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

Chapter 285: No suspicion of guilt
Then, he dared not run anymore and could only hide for the time being, waiting for the storm to pass before trying to escape.

During this process, he realized that his appearance was easy to expose, so he started to eat excessively, thinking that he could gain weight quickly so that he would be safer in terms of appearance.

The effect was quite obvious. After gaining weight, he tried going for a walk on the street and no longer felt nervous about being stared at by others.

Once, he ran into two patrolling policemen. Although he was very scared, he still bravely walked past them, and the policemen did not react at all.

He felt the time was right, so he prepared to flee.

But then something happened that completely stunned him.

He was living in a large courtyard at the time, and rented a small room.

He robbed a gold shop in Luohe and made tens of thousands of yuan after selling the stolen goods. When he fled, he tied the stolen goods to his body with tape and carried it with him ever since.

After arriving in Hongcheng, he continued to do so because he felt that he could only feel at ease if he carried his money with him at all times.

That was indeed the case, because shortly after he stopped carrying his money, it was stolen.

After he gained weight, the weather started to get hot. With his increased weight and fewer clothes, he could no longer use tape to bind the money to his body. It would be very noticeable, and he would feel particularly uncomfortable after sweating.

He could only put the wallet away and hide it on the roof beam of the small rented house.

That day he excitedly ran back, ready to pack his things and run away.

When he climbed up and touched the roof beam, he was stunned – the money was gone!
He was so anxious that he searched the whole house, almost to the point of tearing it down.

In the end, he had no choice but to accept that his money had been stolen.

Since he was a wanted criminal and the courtyard was crowded with people, he neither knew who stole it nor dared to investigate.

In the end, he could only suffer in silence, and since he couldn't stay in that place any longer, he had no choice but to run away.

But apart from the few dozen yuan he had left, he was penniless, and his escape plan naturally fell through.

With nowhere else to turn, he had no choice but to sleep under a bridge.

Before long, he ran out of money and went from a wanted criminal to a homeless man.

Unable to bear it any longer, one night he decided to return to his old ways and commit robbery.

He squatted by the roadside for a long time, but no one came. Just as he was about to leave, he heard a noise in the distance, so he immediately hid again.

Just as the person riding the bicycle was about to arrive, a cry of pain was suddenly heard, and then the bicycle fell over, followed by a series of groans and screams.

This sudden turn of events left him in a dilemma, but he ultimately decided to go and see for himself.

The person who fell off his bicycle was none other than Old Liu, who sold pig's head meat.

The old man was clearly badly hurt; he lay motionless on the ground, only groaning and making sounds of pain.

Li Yong immediately went forward to search the old man's body, hoping to find some money, but after searching for a long time he found no money, and instead found a piece of pig's head meat.

Extremely hungry, Li Yong immediately started gnawing on pig's head meat, saying it was the best thing he had eaten in those days.

After finishing the pig's head, he intended to leave, but seeing the old man on the ground groaning with his eyes closed, he finally had a change of heart.

He took the old man to a nearby health center. After dropping him off, he tried to leave, but the old man held onto him tightly and wouldn't let go.

Just when he thought the old man was going to extort money from him, the old man pulled out a small cloth bag from his crotch, which contained more than a hundred yuan in change.

Old Liu stretched out his hand, indicating that he wanted the money.

He took the money, but instead of running away, he went to pay Old Liu's medical expenses.

After the doctor's examination, he determined that there were no fractures or other abnormalities, but still advised them to go to a larger hospital for further examination.

Old Liu shook his head and, with Li Yong's help, left the hospital and was taken home.

After that day, Old Man Liu took him in.

Li Yong lied and said his name was Liu Dazhuang, fabricating a tragic backstory. When Old Man Liu heard that his life was so miserable and that he was from the same clan as him, he let Liu Dazhuang follow him.

Li Yong was at his wit's end, and since following the old man would help him better conceal his identity, he agreed. He told others that he was the old man's nephew from his hometown and was learning business from him.

What happened next was similar to what Zhou Yi and the others learned from the administrator, only in more detail.

Li Yong said that after experiencing the days of hiding and wandering around without food, he felt that living with the old man was actually quite good, at least it was reassuring.

If he hadn't been arrested today, he would have already planned to take care of the old man until his death.

Shi Tao clearly didn't believe him and told him to stop pretending to be a good person, asking why he didn't show such human compassion when he was committing a crime.

However, among the statements that Shi Tao had given him, there was another one from Old Liu, the man who sold pig's head meat. Old Liu's statement was basically the same as Li Yong's account.

Old Liu kept saying that Dazhuang was an honest man and even pleaded for him.

This made Zhou Yi, who was reviewing the transcript, somewhat puzzled. Could it be that Li Yong had truly reformed?
Judging from the robbery of the gold shop in Luohe, Li Yong, who was responsible for threatening the shop assistant with a knife, did not actually harm the other party.

However, in the June 14th case, Han Weimin and his wife were both murdered.

