Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 88 The Case of Burning the Corpse 6
The person seen in the surveillance footage was wearing a dark gray plaid shirt and black pants, with a graying buzz cut. He only went into Ghost Ridge Slope and didn't come out.

It can be basically confirmed that the deceased was Zhou Qiaoan.

Xiao Chen, the driver who caused the accident, has already found the driver's identity through the registration information and is on his way to check. He made the call on the way and sincerely shared his shock at the identity of the fan.

"We haven't been able to find the fan's online registration information yet, but the technical team found some clues based on the account's other online posts. His real name is Wan Anliang, and he's the second-in-command at the Market Supervision Bureau!"

After hearing this, Zheng Yan wanted to kick him from a distance: "What's so unbelievable about this? I thought it was you, you idiot!"

Xiao Chen: "No, no, it's not that serious. But I really didn't expect it. The key is that it involves government officials, so it's not just a simple case of hitting someone and burning a body."

"Can't it be a personal grudge? If I, as the captain of the criminal investigation team, get into a car accident, does that mean the criminal investigation team is dissatisfied with the traffic police team?"

Xiao Chen: "...The problem is, what personal grudge could they possibly have that would make an official risk his career to kill someone?"

What grudge could there be between the leaders of the Market Supervision Administration and Zhou Qiaoan, who was carrying bricks on the construction site?
Zheng Yan couldn't guess either, so he simply asked the Zhou family directly.

"Do you know Wan Anliang? Has Zhou Qiaoan ever mentioned this name at home?"

Yu Lan shook her head blankly: "Never heard of him. Is he the murderer?"

"Not sure yet."

Tan Jia listened intently from the side, looking at the two women who were shouldering the heavy responsibility of the family. Their expressions were somewhat numb, and even when they shed tears, they were dazed. Their answers were basically "I don't know," "I'm not sure," and "I'm not sure."

People under the heavy pressure of life always seem to lack vitality and have no energy to maintain harmony and love. I wonder what the relationship is like in their family.

As she thought, she kneaded the flame-colored dough. The child, who had just woken up and was being held to eat, secretly watched, forgetting to feed himself with the spoon.

With its yellowish skin and excessively large eyes on its small head, it was clear that it was seriously ill.

She spread the dough out for him to see, squatted down, and asked, "Do you want some?"

Yu Lan finally smiled more gently and asked her what kind of toy it was, how much it cost, and that if the child liked it, they would buy a set too.

Tan Jia explained seriously, then suddenly asked, "What illness does the child have?"

Yu Lan touched the child's sparse hair and sighed, "Bilirubin encephalopathy."

"The treatment costs are very high? I heard that Zhou Qiaoan frequently travels to the Guilingpo area to work on construction sites in the city in order to raise money for her child's treatment?"

The daughter-in-law, who was eating, looked up at them, served her husband a bowl of soup, but the other party knocked it to the ground, muttering something loudly, and slammed his hand against the wall, enough to knock off a piece of plaster.

Yu Lan was used to such farces. She touched the child's head and hands, remained silent for a long time, and finally said only lightly, "There's nothing I can do. I can't make a lot of money, and the child is sick."

There's nothing we can do; most things in life are beyond our control.

Everyone felt heavy-hearted after leaving the Zhou family.

Tan Ming stood at the end of the street where there were few people, looking back at the old shops, and said, "Who could a middle-aged man in his fifties who is still doing manual labor just to raise money for his child's medical treatment have offended? He could make the other party laugh even after watching him die a gruesome death."

Zheng Yan: "If the number 1 murderer is indeed Wan Anliang from the Municipal Market Supervision Bureau, then their paths could mainly cross in two directions: personal grudges and work-related grudges. We don't know about their personal relationship yet, but if it's related to work, perhaps the Zhou family's vegetable market store and the construction site where Zhou Qiaoan worked had conflicts with Wan Anliang."

The Market Supervision Administration has a wide jurisdiction, covering product quality, food safety, special equipment safety, metrological standards, market order and regulations, and even exaggerated advertising.

During the law enforcement process, Wan Anliang may have had a dispute with Zhou Qiaoan, but the specific nature of the dispute is unknown.

