Chapter 25: The Viper Murder Case (4) Not even a speck of dust...

Yuan Xiaohu followed the ambulance and the master's plan for lunch had to be changed. Sang Luo became his partner in interrogating Fu Ainong in the afternoon. It was Sang Luo who took the initiative to ask for it. Xie Ling'er had a gentle personality and Fu Ainong would probably make dirty jokes when he saw her. In comparison, Sang Luo was colder.

The interrogation began. Under the pale light, the strange old man dozed off lazily on the table. No matter how Ma Shi Tu slammed the table, he ignored it. It was not until Sang Luo came into the room with a cup of water that he lazily opened his eyes and glanced at Sang Luo.

Seeing that the person coming was the little policewoman who had been fooled by him, the strange old man became interested. He sat up and showed an obscene expression.

But this time Sang Luo adjusted her mentality. She looked at Fu Ainong with a cold gaze and asked loudly and sternly:

"Fu Ainong, on October 31, the day of the crime, what did you do all day?"

Fu Ainong yawned and said, "What else can I do? I'll just sleep at home. As long as I don't have to go out to collect trash, I'll sleep at home."

Sang Luo wrote down this sentence: "You were at home all day on the 31st and did not go out. Can anyone testify for you?"

"Of course not. I'm alone at home, and no one lives with me. Who can testify for me? A ghost?" Fu Ainong shrugged, revealing a disgusting smile, "Or, do you want to live with me?"

Ma Shi Tu was furious. He slammed the table and scolded him loudly. After being scolded, Fu Ainong became much more obedient. Sang Luo asked again: "Did you hear any noise from next door on the 31st? Did anyone open the door, or did anyone call for help?"

There is almost no sound insulation in an old bungalow like this, and every move next door can be heard clearly. He Taohua and her child died at home that day. If Fu Aino was really at home, it is impossible that he did not hear any noise at all.

Fu Ainong shook his head: "I don't know, I don't know anything. I told you I was sleeping. I was sleeping like a dead pig, how could I hear any sound? Even if it was an earthquake, I wouldn't know!"

"There is a baby girl next door. The baby should be crying. You must be able to hear it, right?" Sang Luo asked in a different way.

Fu Ainong finally nodded: "Yes, oh, the kid next door is so annoying, crying every day, making me unable to sleep well. If I were her parent, I would find a rag to plug her mouth! But fortunately, the child finally died, and I can have peace and quiet from now on!"

"Are you speaking human language?"

Ma Shi Tu slammed the table and yelled. Fu Ainong retracted his head in dismay. It was obvious that he was still a little afraid of Ma Shi Tu.

"On the 31st, did you notice when the baby next door stopped crying?" Sang Luo asked the key question. If they knew the time when the baby's crying stopped, it would be more helpful to determine the specific time of death of the mother and daughter.

Fu Ainong smiled: "Officer, I told you, I was sleeping!"

"Do you think you can avoid all the problems by saying you're sleeping?" Ma Shi Tu scolded.

Fu Ainong twitched his eyebrows: "But I'm really sleeping, what can you do?"

Seeing that he was so uncooperative, Sang Luo knew that she would not get any more answers if she continued asking, so she simply changed the subject:

"Fu Ainong, have you ever owed money to Nie Yu's family?"

Fu Ainong frowned, his eyes full of unfamiliarity: "Nie Yu? Officer, who is Nie Yu?"

"Stop playing tricks," Sang Luo said through gritted teeth, "Nie Yu is your next-door neighbor. You've lived with him for two years. Don't you even know his name?"

Fu Ainong suddenly realized: "Oh, it's the unlucky man whose wife died recently. I know him. He kneels at the door and cries every day."

Sang Luo took out the bills and said, "You owe Nie Yu 619 yuan. Do you admit this?"

Fu Ainong looked innocent: "I owe him money? When did it happen? How come I don't know? Officer, don't take advantage of your status as a police officer to wrongly accuse people! I don't even know his name, how could I owe him money?"

