Chapter 142 Confession
Zhang Hongtu, who was taken to the interrogation room, looked nonchalant.
He had made up his mind. No matter what the police said, he would just shake his head and say he didn't know. Police officers rely on evidence when investigating cases. Can they convict the little starling of murder based on a few random words he said? Impossible.
Because his hands were handcuffed, the cold and hard handcuffs would hurt if he moved his wrists, so Zhang Hongtu sat in the interrogation chair with his hands on his knees, trying his best to keep his hands still.
After adjusting his sitting position, Zhang Hongtu raised his eyes and looked at everything in front of him. In front of him was a large interrogation table with a bird cage on one corner of the table. Jumping around in the bird cage was the little starling Facai that he had raised for two years.
When Zhang Hong saw this little starling, he was furious.
——I kept you well fed and well fed, but you set a trap for me behind my back, causing me to be taken to the police station for questioning. If I had known this would happen, I would have strangled you to death.
Zhang Hongtu couldn't hold back his anger. He raised his right hand slightly, pointed a finger at the little starling and cursed, "You bastard!"
Unexpectedly, as soon as he extended his finger, the little starling immediately quacked: "Hello! Hello."
There were three policemen sitting behind the interrogation table. According to Zhang Hongtu's experience, one was responsible for taking notes, one was in charge of the presiding judge, and the other was the deputy.
Hearing the cry of the little starling, the policeman in charge of taking the statement lowered his head and chuckled.
Zhang Hongtu was so annoyed by this naughty starling that he didn't know whether to cry or laugh for a moment. Hearing the police laughing, his attention quickly shifted to the three police officers who were interrogating him.
The policeman who was taking the statement was sitting upright with a pen in his hand. Zhang Hongtu had never seen him before. He was probably new and looked very young.
One of the policemen in charge of the interrogation was Fan Yangping. The two had dealt with each other many times and could be considered acquaintances. The other one was wearing a uniform, had a pretty face and clear eyes, and the face looked somewhat familiar.
Meeting that pair of lively eyes, Zhang Hongtu recognized her. If his body had not been trapped in the interrogation chair, he would have jumped up long ago. He stared at the policewoman in front of him and shouted loudly: "You, you, you are..."
Xia Mushige blinked: "Yes, it's me."
Zhang Hongtu felt like sitting on pins and needles, his heart beating like a drum. No matter how dumb he was, he understood at this moment, what is this? Training birds? That meant the police had set a trap and were waiting for him to fall into it.
The calm mood was broken, and Zhang Hongtu felt angry and felt cheated. At this moment, he completely forgot that he was still in the interrogation room and was a suspect being interrogated by the police. He took the initiative to question Xia Mufanlai.
"I never thought you were a policeman. You approached me on purpose to get me to talk, didn't you? You taught the little starling all those lies he said, didn't you?"
Xia Mufan smiled slightly: "It's true that I approached you on purpose, but I didn't teach the little starling what he said. You and Meng Sha gossiped behind people's backs, but you didn't expect that this starling would learn it, right?"
All the curses in Zhang Hongtu's mind were stuck. Thinking carefully, he and Meng Sha sometimes had secret conversations and they just thought that there was no one around and the environment was safe. Who knew that there was a dead starling in the house eavesdropping and learning to talk?
After gritting his teeth for a long time, Zhang Hongtu was still angry: "In the hotel lobby, you deliberately incited everyone's emotions and caused them to call the police. It was you, it was you! You deliberately framed me!"
Xia Mufan was still in a good mood: "Justice is in the hearts of the people. Most of the people staying in the hotel are businessmen who travel all over the country. When they heard from my brother that you are murdering people for money and specifically targeting outsiders, of course they would be angry and call the police."
When Zhang Hongtu thought about how he was the one who took the initiative to find Xia Mufan and begged her to train birds, he was so angry that he vomited blood: "You said you could train birds, but it turned out to be all lies. I trusted you so much, bah!"
The angrier he was, the happier Xia Mufan was, which showed that Zhang Hongtu's emotions had been disturbed.
Xia Mufan still kept a faint smile on his face: "I'm not lying, I'm good at training birds. Your little starling was so naughty and deliberately sang against you, but after my training, it can accurately say those auspicious words and poems according to the gestures. Isn't this the result of my training?"
Zhang Hongtu is now regretting so much that his intestines are about to break.
After making money from his business, he had nothing to do and finally found a hobby to pass the time. Unexpectedly, the police took advantage of his interests and set him up. But he was the one who bumped into him first, damn it! hateful!
Zhang Hongtu gritted his teeth and continued to curse: "Who knows what kind of poison you put on my mynah bird to teach him to say nonsense? Those were all taught to him by you, the police. Do you want to frame me? No way."
Xia Mufan did not continue to argue with him on this matter. He stood up, opened the bird cage, and gently tapped the railing of the cage with one hand: "Fa Cai, you must be bored in the cage, right? Come out for a walk."
The little starling flew out of the cage, circled a few times in the closed interrogation room, and then stood obediently above the cage. Its pair of small eyes as big as soybeans stared straight at Zhang Hongtu who was sitting on the chair. It tilted its head and uttered another strange remark.
"It's so cold, so dark, and so scary."
Zhang Hongtu definitely never taught the little starling this sentence.
For some reason, Zhang Hongtu felt a creepy feeling when he heard this sentence.
Xia Mufan said slowly, "I heard that when a person dies, if the resentment has not disappeared, they will not be willing to reincarnate as a human being, and the wronged soul will linger for a long time, right?"
