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

"Don't you remember?" Zhang Hui placed Li Baochun's photo on the table and pushed it in front of Zhang Hai. "Then do you know him? He is Li Baochun, your 'enemy' from elementary school, who is now a murdered victim. We found that you called Li Baochun the day before he disappeared, and you even met with him at Qingya Teahouse on the morning of his disappearance, and even had an argument. Can you explain that?"

Zhang Hai's body stiffened slightly. After a moment of silence, he slowly spoke: "I know him. I ran into him by chance at the building materials market a while ago, and we exchanged contact information. He called me that day to ask me to meet up. He said he wanted to talk about things from when we were kids and apologized for bullying me before. We met at the teahouse, he apologized, and I accepted it. We chatted for a while and then went our separate ways without any argument."

"No argument?" Zhang Hui pressed, his tone clearly skeptical. "The surveillance footage clearly shows that you had a heated argument in the teahouse. Li Baochun pushed you, and you looked gloomy. How do you explain that? Why did he suddenly apologize to you? Besides apologizing, what else did you talk about?"

Zhang Hai's face paled slightly, his Adam's apple bobbed, and his tone became somewhat unnatural: "It was just a small misunderstanding. He said he's in the scrap metal recycling business now, not doing well, and has accumulated a lot of debt. He wanted to borrow 50,000 yuan from me to tide him over. I didn't agree, and he got a little upset and said a few unpleasant things. I didn't argue with him and just left." He paused, then added, "I really didn't kill him. Although he bullied me when we were kids, so many years have passed, and I've long since let it go. I have my own family and career; it's not worth ruining myself over childhood grudges."

Zhang Hui sensed that Zhang Hai was deliberately concealing the truth and continued to press him: "After Li Baochun disappeared, did you contact him again? Did you know about his murder? He owed money to loan sharks and was being harassed by debt collectors. Are you aware of this? Are those debt collectors people you know?"

“I haven’t contacted him since. I only found out about his murder after you arrested him.” Zhang Hai shook his head, his eyes feigning determination. “I had no idea he owed money to loan sharks, and I didn’t know any debt collectors. Officers, you can’t suspect me of killing him just because he bullied me when I was a child. That’s absurd.”

The interrogation reached a stalemate. Zhang Hai consistently denied killing Li Baochun, offering vague and ambiguous descriptions of their meeting, unable to specify what they discussed or provide any witnesses to corroborate his claims. Meanwhile, the search team collected footprints, fingerprints, and hair samples from Zhang Hai's residence and renovation company, quickly sending them to the forensic department for comparison with evidence collected at the scene. Another team focused on verifying Zhang Hai's whereabouts during the time of Li Baochun's death, investigating his alibi.

Zhang Hui walked out of the interrogation room, leaned against the wall, lit a cigarette, and took a deep drag. He knew Zhang Hai was highly suspicious, but direct evidence was lacking; they could only wait for the results of the physical evidence comparison and the verification of the alibi. In the office, the team members were all working busily. Some were organizing interrogation records, some were repeatedly reviewing the teahouse's surveillance footage, and some were contacting the technical department to follow up on the testing progress. Exhaustion was etched on everyone's faces, yet they remained steadfast at their posts—they had only one goal in mind: to uncover the truth as quickly as possible, bring the murderer to justice, and give the deceased justice.

As evening fell, the technical department delivered the preliminary comparison results. Yang Sen took the report to Zhang Hui, his tone grave: "Team Leader Zhang, Zhang Hai's fingerprints and hair samples do not match the fingerprints and hair samples of the suspect collected at the scene; there are also significant differences in the footprint samples. Zhang Hai usually wears size 41 sneakers with striped soles, while the footprints collected at the scene were from size 42 checkered leather shoes. The shoe size and pattern do not match, ruling out the possibility that Zhang Hai left footprints at the scene."

This result made Zhang Hui frown. He stubbed out his cigarette, his tone tinged with resentment: "What about the alibi? How's the verification going?" "We're verifying it. Zhang Hai said he was working overtime at the company on the night of the incident, rushing to finish renovation design drawings with two employees. We've contacted those two employees and are questioning them separately. At the same time, we're retrieving the surveillance footage from the renovation company's entrance to confirm his whereabouts," Yang Sen added. "In addition, we found several bottles of construction glue at Zhang Hai's renovation company. The composition is consistent with the trace amounts of glue extracted from the mineral water bottles at the scene, but this type of glue is widely used in the renovation industry, so we can't directly determine whether Zhang Hai is connected to the case."

Zhang Hui fell into deep thought. Zhang Hai and Li Baochun had a past grudge, and they had recently been in contact and argued, giving him a motive. However, the physical evidence comparison ruled out the possibility that he was the direct perpetrator; the glue composition matched, but it was too common to form valid evidence. Could it be that Zhang Hai was really not the murderer? Or did he have an accomplice, and he was just responsible for contacting Li Baochun, while the real murderer was someone else?
Just then, a team member who was verifying the alibi rushed over and brought crucial information: "Team Leader Zhang, it's been verified. Zhang Hai was indeed working overtime at the company on the night of the incident, from 7 p.m. until after 1 a.m. Two employees can testify to this, and the surveillance footage at the entrance of the decoration company also clearly shows that he did not leave the company during that time and had absolutely no opportunity to commit the crime."

An irrefutable alibi, coupled with the results of physical evidence comparison, completely ruled out Zhang Hai as the suspect. Zhang Hui's doubts deepened. If Zhang Hai wasn't the murderer, why did he conceal the truth about their meeting? Li Baochun's unusual behavior before her disappearance, her experience being harassed by loan sharks, and her argument with Zhang Hai—what else was hidden behind all of this? The investigation instantly reached a stalemate.

As night deepened, the lights in the Criminal Investigation Division's office remained as bright as day. Zhang Hui meticulously organized and filed Zhang Hai's interrogation records and physical evidence comparison reports. As his fingertip traced the words "excluded from the crime," his eyes were filled with solemnity and resentment. The lead had abruptly dried up, and the case was back to square one. He rubbed his throbbing temples and convened an emergency meeting with all the team members involved in the investigation. “Zhang Hai has been completely cleared of suspicion, but that doesn’t mean he’s completely unrelated to the case,” Zhang Hui said, standing in front of the whiteboard. He picked up a marker and heavily circled the two key points: “meeting at Qingya Teahouse” and “concealing the content of the conversation.” “He deliberately concealed the truth about his meeting with Li Baochun; there must be something hidden behind it, but we haven’t found a breakthrough yet. From now on, everyone will refocus on Li Baochun’s network of relationships, focusing on three directions: first, the specific identities of the loan shark debt collection gang, following the clues provided by Zhao Lei to dig deeper into the traces of the debt collection gang in the suburbs; second, the scrap metal suppliers who were cheated by Li Baochun, verifying their whereabouts one by one during the time of the incident; and third, restarting the interviews with Li Baochun’s family, especially his wife. She mentioned that Li Baochun called in the middle of the night to collect debts and said ‘this is a big problem,’ which may contain details we’ve overlooked.” (End of Chapter)