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Yang Licheng lit another cigarette and said to us, "I never expected that Liang Mei, who usually has no presence, would attend the class reunion. I saw Liang Mei again, but she didn't say a word to me. Yet, from her eyes, I could still see her resentment towards me. Do you know? Liang Mei hasn't let go of what happened back then."
Wang Yikai rubbed his stomach and replied, "Yang Licheng, you’re being really awful. If you don’t like someone, don’t confess to them. Even if you do confess, you shouldn’t sleep with them. In this regard, you're much worse than I am."
I looked at Wang Yikai's furrowed brow and said, "Look at what state you're in; how can you still have the energy to lecture others?"
Wang Yikai clutched his stomach and said, "What did I eat last night? It feels like my stomach is in knots. I hope I didn’t eat some sketchy food again. Don’t mind me; you all continue."
Yang Licheng continued, "Yes, I know I was wrong. But by the time I found out that Liang Mei was really pregnant with my child, it had already been several years. I tried to contact Liang Mei, but I couldn’t reach her. Honestly, when Liang Mei killed someone, I thought she would never show up in our lives again. I didn’t expect her to dare attend the reunion."
Wang Qianduo recalled that Liang Mei had gone out late at night before; now we knew she had gone to find Yang Licheng. The timeline matched up. But after meeting Lu Zhiqiu, would Liang Mei really commit murder? If she left afterward, was there someone else who met Lu Zhiqiu?
As Lu Zhiqiu's boyfriend, did Hu Pei go out looking for Lu Zhiqiu that night? I shook my head; we were back in this circular line of reasoning. One thing we urgently needed to confirm was who had last seen Lu Zhiqiu and whether anyone had met Lu Zhiqiu after Liang Mei.
I said to Zhao Mingkun, "Try contacting Liang Mei; she's the most suspicious person right now."
Zhao Mingkun nodded but used Yang Licheng's home phone to call. Yang Licheng didn’t seem to find anything wrong with it. However, after a while, there was no answer from the other end. Zhao Mingkun hung up and said, "No one answered."
"Did no one answer?" I asked. "Or did they hang up?"
Zhao Mingkun replied, "No one answered. And I'm sure this number belongs to Liang Mei; their counselor contacted her through this number before."
I tugged at my hair in thought. It had been two full hours since the reunion began, and we hadn’t wasted a moment during that time; we had been busy working on this case. Using Luo Ding's notes as a breakthrough point, we pushed forward little by little until now, confirming that Liang Mei was the prime suspect.
However, including Liang Mei, there were still five people we hadn't investigated yet. Would these five people reveal something different? But why wasn’t Liang Mei answering her phone? Was she too busy with something?
Thinking of this, I spoke to Zhao Mingkun, "Given the current situation, Liang Mei is the prime suspect. However, we cannot rule out Wang Yikai and Yang Licheng. Yang Licheng, if you two testify for each other, it doesn't really clarify anything; you could be colluding to deceive us. Didn't you accuse Wang Yikai of being the murderer back at the hotel?"
"No," Yang Licheng waved his hand. "I absolutely did not deceive you. At that time, Wang Yikai was labeled as the murderer because someone suspected me of being the murderer. But I knew full well that the murderer was Liang Mei; I just couldn't say it directly, so I intentionally pointed to Wang Yikai."
Suddenly, I remembered that Wang Qianduo had explained it to us in a similar way later on. These people all had ulterior motives; they each believed someone else was the murderer but insisted on accusing an unrelated person.
"Do you have any other evidence? Something substantial," I said. "Even if you can prove that Liang Mei was pregnant with your child, that would count."
Yang Licheng fell silent, but after a moment, he slapped his thigh and exclaimed, "I've got it! I know who can prove my innocence—Zhao Pingjuan can vouch for me! At that time, I learned from her that Liang Mei was pregnant. Do you have Zhao Pingjuan's number? Let's call her over and ask her directly. After all, she's in Dongxing City; it would be convenient."
Seeing Yang Licheng so confident, he didn't seem to be lying. Plus, bringing Zhao Pingjuan over would save us a trip.
I nodded and said, "Alright, let's find Zhao Pingjuan regarding the events from back then. If a third party can also confirm your innocence, then you can leave Dongxing City. The murderer is ruthless; you are all his targets. So it's best to stay cautious."
Wang Yikai was still rubbing his stomach and said, "I'm all set with my flight ticket for six o'clock this afternoon. Just let me know when you catch the murderer; then I'll consider coming back."
I called Zhao Pingjuan. At that moment, she was at work, but upon hearing we were investigating something, she immediately agreed to come over right away. In less than half an hour, Zhao Pingjuan arrived at Yang Licheng's house. Before we could even ask her anything, she immediately spoke up: "Officer, I know who the murderer is!"
"What?" I asked. "What do you mean?"
"I know who the murderer is!" Zhao Pingjuan repeated emphatically.
