Reborn in 97, I solved a cold case at the Municipal Bureau

Chapter 252 I Killed Him (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
In the interrogation room of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, Yao Fenfang sat nervously, waiting for someone to come in.

Not long ago, at her home, when Tang Xue, curled up on the bed, uttered those words, Zhou Yi and Shi Tao's expressions immediately changed.

Yao Fenfang's expression also changed.

Zhou Yi and Shi Tao were surprised, but she was terrified.

"Tang Xue, what baby?" Zhou Yi asked hurriedly.

Yao Fenfang immediately stepped in front of Zhou Yi and said in a panic, "Officer, she's talking nonsense. Sometimes her mind is clear and sometimes it's confused."

But her reaction was undoubtedly a case of protesting too much; the more she explained, the more suspicious it became.

Zhou Yi and his men immediately summoned the two of them. Upon hearing this, Yao Fenfang became extremely agitated and began to resist fiercely.

But the more she acted this way, the less likely Zhou Yi was to let her go.

Finally, Zhou Yi said to her seriously, "If you don't cooperate, then we will have no choice but to take coercive measures to summon you. Think carefully about whether you can bear the consequences."

They brought the two back, but since it was only a suspicion stage and there was no actual evidence, they were not interrogated directly, but questioned in an interrogation room.

Zhou Yi separated Yao Fenfang and Tang Xue, and had Qiao Jiali question Tang Xue. Firstly, it was more compliant for a female police officer to deal with a woman, and secondly, it would prevent Tang Xue from becoming too nervous.

"Zhou Yi, should we have Xu Nian and the others give Tang Xue a physical examination?" Qiao Jiali asked.

Zhou Yi shook his head: "Let's wait and see. It's best to be cautious until we get any useful information. But judging from Yao Fenfang's reaction, she definitely knows what's going on."

Just as Zhou Yi was about to enter the interrogation room, his cell phone suddenly rang.

"Hey?"

"Son, why aren't you home for dinner yet?" It was Zhang Qiuxia's voice on the phone. "Didn't I tell you last night that I'd come over for dinner after work today?"

Zhou Yi remembered that she had received a phone call from her mother last night, but she was thinking about something at the time and didn't pay much attention to what her mother said. Anyway, her mother often nags.

"Oh, Mom, what are you eating? I have a case to handle," Zhou Yi said impatiently.

He was about to hang up when Zhang Qiuxia's words made him pause.

"Son, today is your birthday. No matter how busy you are, at least come home for dinner on your birthday."

Zhou Yi was momentarily lost in thought, because it seemed like he hadn't celebrated his birthday in a long time.

Most adults, especially those who have reached middle age, rarely celebrate their birthdays anymore.

When we were young, our parents celebrated our birthdays; after we got married and started our own families, we celebrated our children's birthdays.

Adults often forget their own birthdays.

There's an old saying: "While your parents are alive, don't travel far."

In fact, birthdays are no different. Perhaps children don't remember their parents' birthdays, and perhaps they themselves will forget their own.

However, very few parents forget their child's birthday.

"Why don't you talk to your boss and ask him to come back for a meal? The police station won't be unable to work just because you're not here. Your dad has already bought the cake, and look, Xiaoshuang is here too."

"Mom, I know how you mean, but I really can't get away right now. So, please eat more for me, as if I've already eaten."

Seeing that she couldn't reason with him, Zhang Qiuxia said, "Xiaoshuang, you talk to him. Why can't people celebrate their birthdays? It only happens once a year."

"Hello, Brother Zhou." Lu Xiaoshuang's voice came through the phone.

"Xiaoshuang, please tell my mom that I won't be eating dinner, just save me a piece of cake, I'll come over to eat it tomorrow."

"Okay, I'll talk to Auntie. You go ahead with your work." Lu Xiaoshuang suddenly lowered her voice and said, "As for the cake, I'll take it to your house later. Anyway, I know where you hide your house key."

Zhou Yi couldn't help but smile: "Okay, then be careful on the road."

"Brother Zhou," Lu Xiaoshuang called softly.

"what happened?"

"Happy birthday to you."

"Thank you."

After hanging up the phone, Shi Tao, who had just gone to the restroom, returned and saw the expression on Zhou Yi's face. He asked in confusion, "What's wrong? Why are you so happy? The case was solved in the time it took me to take a piss?"

"It's nothing. Happy birthday, Captain Shi."

"Huh? Today isn't my birthday." Shi Tao looked confused.

As soon as Zhou Yi and Shi Tao entered the room, Yao Fenfang, who had been anxiously waiting, stood up and asked, "Officer, how is my daughter?"

Zhou Yi gestured for her to sit down first, and then began to ask questions.

Zhou Yi cut to the chase and asked, "Yao Fenfang, let's not beat around the bush. Was your daughter, Tang Xue, pregnant before?"

"No...no..." Yao Fenfang denied it, but her voice was very soft.

“Yao Fenfang, you’d better think carefully before you answer. Let me tell you, this is the Municipal Public Security Bureau. We have a record of every word you say.” Shi Tao’s eyes widened.

Seeing this, Zhou Yi immediately softened his tone and said, "Besides, some things can't be denied simply by you saying so. We just need to do a physical examination on Tang Xue to find out the facts, but the nature of the matter might be different then. Think about it carefully."

