Chapter 12

“It was all done by me,” Zhong Qing said softly, lowering her head.

At 4:36 pm in the Nancheng City Public Security Bureau, right after concluding an interrogation, Song Wen looked at the woman in front of him. The white light exposed her completely, revealing the few strands of hair not properly combed on her forehead, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, and her eyelashes covering them, hiding those eyes.

When Song Wen got Ma Minghui to confess all the facts, he unexpectedly heard news of Zhong Qing surrendering. He had never anticipated such a turn of events. This case either had no suspects or now had two suspects. He had previously suspected Zhong Qing but, for various reasons, hadn’t narrowed down on her. One of the reasons was the indifferent aura around Zhong Qing, giving off a sense of apathy, cold like ashes. She seemed like a butterfly drowning in water, floating with the waves, without even the strength to struggle. It was hard to imagine this woman making that fatal stab.

She lacked the passion for murder, to the point that her life was already devoid of hope. She merely existed as a shell. Now, this woman sat across from him, completely open, with no resistance or defense. It was as if she had dissected her own life and body, laying it out in front of others.

“Did you commit the murder and dismemberment?” Song Wen asked again.

Zhong Qing nodded lightly.

“Why?”

“I’ve wanted to kill him for a long time. This kind of life, there’s no difference between being at home and in prison.” Zhong Qing took a deep breath, and at this moment, a trace of emotion appeared on her face.

“So, after all this time, why did you suddenly…”

“Because of money.” Zhong Qing lifted her head, and her facial expression changed slightly. It was as if a ghostly woman beneath a virtuous facade had revealed herself, making Song Wen feel like he didn’t recognize this woman.

“I didn’t give him any money; he transferred that 100,000 yuan himself.” She laughed self-mockingly and added, “I’m just that vulgar. When emotions are gone, you have to leave something behind. When he touched the money he gave me, he touched my life.” The long-suppressed emotions had made her extremely fragile and sensitive. The raised corners of her mouth made her appear somewhat neurotic.

“Can you describe the process of the crime?”

“That night, around eight-thirty, I took a taxi with my son to attend a tutoring class. I went to a nearby coffee shop to pass the time and found out around seven that my bank account had been transferred. I was extremely angry. I remembered Lin Zhenghua had rented a house in this neighborhood, so I went over to argue with him. When it came to the issue of money, he became very agitated. I casually picked up a knife and stabbed him in the chest.”

“At that moment, I was particularly afraid, feeling like I was dreaming. I pretended as if nothing had happened, went back to the coffee shop, and waited until the tutoring class ended. I picked up my child, took a taxi home, and then came back secretly at night to deal with the body.”

Zhong Qing brushed the strands of hair hanging down from her forehead. “My initial reaction was to dispose of the body, so I dismembered it in the bathroom. But I found that even if it was dismembered, a person’s body was larger than I had imagined. I wanted to grind him down, so I put him in the toilet. However, the juicer worked very slowly and couldn’t process bone-bearing parts, so I only ground the internal organs. Afraid of any odor, I used ice in the bathtub, changing the water continuously. Later, I stewed the ribs I had cut off. Before dawn, I threw some knives and clothes that had been washed and cut downstairs.”

Zhong Qing calmly recounted all this, and although her expression remained calm, her speech quickened. She seemed to have returned to that rental room, back to that crime scene.

“Then, I washed away the traces I left. I realized that I might not have the time and energy to completely destroy the body. These days, I have been worried and scared.”

Many details undisclosed to the public that she could reveal indicated that the person in front of Song Wen was likely the murderer, or at least had been to the crime scene and might be an accomplice.

“We met this morning; why didn’t you tell the truth then?” Song Wen asked again.

“Before… I still had some wishful thinking, but later… I felt that I would be discovered by you sooner or later; it was just a matter of time.” Zhong Qing suddenly turned her head and looked at the glass on the side. Her gaze seemed to penetrate the mist and fall on Lu Siyu. Her secret had been discovered, hastily making up for it afterwards, she became more uneasy. She had to change her plan, take the initiative, but it seemed that the young police officer had not revealed her secret.

“Is there anything else you want to confess?” Song Wen was a bit puzzled by her actions.

“In our case, it’s a family dispute. Can I apply for a reduced sentence if I surrender?” Zhong Qing withdrew her gaze and looked up at Song Wen.

“Write down all the relevant information first. If you confess a lot and have a good attitude, the judge may consider it during the trial.” As Song Wen spoke, he still found it hard to imagine that the calm woman in front of him was the murderer.

At five o’clock in the afternoon, the police station did not have the calmness before closing time like ordinary companies. When Song Wen came out of the interrogation room, Fu Linjiang said to him, “Lao Jia and Zhu Xiao have brought Guo Zai over. I asked a bit over here; the kid confessed to everything, similar to what Ma Minghui said. Extortion exists, but the murder and dismemberment should not be his doing.”

Song Wen nodded, seemingly not paying much attention. He walked straight to his desk and pulled out a chair to sit down.

The atmosphere in the office was now relaxed. Lao Jia, holding the signed documents from Zhong Qing, exclaimed, “Case closed! Everyone’s happy. We can go home and have a good night’s sleep.”