Could it be... that in the June 14th case, the one who committed the murder wasn't Li Yong, but Wang Ronghai?
Meng Qingtong confessed that Wang Ronghai had previously been imprisoned for assault and had also committed the depraved act of abusing and killing cats. Compared to Li Yong, he was indeed more in line with the characteristics of a perpetrator.

However, we'll have to wait until He Bin and his team catch Wang Ronghai to see how things go.

Zhou Yi continued reading, and Shi Tao began to ask him about his relationship with Wang Ronghai. He initially wanted to deny it, but Shi Tao countered, "How do you think we found you? If you hadn't sent Wang Ronghai pig's head, we wouldn't have been able to follow the trail to find you."

These words filled Li Yong with regret, and he said that if he had known this would happen, he shouldn't have given him that piece of pig's head.

It turns out that Wang Ronghai and Li Yong knew each other when they were both involved in gangs in Luohe.

But they didn't interact much; Li Yong only knew that Wang Ronghai had been imprisoned for stabbing someone.

That day, Old Liu wasn't feeling well, so Li Yong told him to go home and rest early, while he himself stayed busy until closing up shop before going home.

As he walked down the street, he brushed past someone, and that person suddenly shouted, "Old Gun!"

Startled, he thought he had been discovered by the police and immediately turned to run away.

But the other party grabbed him and said that he was Wang Ronghai.

Li Yong was terrified, but he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the person in front of him clearly.

Wang Ronghai said, "You used to be so thin, how come you're so fat now? I almost didn't recognize you."

Li Yong knew that he probably didn't know he was wanted by the police.

He originally wanted to send the other person away, but he was afraid that the other person would report him, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and invite the other person to dinner.

The two were old acquaintances and from the same hometown, so after a few rounds of drinks, they were both teary-eyed.

At the time, Li Yong had some unsold semi-cooked food on him, which he took out as snacks with his drinks, including a bag of pig's head meat.

Wang Ronghai didn't finish the bag of pig's head meat in the back, but he said the meat was delicious, so he took it back with him.

Li Yong said he didn't think much about it at all, never expecting that such a small piece of meat would end up selling him out.

Shi Tao asked him, "Is there anything else?"

He replied, "That's all."

"Think again."

"It's really gone."

Shi Tao questioned him: "What are you and Wang Ronghai planning to do? Do you think we don't know anything?"

What Shi Tao wanted to ask, of course, was about his and Wang Ronghai's plan to rob a bank.

However, defining the nature of this matter is actually quite complicated.

If it's just a verbal discussion, like two people who've been drinking discussing robbing a bank, but then go their separate ways after drinking, it's not considered a crime. At most, it's just idle chatter, and the police can just give them a verbal warning.

However, if after the discussion they begin to scout locations, formulate criminal plans, or purchase tools for committing crimes, this constitutes criminal preparation and they will be held legally responsible.

However, the ambiguity and difficulty in defining this situation lies in the issue of evidence collection, because any preparatory behavior before the commission of a crime can be forcibly interpreted.

For example, someone might want to poison someone, so they buy rat poison.

But before he puts rat poison on others, unless he is caught in the act, even if he is found to have a criminal motive, he can explain that he bought it to poison rats.

As long as he stubbornly denies it, this packet of rat poison will not serve as direct evidence.

Because the law operates on the logic of presumption of innocence.

The same principle applies to robbing a bank, so a breakthrough must be made in obtaining the interrogation confession.

However, Li Yong refused to admit it, which is why Shi Tao and Gu Changhai interrogated him until late at night.

However, Zhou Yi could probably guess Shi Tao's thoughts. Li Yong already had an arrest warrant on him and couldn't escape. Whether he admitted to plotting to rob the bank or not, the only difference was whether his final sentence would be increased.

But Wang Ronghai is different; he is a released prisoner and is now a free man.

If we don't arrest him through this incident and let him roam freely in society, he will become a major destabilizing factor, and it's easy for him to cause trouble again later.

This shows that Shi Tao considered issues very comprehensively.

Of course, it's also possible that Captain Shi was too eager to improve and wanted to catch more bad guys.

Li Yong's interrogation was divided into two sessions, with an interval of more than two hours in between.

Zhou Yi guessed that Shi Tao had arranged for him to experience the dry toilet for two hours, giving him a taste of the anti-gangster characteristics.

After the second interrogation, Li Yong's attitude became noticeably more cooperative.

After Shi Tao's repeated and serious warnings, Li Yong finally admitted to planning to rob the bank.

However, he said that he did not bring up the matter himself, but rather Wang Ronghai took the initiative to do so.

Wang Ronghai felt that selling pig's head meat in the market was too stifling, and that he should do something big, like robbing a bank and making a fortune.

Li Yong said that after what happened before, he no longer wanted to do such illegal and criminal things and just wanted to run a small business peacefully.

Shi Tao questioned him, "Then why did you have such wicked thoughts?"

Li Yong sighed and said that he had his reasons.

(End of this chapter)