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墨書 Inktalez
"Don't ask me; it won't help. Once a person is dead, what can I do? Who can I turn to for help? If I ask you for help, won't I just end up dragging you into this? The only option I have is to dismember; I have no choice."
At that time, she was known as the most ruthless woman in Heilongjiang. Just how ruthless was she?
She single-handedly carried out murder, dismemberment, cremation, and disposal of bodies. Does that count?
In the dead of night, while you are deep in slumber, a hammer suddenly appears above your head and gently crushes your skull.
Yet, this is an incredibly tragic matter.
Time: November 2011.
Location: Wuchang City, Heilongjiang Province.
On this day, Zhang Zuoxue, who was working in Harbin, was about to leave for work when he received a call from his daughter, Xiaohong. On the phone, Xiaohong anxiously inquired about her brother Zhang Li's situation. She told her father that her brother had sent her a particularly strange text message in which he expressed his apologies to their parents.
Xiaohong realized something was off and tried calling Zhang Li, but by then, his phone was already turned off.
After hanging up with his daughter, Zhang Zuoxue pondered deeply. For over thirty years, his son had never spoken like this; why would he send such a text message out of the blue? Could it be that something truly troubling had happened to him?
Had his son gone back to gambling again? The thought sent a chill down Zhang Zuoxue's spine. He quickly picked up the phone to call Zhang Li, but his son's phone remained switched off.
Zhang Li had little to do besides farming. A few years ago, he had been dealt with by the Public Security Bureau due to gambling. However, in the past two years, under constant persuasion from others and strict supervision from his wife, Zhang Li had managed to reduce his gambling habit to occasional bets. Why did he send such a text message? What did the message mean?
At that moment, Zhang Zuoxue felt an ominous premonition. Could something have happened to his son? He quickly picked up his phone and called his daughter-in-law, Zhang Yan. However, Zhang Yan informed him that Zhang Li had run away from home early in the morning around five or six o'clock, and she had no idea where he had gone.
Zhang Zuoxue couldn't understand why his beloved son would leave home without saying a word. Even if he went gambling, it was unlikely he would leave at such an early hour. The more he thought about it, the more confused he became. Instead of speculating wildly, he decided it was better to go home and check things out.
Upon returning to the village, Zhang Zuoxue rushed to his son's house to inquire about Zhang Li's situation from Zhang Yan. She revealed that they had a big fight two nights before over a matter involving 20,000 yuan.
Early the next morning, around five or six o'clock, Zhang Li got up from bed, washed up quickly, and left the house. Since both were angry at the time, Zhang Yan hadn't bothered to ask Zhang Li where he was going. The 20,000 yuan was a loan from Zhang Zuoxue's bank for preparing for next year's farming.
If his son gambled away that 20,000 yuan, how would they farm next year?
The more Zhang Zuoxue thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. His son was friendly and never held grudges; his only flaw was his gambling habit. He immediately gathered all the villagers to help search for his son's whereabouts.
"Check all the gambling places to see if anyone has seen my son. We’ve been looking for two days without any taxis available; we’ve been asking around ourselves. On the 25th and 26th, my son didn’t take any taxis either; this guy has a car but no one took it."
Just then, someone discovered charred human remains in a corner of the village, which turned out to be Zhang Li's. Soon after, the forensic expert provided an autopsy result indicating that Zhang Li had died before November 26th.
Once the time of death was confirmed, the police immediately contacted Zhang Li's wife, Zhang Yan. She stated that the last time she saw Zhang Li was on November 26th in the early morning around five or six o'clock.
After Zhang Li left, she slept until after nine o'clock. On the 25th and 26th, she stayed at home and went nowhere.
However, the autopsy results indicated that Zhang Li had died before the 26th. How could Zhang Yan have seen Zhang Li on the 26th? Moreover, Xiao Hong only received a text message from her brother Zhang Li at noon on the 26th. What was going on?
At this moment, all eyes turned to Zhang Yan. She became the prime suspect in the case, yet when faced with police interrogation, Zhang Yan vehemently denied any wrongdoing and insisted on her innocence.
The police noticed that as a wife whose husband had been murdered, Zhang Yan appeared unusually calm. Consequently, they conducted a thorough investigation of her home.
"What did we find on this wall and nearby? There are marks that suggest she used an iron brush to clean it, but no blood was found there. However, upon further inspection, blood was discovered on the bed, in the corners of the walls, and on the floor."
The police promptly collected the blood samples for DNA testing, which confirmed that the blood belonged to Zhang Li. This indicated that the home was indeed the crime scene where Zhang Li had met her demise.
Furthermore, Zhang Zuoxue had long suspected that her daughter-in-law Zhang Yan was responsible because both women had notoriously volatile tempers; they were always at odds with each other.
