Chapter 127

It was quite a way to go from the City Bureau to the science development zone in the western suburbs; if they'd met up with weekend city traffic on the shopping holiday of Christmas and New Year's, Tao Ran, already filled with an indescribable flame of impatience, would have been filled with a nuclear fusion process of impatience.

When news of the explosion arrived, Tao Ran nearly crushed his phone; his colleague driving the car jerked the steering wheel, nearly ramming into the innocent curb.

Hearing this, Director Lu's eyebrows nearly flew off his face. "What's going on?"

Tao Ran had no attention to spare to answer, because in a moment, countless wild questions crowded onto his phone and radio like a wasps' nest. His mind buzzed in chaos.

Had they failed again?

After Gu Zhao and Yang Zhengfeng, after Zheng Kaifeng and Zhou Junmao, was there another group of bodies waiting for them?

But before he could straighten out the threads of his thoughts, word came again from the sub-bureau's personnel who had arrived on the scene ahead of them.

"What? You've caught them?" This time Tao Ran was genuinely bewildered, without any exaggeration; the water in his left brain fixed with the flour in his right brain, turning into paste. Deputy-Captain Tao felt that while he could still be said to be in his prime, he was already in danger of early balding. His tongue tied itself into knots, and he almost started talking nonsense. "You've caught who? Didn't… Are they arrested, or are they blown up?"

As all the City Bureau's personnel experienced more emotional ups and downs than if they were playing the stock market, Lu Guosheng and all his co-conspirators were rounded up, and the Beehive and all the businesses under the Wei family banner were seized.

Luo Wenzhou returned to the City Bureau, handed over the complete security camera records, and very conscientiously retrieved two stacks of draft paper, ready to give one each to himself and to Xiao Haiyang, who had locked up Wei Zhanhong in a bathroom without permission, so they could write self-examinations.—While he was dividing up the paper, he discovered that he didn't have enough, because Lang Qiao had also been involved in knocking out Wei Zhanhong. Numerous male compatriots expressed deep unease about her conduct of charging into a men's bathroom without so much as a by-your-leave and strongly requested that she examine her conscience concerning this.

Because of the dishonest means of gathering the evidence, all the technicians had to return, shivering, to their posts on this day in the dead of winter to work overtime, trying to restore the altered security camera footage.

At the same time, it was confirmed that the suspicious individual arrested at the Longyun Center was a specially-contracted "consultant" with Wei Zhanhong's company; he had a seven-figure yearly salary but no concrete duties in the company; his position was in name only. In short, Wei Zhanhong and his son, the mysterious consultant, the senior management of the Wei Clan, the legal representative of the Beehive entity and its senior management, and so on, were all detained.

Because the armed police had been dispatched, the severity of the whole business had risen steeply, changing in a flash from a disproportionately emphasized social hot topic of virtue and ethics into a grave question of public safety.

The whole City Bureau was lit up. The bulletin being prepared for public distribution went through fourteen drafts without being released; the gates were piled high with media waiting to receive first-hand material.

Feng Bin had likely never thought that his desire to expose the bullying going on at school would in the end have fermented into such a storm.

The bruise on Luo Wenzhou's face had mostly subsided in swelling after a while, only leaving a faint mark. Lang Qiao circled him a few times with hateful envy. "Boss, when you were young, you must have been one of those beasts of burden who never got scars from pimples, right?"

"You're the beast of burden. I'm still in the spring of…" Luo Wenzhou glanced at a nearby mirror and found that he had a slovenly, unshaven look, a head of messy hair to rival Tao Ran, and a cut at the corner of his mouth. Even with a face as thick as the Great Wall, he couldn't bring himself to apply the words "the spring of youth" to this distinguished countenance and could only wave irascibly at Lang Qiao. "Beat it, scram."

Lang Qiao didn't scram. As usual, she drew close to Luo Wenzhou's ear as though playing around and planning to quietly mock him. But what she said was, "I was overheard while questioning the students in Interrogation Room 203. There was no one in the observation room at the time. I checked with logistics and found out that the installations in 203 were repaired the year before last…and the ones in 206 and the little conference room were overhauled at the same time."

The corner of Luo Wenzhou's eye twitched. He looked up and met Lang Qiao's gaze.

Lang Qiao stiffened her face and forced a smile at him, but there was uncontrollable panic showing in her big eyes—this was the City Bureau. If they weren't even safe at "home," then where could they go?

