Chapter 74
In fact, Yu Lei no longer wanted to check.
He was expecting the matter to end there. Just as Tang Ruxin guessed, Zhao Zheng was just helping Luo Yi lower the acquisition price of Donghe Refining and had no other purpose.
If only it were just that - if only it were just that, at this stage, without direct evidence, he might be able to go against his conscience and turn this case into an unsolved case or a cold case, making it one of the many unsolved cases on the shelves of the archives.
Then, he took off his police uniform. As Xu Qinghong said, he didn't deserve it.
He had once marveled at Tang Ruxin's self-deception, but only when it happened to him did he understand how important this self-deception was. It could be a lifeline, a pull to himself from the depths of despair. Even if it was only for a moment, it could keep him breathing.
Tang Ruxin called and asked him to accompany her to meet someone and bring his ID. He asked who they were meeting, and she just said he'd know when they got there.
Arriving at the tea restaurant where they had agreed to meet, Yu Lei saw a gray-haired old man sitting opposite Tang Ruxin. She waved at him and asked him to come over.
"This is Li Yalan, a former reporter for the Donghe Daily." Tang Ruxin turned around and said, raising her voice, "Grandma Li, this is a police officer from the Municipal Criminal Investigation Detachment. You can just call him Yu Lei."
Yu Lei's face was gloomy, with anger in his eyes. "Come here for a moment."
After taking Tang Ruxin to the door of the restaurant, Yu Lei said, "Can you please tell me in advance next time? I'm not your assistant who can come whenever you call."
"And then? Are you leaving now?" Tang Ruxin asked, raising an eyebrow. "Li Yalan was the news editor for the Zhao family fire. She interviewed the firefighters, the neighbors, and Tang Jiulin. The only overt interaction between Zhao Zheng and Tang Jiulin was the fire. Don't you want to know what really happened between them?"
"I don't want to." Yu Lei blurted out, and the next moment he looked away in annoyance.
Sure enough, Tang Ruxin narrowed her eyes and looked at him, and asked thoughtfully, "Do you know something?"
Yu Lei took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, pulling her into the restaurant.
Sitting down opposite Li Yalan, he showed her his police ID and said, "Grandma Li, could you please tell me the details of the fire that year?"
The old lady, wearing reading glasses, held his ID card close to her eyes and looked at it carefully for a while.
"He's such a handsome young man, and the photo looks great." Li Yalan couldn't see the face of the person sitting across from her. She smiled at the photo on the officer's ID and said, "He looks like my eldest grandson!"
"Then can you tell your eldest grandson everything about the fire that year?" Tang Ruxin leaned forward and said loudly to Li Yalan.
Yu Lei, who suddenly had a grandmother, looked at her helplessly and said nothing.
Li Yalan waved her hands. "I can't say. I can't remember. It's been too long!"
Hearing this, Yu Lei breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to get up and say goodbye, he heard Li Yalan continue:
"Listen to the recordings yourself. I keep all the recordings of my interviews! I haven't lost a single one of my interviews over the years. They're all well preserved!"
Li Yalan took out a few tapes from her cloth bag and placed them on the table.
Tang Ruxin was stunned. This thing was so retro. She'd only seen it in a period drama, so this was her first time seeing it in the real thing. Curious, she took a cassette and examined it from top to bottom.
"Grandma Li, can we take these with us?" Yu Lei said, "We need to take them back to the police station so the technical detectives can extract the audio data."
Li Yalan was a little reluctant and asked, "Will you return it to me? All the news I wrote have recordings, and I don't want to lose any of them."
"Yes, I'll return it to you after I use it." Tang Ruxin said immediately.
On the way back to the police station, Yu Lei didn't say a word.
Tang Ruxin knew that he was in a bad mood, but she never knew why.
"What's the matter? Your attitude is very unprofessional. Don't you want to investigate?" She sat in the passenger seat and looked at him sideways.
Yu Lei was silent, his right hand gently gripping the steering wheel, his left arm resting on the car window, his eyes dark and gloomy, like a bottomless dry well. After a long while, he slowly asked:
"Are you no longer afraid?"
Tang Ruxin thought about it, but couldn't figure it out. "What are you afraid of?"
"The consequences of continuing the investigation."
Perhaps it was because Tang Ruxin had faced this problem earlier, and she had already passed the stage of entanglement and pain.
"I'm afraid. If I'm afraid, will I stop investigating? Will I be able to live a peaceful life with a clear conscience just because I'm afraid? I'm a human, not a Buddha. I can't achieve a pure mind." She sighed and looked out the window. "If I don't even have the courage to face the past, how can I face the future?"