Sang Luo said coldly: "A year ago, you fell off the roof and broke your leg. It was Nie Yu who took you to the hospital. This money is for your surgery."

"Oh..." Fu Ainong suddenly realized, "So that's what happened! Yes, I went to the hospital for surgery, and it was Nie from next door who took me there, but I want to correct you, this is not called borrowing money, I am a disabled person, this is a donation from the society, he voluntarily spent it on me, how can it be called owing money?"

Ma Shi Tu was so angry that he laughed: "What kind of disabled person are you?"

Fu Ainong showed his left leg: "I had surgery on my leg! Look, the scar is still there!"

Sang Luo was too lazy to argue with him and asked directly to the point: "You think from the bottom of your heart that this money is not a loan, so you don't plan to pay it back, right?"

Fu Ainong said as if it was a matter of course: "Of course, Officer, if this is considered borrowing money, then I have to pay back too much. A disadvantaged group like me often accepts donations from others. Do I have to pay it all back?"

Ma Shi Tu could no longer bear it and asked, "You have hands and feet, and a place to live. You are not a homeless person at all! Why don't you go out and work by yourself, instead of relying on others' charity to survive?"

Fu Ainong chuckled: "Working is so tiring, lying down is so relaxing, I won't starve to death anyway, I lie down every day and do nothing, I just feel comfortable and happy!"

"What will you do in winter?" Ma Shi Tu couldn't help but ask. In winter, a stove needs to be burned in the bungalow. As lazy as he is, he probably won't even burn the stove.

"I go to jail in winter!" Fu Ainong said proudly, "Prison is like my home. I go home all the time and I'm used to it! I once stole a wallet and went to jail. I was released after two months. When I got out, I found that winter wasn't over yet! I quickly stole another wallet and went back to the cell!"

"You think this 619 yuan is not a debt," Sang Luo got back to the point, "Then did Nie Yu ask you for the debt?"

Fu Ainong shook his head in bewilderment: "I forgot, maybe I did, but I always let it go in one ear and out the other. I don't care what others say, I just treat it as the hum of a mosquito."

"Nie Yu wanted to pay the down payment and asked you for the debt many times, but you refused to pay it back," Sang Luo concluded, "so you are a suspect. As long as you kill Nie Yu's family, you don't have to pay the debt."

Fu Ainong was very surprised: "Officer, do you mean I killed someone? No, no, I need to explain, I didn't do it, it has nothing to do with me, the 600 yuan you mentioned is not a big deal to me, I have a lot of creditors, people always come to my house to collect debts, and some even throw red paint on my doorstep, I'm used to it!"

"As the saying goes, too much debt means no worries, too many lice mean no bites, I don't take this matter to heart at all, how could I kill someone for this money?"

When it comes to murder, Fu Ainong was a little panicked. After all, he just wanted to go to jail, but didn't want to be sentenced to death.

"Also, word has spread throughout the alley that the woman next door was bitten to death by a snake. Officer, if I really wanted to kill someone, I would never use such a complicated method. With my brain, I can't even think of it! If I want to kill someone, I can just rush over and strangle the person to death, right? Why make it so complicated?"

Fu Ainong was still trying hard to explain himself, but these explanations seemed to the two to be nothing more than sophistry. Every murderer would say this before being caught.

"Also," Sang Luo asked a question that concerned him a lot, "You and Nie Yu's family have been neighbors for so long, have you ever harassed He Taohua?"

In case he couldn't remember, Sang Luo added: "He Taohua is Nie Yu's wife, the woman who died in this case."

Fu Ainong was stunned. He couldn't answer this question. Obviously, he had had it before.

After a while, he slowly said: "This is not harassment, just an invitation. I did invite her. She is so young and beautiful, and her husband is often not at home. She is alone in the empty room. I am afraid that she will be lonely. It happens that I am willing to contribute, so I asked her if she wants to..."

"What did she say?" Sang Luo asked.

Fu Ainong's voice became smaller and smaller: "She rolled her eyes at me and said that I was a toad wanting to eat swan meat..."