"Why don't you go write your self-examination? You're not even the size of a bean, and yet you have so many worries." Saying so, Luo Wenzhou nodded absently towards the colleague waiting to speak to him at the door. He stood, rolled up the draft paper, and knocked on Lang Qiao's head with it. "If the sky falls, there's still your imperial father to hold it up. I'm going to have a meeting with Lu Guosheng. Do you want to see what a criminal who's been wanted for fifteen years looks like? Come on!"

To give him his due, if not for his crooked eyes, Lu Guosheng would not only not have looked horrifying, he would have been a man of rather striking appearance—tall, broad-shouldered, with sharp-cut features and a sitting posture that had presence, unlike some other loafing criminals.

Seeing Luo Wenzhou enter, Lu Guosheng looked up and rather calmly met his eye.

The clerk was rather nervous, because he knew that many people were listening in on this interrogation, and he was afraid that some unrefined movement of his would catch a superior's eye; he stood very cautiously. "Captain Luo."

Luo Wenzhou patted him on the shoulder, pulled up a chair, and sat.

"Captain Luo," Lu Guosheng repeated after the clerk, gaze sweeping over the cut at the corner of Luo Wenzhou's mouth. "You're the one who held off a couple dozen rabid dogs and rescued me? Thank you."

"Don't flatter yourself. I arrested you." Luo Wenzhou evenly corrected his wording, went through the file on the table, and said in a businesslike way, "Lu Guosheng, male, thirty-nine years old, place of birth Lotus Town in Yan City's Lotus Township, studied at Yan City North Engineering University, close relatives all deceased. You had a brother named Lu Guoxin. He was sentenced to death fifteen years ago, and the sentence was carried out.—Correct?"

Lu Guosheng smiled, understanding that this was a formality, and didn't respond.

Luo Wenzhou looked into his eyes. Likely because he was cross-eyed, Lu Guosheng's gaze always looked somewhat unfocused.

"Lu Guosheng, fifteen years ago, three successive cases of robbery and murder aimed especially at short-haul truck drivers took place on National Road 327. Was that your doing?" Luo Wenzhou asked.

The observation room was crowded full of people—the City Bureau's leaders, people from the city government and the armed police, some frontline criminal police officers, and so on; for a moment, all of them held their breaths and concentrated on the man on the surveillance feed.

"Yeah," Lu Guosheng acknowledged casually as soon as the question was asked, his body language frank and relaxed, "that was me. It was my idea. Find a place without any people and wait. When a target approached, throw a cat or dog towards his wheels. Some people are a little stupider, without any experience. They could be tricked into getting out very easily. Though an old driver with experience normally wouldn't. Even if he knew he'd run over an animal, he still usually wouldn't get out of his truck to investigate. But either way, when he'd run something over, he'd still have to decelerate somewhat—and then we'd send the woman out."

He might not stop when he'd run over an animal, but he couldn't drive right towards a person.

"As long as he stopped, my brother and I could get him out." Lu Guosheng paused, then reached out a hand towards Luo Wenzhou. "Could I get a cigarette?"

Luo Wenzhou lit a cigarette and passed it to him.

Lu Guosheng took two deep drags, and, after a while, breathed out two mouthfuls of smoke. Wreathed in mist, he narrowed his eyes slightly and whispered, "I always knew this day would come."

Luo Wenzhou said, "Why did you kill them?"

"What motive could there be for killing and theft?" Lu Guosheng snorted. "For the money. My brother lazed around all day and couldn't find any proper work, and he was infatuated with that woman. He gave her anything she wanted. Of course there wasn't enough money. He'd get drunk late at night and come crying to me, begging me to think of a way he could get money quickly. I just happened to have a grievance against a truck driver, so I told him that they have money on them, why don't we go rob them, we'll give it a try if you have the guts… The first driver was delivering electronics. We happened to need a fridge at home, so we simply took one from his truck. The two of us killed him together. We had no experience. We stabbed blindly a dozen times without killing him, getting covered in blood. We only dared to go back to town in the middle of the night. Though the second time we had more experience. I looked up where you could kill with one strike and tried it out a few times on animals to practice. And it turned out to work on humans, too."

Luo Wenzhou followed up, "And the third one?"

Lu Guosheng's voice paused. Then, without turning a hair, he said, "It's been too long. I don't recall clearly."

"The third victim. You gouged out his eyes and chopped off his limbs. Murder and dismemberment," Luo Wenzhou said slowly. "The sort that comes from deep-seated resentment. You remember the first two perfectly, but you say you've forgotten this one?"