The future life—Yu Lei chuckled. No matter what the truth was, his future would never be at peace. But what was worse? He had personally sent Zhao Zheng to court, to prison, and even to the execution ground.
Such an outcome would inevitably be a devastating blow to his future, so he instinctively feared it. At this moment, Tang Ruxin, who was unaware of the situation, was working towards this outcome, but he couldn't say anything, and couldn't even find an excuse to stop her.
The future she spoke of, in fact, was long gone. It was gone the moment he drove Zhao Zheng back home more than 20 years ago.
Because of his one wrong thought, Zhao Zheng's life was ruined.
Who has the qualifications to talk about the future?
*
Those tapes filled in the blanks in the news: the fire at the Zhao family's house was caused by a gas leak.
That night, Liu Lizhe went to the Zhao family's house for dinner. He and Zhao Wenyan drank for hours, finally finishing their drinking in the early hours of the morning. Then Liu Lizhe went home. At that time, Su Nanxing was sleeping in the bedroom with the infant Zhao Lan, and seven-year-old Zhao Zheng had already fallen asleep in his own room.
The explosion occurred at 1 a.m., less than half an hour after Liu Lizhe left. A gas valve, left open, had been slowly leaking gas, eventually reaching a certain concentration and igniting a cigarette butt that hadn't been completely extinguished on the dining table.
Liu Lize had just returned to Zhao Wenyan's house, having forgotten his house key. He planned to spend the night there while his wife, Zhang Shaohua, finished her night shift the next day. As he reached the path beside the building, he heard a deafening explosion from Zhao Wenyan's house on the first floor. Flames instantly shot out from the crack in the kitchen window, sending up billowing black smoke.
A chaotic firefighting operation ensued, but no one dared to rush in, fearing a second explosion. Only Liu Lize rushed in alone, quickly rescuing a baby. He himself suffered several burns on his back and arms. Liu Lize wanted to continue in to rescue people, but was stopped by neighbors, and the fire grew even larger.
After extinguishing the blaze, firefighters also completed an on-site investigation, which largely matched Liu Lizhe's account. However, the Zhao family's home was severely damaged by the explosion, and given the limited technology available at the time, many details could not be verified. Firefighters therefore classified the incident as an accident and did not refer the case to the public security authorities for investigation.
The matter was thus concluded, and Liu Lizhe became a fire hero, widely praised and publicized by his company and the government. Thus, there was this news report.
After listening to all of Li Yalan's interview recordings, Yu Lei and Tang Ruxin were silent and did not speak for a long time.
"This fire is a bit strange. It exploded after Liu Lize left, and it was over when he came back. And all the details were told by Liu Lize himself. Did he really not bring his keys? Was his wife really on night shift that day? Was the gas tank valve not closed tightly or was it opened intentionally? There's no evidence..."
Chen Jingzhou rarely used his brain and raised doubts about the content of the recording.
Yu Lei turned off the audio file and said, "Don't treat the firefighters as fools. You can still verify whether his wife is on duty."
Tang Ruxin forced a smile, "It's just news material, I won't ask such detailed questions..."
Verifying the cause of a fire accident that occurred twenty-seven years ago is nearly impossible. Physical evidence from the scene wouldn't survive that long, and any witnesses still alive today are likely around Li Yalan's age, unlikely to remember the details. Even if we were to interview and investigate the people who lived there, from the fire department to the neighbors, it would take a month or two to come to a conclusion.
"After this incident, Liu Lize seemed to have a golden age. He soon won the lottery jackpot and moved his family to Yanwu County, east of the city. With strong government support, he founded the Donghe Refining and Chemical Company. Fifteen years later, he became a provincial-level outstanding private entrepreneur." Chen Jingzhou sighed, "Liu Lize saved Sister Tang's life, so God rewarded him with wealth. It was worth it."
"Which lottery did he win?" Yu Lei suddenly asked.
Chen Jingzhou rowed his chair back to the computer and started to check. After a moment, he replied:
"Draw #96388, July 20, 1996. Wow! The jackpot was $16 million! Ten million back then would have the purchasing power of hundreds of millions today."
While Chen Jingzhou was still busy marveling at the amount of his winnings, Tang Ruxin's expression had already changed.
"No! Impossible." She stood up immediately and said, "It was a long time before he..."
"Of course, he won't reveal the origin of the money until much later." Yu Lei's face was as gloomy as ice. He stared at Tang Ruxin coldly, "Otherwise, what you doubt now will be doubted by others then."
Chen Jingzhou's IQ dropped and he didn't react to what they were saying.
Tang Ruxin placed her hands on the table, trying to steady herself, "No, no..."
Yu Lei raised the corners of his mouth and revealed a cruel smile, and asked:
"Do you want to continue investigating?"
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