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墨書 Inktalez
When I saw Guan Zengbin arrive, I knew he had followed the steps I had written down on my phone. A few hours earlier, while we were preparing to ambush the Murderer, I had anticipated what would happen at this moment. So, I instructed Guan Zengbin to carry out a few tasks.
First, contact Captain Zhou's brother and sister to see if Captain Zhou had sent any money recently.
Second, find out if there were any shipments coming in from the secondary market.
Third, if the answers to the first two were negative, have Captain Shao bring the City Bureau officers over.
Clearly, the answers to the first two points were both negative.
At that moment, five people had already come up from the Underground Warehouse.
"Did you find the Murderer?" Captain Shao looked at me.
I didn't answer but turned to Captain Zhou and said slowly, "Russell Mei's body is in the warehouse. I think you should go take a look."
Captain Zhou looked at me with a complex expression before nodding and heading down.
There was a brief silence, then Captain Zhou's heart-wrenching cries echoed through the air.
"What happened?" Guan Zengbin asked, confused about what was going on and wanting to go down to see.
Suddenly, I felt an indescribable sadness welling up inside me. I pulled Guan Zengbin into an embrace and said softly, "Let him cry for a while. Let him cry for a while."
Guan Zengbin didn’t understand what had happened but could see my low spirits. He simply patted my back gently.
I had never been in love and didn’t know what it felt like. But from Captain Zhou's cries, I could tell that he deeply loved Russell Mei. Yet, he had still decided to take the life of the woman he cherished most. This kind of love turned to hate was truly tragic.
"I killed her," Captain Zhou climbed back up. "I am completely colorblind."
One day later.
Guan Zengbin informed me that the test results had finally come back: the DNA belonged to Russell Mei, and the stiff brown hair was dog hair. Guan Zengbin also told me that when the police notified Russell Mei's family about her death, they were unwilling to come and claim the body due to the long distance.
Mary investigated and found that Russell Mei sent money home every month because she had a twenty-five-year-old brother. This brother needed money for his wedding, and Russell Mei's mother told her that if she didn't send back five thousand yuan in a month, she would no longer recognize her as her daughter.
Three days later.
Captain Zhou recounted the entire murder process to five people. Yumu City Chief, who had watched Captain Zhou rise from a police officer to the captain of the Criminal Police Force, participated in this interrogation from start to finish. After hearing Captain Zhou's story, the chief said nothing and turned to leave the interrogation room.
As he left, I heard him muttering to himself: "Old and blind."
Sometimes, it's not just about hard work or struggle; some people are born with original sin.
I suddenly remembered Captain Zhou once saying, "This is how my life will be."
What a helpless tone, what a tone of resentment.
The last time I saw Captain Zhou was when he was being taken to the prosecutor's office.
There was one question I had to ask Captain Zhou because it was likely I wouldn't have another chance.
I asked, "You managed to hide your color blindness for twenty years without anyone noticing, but why did Russell Mei find out?"
Captain Zhou revealed his signature smile: "I told her."
"Why?" I asked in confusion.
Captain Zhou turned and got into the car, rolling down the window. He said to me, "Because we are actually the same person. I've been so lonely for these forty years. Go to where I live; there's a vegetable market behind it, and at the end is an old lady who sells vegetables. You can ask her. I once thought I loved her, and she loved me too."
The car had already started moving when Captain Zhou finally said, "But we love ourselves. I regret it a bit, really. If it were me, how much better would I be than her..."
That was the last time I saw Captain Zhou.
Five years later.
Tou Gou Zi Village.
When Captain Shao arrived, he used a snowplow to clear the roads, so the accumulated snow in the village was removed. We could drive straight into Tou Gou Zi Village, and at this moment, I was sitting in the Old Village Chief's office.
"Now, all the villagers in Tou Gou Zi Village know the truth," the Old Village Chief poured me some tea. "Captain Zhou, Old Xia, Li Danan, Li Luo, and Sun Zheng are all murderers. It's been a long time since Tou Gou Zi Village lost so many people at once."
I shook my head, not drinking the tea but walking over to the Old Village Chief's bookshelf.
The last time I saw it, the bookmark was still in the middle of a book, but now it was two-thirds of the way through. I opened the bookshelf and took out the book, flipping through it casually.
I said, "When you're in a wheelchair, no matter how long you stretch your arms, you absolutely can't reach the books on the top shelf."
"You don't have a secretary either," I turned to look at the Old Village Chief. "So why do you always sit in a wheelchair? Wouldn't it be better to stand up and move around?"
The Old Village Chief laughed heartily and then said, "I've never been able to stand. People just see me in a wheelchair and think I'm disabled. So, you see, never make assumptions; your eyes can deceive you."