Lu Guosheng's expression didn't change. He pondered for a moment, then said, "Oh, I think I remember he had too little money. We went to all that trouble and found that there was only one or two hundred yuan on him and no items worth any money. I got depressed and did that… Gouging out the eyes was my big brother's doing. He'd heard somewhere that the dead had 'mirrors' in their eyes that could reflect the last person they'd seen."

Luo Wenzhou gave an "oh" and lifted the file, lightly leaning back in his seat, slowly saying, "In his confession, your brother Lu Guoxin said that the last victim had tens of thousands on him, and he begged you guys to let him go, saying that the money was to buy medicine for a relative. Lu Guoxin was very pleased, took the money, even didn't want to kill him, but you didn't agree—did that take place?"

Lu Guosheng was silent.

Luo Wenzhou coldly asked, "What, it's been fifteen years, and you two brothers can't get your stories straight?"

At this time, there were people whispering amongst themselves as they observed the interrogation on the surveillance feed. One person quietly asked, "Why hasn't he asked about Feng Bin yet? And the explosion and the hiding place… What's he doing going on about this old business?"

The people next to him hastened to shush him and use their eyes to indicate Director Lu, standing nearby with his hands behind his back, immovable as a mountain—the leader wasn't saying anything, so listen carefully.

"Captain Luo," Lu Guosheng said, lightly licking his lips, "I thought you were going to ask me how much money I got for killing that kid."

"I know you didn't get money, or else people would have known about it. There's no bomb under the City Bureau. We have time. You can tell me about it slowly." Luo Wenzhou's expression didn't flicker as he looked blandly at Lu Guosheng. "I know that the third victim was named Lu Yu. He never had any form of contact with you when he was alive. He was in his thirties, very even-tempered, a good man of few words, who'd never clashed with anyone.—Why would you have so much hatred towards him?"

Lu Guosheng's eyes dimmed.

"I asked a specialist about it a little, and he told me it's likely you were venting your anger out of transference," Luo Wenzhou said. "Why would you vent your anger on him? What happened between the second victim and the third victim?"

Fei Du noiselessly opened the door of the observation room, but he didn't go in. Instead, he turned aside like a respectful junior, waiting for the person behind him to go on ahead. A middle-aged man slowly walked in. He had a sober, square face and wore glasses, but the lenses couldn't his shield his gaze, which was like the point of a knife.

The younger ones were all at sea, but the older ones had already recognized him. "Teacher…Pan?"

Lu Youliang turned his head and slowly met Pan Yunteng's eyes from a few steps away. Then, without saying a word, he turned back, not questioning Pan Yunteng's presence here and not minding whether it accorded with regulations or not.

Lu Guosheng's cuffed hands quivered slightly under the table. The smile on his face seemed to have grown there; he kept his mouth tightly shut, not saying a word.

Luo Wenzhou pulled a list of names from the file. "I figure those accomplices of yours must be as curious as we are to know why you'd run the risk of appearing at the Longyun Center on November sixth. So we asked for a list of names of people who attended that day. I'll read it out for you.—Wang Yilin, Zhou Shu, Huang Minmin, Liang Youjing…"

Lu Guosheng's expression altered.

"Liang Youjing." Luo Wenzhou interlaced his fingers and rubbed his chin. "What, do you know her?"

"No," Lu Guosheng said, tersely and dryly.

"The daughter of one of Yufen Middle School's trustees." Luo Wenzhou smiled. "A rather well-known and bossy young lady. We have her here in the bureau now, under suspicion of taking part in schoolyard bullying, of personal insults and bodily harm committed against her schoolmates.—What an upbringing. She really doesn't sound like a girl from a nice family…"

Lu Guosheng looked up at once, glaring fiercely at him.

Without lifting his eyelids, Luo Wenzhou snapped his fingers towards the security camera. "Bring that little girl over for questioning. Let's find out where she's seen Lu Guosheng. Take her fingerprints and a DNA sample. I think she may be involved in this, too…"

"She's not involved," Lu Guosheng said suddenly, squeezing the words out from between his teeth.

Luo Wenzhou looked back at him expressionlessly.

"She's…she's not involved." Lu Guosheng's broad shoulders suddenly fell. After a long time, he raised his head. "You police must have confidentiality rules. Even if this is reported, a minor's name will still be blurred out. Right? Whatever I say here won't…won't fall into the ears of people who have nothing to do with this…"

Luo Wenzhou snorted. "What, a demented asshole like you expects the police to give him free publicity?"

"Fifteen…well, it must be sixteen years ago, I didn't get my diploma and had to stoop to working as a clerk at a transportation company. It was very dull and aimless, but then I met a woman."

