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

"This saw blade and gloves, these are the tools you used when you dismembered and disposed of the body, right?" Wang Shuai placed the evidence in front of Li Lijuan. Li Lijuan's head was bowed low, tears dripping onto the floor. After a long silence, she slowly nodded: "Yes... I used them. I dismembered him in the carpentry workshop and then threw him into the garbage room and warehouse. I thought no one would find it, but I didn't expect you to find it anyway."

As Li Lijuan was being escorted downstairs, neighbors in the stairwell peered out, their voices rising and falling. "I never thought someone as honest as her would kill someone." "Zhang Baode seemed like a good person usually, how could he be abusive?" Li Lijuan leaned her head against the police car window, watching the familiar streets recede into the distance, her eyes filled with regret and despair.

In the police car, Li Lijuan gave more details in fits and starts: "On the afternoon of July 11, I pretended to go for a walk in the park, but actually went to the furniture factory. I knew he was going to work overtime that day, so I put a bottle of water with sleeping pills on his workstation beforehand. He drank it and passed out." Her voice was hoarse. "I dragged him to the woodworking workshop, cut him up with a saw blade I had prepared, and then put him in a black cloth bag and threw him into the garbage room and warehouse. I took the gloves and saw blade home and hid them, thinking I would throw them away after things calmed down."

"Why did you choose to dismember and dump the body in the factory?" Zhang Hui asked. Li Lijuan smiled bitterly: "I knew the factory's surveillance had blind spots, and a lot of waste was transported away every day. I thought the body parts would be transported away with the waste and no one would ever find out." She paused, "I even deliberately wore his blue overalls, just to make people think it was a man who did it, but I didn't expect to still give myself away."

When the police car arrived at the Criminal Investigation Division, Lu Chuan was already waiting at the door. Watching Li Lijuan being escorted into the interrogation room, he said to Wang Shuai and Zhang Hui, "Although the case has made a breakthrough, we still need to verify the details, especially the identity of the accomplice—it would be difficult for Li Lijuan to dismember and dispose of the body alone. We must find the owner of that virtual number and confirm whether there are any accomplices."

In the interrogation room, Li Lijuan sat in a chair, her hands cuffed, staring blankly ahead. Wang Shuai sat opposite her, taking out paper and pen: "Now, tell me in detail the entire process of how you murdered Zhang Baode, including the 'accomplices' you mentioned. This is your chance to get leniency." Li Lijuan's lips moved, tears welling up again, and she slowly began to recount that painful and sinful experience—ten years of domestic violence, a moment of impulsive resistance, which ultimately led to an irreparable tragedy.

Sunlight streamed through the interrogation room window, illuminating Li Lijuan's face, her eyes filled with remorse. Wang Shuai knew that solving this case not only uncovered a family tragedy but also exposed the devastating impact of domestic violence on families. The next step was not only to verify all the details of the case but also to address the placement of Li Lijuan's daughter, ensuring this traumatized child received timely psychological support and basic living necessities.

The lights in the Criminal Investigation Division remained bright, and the interrogation of Li Lijuan continued, with more details of the case gradually emerging. Although Li Lijuan had been arrested, the search for accomplices was still ongoing.

The incandescent light in the interrogation room of the Criminal Investigation Detachment made the air feel cold. Li Lijuan sat on a metal chair, her hands cuffed, the cuffs of her light-colored dress still stained with unwashed dirt. Her hair was disheveled and stuck to her cheeks, her eyes avoiding Wang Shuai's gaze. Only when Wang Shuai placed the blood-stained blue work clothes on the table did her body tremble violently, her fingers gripping the hem of her clothes tightly.

“Li Lijuan, tell me what you did at the furniture factory on the afternoon of July 11th.” Wang Shuai’s voice was flat, his gaze fixed on the scar on her wrist—the light brown mark, which looked like a hideous worm in the cold light. Li Lijuan’s lips trembled, and she remained silent for a full ten minutes before slowly speaking: “I…I killed Zhang Baode. He forced me to do it.”

The details of ten years of domestic violence slowly emerged as she recounted her story. "He started hitting me in the first year of our marriage," Li Lijuan said, tears dripping onto the interrogation record, spreading into tiny water stains. "He would beat me when he was drunk, punching and kicking me, sometimes even hitting my back with a stool. I wanted a divorce, and he said he would kill my daughter if I dared to." She rolled up her sleeves, exposing the old and new bruises and scars on her arms. "Last month, he got drunk and smashed my wrist with a beer bottle, requiring five stitches. My daughter clung to his leg, begging him to stop, but he wouldn't stop."

The domestic violence on July 10th became the last straw that broke her back. "That day he came back from the factory and said he had argued with someone and couldn't borrow money. He came up and pushed me to the ground and stomped on my stomach," Li Lijuan's voice was choked with sobs, and her body trembled slightly with anger and fear. "I lay on the ground, watching my daughter hiding in the closet crying, and I had only one thought in my mind—I had to kill him, otherwise my daughter and I would be beaten to death by him sooner or later."

The murder plan quietly took shape that night. “I knew he was going to work overtime on July 11, and I also knew there were saw blades in the factory’s woodworking workshop,” Li Lijuan’s gaze fell on the photo of the saw blade on the table. “I went to a hardware store and bought the same saw blade and gloves. I also took 5000 yuan from his salary card—part of it was given to Zhao Haifeng to help me, and the other part was for running away.”

When Zhao Haifeng was mentioned, Li Lijuan paused, a complex emotion flashing in her eyes. “I met Zhao Haifeng last year. He runs a small shop near the factory,” she said in a low voice. “He knew I was being abused and kept urging me to get a divorce. I told him that Zhang Baode wouldn’t let us go, and he said, ‘Why don’t we just make him disappear?’”

At 2 p.m. on July 11, Li Lijuan brought bottled water laced with sleeping pills to the furniture factory. “I told the security guard that I was looking for Zhang Baode to get something, and he didn’t suspect anything,” she recalled. “Zhang Baode was working in the paint shop. I handed him the water and said, ‘It’s hot, have some water.’ He drank it without thinking much about it, and about half an hour later, he passed out.”

Zhao Haifeng was already waiting in the woodworking workshop. "We carried him to the back of the scrap pile in the woodworking workshop," Li Lijuan's voice grew softer and softer, as if she were telling someone else's story. "Zhao Haifeng said, 'Don't kill him yet, wait until he wakes up and find out the password to his salary card,' but I was afraid he would resist if he woke up, so I picked up the steel pipe next to me and smashed it down on his head."

The first blow landed on Zhang Baode's temple, and blood gushed out instantly. "He groaned and his body twitched," Li Lijuan gestured unconsciously with her fingers, "I hit him twice more until he stopped moving." (End of Chapter)