Chapter 72 Meeting
Zhu Liang was called to the teacher's office. He was surprised to see Sun Xianbing and Yu Jing waiting there. He opened his big, clear eyes and asked, "Uncle police, what do you want?"
Being called uncle by an 18-year-old boy, the unmarried young man Sun Xianbing was a little shocked: "Well, some details need to be confirmed. I would like to ask you to go to our Criminal Investigation Brigade."
Teacher Li responsibly comforted the student: "I have notified your mother to come over, don't be afraid."
Zhu Liang tilted his head: "Are there any details that are unclear? Can't I talk about it here? Why do I have to go to your team?"
Sun Xianbing observed Zhu Liang's reaction inconspicuously, wondering whether he had swapped the two on purpose or accidentally. He responded, "Yes, it's hard to explain in one sentence. I hope you can cooperate with us."
Although Zhu Liang was already eighteen years old, Liu Caiyang said that because he was still a high school student, she must be present. Therefore, Sun Xianbing and Yu Jing waited for a while. When Liu Caiyang closed the shoe store and hurried over, the four of them went to the Criminal Investigation Brigade together.
Liu Caiyang became nervous when he saw the police and kept asking questions along the way, but Sun Xianbing and Yu Jing did not answer anything this time. They just said that there were things that needed their cooperation in the investigation and he would know when he arrived.
The more the police said this, the more nervous Liu Caiyang became. She held her son's arm tightly and her body trembled unconsciously. But Zhu Liang patted the back of his mother's hand and comforted her: "Mom, it's okay, they just ask a few questions."
Liu Caiyang trembled and cursed her dead husband. She hated him for his hideous face in abusing the cat and for implicating her son. Zhu Shengrong's parents had passed away long ago, and his rural relatives had little contact with him, so his death did not attract much attention. Liu Caiyang now only hopes that the case will end quickly so that life can return to peace.
Zhu Liang and Liu Caiyang went to the interrogation room on the first floor together.
The interrogation room of the Criminal Investigation Brigade is spacious and simple, with blue-gray terrazzo floors, dark brown tables and chairs, and snow-white walls. It looks cold and serious.
Liu Caiyang's shivering became more severe.
Zhu Liang was originally very calm, but when his eyes fell on the three shoe boxes on the table, his pupils shrank and his body stiffened a little.
Xia Mushige smiled and asked them to sit down, then opened the three shoe boxes.
"Because he doesn't have much money, Zhu Shengrong usually buys cat food by the pound when he goes to the pet store. Few of the kittens he buys survive the night, so the cat food is rarely wasted. He replenishes the stock about once a month, and the non-toxic ones are placed in this white shoe box. The kittens live in another shoe box padded with a few pieces of rags and cotton, also white."
"The red shoebox contained poisonous cat food. Zhu Shengrong kept a bottle of rat poison purchased from the pesticide market in the kitchen. He mixed rat poison powder into the cat food and fed it to stray cats."
At this point, Xia Mufan looked at Zhu Liang and said, "Have you seen these three boxes clearly?"
Zhu Liang nodded passively: "I see it clearly."
Liu Caiyang cursed at the side: "Old Zhu is a scoundrel. I don't know how many cats he has killed with his poison. He deserves to die!"
Xia Mushige continued: "In order to distinguish the two types of cat food, we dyed the poisonous cat food blue. Do you understand now?"
Zhu Liang felt the sweat on his back and said in a trembling voice: "See, I understand."
Xia Mufan's eyes became sharper: "Now that you have seen and understood it clearly, please repeat your actions that night and show us how you knocked over the shoe box, spilled the cat food all over the floor, and then accidentally mixed up the shoe boxes."
Zhu Liang didn't move.
His eyes were fixed on the three shoe boxes in front of him.
Liu Caiyang cried, "Liangliang said he got it mixed up, so why did he have to come over to demonstrate?"
Xia Mufan ignored Liu Caiyang. His eyes were like lightning, watching Zhu Liang's every move.
Sun Xianbing said at the side: "Reconstructing the case is the requirement of the investigation."
During the investigation of a case, even if the suspect has confessed and all the details match, he will still be taken to the scene by the police to complete the identification process. This is the reason.
Zhu Liang hesitated as he stepped forward and knocked over two shoe boxes of cat food, spilling the cat food all over the floor.
The dyed cat food is mixed with the tan cat food, and they are inseparable.
Zhu Liang felt his hands and feet go numb when he saw this scene.
——He knew he was wrong.
After a breath, Zhu Liang said with gritted teeth: "Well, it doesn't seem to be the case."
Xia Mufan said coldly: "If you are wrong, try again!"
Sun Xianbing took a broom and swept the cat food off the ground, then put the two types of cat food into the shoe box.
