Chapter 168: Confession

Liang Shi’s fighting skills were clearly the result of special training, and he used an alias when staying at the guesthouse.

He held the knife in his left hand—just like the person who hurt Qin Xuehong—he was left-handed.

There was another thing: Liang Shi had once been active in Lin County.

Currently, some of Min Yi’s colleagues had been sent to Liang Shi’s hometown to investigate.

Whether this person truly existed was still up for debate.

Min Yi tapped his fingers lightly on the table. “Liang Shi is a likely suspect. Feng Chunhua probably isn’t. She seems to have been blinded by love.”

He almost said outright that Feng Chunhua wasn’t smart enough to have been chosen.

Chu Xuan, remembering how she’d been completely fooled by the not-so-bright Feng Chunhua in her previous life, wanted to curse herself for being even dumber than a pig.

Luckily, she was a bit smarter this time around.

Mu Chenze was just about to speak when one of Min Yi’s colleagues rushed in again. “Liang Shi just bashed his head against the wall. Should we send him to the hospital?”

Chu Xuan commented, “He’s not trying to use this as a chance to escape, is he?”

Liang Shi was definitely cunning and full of tricks.

They’d finally managed to catch him—they absolutely couldn’t let him get away.

Min Yi shot a look at Chu Xuan and Mu Chenze, signaling them to stay calm. “I’ll go take a look.”

After checking on Liang Shi, Min Yi decided to call in a doctor to treat his injuries.

As luck would have it, the doctor they called was the same old Chinese medicine practitioner who had done acupuncture for Qin Xuehong.

This doctor currently worked at the city’s Chinese medicine hospital. Lin County was very close to the city, just over a twenty-minute drive, and the Qin family usually sent a car to pick him up every day.

His acupuncture kit had once been tampered with, and while he couldn’t remember the face of the person who did it, he had a strong memory of the scent.

The muttony smell on Liang Shi immediately aroused his suspicion.

After performing acupuncture to stop Liang Shi’s bleeding, the old doctor spoke privately with Min Yi.

With more and more evidence piling up, Min Yi interrogated Liang Shi again, this time deliberately mentioning the names Qin Xuehong and Feng Ti, as well as the old doctor.

Liang Shi realized the evidence against him was mounting.

The old doctor could recognize his body odor, and so could Qin Xuehong. More importantly, Qin Xuehong had seen his real face—once she woke up, she could identify him directly.

It might have been possible to explain away one incident as being manipulated by Feng Chunhua, but with so many things piling up, how could he keep lying?

The key was, there were some secrets he absolutely couldn’t reveal.

Liang Shi changed his story.

“Fine! I’ll tell the truth. Back then, I was short on money and went to Qin Xuehong’s house to steal. She saw my real face, so I decided to kill her. Before she died, I heard someone sneaking into the yard, so I fled the scene. Later, I found out that person was Feng Ti. To avoid responsibility, I bribed the people watching Feng Ti and threatened him: if he didn’t take the blame for everything, I’d kill his son. He didn’t want anything to happen to his son, so he agreed to confess to all the crimes.”

Min Yi had studied Qin Xuehong’s case. “Did you take Qin Xuehong’s diary?”

“I didn’t. The diary wasn’t worth anything—why would I take it? But I really did wish Qin Xuehong was dead! If she hadn’t torn off my mask and seen my real face, I wouldn’t have killed her. If she’d died, there wouldn’t have been all the crimes that followed.”

“Was it you who ordered Zhang Qiu to rob Chu Xuan?”

“That’s right. I cut off Zhang Dong’s finger to threaten Zhang Qiu. If he didn’t harm Chu Xuan, his whole family would die!”

“Why target Chu Xuan?”

“Because she testified for Feng Ti, proving he only entered the yard after Qin Xuehong was injured. I hate Chu Xuan! I wish I could tear her to pieces! Without her, Qin Xuehong wouldn’t have gotten timely treatment and would have died sooner! And she and Feng Shuai never gave up trying to clear Feng Ti’s name. I hired someone to kill Feng Shuai. But they were afraid of actually killing someone, so they just beat him up after taking my money.”

“Was it also you who encouraged Guo Hailian to harm Chu Xuan?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, Guo Hailian failed. Whatever, I’ll confess to everything! Feng Chunhua was also pushed by me. I found out she had a grudge against Chu Xuan, so I forced her to find a way to kill Chu Xuan, or else I’d kill her only son, Chu Zhi. I also threatened her that if I got caught, she’d have to take the blame for me, or my men would kill her son. Now that I’m in trouble, she’ll definitely confess to everything. Actually, she’s just afraid that if I’m convicted, her son won’t survive.”

He didn’t mention a word about the son Feng Chunhua had decades ago, nor did he mention Yuan Tian.

Min Yi took the initiative to ask, “What’s your relationship with Yuan Tian?”

Liang Shi’s expression was very calm. “No relationship. I don’t know her.”

Min Yi asked seriously, “That case in Nan Yu Village that looked like an accident but wasn’t—was that you?”

Liang Shi was silent for a moment before replying, “You mean that widow? Sheng Damei’s mother?”

Min Yi was very patient. “That’s right.”

Liang Shi was silent again for a moment. “I did it.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“No problem. That day, I went to Nan Yu Village to check on Chu Xuan’s whereabouts. That widow saw my real face. What pissed me off most was that she drew my portrait in her diary, so I poured some oil on the path she always took home, hid in the dark, and watched her slip, hit her head, and die. That night, I braved the rain to her house, got the diary, and destroyed it.”

“You’re pretty old—must be around sixty, right? And a widow in her forties would draw your portrait?”

“What’s wrong with being sixty? I’m still attractive to women. The first time she saw me, she said she liked me and wanted me to take her away. She was a shameless woman!”

Min Yi felt like something wasn’t right.

But everything Liang Shi said before matched the case details.

As for what he said later—was he just bragging about his charm?

“Is there anything else you want to confess?”

Liang Shi smiled lightly. “No.”

“Think carefully!”

“Really, nothing!”

“Sign your statement.”

“Alright.”

Liang Shi took the statement and signed it without hesitation.

Min Yi planned to continue the interrogation tomorrow, because he still felt something was off. Before he could figure it out, Liang Shi suddenly slammed his head hard against the wall, blood gushing everywhere.

They had to call the old doctor to treat him again.

The doctor stopped the bleeding with acupuncture, but because Liang Shi had lost too much blood, he recommended sending him to the hospital for a transfusion, or else he might die or end up in a vegetative state.

Min Yi had no choice but to have a few colleagues escort Liang Shi to the hospital.

He himself went to interrogate Feng Chunhua.

Feng Chunhua’s eyes were swollen from crying. She kept insisting she was responsible for all the bad things, but whenever it came to details, nothing matched up.

Min Yi deliberately said, “Liang Shi has confessed to everything. Feng Chunhua, what do you think?”

Feng Chunhua was stunned, and only after a long while did she speak. “He confessed to everything? How is that possible?”

“The details he gave all match up. Yours don’t. Are you still trying to mislead me? Tell me everything you know, and you might get a lighter sentence.”

“He’ll get the death penalty. What about me?”

“If you come clean, at most you’ll get five years. If you don’t, you could be in prison for life. Of course, if you can make amends for your crimes, you might only get three years, maybe even a suspended sentence.”

“But I really have nothing else to confess.”

“Really? I’ve seen Liang Shi’s skills for myself—he’s had professional training. My colleagues found a lot of disguises and drugs at his place. Don’t tell me you didn’t know!”"