"A woman?" Luo Wenzhou couldn't resist asking. "Your colleagues and relatives all said you were antisocial and didn't have any close partner of the opposite sex."

Lu Guosheng paused. "Because I couldn't talk about it."

Luo Wenzhou instantly understood. "Whose wife was she?"

"The boss's," Lu Guosheng said quietly. "He was called Liang Zhixing."

Luo Wenzhou lightly flipped through the materials he had on hand. The person who had signed as Liang Youjing's guardian was Liang Zhixing.—It seemed he'd made his fortune in the transport business and was now a successful figure in society.

"Liang Zhixing was an old man who'd married a young woman. He couldn't satisfy her," Lu Guosheng said. "We were together for over two months. Then we were found out by one of the company's drivers. The bastard took the opportunity to blackmail us. I wanted to kill him, but the woman was timid… Heh, she disdained the old man, but she couldn't give up the old man's money, couldn't give up the position of a fine lady."

"You had a clash with that driver because of this?"

"Yeah. She paid up to keep the peace, and wanted to send me away to cover it up—she gave me money and told me that when she'd thoroughly resolved this business, I could come back. I didn't take the money. I knew she just wanted to get an annoyance like me farther away from her." Lu Guosheng sneered. "But I compromised, because she showed me her physical exam report… She said the child was actually mine."

In the observation room, Tao Ran quickly ordered a colleague next to him, "Go compare Liang Youjing and Lu Guosheng's DNA."

Luo Wenzhou said, "And then what?"

"I went back home. My mood was unstable, and I hadn't saved any money, so I did that stuff—the robbery," Lu Guosheng said quietly. "After we'd done it twice without getting caught by the police, I got bolder and got my blood up. Once I got drunk and called that bastard who was blackmailing me and said I'd kill him one day, and then…a few days later, I received a letter."

"What was in it?"

"Some photographs. Photographs of a miscarried little child. A bloody ball like a rat, with places you could tell it was human, its eyes closed, its limbs…all arranged to one side with their little broken bones, placed on a…" Lu Guosheng gestured. "A tray."

Luo Wenzhou took a deep breath. "That's why you vented your anger on the third victim, chopping off his limbs, turning his body into a bloody mess? Because the unlucky devil was also a truck driver, and the King of Hell had called him up that day and made him pass through the section of road where your ambush was."

Lu Guosheng raised his eyebrows. "Ah, yes. When I thought about it later, I thought I'd wronged the fellow. He actually had nothing to do with it. But we'd have had to kill him, anyway, so how we killed him didn't make much of a difference. Let's say he was unlucky."

In the observation room, Fei Du sighed and turned his head, his gaze seeming to pass through the walls to fall on Lu Jia, waiting outside.

Why was it necessary to know the truth? There were some absurd truths it would be more comfortable to spend a lifetime in the dark about.

"But actually the child didn't die. That was something the driver arranged deliberately to make you angry after he got your harassing phone call."

"When the police came to our door, I'd gone into the city," Lu Guosheng said. "I wanted to butcher that woman, then go chop up that bastard. The upshot was that I saw her happily walking out of the hospital with her belly sticking out, with the old asshole accompanying her, not knowing he'd been cuckolded. But I got a lucky break."

As he spoke, Lu Guosheng's somewhat crooked mouth opened in a smile. "From that, I think I have the luck of a wife and child."

Luo Wenzhou was simply speechless.

"I hid in the city for a while. My wanted poster was stuck up everywhere. Once I was staying at a little hotel and got recognized by the receptionist. They didn't say anything, waited until I'd gone into my room, then called the police." Lu Guosheng let out a long breath. "But…before the police got there, some people came to see me… Their leader was the 'sheepdog' from the gas station at the ecological park. He was the one who basically managed our base there."

Everyone listening in on the interrogation in the observation room was absolutely still. They heard Lu Guosheng casually say, "He took me away before the police got there, got me a fake identity. At the time, we were living in a nightclub called The Louvre, crooks mixed in with honest folk. But the day my daughter was born, I really couldn't take it. I snuck out to look. On the way back, I was feeling upset, so I found somewhere to get a drink. How was I to know that two groups of people would kick up a fuss and have a fight that led to a death? And I'd gotten a little drunk and accidentally left my fingerprint behind.

"A police officer nearly found The Louvre because of that." The cross-eyed killer shook his head as though recounting a thrilling anecdote. "Luckily they reacted quickly. They lit a fire and burned the place and blamed it on that idiot police officer. That's how we got away."

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