The truth is revealed. She was silenced because she discovered the secret.
On the day Cheng Sizhou was able to get out of bed and walk, the police investigation into the case also ended.
Although the crime spanned twenty years and the chain of evidence was extremely complex, it was an indisputable fact that Zhang Hongliang, in collusion with a gang of cultural relics dealers, committed kidnapping and extortion on the night of February 12.
In addition, the police also seized a batch of cultural relics in the basement of the unfinished villa. Most of them were persimmon-colored porcelains that had not been sold in time. However, they were in very poor condition, with some being chipped, some discolored, and so on.
Considering the hostage's occupation, the police have reason to suspect that if Cheng Sizhou is forced to surrender to them, he will probably help them repair these cultural relics and then resell them.
"You're using his life as bait to force him to take action," Zhou Han said when he came to visit. He got angry the moment he saw him. "How many lives do you have? How could you do this?"
Wen Zichuan went to wash the fruit. Cheng Sizhou fumbled for a stool for him to sit on. "Did he confess everything?"
"Don't worry, I'll do it myself." Zhou Han took the stool and helped him sit down. "He confessed, but he doesn't admit to killing anyone."
"He went to great lengths to set up such a massive scheme, just to avoid any loss of life and ultimately avoid the death penalty."
"The specific sentencing will depend on the judicial authorities. He violated both discipline and law, so the sentencing process won't be short. Just focus on recovering from your injuries and stop worrying about it. Okay?"
Cheng Sizhou smiled. He was very bored while recovering from his injury. All he did was eat and sleep. He touched the flesh on his waist and back and found that it had gained at least five pounds.
"Brother Zhou, has the case of Jiang Anyi been resolved?"
"I knew you wouldn't forget this."
Zhang Hongliang confessed that someone had bought the six-eared porcelain gui for one million yuan each, and claimed that if Destanken sold the whole set, he could offer one hundred million yuan.
When Destin was killing people and robbing the ancient tomb in Longji Mountain, he did not consider that there were twelve porcelain gui in a set. He took away all eleven well-preserved ones and left the last one to shatter in the mud.
In the millennium, Destin discussed with Zhang Hongliang and asked him to send the missing porcelain gui to Sinopawnshop. After the whole set was sold, the two parties would come back to divide the spoils.
Zhang Hongliang disagreed. The damaged porcelain gui had been almost repaired and had been put into storage and filed. Wouldn't it be embezzlement if it was transported out again?
However, the sky-high price of one hundred million was really tempting, so Destin sent two assistants to plan with Zhang Hongliang. Their initial idea was to use the damaged door of the cultural relics warehouse to disguise it as an accidental theft.
It was also on that day that Jiang Anyi, after separating from Cheng Sizhou, did not return to Dengbo to find her father, but instead played kicking stones along the wall.
She was sick last week and didn't finish the painting homework assigned by the Children's Palace. Cheng Sizhou secretly helped her finish it.
She thought she would be criticized, but the teacher didn't notice it at all. He said she had made progress and praised her.
Although praised, Jiang Anyi was not convinced. Was Cheng Sizhou really much better than her? Did the teacher see through it and deliberately show favoritism?
The little girl was wandering aimlessly with something on her mind and unexpectedly ran into Director Zhang talking to two strange men.
She didn't seem to use much strength, but the stone rolled over and attracted their attention.
"An Yi, why are you here?" Zhang Hongliang asked with a gentle face, like an uncle next door.
"I, I..." Jiang Anyi saw the two foreign men's faces change. She was so scared that she wanted to escape, but her legs and feet were completely out of control.
The assistant thought Jiang Anyi was Zhang Hongliang's daughter, so he kidnapped her and changed the "disguised theft" to "kidnapping and extortion."
"Director Zhang, your country attaches great importance to humanity. No matter how good a porcelain gui is, it is just an object. It should not be worth a human life, right?" The assistant said to Zhang Hongliang in English.
Of course, an object is not worth a life, but Jiang Anyi is not his daughter.
What's more, Jiang Anyi heard their conversation just now. If she spread this matter, his cooperation with Destin would be exposed.
Zhang Hongliang said he needed to think about it, and his assistant only gave him two days to think it over before exchanging his daughter's life.