"You failed to harass someone, so you got angry and wanted to murder the other person?" Sang Luo continued with his words.

Fu Ainong quickly clarified: "No, no, how could I have the courage? Officer, why are you talking about killing again? She doesn't want to, so forget it. I didn't say anything and went back to sleep. I didn't dare to do anything to her. She has a husband! What if her husband comes and beats me up? Officer, I'm just lazy, not stupid!"

This guy is really lazy and cunning.

Sang Luo suddenly thought of a question. Fu Ainong was a well-known lazy person. He was too lazy to clean up his house even though it was as dirty as a garbage dump. Would such a person really care about such a small matter as a leaking roof? Moreover, this incident happened a year ago.

"This time a year ago, it was also autumn and winter, and it wasn't raining at all, so you didn't have to worry about leaks. And you just said that you always spend the winter in prison. You were about to go to prison at this time, so why were you repairing the roof of your house?"

Sang Luo figured it out. The reason Fu Aino fell off the roof and broke his leg a year ago was not because of repairing the roof. It was just an excuse he made up.

"Why on earth did you break your leg a year ago, and why did you climb onto the roof?"

Sang Luo raised his head and looked straight into Fu Ainong's eyes. Fu Ainong said nothing, but curled his eyes and laughed from his throat:

"Hehehe, hehe, hehe..."

This strange laugh lasted for a long time, and his laughter kept echoing in the interrogation room.

Seeing that they could get no more information out of him, the master and disciple had to end the interrogation. While they were interrogating Fu Ainong, Xie Ling'er was not idle either. She visited various places and first went to the bank where Nie Yu worked and asked his colleagues if he had had such symptoms before.

Colleagues said that Nie Yu had suffered from respiratory alkali poisoning twice before, which scared their colleagues. Both times were because there were difficult customers who came to the bank to do business. They were unreasonable, which made Nie Yu so angry that he started quarreling with them. Before they had even said a few words, Nie Yu began to go limp all over and had difficulty breathing. He was finally sent to the hospital before he recovered.

This shows that Nie Yu did have a habit of suffering from respiratory alkali poisoning when quarreling with others, and it was not a temporary act to avoid interrogation.

Then Xie Ling'er went to the longevity insurance company where Nie Yu bought the insurance, disguised as a job seeker, and had private contact with the leaders there. She confirmed that the company did have a hard requirement forcing new employees to sell ten insurance policies a month. Even the company's general manager said in person:

"Even if you can't sell it, you can always look for your relatives and friends. Why keep the connections you've accumulated over time if you don't need them now? You've lived for so many years, you don't have any relatives or friends, do you?"

And Xie Ling'er saw the name of Nie Yu's third aunt on the list of best salesmen on the company's wall, which confirmed Nie Yu's words. It was very likely that their family bought the insurance reluctantly to help his third aunt at that time, and he did not deliberately kill his wife to defraud the insurance.

After investigating to this point, Xie Ling'er has basically ruled out Nie Yu as a suspect. From any angle, he is a complete victim.

After doing all this, she returned to the bureau and reunited with Sang Luo and others. The three of them shared the information they had investigated. Yuan Xiaohu sent a message saying that Nie Yu had been breathing oxygen and receiving glucose in the hospital, and had basically recovered to normal. He would stay with Nie Yu in the hospital for observation for another night. If everything was fine, he could be discharged every morning.

It was time to get off work and go home, but Sang Luo was still unwilling to give in. She felt that today should not end like this, and she must be able to find some useful clues.

So Sang Luo volunteered to stay and work overtime, and Xie Ling'er also "risked her life to accompany a gentleman". Anyway, she had nothing to do alone, so she might as well accompany Sang Luo.

Sang Luo looked at the blackboard and sorted out the existing clues again. At present, apart from the fact that this was a malicious poisoning case, the dictionary did not give any other clues. Everything depended on Sang Luo himself.