Xia Mushige: "Come again."
Zhu Liang tried to overturn the red shoe box and the white shoe box containing the rags, then put the dyed cat food into the white shoe box and the rags into the red shoe box. He then stood aside with his hands down and said softly, "That's it."
Xia Mufan looked at him: "Are you sure?"
Zhu Liang looked up at her: "Yes, that's it."
Xia Mufan said calmly: "But the red shoe box in your cupboard contains cat food, not rags."
Zhu Liang pondered for a while, walked to the table, overturned the red shoe box and another white shoe box, and exchanged the contents inside.
Xia Mufan asked: "Not changing it?"
Zhu Liang's eyes became a little uneasy and his lips were tightly closed.
Xia Mufan took out two test reports and placed them on the table, motioning Zhu Liang to open them and read: "This is the test report issued by the Criminal Investigation Technology Department of our brigade. Please take a closer look."
Zhu Liang picked it up carefully and examined it carefully.
The more I looked, the heavier my breathing became.
He just completed the replacement in two steps, but in this way, there should be rags and cat hair residues on the red shoe box, not just strychnine powder.
When he put down the report, there was despair in his eyes.
Xia Mushige raised his voice, and there was power in his voice: "How did the shoe box get swapped?"
Countless thoughts flashed through Zhu Liang's mind.
From the perspective of mathematical probability, the three shoe boxes are named cat food red, cat food white, and rags white. The only possibilities of knocking them over are as follows.
——Three shoe boxes fell over at the same time.
——The red cat food and the white cat food were knocked over together.
The result of both of these is that the cat food is mixed, and it is impossible for one box to be toxic and one box to be non-toxic.
--The red cat food and the white rags were knocked over together;
--The white cat food and the white rags were knocked over together;
——The three boxes were knocked over one by one.
The result of these two is that red cat food and white cat food cannot be interchanged.
Even if it is done in two steps, there will be no test report results.
Unless... he did it on purpose and took another clean white shoe box to hold the toxic cat food, and then put the non-toxic cat food into the original red shoe box.
what to do?
Zhu Liang didn't expect the police to be so serious and ask him to repeat every word he said.
It was only at this time that he realized that some lies were easy to tell, but full of loopholes when examined carefully.
Liu Caiyang didn't understand what was going on, but her intuition made her shudder. Although the room was extremely cool, she was sweating coldly.
Xia Mushige repeated again: "Tell me! How did the shoebox get swapped?"
This time, she did not hold back on her strength, and her voice was filled with oppression.
This feeling of oppression made Zhu Liang's heart beat wildly, his hands and feet numb, and his throat extremely dry. He swallowed hard and raised his head slowly: "There needs to be another shoe box."
Sun Xianbing brought an empty shoe box.
Zhu Liang took the shoe box and gestured as he spoke.
This time, the two boxes of cat food were swapped perfectly.
Xia Mufan stared at Zhu Liang's actions with sharp eyes: "Do you know that the red shoe box is poisonous?"
Zhu Liang no longer dared to hide anything: "Yes."
Xia Mushige: "Did you switch them on purpose?"
Zhu Liang lowered his head and looked at his toes, not daring to make eye contact with his mother: "Yes."
Liu Caiyang felt dizzy.
What does your son mean by this? Did he want to kill his father?
Although it is shameful that Zhu Shengrong abused and killed cats, he is Zhu Liang's father after all, and he is the father who raised him with all his heart.
Xia Mufan signaled Yu Jing to concentrate on taking notes.
She turned to Zhu Liang and said, "Why?"
Zhu Liang sat back in his chair, looking at the four shoe boxes on the table, a sarcastic smile appearing on the corner of his mouth.
"He deserves to die, doesn't he?"
"He killed so many cats with poisonous cat food. Isn't it what he deserved for them to die from the poisonous cat food?"
"Give him a taste of his own medicine. Only in this way will he know how pitiful the cat he poisoned is!"
Xia Mufan said nothing and looked at Zhu Liang quietly.
After venting his emotions, Zhu Liang gradually fell into a state of regret.
His lips were trembling and his hands and feet were shaking.
Tears dripped down my legs drop by drop.
Zhu Liang's voice was like a cloud floating in the sky, unable to find a place to stay.
"I didn't want him dead."
"Really! I hated him, but I didn't expect him to die."
"I changed the cat food just to let him suffer a little. I thought he would eat a little at most, but who knew he would eat so much out of fear? The cat is so small and he is so fat, how could he die after eating just a handful of cat food? Cats can't talk, but he can. If he eats poisonous cat food, as long as he is sent to the hospital for gastric lavage in time, he will be fine."
Zhu Liang's tears were flowing more and more.