It was also at that time that Zhang Hongliang came into contact with "gamblers" who were wandering on the margins of society. He found that as long as they were paid, gamblers were willing to do anything.
A gambler who was almost fifty years old was dragged away to have his hands chopped off because he owed a huge gambling debt. In order to save him, his son kowtowed and begged for mercy, and was willing to do anything.
Zhang Hongliang agreed to pay off his debt, but on the condition that his son carry the bomb to negotiate with the two assistants.
The bomb is a small bomb used in archaeological excavations to perform local blasting on the harder outer rock layers, so it must be used at close range to be effective.
As soon as Jiang Anyi disappeared, Jiang's family called the police. The police and various media rushed into the abandoned factory in the north of Dengyuan and found the unconscious Jiang Anyi and the three kidnappers behind her.
The young man carrying the bomb was originally going to save his father, but somehow he became one of the "kidnappers".
Police officers aimed their guns at him, reporters' cameras pointed at him. In despair, he only remembers a gentle and refined man saying to him, "If the police open fire, detonate the bomb. When this is over, I will pay off all your father's gambling debts."
Then came the scene that Xu Jiaxuan's father Xu Zhiqin saw.
When the kidnapper jumped out of the window, he was hit by the police, and happened to knock down Xu Zhiqin who was climbing onto the windowsill. Another "kidnapper" detonated a bomb, causing a fire in the abandoned factory and burning everything to ashes.
Twenty years ago, Zhang Hongliang manipulated others and silenced the innocent Jiang Anyi in order to cover up his crimes.
Twenty years later, he did the same thing, instigating the gambler Wang Jian to kill the greedy Wu Dayong, and then used Qiu Pengfei to get rid of Wang Jian.
"Wu Dayong has been working with him for almost twenty years. Why did he suddenly want to kill him?" Cheng Sizhou asked.
"My colleagues who were interrogating me said that Zhang Hongliang burst into hysterics upon hearing this, saying that he, too, was being blackmailed by Wu Dayong," Zhou Han said calmly. "Can you guess why?"
Wen Zichuan came back from washing the fruit and just happened to hear: "He gave too little? No, he gave too much, but he couldn't give that much later, right?"
Hearing his voice, Cheng Sizhou immediately brightened up. He turned his head obediently and took a grape from his hand with his mouth: "Our teacher Wen is still so smart."
"How many times have prices increased in the past twenty years? Back then, they paid the porters a thousand yuan, and the porters would risk their lives to help them transport things from the mountains. Wu Dayong didn't know anything about cultural relics, he just guarded the things for him and worked as a warehouse keeper. In the past, he could be paid a few thousand yuan a year, but now, what can he do with a few thousand yuan a year?" Zhou Han said with some emotion.
"Looking at Wang Jian's shipping records, Zhang Hongliang only started to frequently resell the goods from Longji Mountain in the past two years. Is he short of money recently?" Cheng Sizhou asked again.
"He needs it," Wen Zichuan said as he carefully peeled an apple. "He bought this huge, unfinished villa."
"So he was indignant and cried, saying that his classmates went abroad or did business, but he was the only one guarding the government office with poor income, and he could neither starve to death nor get rich." Zhou Han was a little surprised to hear that Director Zhang was like this when facing interrogation, but after thinking about it, it was reasonable.
"Dengbo's salary is low," Cheng Sizhou said. "If I don't take on other jobs, I won't be able to afford the villa in Shujiashan even if I work for three lifetimes."
Wen Zichuan stuffed the sliced apple into his mouth: "How did you empathize with him?"
Cheng Sizhou bit his apple with a look of injustice on his face: "I'm telling the truth. Look, didn't An Jie change his career? And Brother Yu went back to inherit the family business and then married Xu Yang."
"What about you?"
"I?"
"What are your plans next?"
"As for me, I have bad teeth, so I can only eat soft rice."
He said these words shamelessly, without caring at all that Officer Zhou was present.
Wen Zichuan was so angry that he twisted his ear. Cheng Sizhou couldn't see it anyway, so he dodged and fell into his arms, grinning uncontrollably.
Zhou Han had conveyed everything he wanted to say. Seeing that Cheng Sizhou seemed to have returned to his former sunny and cheerful self, he slowly let go of his worries for him.