After some sorting, Sang Luo found a blind spot. She circled the words "No. 10 Chuncha Lane" with chalk. When she and Yuan Xiaohu went to investigate that day, no one was at home at No. 10. It was known that the strange old man Fu Ainong lived at No. 8, and the victim's family lived at No. 9, but the police had no idea who lived at No. 10.

"This is the family with obsessive-compulsive disorder," Sang Luo remembered. "There's no one at their house during the day. If I go there once at night, they should be off work, right?"

Xie Linger came up curiously: "Is their family important?"

"Important," Sang Luo nodded. "The forensic autopsy report only said that He Taohua died between 10 and 15 o'clock on the 31st. Because the forensic doctor had never seen this kind of snake venom, he could not give a specific time. The neighbor's testimony will help us determine the exact time of death of the victim."

"After He Taohua died, the baby fell to the ground and was suffocated soon after. She must have cried loudly before she died, so the 'time when the baby's crying stopped' is probably the time when He Taohua died. Her neighbors on both sides can give us important help. Fu Ainong has been saying that he was sleeping, so the only one left is the neighbor at No. 10."

"But No. 10's door is locked during the day, and his family is not at home during the day!" Xie Ling'er reminded.

"That's right, but let's go anyway, just in case we can find some useful clues." Sang Luo still held out a glimmer of hope.

The two of them came to Chuncha Lane again. Sang Luo went straight to No. 10 Chuncha Lane. The door was still locked. Sang Luo felt it was a bit strange. Overtime was not popular in this era. Most people could go home at six in the evening. She randomly pulled a neighbor and asked, "Did this family move away?"

The neighbor said, "Their family? They didn't move away, they just got off work too late. The couple are high school teachers, one teaches math and the other teaches physics. After they finished their classes, they stayed in the school and volunteered to tutor the kids for free. If you want to find them, you have to come at 8pm!"

"What a kind-hearted family—Gulu!"

Xie Ling'er sighed, but before she could finish her words, her stomach rumbled. It was already dinner time. Usually at this time, she would have gone home to have dinner.

Sang Luo felt a little embarrassed. After all, it was she who offered to work overtime. To show her appreciation, Sang Luo let Xie Ling'er choose any restaurant she wanted. She would treat them for dinner. However, Xie Ling'er was very considerate of Sang Luo. She looked around and finally found a fried rice stall.

Sang Luo ordered the most expensive pork belly fried rice for both of them. The fried rice was served quickly. Both of them were hungry, so they didn't say much and just lowered their heads to start eating.

After dinner, Sang Luo bought two bottles of orange soda, one for each of him and Xie Ling'er. The cold soda was bubbling in the glass bottles, and a scent of old-fashioned flavor filled the air.

The two drank soda and continued to observe in Chuncha Lane.

By this time, the neighbors had finished their dinner and started to go out for a walk. While there were many people around, Sang Luo decided to visit them again. This time, they focused on the people listed on Nie Yu's bill. These people had borrowed money from Nie Yu and had certain motives for committing the crime.

Sang Luo held paper and pen, and Xie Ling'er was responsible for asking questions. Because of her special temperament, the neighbors were more willing to confide in her.

When asked if they owed any debt, the neighbors all admitted it. Xie Ling'er took out Nie Yu's handwritten bill and began to ask them why they didn't tell her when she first visited them to investigate.

These people said:

"Oh, it happened so long ago. It's been over a year. I forgot about it. When you police came to question me, I didn't remember it for a while!"

"Comrade police officer, I didn't hide this from you on purpose. Someone in their family died, and I was afraid that if I told you, you would think I was the murderer!"

"That's right. This is a crime of murder. At a time like this, the more you talk, the more mistakes you make. It's better not to mention it from the beginning!"

Xie Ling'er asked a series of questions and once again confirmed that Nie Yu did not lie in the interrogation room. These neighbors had borrowed money from him. Later, when he needed to buy a house, he asked these neighbors to collect the debt. Most of them rejected him because of his good temper and refused to pay back the debt.

However, this group of people gave a lot of explanations for themselves. They said that it was just a few dozen dollars and it was not worth killing anyone. These people all had families and legitimate jobs and would not do such extreme things.