At the end of his speech, he lay down on the table and began to cry loudly.
"I was wrong! I was wrong."
"I thought it was just a small punishment for him, so that after he experienced the pain of a cat, he would change for the better and would not become a bad person. I didn't expect that he would die. I didn't expect that."
"Catch me and shoot me. I killed him..."
Xia Mufan sighed.
Zhu Liang had no intention of killing anyone, but unexpectedly his father died as a result. The tremendous pressure in the past few days almost made him mentally collapse.
Now that he has finally told the truth, it will actually be good for his mental health.
No matter what the final decision of the court is, at least he can face everything calmly.
Liu Caiyang watched Zhu Liang sign calmly and was taken out of the interrogation room by the police. Knowing that her son had broken the law, she burst into tears, knelt on the ground, grabbed Xia Mufan's arm and begged.
"Officer Xia, please, he's still a child, he doesn't understand!"
"He didn't mean to hurt anyone, he just wanted to punish his father."
"I have already signed the letter of understanding, so please forgive him."
"My husband is dead. Please don't take my son away. Wuuuu..."
Xia Mufan bent down and helped her up, saying softly, "The case has been solved, and the verdict is not our business. Next, you can find a lawyer."
Liu Caiyang suddenly came to his senses: "Yes, yes, yes, find a lawyer."
She seemed to have found the direction of her life. She immediately stood up and hurried away. No matter what, the son did not intend to kill anyone, he just wanted to punish his father. The crime does not warrant the death penalty, right?
Looking at Liu Caiyang's departing back, Xia Mufan remained silent.
Feng Xiaoyu stood beside her and asked quietly, "It shouldn't be too severe, right?"
Xia Mushige said: "I hope so."
The case was finally solved, and the Serious Crime Unit 7 submitted the case closing materials to the prosecution.
A month later, as the cicadas chirped in the midsummer, the case entered the trial stage.
Once it was announced, everyone was shocked.
Photos of Zhu Shengrong torturing and killing cats were circulated, attracting criticism from countless cat lovers. Some people even hung banners outside the courthouse, demanding a lighter sentence.
Some media even promoted Ke Lu and others as "heroes" and set Zhu Liang up as an example of "sacrificing relatives for the sake of justice", saying that they did a great thing and should not be sentenced.
Under such public opinion trends, Liu Caiyang's lawyer demonstrated his strong professional qualities, citing classics and speaking eloquently.
In the final verdict, Ke Lu, Qiao Rui, Qiao Duo and Du Haoran were acquitted. Zhu Liang was sentenced to two years in prison with a one-year reprieve because of his good attitude towards admitting his guilt.
When Ke Lu walked out of the court, he felt the sunshine was shining brightly before his eyes.
With his heart finally at ease, the first thing Ke Lu did was to go back to Zheng'an Town to look for his Shiba Inu.
I came to the woods near the train station and walked on the leaves on the ground, making a rustling sound.
Following his memory, Ke Lu walked towards the old wooden house.
Woo——woo——
Suddenly, a whimpering sound was heard in the woods.
Ke Lu stopped and listened carefully.
The sound came from the direction of the cabin.
It was a familiar voice!
Ke Lu's heartbeat quickened, and he shouted, "Chai Chai!"
The whimpering sound gradually stopped, and after a gasp, a loud "Woof! Woof!" was heard. That was the Shiba Inu calling out to its master with its last bit of strength.
It is old and can no longer move.
However, the wind brought the scent of the owner, Xiao Ke.
The Shiba Inu pricked up his ears excitedly and made a whimpering sound in his throat.
It heard it!
The owner is calling "Shiba Inu".
The owner is here. The owner that it has been waiting for for sixteen years has finally come to find it!
The master really is here!
The Shiba Inu tried hard to raise its front legs and stand up. It gathered its energy, stretched its neck, and barked with all its might.
Ke Lu heard it.
That was the Shiba Inu calling him.
Although the voice was old and weak, it was the Shiba Inu calling him.
Just like when he was a child, as soon as he came home from school, the Shiba Inu would run over happily, wagging its tail and barking at him.
Ke Lu's entire body glowed with an extremely bright light and he began to run desperately.
A man and a dog, getting closer and closer.
Until Ke Lu ran to Shiba Inu, squatted down and hugged it, tears streaming down his face, and he cried out in a choked voice: "Shiba Inu, it's me, it's me, I'm back."
The Shiba Inu leaned its head on Kelu's shoulder, wagged its tail slowly, and licked his face with its tongue.
It had no strength left, not even the strength to wag its tail.
However, the master has come, the master is really back.
Ke Lu hugged Shiba Inu and felt that the missing piece in his heart was finally filled. He cried and talked at the same time.