"Who?" I inquired.
"Anyway, it wasn't me," Zhao Pingjuan said.
I sighed in frustration. "What you just said is no different from saying nothing at all. No one did it themselves."
Zhao Pingjuan shook her head vigorously and began to explain in detail, "I really know because we had all discussed it beforehand. At that gathering, there were too many people, and I didn't dare to say anything because the murderer of Lu Zhiqiu was right among us!"
"What exactly happened?" I asked urgently.
Zhao Pingjuan cleared her throat and said, "At that time, there were four of us in our dormitory: me, Zhang Xue, Zhou Moli, and Liang Mei. All four of us found Lu Zhiqiu a bit unpleasant, not because she was competing with us for scholarships or party membership, but because she was just too much of a flirt—she was practically a green tea bitch. We all had boyfriends, yet Kori Chiu never hesitated to hang out with them."
Even after all this time, recalling the incident seemed to still stir emotions in Zhao Pingjuan. "She would always say things like needing help from the boys for homework or inviting them out for dinner to thank them for helping her move. There was nothing she wouldn't do. When we talked to her about it, she'd just brush it off, saying those boys were just ordinary friends and we shouldn't be jealous."
Zhao Pingjuan seemed increasingly agitated. "Sometimes when we had arguments with our boyfriends, Lu Zhiqiu would come over and say things like 'Don't be upset; your boyfriends love you,' or 'Don't be angry; your girlfriend loves you too; getting mad isn't good for your health.'"
"Damn it," Zhao Pingjuan continued angrily. "What does it have to do with her if we argue with our boyfriends? Are we that close? Why does she have to meddle? I remember during our internship at the construction site, when someone wanted to kill a dog, she went over saying how cute dogs are and why anyone would want to eat them. In the end, she even criticized it online, and a bunch of people called her the most caring goddess."
"I love her Old Man!" Zhao Pingjuan seemed to have a fiery temper as she continued. "What does it matter to her if someone eats dog? If she doesn't want to eat it, fine, but she can't stop others from doing so. Why doesn't she feel sorry for cows or pigs? Back at the hotel, Zhang Yi and I were discussing killing Lu Zhiqiu; we were serious about it."
Zhao Pingjuan took a few deep breaths and said, "At that time, we had already been interning at the construction site for half a month. We returned to school for some materials—I can't quite remember what they were. That night in the dormitory, we drank a bit and then brought up Lu Zhiqiu. I don't know who started it, but since we were all interning together anyway, we thought maybe we should just kill Lu Zhiqiu at the construction site."
We all widened our eyes as we listened intently to Zhao Pingjuan's next words.
Zhao Pingjuan continued, "We had all had a few drinks back then, so we forgot to guard against outsiders. But I clearly remember that at that moment, I really did have some thoughts about wanting to kill Lu Zhiqiu. Initially, we never thought that Lu Zhiqiu would be interning at the same site as us; every time I saw her like that, it just annoyed me."
"Did you carry it out?" I asked.
Zhao Pingjuan shook her head and said, "That's the problem. Let me explain further. At that time, the four of us gathered together to discuss this matter. We talked about how to kill and how not to get caught. In the end, someone suggested just using a brick to smash him; there were bricks everywhere at the construction site. We could hide the brick in the foundation, and no one would notice."
I frowned, recalling that Lu Zhiqiu had indeed been killed by someone from behind with a brick. However, the murderer seemed to harbor a deep hatred for Lu Zhiqiu and even dismembered him. But there was one issue: when dismembering, there must have been a lot of blood splatter, and the murderer would definitely have been covered in it.
But thinking back, everyone had been drinking far away at that time. It was possible for the murderer to sneak back to the dormitory and change clothes without being noticed.
Zhao Pingjuan continued, "That's how it was. We didn't discuss when or who would take action. After a few days, we returned to the construction site for our internship. More than a month later, I completely forgot about it. But just as our internship was ending, this happened. When Lu Zhiqiu died, I immediately remembered our conversation in the dormitory."
"Do you know who did it?" At that moment, Yang Licheng spoke up.
I waved my hand, signaling Yang Licheng not to bring up Liang Mei's situation yet and let Zhao Pingjuan continue.
Zhao Pingjuan went on, "So I initially said I couldn't have killed Lu Zhiqiu. If it wasn't me, then it must have been one of the other three people from our dormitory. But I don't know who it was, and I don't dare to guess because we all participated in the discussion and had all wanted to kill Lu Zhiqiu."
"I admit that at that time I was both scared and excited because Lu Zhiqiu finally died," Zhao Pingjuan sighed. "And I got what I wished for by joining the party, so I never mentioned this matter again. But all these years, I've felt uneasy about it."
I reached up to tug at my hair and slowly said, "So if I ask the others from your dormitory, I should be able to find answers?"
"You can investigate!" Zhao Pingjuan replied.
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