Some people also said: "I admit that I was wrong not to pay back the money in the past, but after knowing what happened to their family, I immediately paid back the money. Police comrade, I have nothing to do with this case!"

Sang Luo recalled the scene that happened when she came to catch snakes for the first time. Some neighbors stuffed money into Nie Yu's hands. At that time, Sang Luo joked in her heart that this was like a live broadcast of selling misery. It turned out that those people were not donating money, but paying off debts. She misunderstood Nie Yu.

After visiting a large number of neighbors, they didn't find anyone suspicious. At this moment, a middle-aged man and woman pushed their bicycles slowly into the alley, followed by an expressionless young man.

The middle-aged man and woman stopped their bicycles, took out their keys, and opened the door of Room 10. Xie Ling'er pulled Sang Luo and said, "Look, the neighbor who lives in Room 10 is back!"

The two rushed over, Sang Luo took out a piece of paper and a pen, and the middle-aged couple looked at them in surprise: "Who are you?"

The two usually left early and came back late, so they probably didn't understand what happened in the alley, nor did they know the police had come. So Sang Luo reintroduced himself. After hearing that the two girls in front of him were criminal police, the middle-aged couple became much more polite to them, and the couple also began to introduce themselves:

"My name is Zheng Wutong, and I'm a physics teacher at Baiyun County No. 1 High School. This is my wife, Li Xiujuan, who is our high school math teacher. Oh, by the way, we're both top-grade teachers at the school."

After Zheng Wutong finished introducing them, he seemed to be waiting for Sang Luo to flatter him. Sang Luo pointed at the young man behind them and asked, "Who is this?"

"Oh," Zheng Wutong seemed to have just remembered, "This is our son Zheng Longmen. He is also studying at No. 1 High School, and he is in his third year of high school."

Sang Luo didn't exchange pleasantries and directly stated his purpose: "I came here to investigate the case of He Taohua next door. On the 31st, did you hear any noise next door?"

Zheng Wutong smiled and said, "Comrade police officer, you know that our work is year-round. Of course we were not at home that day. My son is in his third year of high school, and our family has the same schedule. We go out at five in the morning and come back at eight in the evening. We are not at home all day, so we have no idea what happened next door during the day."

Li Xiujuan also spread her hands and said helplessly: "We really want to help you, but we can't."

As they spoke, the family of three was about to push the door and walk in. Sang Luo was not giving up and followed them closely: "Excuse me, can I come into your house for a tour?"

The three of them showed shocked expressions on their faces at the same time. Li Xiujuan said, "Uh, this... I'm sorry, our family is very clean. Police comrade, I noticed that the soles of your shoes don't seem to be very clean. If you want to come in--"

She forced a smile. “I’m afraid it’ll take me a long time to clean up after you leave.”

Since the other party said so, Sang Luo didn't want to force it. However, she just stood at the door and felt the environment in the house. The house was very dry and not suitable for raising snakes.

Sang Luo still didn't give up, and finally asked: "I have another question, has your family ever borrowed money from Nie Yu's family?"

Upon hearing this, Zheng Wutong smiled disdainfully. He waved his hands and said, "I borrowed money from him? Police comrade, you got it the other way around, right? The young couple next door are so poor, they should be borrowing money from me! Look, this house is ours, not rented, and there are plenty of furniture in the house. Do I look like someone who is short of money?"

Li Xiujuan also said: "Yes, yes, we are both special-grade teachers. Do you know how much our monthly salary is? We don't have to borrow money from others!"

She looked disgusted, as if Sang Luo's words insulted her.

"Sorry to bother you." Sang Luo smiled politely and ended the inquiry.

The family of three walked in and changed their shoes together. The soles of their slippers were brushed clean.

After leaving this house, Xie Ling'er sighed: "This family just now really loves cleanliness!"

Yes, he really loves cleanliness, Sang Luo said in his heart. Just now when he was standing at the door of their house, Sang Luo looked around the house and found that there was not a speck of dust in the house.

Not a single one.