Zhu Xiao chimed in, teasing, “This unexpectedly went smoothly. Now, Captain Tian is probably fuming.”

Song Wen had apprehended Zhong Qing, but he didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment.

Every time he solved a case, it felt like he was entering someone’s life. Starting from a stranger, he would sift through various pieces of information, repeatedly interrogate, gradually turning them into someone familiar, even if this familiarity was adversarial.

What kind of family was this? A seemingly successful director hiding his homosexuality; a seemingly virtuous wife and mother concealing a heart full of hatred as a same-sex spouse; a seemingly affectionate couple engaging in extortion as a male third party.

There were no innocent parties.

Regardless, once a crime was committed, there would be consequences.

However, he felt that something was still amiss with this case.

Song Wen looked up and, through the glass separating them, glanced at Lu Siyu. He had summarized all the interrogation records. Lu Siyu was currently lowering his head, flipping through a book he had bought at noon, with those deep, expressionless black eyes focused on the pages.

From Song Wen’s angle, he could see half of the book title—^[1]The Devotion of Suspect X…
*The Devotion of Suspect X is a novel by Keigo Higashino.

In an instant, Song Wen’s eyes widened, and his mind opened up.

He stepped out into the corridor to make a phone call and returned, beckoning several people. “Team One, come to the small meeting room. Let’s have a meeting.”

A few people were waiting there, ready to leave work. Seeing Song Wen’s reaction, they were unsure what their leader was up to.

Once in the meeting room, Song Wen said, “I double-checked. On that day, Lin Shang and Zhong Qing did appear at the English tutoring class, but Lin Shang arrived a bit late… around eight forty. The tutoring class is very close to where the victim was killed, just separated by one residential area.”

“So what?” Fu Linjiang was puzzled, not understanding the significance, as he didn’t know how this related to the murder of Lin Zhenghua.

“The progress of solving this case has been too swift. There’s something we can’t explain. Why would the killer go to such lengths for this?” Song Wen asked again.

“Well…” Others were momentarily speechless, and only Lu Siyu stood silently behind them. His expression remained cold, seemingly indifferent to the situation.

“Anyway, that woman Zhong Qing has confessed, and all the details match up. Who admits to being the killer without cause?” Lao Jia added.

Song Wen smiled bitterly, “Yes, who would admit to being the killer willingly? Unless they’re trying to protect someone.” After saying this, he erased the case clues listed on the meeting room whiteboard. “When we reviewed the case earlier, many things didn’t add up. But what if the time and location of the crime are both false?”

“What do you mean by false?” Zhu Xiao was puzzled.

“We received information early on that the victim’s car was parked in the underground garage of the residential area around 8:30 PM. The surveillance footage disrupted our view,” Song Wen explained in a rapid succession, then gestured with his hand, “Lu Siyu, come over here. Draw a timeline on this whiteboard.”

Lu Siyu, unexpectedly called upon, hesitated for a few seconds before stepping forward. He picked up a whiteboard marker and drew a vertical line on the board, then began to label it.

“Now we know that the victim withdrew money from the ATM around 7 PM. The extortion scheme by Guo Zai and Ma Minghui involved him placing the money in a corner of a Pizza Hut, then going to retrieve it later. I speculate that Lin Zhenghua saw Guo Zai during this time. On the way back, Lin Zhenghua recalled seeing Guo Zai at Ma Minghui’s place. If Ma Minghui was telling the truth, their confrontation likely happened between 7:15 PM and 7:30 PM. Lin Zhenghua confirmed that Ma Minghui was extorting him, they argued, and Ma Minghui left. Later, at 8:30 PM, the victim’s car was parked at Yuting Huayin. This seems to match with Zhong Qing meeting Lin Zhenghua and subsequently killing him.”

On the whiteboard, Lu Siyu quickly recorded everything, seemingly aware of what Song Wen was thinking. He marked all the times and events.

“But, what if Zhong Qing is lying?” Song Wen took the pen from Lu Siyu’s hand, drew a circle between 7:30 PM and 8:30 PM, and said, “During this time, where did the victim go?”

“Could it be…” Fu Linjiang seemed to finally understand Song Wen’s point.

“We only had information on the victim’s end-of-work time and the ATM surveillance video. I’ll make a bold assumption: the victim didn’t drive that day. By 8:30 PM, the victim was already dead, and the car merely transported the body here…” Song Wen spoke, drawing a triangle on the side, marking home, the office, and Yuting, these three locations, with a travel time of fifteen to twenty minutes.

“The victim went home in that one-hour interval?! The home is where the crime occurred?” Fu Linjiang suddenly realized.

“But if the victim was killed at home, I don’t believe she could drag the body!” Lao Jia exclaimed. Analyzing up to this point, he was still a bit behind in understanding Song Wen’s train of thought.

“So, she had an accomplice, or rather, she was just an accomplice,” Song Wen said, stepping back and looking at the case summary before him. Now, the whole process was much clearer.

“We’ve been wrong all along because the murderer and the one who dismembered the body are not the same person.”