Zhang Hongtu was already restless and irritable, and when he heard what Xia Mufan said, his heart beat faster and his breathing became rapid. He swallowed unconsciously and felt a huge gurgling sound in his ears, echoing in his head.
He is a bit superstitious and firmly believes in reincarnation and the underworld.
Xia Mufan's words successfully planted a seed called "fear" in his heart, and this seed gradually sprouted and grew in Xia Mufan's slow words.
"The little starling you've raised for two years is so smart. It can learn anything someone teaches it. It can even say some words that no one has taught it. Don't you think this is strange?"
"Tell me, who taught it to say this now?"
Zhang Hongtu looked up at Xia Mufan, his voice trembling: "It was you, you taught him."
Xia Mufan leaned back and said, "You are also a bird breeder. Have you ever seen anyone who can teach a starling to speak such a long sentence in half an hour?"
There was an indescribable mystery in Xia Mufan's voice: "Do you think it's possible that some people's ghosts are lingering around in the little starling, and they want to use it to tell everyone the truth?"
Zhang Hongtu swallowed again and looked at Fan Yangping who had remained silent. "Officer Fan, don't you policemen believe in science and not superstition? Listen to what she said!"
Fan Yang kept his face straight and serious. He coughed and said, "We the police are questioning you now. Please answer every question she asks honestly."
Zhang Hongtu did not seek support from Fan Yangping, so he had to lower his head and said, "I don't know."
Xia Mufan raised the index finger of his right hand and tapped it lightly on the table.
The little starling received the instruction, tilted its head, and continued to repeat the sentence just now: "It's so cold, so dark, and so scary."
The little starling spoke each word slowly, and his voice was hoarse and unpleasant, as if it had its own loudspeaker. In this closed interrogation room, it sounded very loud and harsh.
Xia Mufan said, "Fourteen years ago, your Bafang Hotel was not as profitable as it is now, but you were greedy and took the land to the east to build a house. I guess you must be short of money, right? At this time when you were short of money, when you met a foreigner with money, were you tempted?"
"Killing is easy, but dealing with the bodies is difficult. Throwing them into the furnace to burn, the smell is too strong. Cutting them up and throwing them away, the blood is dripping. It just so happens that you have just finished digging the foundation of your new restaurant. It is not difficult to put down two bodies in such a big pit, right?"
The more Xia Mufan spoke, the more anxious Zhang Hongtu became.
Everything she said was as if she had seen it with her own eyes. It was so terrifying.
"But you still feel nervous after killing someone, right? After all, those were two real lives. Have you had nightmares in the past fourteen years? Do you burn paper money every Qingming Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival? In order to seek inner peace, have you set up longevity tablets for them in Qixia Temple?"
Zhang Hongtu didn't expect that Xia Mufan even knew such a private matter as the Li Changsheng Card, and his inner fear was constantly magnified. If a ghost hadn't told her through the starling's mouth, who could have known it so clearly?
Xia Mufan sighed and shook his head: "It's useless. Everything you did is useless. After killing someone, the resentment is still there. There are too many people in your heart that you care about, and the ghost is lingering around..."
There was no need for Xia Mufan to say the rest, as Zhang Hongtu had already started to imagine the rest of the plot.
——Yang Jiawei’s ghost lingered and possessed the little starling. He eavesdropped on his conversation with Meng Sha every day, and tried hard to imitate his voice and tone, saying some fatal things. Otherwise, how could a little starling like this be able to speak so many words like a human?
Zhang Hongtu is a bird keeper who has raised five or six little starlings. In his experience, no matter how smart a little starling is, it can only say a few words through repeated education and training. He had never seen a starling say such eerie words as "It's so cold, so dark, so scary" without being taught.
Zhang Hongtu stared at the little starling, and the more he looked, the colder he felt on his back.
Xia Mufan knocked lightly on the table, and the little starling cried out again: "It's so cold, so dark, and so scary."
Xia Mufan said coldly: "Zhang Hongtu, what kind of person are you to say something like "it's so cold, so dark, so scary"?
Zhang Hongtu's inner fear continued to escalate. His hands began to tremble unconsciously, and his wrists were sore from being rubbed by the handcuffs, but he didn't seem to feel the pain and continued to tremble.
Xia Mufan stood up suddenly, his eyes became sharp, and he was like a drawn bow, and his words were as sharp as arrows: "Did you kill Yang Jiawei and Cai Chi?"
Zhang Hongtu was terrified to the extreme, and the cold sweat on his forehead was like soybeans, flowing down his temples.
Zhang Hongtu still had his sanity, and with trembling lips he replied, "No, I didn't."
Xia Mufan slammed the table hard, making a dull thud, which scared Zhang Hongtu.
Xia Mufan picked up Xiong Feiliang's confession and held it in front of Zhang Hongtu: "Open your dog eyes and see clearly. Xiong Feiliang has confessed. Do you still want to hide it?"
Zhang Hongtu only felt a buzzing in his ears and his eyes went dark. He could not see a single word on the confession, but he clearly heard Xia Mufan say that Xiong Feiliang had confessed.
The highly tense nerve suddenly broke.
At this moment, Zhang Hongtu had only one thought: It's over, Xiong Feiliang has confessed, and the fact that I committed murder for money can no longer be covered up.
Just at this moment, the little starling began to quack: "It's so cold and dark. I'm so scared."
Zhang Hongtu was so frightened that tears and snot flowed down his face. He collapsed on the interrogation chair and began to tremble as if he had the hiccups.
He looked up at the black starling in front of him and muttered, "I, I say..."
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