Chapter 142

Wang Laizi was taken away amidst the murmurs of the onlookers, with his mother’s cries proving useless.

The brigade members looked at Wang’s mother with ambiguous expressions.

After all, this was a murder case.

Considering the situation they had witnessed, the fact that Wang Laizi had the composure to clean up the scene after committing the murder was chilling.

People began to recall if they had ever offended Wang Laizi.

Given his ruthlessness, it would be best to stay away from his family in the future.

Wang Laizi struggled and protested loudly on the way, showing no fear at all. He shouted, “Let me go! I didn’t commit any crime! On what grounds are you arresting me?”

The accompanying police officers were puzzled by his confidence.

Regardless of whether he committed the murder or not, a normal person would feel some panic when apprehended by the police. What gave him such audacity?

Once Wang Laizi was taken back to the police station and detained, Xie Lin and the other officers began a round of intense interrogations.

Shi Tingyu and Lu Weiguo stayed as well since they were the first to be involved in the case and thus were not kept out of the proceedings.

“Did you kill Liu Li?” Xie Lin began the interrogation.

Wang Laizi sat in the interrogation room with a wicked smile, “What if I did?”

Everyone was taken aback.

They had anticipated that Wang Laizi would deny the crime, get agitated, or lie to exonerate himself. They never expected him to admit it outright.

They had planned various interrogation strategies and even considered bringing in Kang Hong for identification, but none of that was needed as he confessed immediately.

While Wang Laizi smiled, the others wore grim expressions.

What kind of human depravity allows someone to laugh so fearlessly after raping and killing a woman?

Suppressing his anger, Xie Lin calmly said, “Describe your crime.”

“Crime?” Wang Laizi chuckled as if hearing a joke, “I wouldn’t call it a crime. I was just getting rid of a socialist tumor.”

No one interrupted him, though none understood his statement.

“It was just before dawn. I was going to…” Wang Laizi paused, “I was going to the mountain to see if there was anything to eat.”

Xie Lin noted this in the interrogation record, adding a question mark after Wang Laizi’s claim about looking for food.

Wang Laizi continued, “I saw a woman heading to the cowshed at the foot of the mountain.”

His face showed a strange light as he spoke.

“You know, that Liu Zhiqing wasn’t a good person. She was secretly in contact with the people in the cowshed, bringing them medicine!”

“She begged me not to tell anyone when I caught her. She seduced me!”

“She looked at me with tearful eyes, begging me not to tell anyone. You didn’t see her, but if she hadn’t begged me like that, I wouldn’t have thought about her.”

At this point, Wang Laizi’s expression twisted with malice, his eye whites making him look especially sinister. “Who knew that woman was so ungrateful? She was just a little whore secretly associating with counter-revolutionaries, yet she looked down on me and kicked and scratched me. So I knocked her out.”

“However, she wasn’t as attractive when she was quiet as she was when she was struggling. It wasn’t as fun.”

Shi Tingyu’s face darkened upon hearing this.

Lu Weiguo put his arm around her shoulder and whispered, “Why don’t you go sit outside for a bit?”

Shi Tingyu shook her head, feeling utterly disgusted by Wang Laizi.

Xie Lin’s gaze grew colder as he asked, “What happened next?”

Wang Laizi looked up at the wall, his eyes unfocused, his voice hoarse with a barely noticeable tremor, “Later, she woke up halfway and started shouting. I covered her mouth. She struggled, and eventually, she stopped moving.”

Xie Lin quickly noted down his words, confirming there were no discrepancies, then asked, “How did you decide to handle the scene?”

“She bled down there and got it on the wooden bed. I didn’t want to be found out, so I cleaned it up.”

“You were afraid of being found out?” Xie Lin asked with a hint of surprise.

Given Wang Laizi’s earlier demeanor, he seemed to show no remorse for killing Liu Li and didn’t seem to consider it a crime. So why would he fear being discovered?

Wang Laizi’s reason was bizarre, “I’m already in my thirties and haven’t married yet. If people knew I was involved with Liu Li, it would ruin my chances of getting a wife.”

At this moment, everyone’s worldview was shattered.

He had committed murder and was still thinking about marriage?

“Do you know that killing someone is against the law?” Xie Lin asked.

Wang Laizi’s expression suggested he thought it was a joke.

“Why would I be breaking the law? I just accidentally killed a criminal who was colluding with counter-revolutionaries.”

“When we were struggling against those counter-revolutionaries before, more than one person died, and everyone applauded. I was just dealing with her; I didn’t break any laws!”

Everyone was silent for a moment.

They had considered many possibilities, but they had never expected this kind of response.

In the early years, during the harshest struggles, people had indeed died because of it. But they never expected Wang Laizi to think that killing was not a crime.

“If you think killing Liu Li was not a crime, then why did you lie when we questioned you?” Xie Lin asked, puzzled.

“There’s never any good reason when the police are looking for someone,” especially since he had stolen from his neighbors before and disliked the police.

He had gone to the foot of the mountain that day intending to steal money and tickets from a household there, but he encountered Liu Li instead.

Xie Lin remained silent for a long time. Lu Weibing, standing beside him, asked, “Did you push Kang Hong into the water back then?”

Mentioning the child, Wang Laizi grinned, showing his jagged teeth, which made him look even more sinister. “Him? Just a kid of a counter-revolutionary. I pushed him whenever I wanted to keep him from spreading rumors.”

Upon hearing this, Shi Tingyu had learned all she needed to know.

She turned and left the interrogation room, feeling a deep, chilling sensation inside.

Wang Laizi’s disdain for the people in the cowshed was bone-deep. He didn’t even consider their lives as human lives. A kind-hearted educated youth who delivered medicine to the people in the cowshed was seen by him as being the same as the people in the cowshed. He could kill her without batting an eye.

She thought of her parents in the cowshed.

She couldn’t imagine how terrifying it would be if there were people like Wang Laizi with such thoughts in the former Wanghe Squad.

No wonder everyone was so secretive about interacting with the people in the cowshed.

At that moment, she realized how much effort the Lu family had made to ensure her parents could live their current lives.

When she first arrived, she felt sorry for her parents. But now, she understood how hard it was to achieve the life they had.

She had always thought that since it was already 1976, the Cultural Revolution was ending. But even if it was ending, there was still a process.

The harsh reality of this era had revealed itself to her in such a brutal way.

The caution Lu Weiguo had shown when taking her to the cowshed in the middle of the night was indeed necessary.

And Liu Li…

What was her fault?

She had merely seen her teacher had a fever and went to deliver some medicine in the early hours.

She didn’t deserve such an ending.