Song Wen straightened out everything and concluded, “I believe Zhong Qing did those things not to dispose of the body but to maximally disrupt our vision, leading us to make incorrect judgments about the time, location, and cause of the victim’s death.”

With a deep-seated hatred for that man, she proceeded with dismemberment, but she was rational. The missing stomach, the missing heart, immersed in water, repeatedly using ice-cold water—chaotic yet methodical—every step erased traces above, making it impossible for forensic experts and evidence to make accurate judgments.

Because the time was false, and so was the location.

Having clarified all the thoughts, Song Wen entered the interrogation room where Zhong Qing was held. Zhong Qing was still sitting there, seemingly in the same position as when Song Wen left the last time.

“That day, Lin Zhenghua died in your home, right? Then you drove the body to that rented house and proceeded with dismemberment,” Song Wen asked directly.

Zhong Qing looked surprised, lifting her head, “Officer Song, what are you talking about? I can’t drive at all.”

“You can’t drive, but your son Lin Shang can, right? Lin Shang is underage, doesn’t have a driver’s license, but Lin Zhenghua had taught him before,” Song Wen remembered a photo of Lin Shang and Lin Zhenghua at home, one taken leaning against a car. He continued pointing out the loopholes in Zhong Qing’s words, “Moreover, a normal person, when faced with the question I asked, would first deny that their home was the crime scene, not mention details like not being able to drive.”

In that instant, Zhong Qing’s complexion changed, as if a bullet had hit her heart, causing her to stagger.

“You’re left-handed, and when facing Lin Zhenghua, the knife should have been thrust into his right chest. Lin Zhenghua wasn’t killed by you but by your son Lin Shang. To help Lin Shang avoid punishment, you proceeded with dismemberment, destroying the evidence, confusing the crime time and location, all to provide an alibi for your son attending a cram school. You surrendered to stop the police from continuing the investigation, hoping to shift the blame onto your son and bring the case to an end,” Song Wen’s words pressed relentlessly.

Zhong Qing lowered her head, pursed her lips, and remained silent. Her eyes, however, dimmed.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t speak now. We’ve already searched your home and arrested Lin Shang. Soon, everything will come to light,” Song Wen concluded. It was six o’clock, the end of the workday. In this final moment, he finally found the real culprit, turned around, and walked out, feeling relieved.

The door closed in front of Zhong Qing, and she sighed as if coming back to life. She hated Lin Zhenghua, but her child was innocent. She had always cherished her son. After the incident, she neglected some details. When she and Lin Shang hurriedly placed Lin Zhenghua’s body in the suitcase, they forgot to put on his shoes.

Those shoes belonging to Lin Zhenghua remained in the entrance, as Song Wen and Lu Siyu discovered during their last visit to her home.

People say a person’s name reflects their nature. She was named Zhong Qing, and her whole life fell apart at that “love at first sight” moment. She had defied her parents’ objections and married Lin Zhenghua, only to fall into an abyss of hell.

All along, Lin Zhenghua’s homosexuality was well hidden from their son Lin Shang. However, that day, when Lin Zhenghua returned home in a fit of rage, venting his anger on her and unintentionally mentioning the tens of thousands of yuan and his cohabitation with another man, their red-eyed son Lin Shang emerged from the house. Questioning Lin Zhenghua about being gay, she knew that the family was finished.

All along, the shattered image of the father in Lin Shang’s heart crumbled. In a state of collapse, Lin Shang stabbed the knife into his father’s chest. Zhong Qing and he then transported the body to the rented house and did what she had dreamed of doing countless times—mutilating that man in a thousand ways.

TN:
Gadamn!! I suspected it could have been the son when Song Wen pointed out all those reasons Zong Qing couldn’t have been the killer. And then the confession made it all the more certain it was the son! She really was too detached for someone having killed her “husband” and source of torment.

PS. Go read Devotion of Suspect X! It’s amazing and a good thing is that it has an English version. It totally hints at the truth behind this case. There’s also an Indian movie Jaane Jaan starring Kareena Kapoor Khan(one of my fav Indian actresses and this might have been her best performance yet) which is based off of this novel. I haven’t read the novel but I have seen the movie.

Book Synopsis
Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced, single mother who thought she had finally escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi. When he shows up one day to extort money from her, threatening both her and her teenaged daughter Misato, the situation quickly escalates into violence and Togashi ends up dead on her apartment floor. Overhearing the commotion, Yasuko’s next door neighbor, middle-aged high school mathematics teacher Ishigami, offers his help, disposing not only of the body but plotting the cover-up step-by-step.

When the body turns up and is identified, Detective Kusanagi draws the case and Yasuko comes under suspicion. Kusanagi is unable to find any obvious holes in Yasuko’s manufactured alibi and yet is still sure that there’s something wrong. Kusanagi brings in Dr. Manabu Yukawa, a physicist and college friend who frequently consults with the police. Yukawa, known to the police by the nickname Professor Galileo, went to college with Ishigami. After meeting up with him again, Yukawa is convinced that Ishigami had something to do with the murder. What ensues is a high level battle of wits, as Ishigami tries to protect Yasuko by outmaneuvering and outthinking Yukawa, who faces his most clever and determined opponent yet.