"I didn't know you were alive."
"It was Officer Xia who told me that you had been waiting for me."
"I'm sorry, it's my fault. I shouldn't have abandoned you. I have missed you all these years."
The Shiba Inu slowly closed its eyes.
After waiting for so long, it’s great to finally meet the owner.
The past seems to be still before my eyes.
At that time, the owner was just a little child who would hug it and cry secretly when he missed his mother.
Now that he has grown up, tall and strong, he will definitely be able to live well, even without it.
The force that supported Shiba Inu was gradually fading away.
Ke Lu sensed Chai Chai's weakness and hurriedly called out, "Chai Chai, wait a minute, I'll make you some rice with soy sauce, okay?"
Ke Lu's body was trembling. The Shiba Inu opened his eyes, rubbed his neck coquettishly, and barked again: "Woof woof..."
Ke Lu picked up the Shiba Inu, got back into the taxi, and took it back to his rental house.
Shiba Inu stayed with him for a week.
Finally, one afternoon, the sun shone on the floor, and under Ke Lu's gentle caress, Shiba Inu left this world forever.
Ke Lu did not cry. After burying Shiba Inu, he went to the Criminal Investigation Brigade to find Xia Mufan.
When Xia Mufan saw that his face was calm and his eyes were sad, he knew what had happened. He pursed his lips and didn't say much.
Ke Lu said: "Shiba Inu passed away peacefully."
Xia Mufan was happy for the Shiba Inu because he thought that the Shiba Inu finally met the owner it had been waiting for for more than ten years. "That's good."
Ke Lu's eyes were filled with gratitude and intimacy: "Thank you."
Xia Mufan waved his hand: "Nothing."
She and Ke Lu were acquainted with each other through fighting, and at first she thought he was a murderer. Now he has been cleared of the charges and can live a clean life.
Ke Lu handed a plastic lunch box to Xia Mufan: "This is the mung bean cake I made. I'll give it to you to try."
Xia Mufan waved his hand: "No need."
Ke Lu's eyes were a little hurt: "Thanks to your help this time, I was able to be acquitted. It's just a few cakes I made myself, can't you accept them?"
Xia Mufan did not take credit for it: "We just did our job and didn't help much."
Ke Lu said, "I have been fired from Qingming Hotel and plan to open a coffee shop nearby. You can just help me check and see how the pastries taste."
Xia Mufan glanced at him and said, "Resigned?"
Ke Lu smiled bitterly: "Because I invited Zhu Shengrong to the hotel, it caused a bad influence on the hotel, so Manager Du fired me and Qiao Rui."
Xia Mushige could only express sympathy: "Oh."
Ke Lu said, "It's okay. I have saved some money and borrowed some money from the bank. I plan to buy a shop on Fenglin Road and turn it into a coffee shop, selling coffee, tea, snacks and simple meals. If you and your colleagues want to find a place to sit in the future, come over."
Xia Mufan raised an eyebrow: "It's good to start your own business."
Hui City is not as prosperous as Xing City, but young people love to follow the trend, so it is a good idea to open a coffee shop that combines Chinese and Western styles.
Ke Lu still held up the lunch box, with a hint of pleading in his eyes: "Try it, just like being my first customer, and give me more valuable suggestions, okay?"
Ke Lu's eyes once again reminded Xia Mufan of coal ash. Her heart softened and she took the lunch box: "Okay, I'll take it."
Ke Lu smiled brightly, turned around and left.
He left with brisk steps and it was obvious that he was in a good mood.
Xia Mufan took the mung bean cakes back to the office and distributed them to the team members: "Ke Lu sent them. He said he was planning to open a coffee shop and asked us to go and support him later."
The mung bean cake must have been in the refrigerator for a while. It is slightly cool, melts in your mouth, and is sweet and delicious.
Gong Weiguo ate and said: "Delicious!"
Sun Xianbing and Yu Jing laughed happily: "We caught him, and he wants to thank us?"
Feng Xiaoyu asked curiously, "Is he planning to pursue you?"
Xia Mufan didn't like discussing this topic, so he asked her instead: "Has our team encountered any difficult cases recently?"
Feng Xiaoyu's attention was quickly diverted: "There are two homicide cases that have been taken over by other teams. Forensic Doctor Gu and his team are very busy. Didn't we just solve the train station trafficking case? We can take a break these two days."
Xia Mufan glanced at everyone and asked, "Have you rested enough?"
Everyone nodded in unison: "Enough, enough."
I was used to working on cases with Xia Mufan at a high intensity. After just two days of rest, I felt uncomfortable all over. I really had to find something to do.
Xia Mufan's face became serious, and he placed a case file on the conference table: "Well, let's discuss this case of the missing medical school student."
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