Chapter 70: Prison Break

Was that really the case?

Why was Zhou Shu at the funeral home?

Jing Xi was extremely curious. Could he have known that red-haired young man?

She wanted to investigate further, but after that brief glimpse of Zhou Shu on the screen, the footage didn’t appear again.

Moreover, the news station had stopped broadcasting updates.

Jing Xi decided to tune in later for more news.

She stayed inside the space for an entire night and the following morning but didn’t see any further reports on the murder case.

Her overwhelming curiosity made her consider leaving the space, but just as she was about to step into the corridor, a conflicting thought arose in her mind.

The red-haired man’s death—what did it have to do with her?

She should be focusing on finding out who burned down her house!

Not worrying about other people’s lives and deaths.

But who was the one who set her house on fire?

How would she even begin to find out?

She had taken Xia Lichun’s calming pills and had slept so deeply that she hadn’t even noticed the fire until it was burning beneath the kang bed.

She had been thinking about this for days. Based on the reactions of Li Fenghua and Zhou Wenwu, she felt that even though Zhou Wenwu had conflicts with her, he wasn’t the type to set someone’s house on fire out of spite.

Could it have been Zhou Shu?

That wasn’t impossible.

But he was supposed to be in the hospital, wasn’t he?

The Zhang family? That seemed even less likely—there had been no conflicts between them recently.

The more she thought about it, the more tangled her thoughts became.

The urge to leave the space and uncover the truth grew stronger.

She had been keeping an eye on the news, too. The local TV station had reported on her disappearance, speculating that she might still be alive.

Right now, many people outside were worried about her.

So should she leave or not?

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Zhou Jiwen led a team to search the compound behind the red-painted doors and discovered that the group inside had likely been illegally dealing in gasoline.

The courtyard was filled with fuel barrels.

The more Zhou Jiwen looked at them, the more familiar they seemed.

After the autopsy was completed, the body of the red-haired Chen Erhu was transported to the local crematorium’s morgue for preservation. However, since the investigation was still ongoing and the murderer had not yet been found, the body had not been cremated.

Chen Erhu had only his mother left.

His father had passed away years ago, and his mother worked at a cement factory. Since childhood, he had spent most of his time with his grandparents, who had little control over him. Without attending school, he roamed the streets and eventually fell in with Zhou Shu, becoming a delinquent.

When his mother and grandparents received news of his death, they were devastated, nearly collapsing from grief.

Chen Erhu had been the only descendant of the Chen family.

The elderly couple had lost their son years ago, leaving them with just their grandson. Now, that grandson had been deliberately murdered at just over twenty years old.

How could they possibly accept such a tragedy?

The three of them wept so bitterly at the crematorium that they almost fainted, bringing tears to the eyes of the investigating officers.

Outside, Li Tao and Zhou Jiwen smoked in silence.

Zhou Jiwen sighed. “A white-haired person burying a black-haired one.”

Li Tao exhaled smoke and nodded. “Exactly. And I checked—Chen Erhu didn’t have any criminal record. Just a street punk, nothing serious.”

Zhou Jiwen gazed at the setting sun. “Those two blond youths had matching statements. They said Zhou Shu had a falling-out with Meng Fanxin. Red-hair followed Zhou Shu, but after that, they didn’t know what happened. However, that Meng Fanxin…”

Li Tao turned to him. “What about him?”

Zhou Jiwen took a final drag from his cigarette and stubbed it out. “His words were more or less the same as the two blond guys’, but something about him felt off. The way he looks at people is unsettling. Did you notice his physique? All muscle—he clearly trains regularly. Brother Yu went to his registered address to investigate, but strangely, many people there had never even heard of him.”

“He’s a local?”

“Judging by his accent, yes. The others also say he’s from around here, but when we tried to verify, we found very few people who actually recognized him. That’s the odd part.”

Li Tao narrowed his eyes. “How’s his speech? Logical?”

“Very. Flawless, even. He even has a perfect alibi. The two blond guys confirmed it as well. Those two seem a bit slow, so if they were lying, we’d probably catch on easily.”

Li Tao thought back to Meng Fanxin’s face—it had a fierce, ruthless look.

“What about Zhou Shu?”

“Zhou Shu claimed he knew nothing about this. He said he only found out about it when he heard it on the radio, so he came to check things out. That’s when we detained him.”

Li Tao thought for a moment and said, “There haven’t been any unusual murder cases or fugitives recently, so my personal belief is that the killer must be one of these people. However, the motive for the crime is still unclear.”

Zhou Jiwen nodded. “Both Zhou Shu and Meng Fanxin have reasons to kill, but neither of them had any reason to kill Chen Erhu. However, I am fairly certain that the ones who set Jing Xi’s house on fire were Huang Mao and Meng Fanxin, along with the other two.”

Li Tao asked, “Why do you think so?”

Zhou Jiwen explained, “I found a lot of gasoline barrels in their residence at the Red Gate Courtyard. They are identical to the half-burned gasoline barrel we found at Jing Xi’s place. If we connect this to the fact that Zhou Shu had discussed getting revenge with his gang, I’d say there’s a high probability that these guys were responsible.”

Li Tao agreed. “They’re all insisting they don’t even know who Jing Xi is. In that case, we’ll have to use some special methods.”

By “special methods,” Li Tao meant dropping the usual strict and professional demeanor and instead using intimidation and psychological pressure to break down their mental defenses one by one.

Once the decision was made, they acted immediately.

The next day—

Li Tao, Zhou Jiwen, Brother Yu, and Brother Chen each took charge of interrogating one suspect: the two Huang Maos, Zhou Shu, and Meng Fanxin.

All four officers believed the toughest nut to crack would be Meng Fanxin, so the most experienced of them, Brother Chen, was assigned to handle him.

As expected—

The two Huang Maos broke first.

As soon as they were threatened and confronted with the consequences of lying, they nearly wet their pants in the interrogation room.

They confessed that they, along with Meng Fanxin, had set fire to Jing Xi’s house in the middle of the night to help Zhou Shu “get even.”

They also claimed that the idea of using gasoline to set the fire was Meng Fanxin’s. Originally, they had only planned to smash things up and scare Jing Xi—they never intended to commit arson.

Since their statements matched perfectly, their confession was considered credible.

As for Zhou Shu, he didn’t resist at all. He told them everything but carefully distanced himself from the crime.

He claimed he had never agreed to their revenge plan and had no idea they had decided to commit arson.

If there had been any brotherly loyalty before, it was all gone now. There was no need to put on a false front anymore.

Since Zhou Jiwen had never gathered solid evidence of Zhou Shu explicitly ordering them to set the fire, both Zhou Shu and Zhou Wenwu were released on bail.

As for Meng Fanxin—

Threats, intimidation, and every other method they tried had no effect on him.

Over and over again, he repeated just three sentences:

1. “I don’t know.”
2. “I’m not sure.”
3. “It wasn’t me.”

No matter what tricks they pulled, he refused to play along.

Brother Chen got nowhere with the interrogation.

Frustrated, he smoked five or six cigarettes in a row before finally leaving the room, cursing under his breath the entire way out.

That night, something happened that no one could have predicted—

Meng Fanxin escaped!

Even under tight surveillance, he managed to flee!

Now, there was no need to guess who had set the fire.

And there was even a strong possibility that he was the one who had killed Chen Erhu!