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

Zhou Ming raised his handcuffed hand and gestured slightly: "That night I came in through the construction site gate and walked along this side. I saw this pile of bricks, so I bent down and picked one up. It was about this size, heavy, with a rough surface and sharp edges." The brick he gestured was about 20×10×5 centimeters in size, which was exactly the same as the "medium-sized red brick" that forensic doctor Zhang Kai determined during the autopsy. The location where he pointed out the brick was within 1 meter of the spot where Yang Lin had previously extracted the blood-stained brick, and the composition of the red brick fragments remaining on the ground completely matched the composition of the fragments in Li Shengli's temporal wound.

"Then where did you go with the bricks? Where did you meet Li Shengli?" Zhang Hui continued to press. Zhou Ming turned around and pointed to an open space north of the construction waste pile: "I waited for him here. He came from that path over there, carrying a black tool bag. He called out to me from afar, 'Boss Zhou, where's the smoke extraction equipment?' I told him, 'It's behind, follow me,' and led him this way." The route he pointed to completely overlapped with the "size 43 grid pattern shoe print" track extracted from the ground by the technical department. The shoe print extended in the direction of the path north of the open space, and there were still canvas fibers from Li Shengli's tool bag remaining in the soil at the entrance of the path—completely consistent with the preliminary investigation results.

Reaching the center of the open space, Zhou Ming stopped, his legs slightly bent, as if simulating the action: "Right here, when he wasn't looking, I raised a brick from behind and smashed it down on his head. He cried out, staggered forward a couple of steps, and fell to the ground, his head hitting this stone." He pointed to a bluestone half-buried in the soil, its surface bearing a dark red mark, which, according to preliminary testing, was Li Shengli's blood. This spot was only 30 centimeters from the "center point of the bloodstain" marked by Yang Lin, perfectly matching the forensic doctor's assessment of "the location where Li Shengli fell after being struck on the head with a blunt object."

"After you hit him, what did you do next? Where did you open the tool bag?" Yang Lin asked. Zhou Ming turned to a pile of cement bags next to him: "I was afraid he wasn't dead, so I hit him again, then took his tool bag off, put it on this pile of cement bags, unzipped it, took the wrench and screwdriver inside, and threw them in that pile of trash over there." The cement bags he pointed to had faint traces of canvas fibers on their surface, consistent with the material of Li Shengli's tool bag; and the "trash pile where the tools were thrown" was exactly where the tool bag was found during the initial investigation, and the location where the wrench and screwdriver were discarded perfectly matched Zhou Ming's identification.

Leaving the demolition site, the convoy headed to its second stop—the drainage ditch where the body was dumped. The rain intensified, making the ditch water even more murky, covered in dark green foam, consistent with Zhou Ming's confession that "the ditch water was murky on the night of the incident, suitable for hiding a body." The police cars stopped on the bank upstream of the drainage ditch, the "body dumping location" Zhou Ming described, and also 100 meters upstream from where sanitation worker Zhang Bin discovered Li Shengli's body.

Zhou Ming was led to the canal bank. Rain soaked his hair and prison uniform, but he seemed oblivious, staring intently at the water, his eyes filled with terror. "It's here... I dragged him off the car, wrapped him in a canvas bag, and threw him in." His voice trembled as he pointed to a whirlpool in the middle of the canal. "I parked the car on the bank, and because of the rain, the ground was slippery. It took me a lot of effort to drag him here. I tied a slipknot in the bag with nylon rope to prevent it from coming undone if it fell in."

Yang Lin immediately took out the "body disposal site diagram" drawn during the preliminary investigation and compared it with the location pointed out by Zhou Ming: "After you threw it in, was the body washed away by the water? Did you do anything else to it?" Zhou Ming shook his head: "After I threw it in, I saw the body float down a little and get stuck on the rocks at the bottom of the canal, so I didn't care and drove away. The nylon rope was something I took from the restaurant's warehouse. It's usually used to tie up vegetables, just like the canvas bag used to wrap the body. They're all common items used in restaurants."

His description closely matched the preliminary investigation results—the water flow upstream of the drainage ditch was slow, and the bottom of the ditch was rocky, making it easy for a body to get stuck; the nylon rope retrieved from the scene was found to be completely identical in composition to the nylon rope in the "Sichuan Flavor Restaurant" warehouse, and the canvas bag was made of the same material as the "vegetable bags" commonly used in restaurants. In addition, at the "parking location" identified by Zhou Ming, there were tire tracks from a black van on the ground, and the tire tread pattern perfectly matched the tire tread pattern of the van registered under his name. In the soil next to the tracks, brass powder matching the watch chain of Li Shengli's watch was also detected—this was formed when the watch chain on Li Shengli's wrist broke and fragments fell off when Zhou Ming dragged the body.

"How did you drag the body off the car? Did you use any tools?" Zhang Hui pressed, while signaling to the technical staff to resample the "parking location" Zhou Ming had identified. Zhou Ming gestured, "I didn't use any tools from the car, I just dragged it by hand. He was very heavy. When I dragged him, his arm brushed against the weeds on the bank, which probably tore his clothes." The "weedy area" he pointed to did indeed show signs of trampled and torn weeds during the initial investigation. The gray fibers remaining on the weeds matched the material of the "black jacket" Li Shengli was wearing when he disappeared, further corroborating his confession.

Finally, the police escorted Zhou Ming to the "body discovery point" downstream of the drainage ditch—the location where sanitation worker Zhang Bin first found Li Shengli's body. Standing on the bank, looking at the murky ditch water, Zhou Ming trembled uncontrollably: "I never thought... the body would be washed here. I thought it would stay stuck in the cracks between the rocks upstream." His tone carried a hint of relief, but also a hint of fear.

Yang Lin took out a photo of the autopsy report and pointed to the band-shaped pressure mark on Li Shengli's neck: "Your confession of 'strangling him with a coat sleeve' is completely consistent with the '0.8 cm wide cotton pressure mark on the neck' we found in the autopsy. The coat fiber is also the same as the brown work jacket found in your restaurant. Your statement that 'after being hit, you were worried that Li Shengli was not dead, so you strangled him again' also matches the autopsy findings that 'the blunt force injury to the temporal region was not fatal, and the real cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation.' Do you have any additional details to add?"

Zhou Ming looked down at the ground, rainwater sliding down his cheeks, a mixture of tears and rainwater that he couldn't tell: "There's nothing more to add... Everything I said is true. Every place, every action, is exactly what I did back then. The evidence you found was all left by me. I admit it."

The identification process lasted for more than two hours. From the "first crime scene" at the demolition site to the "body dumping point" and "body discovery point" in the drainage ditch, every detail identified by Zhou Ming perfectly matched the results of the previous on-site investigation and autopsy. (End of this chapter)