Before Qingming Festival, Cheng Sizhou was discharged from the hospital.
His external injuries were almost healed, and he could walk on his own with the help of a cane, but his eyesight had not recovered.
The doctor told Wen Zichuan privately that the blood clots in his brain had dissipated, but considering that he had a history of depression, he might have been mentally affected, which delayed his visual recovery.
Wen Zichuan thought that Cheng Sizhou had always hated coming to the hospital, and he might have a latent resistance to the hospital environment. It would be better to take him home to recuperate first, and then come back for a checkup after some time.
Finally, the running back and forth ended. Wen Zichuan carefully selected and hired a nanny to take care of Cheng Sizhou, thinking that he could also relax a little.
Last time he asked Wei Jing for a week's leave, but he didn't go to the company for more than a month and didn't receive any notices. Xie Bing called him countless times to urge him, but he just stayed in the hospital and refused to leave.
There are artists in the circle who don’t take any work for one or two months, or even a year or two, but this is not the case for popular artists.
The company's plan for him is to star in two idol dramas this year, make a guest appearance in a serious drama, and preferably choose a high-quality variety show to show his face.
After all, once the commercial value has increased, we must find a way to maintain it. Otherwise, if we cannot attract investment, no matter how good our acting skills are, it will be useless.
Wen Zichuan didn't want to put Xie Bing in a difficult position, so he made it clear that he didn't have enough time and that the starring role and variety show could only be arranged in the second half of the year. If the company couldn't wait, he would accept a replacement.
Xie Bing was so angry that his mind went blank. He yelled at the top of his voice, then begged him with a bitter face, saying that he must tell him immediately when the time could be arranged. Many crews would rather not shoot or postpone the shooting than wait for Teacher Wen because they thought he was suitable.
Arguing with others is a particularly tiring thing. Wen Zichuan returned home exhausted, but as soon as he entered the door, he became furious.
Cheng Sizhou didn't know what he had knocked over, and there was a large brown oil stain on his clothes. He was still unaware of it and tried to step on a stool to get something from a high place.
"What are you doing?! You're climbing so high, what if you fall?!" Wen Zichuan helped him down and yelled at him.
Knowing that Wen Zichuan was angry, Cheng Sizhou didn't even dare to explain. He saw that the weather was getting hot and wanted to take out the thin quilt from the top cabinet to prevent Wen Zichuan from complaining about the heat at night and catching a cold by kicking off the quilt.
"What's wrong with your clothes?" Wen Zichuan pulled at the stained part.
"Clothes?" Cheng Sizhou thought for a while before he realized that it might have been accidentally stained while eating.
"Auntie doesn't feed you?"
"Auntie, feed me? Isn't that bad?"
Wen Zichuan was too lazy to argue with him and called his aunt directly.
The aunt spoke with a thick local accent: "I'm only responsible for cooking and cleaning. He's not a three-year-old child who needs to be fed, right?"
Wen Zichuan became even more angry: "I said he can't see. He even soiled his clothes while eating. Can't you be more careful and help feed him?"
"You can't say that. How can I not be careful? I buy good vegetables, and they taste good, right? I even cleaned the kitchen for you."
"It's fine if you don't feed him, but you see he got his clothes dirty, so why don't you let him take them off and wash them?"
"He didn't say anything, and I didn't see anything. How would I know he got his clothes dirty? I have to cook, wash the dishes, and take out the trash. I'm so busy I can't handle it all."
Cheng Sizhou shook his arm in a flattering manner. Getting clothes dirty while eating was such a small matter. It was not worth getting so angry.
Wen Zichuan held him down and prevented him from moving: "Since you are so independent, you don't have to come tomorrow. I will transfer your salary to you. That's it." After saying that, he hung up the phone.
Cheng Sizhou knew that Zichuan was always very tolerant of small things in life. He was so angry today because he felt that his aunt was a little careless and neglected him.
He groped his way and put his arm forward, wanting to hug her, but was afraid of being rejected.
Who knew that the next second, he fell into a warm embrace, Zichuan gently kissed his eyes, and a familiar breath enveloped him.
Cheng Sizhou heard him say with great distress: "When will it be okay?"
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