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

Zhao Haifeng turned pale with fright and said, "Why did you really kill him?" I told him, "It's already like this, hurry up and dismember the body, or we're all doomed."

The dismemberment process was more difficult than the two had imagined. “I used a saw blade I bought, and Zhao Haifeng used an old saw blade from the workshop. We started sawing from his fingers,” Li Lijuan’s voice trembled. “Blood was splattered everywhere. Even though I was wearing gloves, I could still feel the sticky texture. We sawed off his right index finger first, then his calf, chest, and abdomen—Zhao Haifeng said, ‘The smaller the pieces, the easier it is to dispose of the body,’ so we sawed the larger pieces into smaller pieces.”

The smell of sawdust and blood mingled together, filling the woodworking workshop. "When I sawed his ribs, the saw blade got stuck. Zhao Haifeng helped me pull it out for a long time," Li Lijuan's tears welled up again. "As I watched his body being sawed into pieces, I felt both scared and relieved—he could no longer hit me and my daughter."

Zhao Haifeng arranged the task of disposing of the body. "He drove the body parts to the garbage room, the raw material warehouse, and the wall," Li Lijuan said. "I stayed in the workshop to clean up the bloodstains, covered the blood on the ground with sawdust, and hid the blood-stained gloves and saw blade in my bag. After Zhao Haifeng came back, we threw Zhang Baode's work clothes and cell phone into the drainage ditch together. He also helped me delete some of the footage from the factory's surveillance cameras."

At 10 p.m., the two left the factory separately. “Zhao Haifeng drove me to the vicinity of my rented house,” Li Lijuan added. “I gave him 3000 yuan and said, ‘Don’t contact me again.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.’ I thought that would be the end of it, but I didn’t expect you to still find me.”

After hearing Li Lijuan's confession, Wang Shuai immediately arranged for his team to arrest Zhao Haifeng. Zhao Haifeng's convenience store was just about to close when the police appeared in front of him. The remote control for the roller shutter door fell to the ground with a thud, and his face instantly turned deathly pale. "I...I know why you're here," he said without resistance, obediently putting on the handcuffs. "Li Lijuan confessed, right? I have nothing to say. I did it all."

In the interrogation room, Zhao Haifeng's confession was basically consistent with Li Lijuan's. "I did persuade her to kill Zhang Baode," he leaned back in his chair, his eyes vacant. "I liked Li Lijuan and wanted her to be with me. That beast Zhang Baode beat her every day, and it broke my heart to see her like that. She told me she wanted to kill Zhang Baode, so I helped her plan it, and even helped her carry the body and dismember it—now that I think about it, I was really crazy."

He gave a detailed account of disposing of the body: "I drove the electric tricycle from the convenience store and dumped the body parts in the garbage room and the warehouse. Because I was afraid of being caught on camera, I deliberately drove around blind spots and wrapped the body parts in black cloth bags and mixed them with scrap wood." Zhao Haifeng's voice was filled with remorse. "I thought the electric tricycle wouldn't attract attention, and I also thought that no one would recognize Zhang Baode after dismembering the body. I didn't expect you to find out so quickly."

When Wang Shuai showed Zhao Haifeng's bank account transfer record—a cash deposit of 3000 yuan received on the evening of July 11—he completely broke down. "This money was given to me by Li Lijuan. I shouldn't have taken it," he said, covering his face and crying. "I'm sorry to her, I'm sorry to Zhang Baode, and I'm even more sorry to my own family—my wife and children don't even know I've made such a big mistake."

By the time the interrogation ended, it was already dawn outside the window. The confessions of Li Lijuan and Zhao Haifeng corroborated each other, clearly presenting the entire process of murder, dismemberment, and disposal of the body in the case file. Wang Shuai sorted through the interrogation records, looking at the dense handwriting on the paper, his heart filled with mixed emotions—a tragedy stemming from domestic violence had ultimately destroyed the lives of three people, leaving a young child without a father and the mother a murderer.

Technicians examined Zhao Haifeng's electric tricycle and found a small amount of dark red bloodstains at the bottom of the vehicle, which tested and matched Zhang Baode's DNA. In his convenience store warehouse, they found the clothes he wore when dismembering the body; the fibers on them perfectly matched the blue fibers extracted from the scene. This complete chain of evidence brought the truth behind the dismemberment case to light.

Looking at the complete case file, Lu Chuan said in a heavy tone, "Domestic violence is the root of this case, but murder and dismemberment are by no means the solution. Li Lijuan and Zhao Haifeng thought that killing Zhang Baode would free them, but they did not expect that they would not be able to escape the punishment of the law in the end." He paused, "Afterwards, we must do a good job in the placement of Li Lijuan's daughter, so that she can receive proper care and minimize the impact of this tragedy on her."

Sunlight streamed through the windows of the Criminal Investigation Division, illuminating the case file of the "Zhang Baode Dismemberment Case." Li Lijuan's tears, Zhao Haifeng's remorse, and Zhang Baode's violence would all come to a close with the legal trial. This case leaves behind not only reflections on domestic violence but also a profound warning that "impulsive crimes will ultimately have consequences"—no matter the predicament, one must never cross the legal line, otherwise the tragedy will only escalate.

On the third day after Li Lijuan and Zhao Haifeng were arrested, they were escorted to the crime scene to identify the details of the murder and dismemberment.
The furniture factory was shrouded in a thin mist in the early morning. The machines in the woodworking workshop had not yet started, and only the rustling sound of the wind blowing through the piles of sawdust could be heard. Three police cars slowly drove into the factory area and stopped at the entrance of the paint workshop. Li Lijuan and Zhao Haifeng were each escorted out of the car by two police officers. Their hands were handcuffed, and their steps were unsteady as they walked on the scattered sawdust—this was the place where they had murdered Zhang Baode and dismembered his body, and now it had become the irrefutable evidence of their crimes.

"Go to the paint shop first and point out the spot where you handed water to Zhang Baode," Wang Shuai said to Li Lijuan in a deep voice, his gaze sweeping over her pale face. Li Lijuan's body trembled slightly as she was half-supported by the police officers and walked towards the paint shop. Zhao Haifeng followed behind, his head hanging low, not daring to look at the familiar surroundings.

Inside the paint shop, the pungent smell of paint was still strong. Zhang Baode's workstation remained exactly as it had been on July 11th, with a half-full bucket of white paint on the workbench and brushes soaking in solvent. "It's right here," Li Lijuan said in a hoarse voice, pointing to the chair in front of the workbench, "I put a bottle of mineral water laced with sleeping pills on this chair. Zhang Baode was sitting here at the time, took the water and drank a few sips, and about half an hour later he passed out." She paused, her finger tracing across the table, "After he passed out, Zhao Haifeng and I carried him to the ground and dragged him to the woodworking workshop."

Technicians immediately began investigating around the chair, spraying the ground with luminol. A pale blue fluorescence slowly appeared on the sawdust-covered cement, forming a drag mark about 5 meters long, exactly matching the findings of their earlier investigation. (End of Chapter)