I smiled slightly and said, "If you don't trust your eyes, what should you believe in?"
"Believe in your heart," the Old Village Chief stood up, took the book from my hands, and then sat back down in his wheelchair. "The world you see is shaped by what you think in your heart."
I replied, "There's something I don't quite understand. Captain Zhou has clearly been to Tou Gou Zi Village many times; he must know or recognize Old Xia. Yet when he first came here, he pretended not to know Old Xia. Why did Captain Zhou do that?"
The Old Village Chief pointed at my chest and asked, "What do you think in your heart?"
I fell silent for a moment and said, "Captain Zhou never wanted to confess from the very beginning. When I was at the Underground Warehouse, I questioned the five of them. Captain Zhou must have known that, but honestly, I wasn't sure. Is it possible that Captain Zhou didn't want to confess at all, but when he saw that I had already investigated most of the matter, he decided to come forward to lessen his own punishment?"
The Old Village Chief did not answer my question but instead said, "Whatever you think in your heart, this world is just like that. Perhaps, yes, Old Xia has indeed seen him many times. I can't understand why he pretends not to know Old Xia."
"But if that's the case," I furrowed my brow and asked, "is the time for purchasing goods fixed?"
The Old Village Chief nodded, "It's fixed, without exception. Every month on the twenty-fifth, after lunch."
His words struck me like a bolt from the blue, leaving me frozen in place. I felt a chill run through me as if I were surrounded by an endless abyss. Those five people could sacrifice themselves for Captain Zhou; they must have had a very close relationship with him. And Captain Zhou certainly knew the time for purchasing goods.
If Captain Zhou deliberately did not kill Russell Mei but instead used someone else's hand to do it...
Captain Zhou staged a play; he wanted to kill Russell Mei but didn't want to die himself.
He could only be considered an attempted murderer, and with so many people pleading for him, including the police chief of Yumu City.
But if all this were true, how dark of a person must Captain Zhou be?
"But..." My voice trembled slightly.
Seeing that I seemed to have another opinion, the Old Village Chief pointed to the characters hanging behind him and said, "When I was young like you, I wanted to understand everything in this world. But later I realized, why must it be done this way? If you can't understand it, then so be it. At forty, one should no longer be confused; not everything can be understood."
"Some things simply have no answers."
"You are still too young."
With that, he pointed to those four characters.
Rarely confused.
I felt a sense of relief.
When we left the village, we decided to visit Old Lady Wang again, the elderly woman who could neither hear others nor speak. This time, it was Guan Zengbin who prepared the meal, and surprisingly, it tasted quite good. Old Lady Wang smiled, her face full of wrinkles, resembling an old child.
As we said our goodbyes, I slipped her a few hundred yuan, but Old Lady Wang refused to accept it no matter what.
After leaving the courtyard, I turned back and tossed the money onto her bed before running away.
But in a daze, I heard a voice.
"A good person has left."
It was a kind voice, yet when I turned to look, Old Lady Wang still appeared the same; it seemed those words did not come from her mouth. It turned out that Old Lady Wang could speak, but she had never shared anything with anyone in her life. I couldn't understand if the people from Disabled Village were meant to treat themselves as disabled.
Perhaps behind it all were stories they were unwilling to tell.
But who could say for sure if we were also "disabled"?
I didn't know if Old Lady Wang was referring to my departure or Captain Zhou's.
But who knows? Who dares to consider themselves a good person?
A week later.
Zhang Ke, Xia, Li Danan, Sun Zheng, and Li Luo were sentenced to death for murder and desecration of a corpse, while Captain Zhou received a suspended death sentence.
Upon hearing this news, I couldn't help but think of Sun Kangning.
I wondered if he would hate me when he learned the truth later on. To him, am I a good person or a bad one? Perhaps he would think I was as bad as the one who took his arm; after all, I took away his father.
Ten days later.
I followed the address given to me by Captain Zhou and found the old lady who sold vegetables.
I asked her about Russell Mei, and to my surprise, the old lady remembered vividly. She knew Captain Zhou well, as he often helped her carry things.
Four months ago.
When Russell Mei went to buy vegetables, she got into an argument with this old lady over a few cents in change. At first, Russell Mei was aggressive, but halfway through her tirade, she suddenly sat down on the ground and began to cry.
Others were puzzled and hurriedly inquired about what was wrong.
Russell Mei said, "I'm thirty years old this year, yet I still have to fuss over three cents for vegetables. This is not the life I want. Why have I ended up like this?"
Captain Zhou happened to be out buying groceries and witnessed the whole incident.
He asked, "What’s your name?"
"Russell Mei," she replied, looking at Captain Zhou with a hint of shyness, as if she had returned to her twenties.
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