Now we need to focus on investigating their social connections.

Tan Jia's perspective differed from theirs: "If the driver who caused the accident is found, will the Zhou family receive compensation?"

"Yes. But it's uncertain how much."

Zheng Yan wanted to remark that girls just have stronger empathy, but the next second he heard Tan Jia say:
"Is it possible that Zhou Qiaoan took some initiative in the incident of being hit by a car in order to raise money?" "..." His eyes were strange. "You really are a good candidate to be a criminal police officer."

Back at the police station, they resumed their investigation of Wan Anliang and the arrest of the driver responsible for the accident.

The latter was simpler; there was surveillance footage and indestructible evidence. Xiao Chen, exhausted from his journey, brought the person back in the middle of the night.

The vehicle involved in the accident was an old minivan with a dented front and large scratches on the side.

"When I caught him, he was washing his car and planning to fix it up. He didn't seem guilty at all and even greeted people, saying that his car had collided with a big truck."

Xiao Chen wiped the sweat from his forehead and continued, "But when he was arrested, his eyes were wide open and his mouth was trembling. You didn't need to ask to know it was him."

The driver's name is Zhu Jun, he is 45 years old. He usually earns money by hauling building materials for people, and occasionally takes on extra jobs such as moving, transporting furniture for stores, and delivering packages for courier companies.

He was also a middle-aged man from a poor family who worked hard until midnight to earn money.

Tan Ming looked out of the interrogation room and sighed, "Just by looking at him, I can guess why he burned the body. He probably couldn't afford the compensation. He himself is struggling to survive. How could he possibly pay the Zhou family much money? This accident has only made things worse for both families."

Zheng Yan glanced at him: "You really should learn from Tan Jia. Being too sympathetic to other people's fates is a problem; it will affect the impartiality of your investigations. Maybe Zhu Jun knew the number one murderer and it was a premeditated murder. Maybe Zhou Qiaoan deliberately died under his car?"

Tan Ming immediately corrected his attitude: "Team Leader Zheng is right."

Then they went into the interrogation room.

Zhu Jun sat inside like a weed that had lost all its moisture, his face ashen and his expression blank.

When interrogated, he barely looked around, answering only one question at a time, deeply preoccupied with the prospect of being sentenced and imprisoned.

Zheng Yan tried to evoke his emotions by asking, "Didn't you expect the body to be discovered so quickly?"

Zhu Jun nodded and said with a bitter smile, "I thought that if I burned the body, no one would be able to find it."

In the middle of the night, at the bottom of the slope where no one would find him, he would burn the body. If the body was completely burned and no one noticed, it would never be discovered. He could then pretend that nothing had happened.

"How did you bump into him?" Zheng Yan asked again.

Zhu Jun was silent for a while before saying, "I've been hauling building materials all day, and I'm a little sleepy."

It turned out to be driving while fatigued.

"You said that after you hit the person, you stopped several dozen meters away, but you didn't get out of the car at that time. You just drove off and didn't return until more than half an hour later, when you found that the person was already dead?"

"Yes, I was terrified at the time. I only calmed down after driving out of Ghost Ridge Slope. I thought I should go back and check, just in case I'm still alive."

"Are you really sure the person was already dead? When you examined the body, did you find anything unusual, such as any other wounds on his body?"

"What do you mean?" Zhu Jun asked blankly, then perked up a bit. "Didn't I kill him?!"

Tan Ming shattered his illusions: "But in the end, you're the one who burned him to death."

Zhu Jun slumped down again.

Zheng Yan: "However, the sentencing standards will change. Think back carefully: did he have any other injuries at the time? And in the short time you stopped after hitting him, did you notice if there were any other people or vehicles around?"

“At that time, at that time…” he struggled to recall, “The body was soft, and when I touched it, it was covered in blood. I thought I had hit it, so I poured gasoline on it, lit it in the dark, and pushed it down… Oh right! He was lying upright between the two guardrails. If it had been hit by a car, he wouldn’t have been in that position.”

Therefore, if there really was a murderer #1, then he must have done something else to the victim during those half hours.

(End of this chapter)