As soon as Zhou Yi finished speaking, Yao Fenfang covered her face and burst into tears.

She cried as she said, "How could she have encountered such a thing? Waaah..." Zhou Yi and Shi Tao did not rush her, but waited for her to finish crying and calm down before continuing to ask her questions.

Yao Fenfang said that her ex-husband cheated on her, and she caught him in bed with another man, which led to their divorce.

At the time, her daughter Tang Xue was only eight years old. After the divorce, she raised her daughter alone, and these years have been very difficult.

Therefore, she has high expectations for her daughter's studies, because she herself is just an ordinary female worker with no education or skills, and she hopes that her daughter will not end up like her and live a life of hardship.

Therefore, he placed all his hopes on his daughter, expecting her to study hard, get into a good university, find a good job, and make something of herself.

For their generation, this idea is actually the norm for the vast majority: hoping that their children can defy fate and fly out of the grass nest to become a golden phoenix.

But true golden phoenixes are extremely rare; most people are just ordinary people, and Tang Xue is no exception.

Especially in divorced families, where the father doesn't care and only visits his daughter once or twice a year, and the mother has to do heavy physical work and take care of the child's eating, drinking and toileting, the outcome is often even worse.

Yao Fenfang said that Tang Xue's academic performance in junior high school was unstable, fluctuating up and down. Before the high school entrance examination in her third year of junior high school, she was forced to study every day, and she barely made it into high school.

But once she entered high school, I don't know if it was because she was not smart enough or because of her attitude, but her grades kept getting worse and worse, and no matter how much I scolded or beat her, it was no use.

At a parent-teacher meeting in the second semester of her first year of high school, she asked her homeroom teacher about the situation privately. The homeroom teacher tactfully suggested that with Tang Xue's grades, if she didn't study hard, she probably wouldn't even be able to get into a vocational college.

This was undoubtedly the most desperate and painful thing for Yao Fenfang.

For those living at the bottom of society, life depends on that sliver of hope.

Despair about the future, coupled with the heavy pressure of life, made Yao Fenfang's temper worse and her personality more and more irritable.

But outside, in the factory, she had no way to vent her resentment.

So home became her only place to vent her frustrations.

This is why the neighbors and the neighborhood committee all know that she often scolds her daughter.

She said she knew she shouldn't scold her daughter, and sometimes she would regret it and reflect on it afterward.

But once her emotions got the better of her, she couldn't control herself.

As a result, her daughter became increasingly insecure, and her relationship with her father deteriorated.

Sometimes, Tang Xue wouldn't even speak to her for a whole week.

Tang Xue's personality became increasingly withdrawn; she always kept her head down, her hair covering her face, and her body hunched over.

Yao Fenfang gives the impression of being a middle-aged woman in her forties who is full of resentment, even though she is only thirty-six years old.

"When did you find out Tang Xue was pregnant?" Zhou Yi asked.

But Yao Fenfang's answer surprised them both. She said, "I don't know."

"What do you mean? Didn't you know your daughter was pregnant all this time?"

“She wasn’t exactly thin to begin with, and she was always hunched over… Plus, she wore loose-fitting clothes in winter, so I didn’t notice…” Yao Fenfang stammered.

Shi Tao said somewhat angrily, "You carried your daughter for ten months, and she didn't have her period for ten months. Didn't you, as her mother, notice at all?"

“She… already had some menstrual irregularities, so…” Yao Fenfang didn’t finish her sentence and lowered her head in shame.

Even if we take a step back and say that she didn't notice it for so long, any reason she gave would just be an excuse for being an incompetent mother.

Zhou Yi asked, "So when did you find out your daughter was pregnant?"

Knowing and discovering are two different things.

Zhou Yi was both inquiring about the situation and using the questions to determine whether the other party's words were true.

Yao Fenfang hesitated for a moment before replying, "On the night of February 28th, she suddenly had a stomachache. I was planning to take her to the hospital, but I found that something was wrong with her, and then I realized that she... she was going into labor."

"Did you take her to the hospital after you found out?"

"No...no."

If such a thing were true, it's impossible for the community not to know, but Zhou Yi still needs to confirm it.

Because his next question was: "Why not take him to the hospital?"

“I…I can’t take her to the hospital. If people find out, her life will be ruined. She had a child at such a young age, how will she ever face anyone again?” Yao Fenfang said, and then started crying again.

Zhou Yi also sensed a strange sense of disconnect from Yao Fenfang. On the one hand, she was very indifferent to her daughter, not even noticing that Tang Xue was pregnant for ten months. On the other hand, she was very concerned about her daughter's safety and reputation.

"Do you know what the consequences would be? There are all sorts of things that can happen during childbirth, and what you're doing could very well kill your daughter."

"Waaah... I didn't think that much at the time."

Zhou Yi took a deep breath and asked with a grim expression, "Where is the child that Tang Xue gave birth to now?"

Yao Fenfang suddenly stopped crying, her eyes became somewhat vacant, and she seemed to have lost her soul all of a sudden.

Zhou Yi thought she would try to make excuses, such as giving it away or even throwing it in the trash.

Unexpectedly, she said, "That child...I killed him."

(End of this chapter)