Despite being married for fourteen years, they had also argued for fourteen years. Their disputes were not solely due to Zhang Li's gambling; even trivial matters could spark heated arguments. They would quarrel over something as minor as Zhang Li not washing her feet before bed. It seemed that every day brought new reasons for conflict.
Zhang Zuoxue watched her son and daughter-in-law argue incessantly and thought that once their living conditions improved, they would stop fighting.
To this end, Zhang Zuoxue and her husband worked tirelessly to earn money, living frugally and handing all their earnings over to Zhang Yan.
Yet even with an improved financial situation at home, Zhang Li and Zhang Yan continued to bicker. Why then did Zhang Yan resort to such brutal measures against Zhang Li? Ultimately, under intense pressure from the police and overwhelming evidence, Zhang Yan had no choice but to confess to her crime.
Zhang Li was murdered by her on the night of November 25, 2011.
The text message received by Xiaohong on the 26th was also orchestrated by Zhang Yan. After sending the text message, Zhang Yan burned Zhang Li's phone and clothes in the stove. The process by which Zhang Yan killed Zhang Li was extremely brutal.
"While her husband was sleeping normally, she had already taken off her clothes and was lying down. Then, she used a hammer to strike his head; after hitting him, her husband was already dead.
After he died, she used a kitchen knife to sever his head. Once it was cut off, she placed the head into a small boiler that she had at home and began to burn it. At the same time, she dragged the body from the bed to the floor and started dismembering it with tools.
After finishing with the legs and arms, there was blood all over the floor of that room. Once she lifted the pot, she placed the torso, legs, and arms inside and began to burn them.
While burning, she started cleaning up the scene using cloths and other tools, pouring all the blood out into the yard. The cloths were then thrown into a doghouse to hide them.
The head had been burning all night and had melted but not turned to ash."
However, after burning for most of the night, Zhang Li's arms and legs were still not completely incinerated. Exhausted from the ordeal, Zhang Yan was both tired and sleepy.
So, she covered the unburned remains with a board in the west room. After cleaning up the scene, dawn broke, and a weary Zhang Yan collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep.
When she woke up, Zhang Yan initially planned to finish burning the remaining body parts, but her plans were disrupted because a neighbor’s child was having a hundred-day celebration and needed to use her yard for a banquet. Consequently, she could not complete the burning of the leftover remains.
Fearing that leaving the remaining body parts in her home for too long would lead to exposure, Zhang Yan took them on her motorcycle early the next morning to dispose of them. However, when faced with cameras, Zhang Yan claimed it was merely an accidental killing.
"It was just an accidental injury; I hit him with such a big hammer by mistake. He always gambled, you know? I thought it would be better if he were paralyzed than let him keep gambling. The TV was on in the room at that time; it was an accident when I tried to hit him and ended up striking him from behind."
Yet Zhang Yan had mixed feelings about this relationship; she both loved and hated Zhang Li. She stated that Zhang Li treated her well but could not accept his constant gambling. Just as the truth of the case was about to be revealed, Zhang Zuoxue raised some questions.
"My son's arms and legs were just lying there. Of course, he didn't cry when people looked at him, but what we suspect is that he didn't do it alone. Can a woman possibly do that?
To kill someone, cut off their head, dismember their limbs, and then burn them, only to dispose of the body afterward—can anyone really do that? And to do it so professionally? If you're not professional, you can't dismember someone like that."
But Zhang Yan claimed that she did all of this by herself; she had no choice.
"We had just fought. After the fight, he lay down on the bed with his eyes half-closed. He came at me first; he hit me. So I got up from the floor, went to the front room to grab a hammer. You were already in the wrong, and you still hit me. Who can endure domestic violence? He often gambled, and that's why we would always end up fighting."
Zhang Yan also stated that her father-in-law worked hard to ensure his son could have a good life, even taking her mother-in-law out to work.
"My mother-in-law sweeps roads and earns over ten thousand yuan a year in such cold weather. My father-in-law has to go out every day in winter to install heating for others. The money he earns goes to feed his son during times of hardship; he saves it all for him without my knowledge.
Does he ever think about how his father lives? Do I want to kill him? What would be the point? I don't want to kill him; I just thought if I could paralyze him, he wouldn't gamble anymore. But I didn't know that one blow could kill him."
Two days before the incident, Zhang Yan's father's foot was run over by a car, so she returned home to take care of him for two days. During this time, she constantly worried about whether her husband would gamble while home alone.
Zhang Yan lived in fear every day; she couldn't even stay long when visiting relatives. After each meal, she hurried home because Zhang Li only refrained from gambling under her strict supervision. Whenever there was a moment of freedom, Zhang Li would go off to gamble.
After settling her father in, she rushed back home, but her worst fears came true. While she was away for those two days, Zhang Li secretly withdrew the loan money they had saved for farming next year and lost it all gambling.
This led to a huge argument between them, and thus the tragedy unfolded, leaving the elderly couple mourning their beloved son.
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