Looking at Wang Xiaoling, I felt a suffocating sensation, as if my throat was being violently gripped. If this anonymous letter of denunciation was true, it meant that Cao Xue had actually gone to Thailand to do this... At that moment, my heart was filled with all sorts of feelings, but besides shock, I felt mostly anger.
If I had heard this news two years ago, I absolutely would not have been able to suppress this anger. I would have found Cao Xue immediately and made him pay for his crimes in blood... I know how much I loved Ye Zhi back then.
Even now, though all the emotions have faded a bit, that flame still burns and hurts my heart!
The murderer was right beside me, and had been calling me brother for so long. This kind of horror is chilling to the bone...
...
I don't know how long it took me to calm down before I finally asked Wang Xiaoling, "How credible do you think this anonymous whistleblower letter is...? I can't accept this result. Why Cao Xue? There have been rumors in society for a long time that Cao Xue's father went to jail for Cao Jinbo back then. Cao Jinbo already owes his older brother. How could he let his older brother's only son do something that would definitely result in a heavy sentence?... It doesn't make any sense logically!"
Wang Xiaoling looked at me and replied, "Compared to a formal report, an anonymous letter is indeed less credible... But this anonymous letter is very significant to us because it points us in the direction of the investigation, and it is also verifiable... We can find Cao Xue's entry and exit records for the past few years. If it matches the time when your girlfriend got into trouble, then he has a high probability of committing the crime. This is factual evidence... Emotionally, I think it's most reasonable for Cao Jinbo to let him handle it... Because this is a murder case, and once it comes to light, he will face the death penalty. Given his cautious nature, he will definitely find the person he is closest to and most trustworthy to do it... This is a common trick of Cao Jinbo. He knows the difficulty of cross-border investigations, so in his eyes, as long as he uses the person he trusts most, it is a sure thing."
In my silence, Wang Xiaoling sighed again and said, "The biggest difficulty now is that even if we can deduce from the time that it was Cao Xue who did it, when we actually handle the case, we still need to rely on actual evidence. This involves obtaining evidence from overseas, and this happened two years ago. It is almost impossible to obtain strong evidence... We cannot convict Cao Jinbo and Cao Xue based solely on an anonymous letter!"
I finally spoke to Wang Xiaoling and asked, "What do you think I can do to help you?"
"Without alerting the suspects, assist us in finding evidence... Our investigation revealed that Cao Jinbo's mistress, along with two other friends of yours, visited you in Thailand. My personal assessment is that you two likely have a close relationship. Furthermore, Cao Xue and your female friend named Nicole have already formed a de facto romantic relationship... I believe these two individuals could be our breakthrough points..."
Who do you think will keep their own?
Evidence of the crime?
Wang Xiaoling smiled and replied, "Although you posed this question to me, I think you have the answer in your heart better than I do."
I don't quite understand what you mean.
"Before receiving this anonymous letter, we also received another anonymous letter accusing Cao Jinbo of exploiting internal strife within Binjiang Group to gain numerous illicit benefits for himself. Just when we were struggling to find a breakthrough, we received this anonymous letter today... The other party seems to be consciously hinting at us and giving us a direction for solving the case... My personal analysis is that Cao Jinbo must have kept evidence of his crimes to threaten a high-ranking member of Binjiang Group with whom he had an improper agreement... The specific details were not explained in the anonymous letter, but I believe you should know some inside information... After all, Ye Zhi is your ex-girlfriend, and you can't just let her fall into such a huge conspiracy and remain indifferent."
I looked up at Wang Xiaoling, and she nodded at me again, then said encouragingly, "Before we talked, I already told you that this wasn't a summons, so you don't need to hold anything back from me... Besides, we agree on one thing: we both hope that Cao Jinbo, this heinous monster, can be brought to justice, because we are all victims of his crimes!"
"May I have a cigarette?"
"no problem."
I lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and then replied, "Actually, I was really passive in the matter of Ye Zhi being harmed... I only recently heard some inside stories... Back then, Ye Zhi and her father, Ye Lifan, were engaged in a fierce internal struggle. Ye Zhi had the upper hand, and in order to buy himself time, Ye Lifan reached an agreement with Cao Jinbo. He hoped that Cao Jinbo could trap Ye Zhi abroad, but Cao Jinbo ruthlessly chose to kill her to silence her, aiming to bind Ye Lifan tightly to his own chain of interests... In the past two years, he has indeed reaped a lot of benefits from this. I believe that if he didn't have some evidence on hand, he wouldn't have had any leverage to talk to Ye Lifan at all... So, your judgment is correct."
After I finished speaking, Wang Xiaoling fell into deep thought. She frowned for a long time before finally speaking to me, "There's something I don't understand here... Ye Lifan and Ye Zhi are father and daughter. Even if he had an improper agreement with Cao Jinbo before, he couldn't possibly choose to remain silent after Cao Jinbo murdered his daughter, let alone be blackmailed by Cao Jinbo... Initially, he only wanted Cao Jinbo to keep Ye Zhi abroad. Even if he confessed, at most it would only be a charge of illegal detention... How could he let Cao Jinbo go unpunished and put himself in such a passive position?"
"Perhaps Ye Lifan never considered Ye Zhi as his own daughter... He, like Cao Jinbo, is a ruthless and vicious person; back then, in order to obtain the Binjiang Group, he also used improper means to frame Ye Zhi's maternal grandfather and send him to prison... He chose..."
Choosing to do this might be to protect his reputation, or it might be to maximize his own interests; or perhaps Cao Jinbo possesses even more damaging evidence that prevents him from exposing it.
"I don't think the idea of ​​preserving one's reputation holds water. I don't believe there's a father like that in the world. No matter how important his reputation is, it can't possibly be more important than his daughter's life... Also, there's something else I haven't figured out... Given Cao Jinbo's style of doing things, Ye Zhi shouldn't have had any chance of survival. Why was she able to survive by sheer luck?... Could there have been some other unexpected events?"
Wang Xiaoling's words immediately reminded me of what Ye Zhi had once told me: when she was pushed into the sea, someone put a life jacket on her.
Who is this person?
(End of Chapter)
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