said the pigs would eat away the evidence, so the police wouldn't be able to find anything... When we dragged him away, his work clothes got caught on the fence, tearing a hole, and the dark blue cloth fell to the ground."

This detail perfectly matched Yang Lin's on-site investigation record—the dark blue fibers on the fence were torn from the gap in Li Youcai's work clothes. "Zhang Feng's size 44 safety shoes have the forefoot pressure zone on the outside," Wang Shuai stared into her eyes, "and the shoe prints on the farm are exactly the same. His old injury on his left leg was from a fall when he was a child, right?" Zhao Xiu's pupils suddenly contracted, as if she had been nailed to her chair by these words.

Regarding the 50,000 yuan that came in, Zhao Xiu finally admitted, "It was hush money from Hu Zi," her voice was so low it was almost a whisper. "Zhang Feng owed him 100,000 yuan in gambling debts. Hu Zi said that if he helped us get rid of Li Youcai, we wouldn't have to pay back the money." She suddenly remembered something, "Hu Zi provided the steel pipe, and he also helped wipe off the bloodstains on it, but we did the body disposal ourselves; he wasn't involved."

The interrogation continued until 7 a.m. Zhao Xiu's confession perfectly matched Zhang Feng's movements: he intercepted Li Youcai at 8 p.m. on July 12, committed the murder at 8:40 p.m., began dragging the body at 9:15 p.m., threw the body into the pigsty at 9:47 p.m., and went to the ATM to withdraw money at 10:15 p.m. - this time point perfectly matched the withdrawal records near the farm. Although the woman in the surveillance video was wearing sunglasses, her walking posture was the same as Zhao Xiu's.

"Where is Zhang Feng now?" Wang Shuai underlined the words "accomplice" with a thick line. Zhao Xiu's voice was filled with despair: "He said we'd meet at the train station in the neighboring city after the deed was done, he should still be in the waiting room..." She suddenly grabbed Wang Shuai's arm, the coldness of the handcuffs seeping through his sleeve, "Can I atone for my crime by doing good deeds? Zhang Feng said he also hid a knife under a flowerpot on the balcony..."

When technicians found the bloodstained folding knife in a flowerpot in Zhang Feng's house, the dark red stains on the blade gleamed silver under ultraviolet light. DNA testing showed that the bloodstains belonged to Li Youcai, and the fingerprints on the handle included those of Zhang Feng and Zhao Xiu. Meanwhile, in the trunk of Zhang Feng's motorcycle, there was a washed but not yet dried dark blue work uniform; the gaps in the cuffs perfectly matched the fibers from the farm.

As dawn broke, Wang Shuai's interrogation record had already filled five pages. Zhao Xiu and Zhang Feng's confessions were seamless in their grasp of key details, from the motive for the murder to the process of disposing of the body, each point in time forming a closed loop with the evidence at the scene. The walkie-talkie crackled with news of a successful arrest: Zhang Feng had been apprehended on a waiting bench at a train station in a neighboring city. In his black cloth bag lay Li Youcai's ID card and the recording pen.

As Wang Shuai closed the transcript, the morning light shone through the iron bars of the interrogation room onto the words "facts of the crime." Zhao Xiu's shadow swayed on the wall, like a fallen leaf about to be scattered by the wind. The distant sirens faded into the distance. In the pigsty of the farm, the once nameless corpse could finally rest in peace, while Zhao Xiu and Zhang Feng would face the severe punishment of the law.

In the waiting room of the neighboring city's train station, fluorescent lights hummed softly. Zhang Feng huddled on a plastic chair in the corner, a black cloth bag under his knees, half of his dark blue work uniform sleeve peeking out. When Wang Shuai appeared at the ticket gate, he suddenly clenched the bag tightly, his knuckles turning white—the voice recorder inside was stuck on the part where "Li Youcai threatened to call the police," the buttons sticky with sweat.

"Zhang Feng, come with us." Wang Shuai's handcuffs gleamed coldly under the light. The moment the bag was ripped open, Li Youcai's ID card slipped to the ground, the smile in the photo a stark contrast to the corpse's pallor. Zhang Feng instinctively pulled his left leg back, and as his trouser leg rolled up, a scar on his calf was revealed—a limp that perfectly matched the size 44 shoe print from the breeding farm.

The incandescent light in the interrogation room was even more glaring than in the waiting room, casting Zhang Feng's long shadow across the file of the "Li Youcai case." "Zhao Xiudu confessed," Wang Shuai pushed a photo of the steel pipe in front of him, the dark red stains gleaming silver under the ultraviolet light. "At 8:40 p.m. on July 12, your fingerprints and Li Youcai's blood were on the stones in the cornfield."

Zhang Feng's Adam's apple bobbed violently, and he suddenly yelled at the top of his lungs, "He cursed first!" The iron chain dragged on the ground with a grating sound. "He threatened me with a recording pen, saying he'd let my wife know about my affair with Zhao Xiu, and that he'd report me for stealing steel bars at the construction site!" He suddenly slammed his head against the table. "I just wanted to scare him, who knew the steel pipe would slip from my grasp..."

This statement formed a closed loop with Zhao Xiu's confession. Wang Shuai pulled up the survey report of the cornfield. There were indeed steel pipe scratches on the grass near the stone, and the fiber composition was exactly the same as the steel pipe provided by Hu Zi. "Your old injury on your left leg affected your power," he pointed to the assessment conclusion that "the pressure zone of the forefoot of the size 44 shoe print was off to the outside," "so when you hit Li Youcai's left leg, the angle was 15 degrees off, causing him to hit his head on the stone when he fell, right?" Zhang Feng's shoulders suddenly slumped, and tears mixed with snot covered his face.

Regarding the disposal of the body, Zhang Feng's description was more detailed than Zhao Xiu's: "When we were dragging, Li Youcai's work clothes got caught on the iron spikes of the fence," he gestured the posture at the time, "I cut it twice with a knife before I could tear it off. The dark blue strip of cloth fell into the mud. At the time, I thought the pigs would eat it. I didn't expect you to be able to find even this." He suddenly remembered something, "I deliberately stepped on the scale in the feed warehouse, wanting you to think it was done by the pig collection truck. 238 kilograms is my estimated weight of Li Youcai plus the weight of the feed."

These details perfectly matched Yang Lin's on-site investigation record—the 238 kilograms shown on the scale display was indeed the sum of Li Youcai's 70 kilograms weight and 168 kilograms of feed. "You worked at the farm for three years," Wang Shuai stared into his eyes, "so you knew the surveillance was broken, and you also knew Chen Jianfeng would be helping the sows give birth on Wednesday nights and wouldn't have time to pay attention to the activity in the pigpen, right?" Zhang Feng's pupils suddenly contracted, as if he had been nailed to the interrogation chair by these words.

Meanwhile, Tiger's loan company was being illuminated by police lights. (End of Chapter)