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

Chapter 286 Died before leaving the army

Li Yong explained that Old Liu was ill with a brain tumor, and the doctor recommended surgery, but the old man's savings over the years were not enough to cover the cost of the surgery.

So he decided to give up treatment. He was already old anyway, and decided to leave all his money and business to Dazhuang.

Li Yong said that he wanted to make some money to pay for the old man's medical treatment, so he had another crooked idea.

Shi Tao did not believe it and immediately suspended the interrogation, saying that he would go and ask Old Man Liu himself.

Judging from the transcript, Shi Tao must have received a positive reply from Old Man Liu.

Because Shi Tao's first words after resuming the interrogation were, "Don't think that what you did is out of loyalty and righteousness. This is a crime, and a leopard can't change its spots."

However, Zhou Yi felt there was another possibility when he saw this.

Li Yong is certainly quite satisfied with his current life, but there is a prerequisite: Old Liu must live, because only if the old man lives can he be his shield.

Once the old man is gone, he won't be able to continue his cooked food business.

The first step, changing the vendor's qualifications at the market, is something he can't get through, because he's not Liu Dazhuang, he's Li Yong.

Now that the old man is around, he doesn't have to worry about this problem. Once the old man is gone, he'll have to go back to living a life of hiding and running away.

Therefore, the old man was more like a parasitic host to him.

Of course, he would never admit it, because he had to pretend to be compassionate and repentant in order to win the judge's sympathy.

He confessed that he agreed to rob a bank with Wang Ronghai for this reason.

But he hadn't figured out exactly how to do it.

The robbery of the gold shop in Luohe shows that he was not the kind of mindless brute who would just rob someone by force. Therefore, he needed to choose his targets, keep a long-term watch on them, and formulate a robbery plan and escape route.

But Wang Ronghai couldn't wait that long, so he took the initiative to recruit Meng Qingtong into his group.

However, when Li Yong found out, he felt that it would cause unnecessary trouble. In order not to implicate himself, he made up an excuse to ask Wang Ronghai to stop staying at Meng Qingtong's place. For this, he even gave the other party several hundred yuan that he had saved up.

He didn't know exactly where Wang Ronghai was staying, only that it was a small hotel in a certain area.

That concludes the interrogation of Li Yong.

There were further questions about the details of how they devised the bank robbery plan.

One of the issues that Zhou Yi was particularly concerned about was their target.

Li Yong said he hadn't set any specific targets. He said he had observed several banks and felt that robbing them would be difficult, and two people probably couldn't do it. But he didn't want to add more people because he was still wanted by the police and didn't trust anyone else.

The banks he scouted were all located some distance from his current living area, indicating that he deliberately avoided them.

Shi Tao asked him why he didn't rob the jewelry store. Li Yong's answer was similar to Zhou Yi's prediction at the time: it was mainly about the issue of selling stolen goods.

Zhou Yi felt that if Li Yong thought robbing a bank was too difficult, then he might lower the level of his robbery target and change it from a bank to a savings bank.

However, it is extremely difficult for him to confirm the connection between Li Yong and the 614 Savings Bank case, because, given the current situation, he cannot take the initiative to ask Li Yong whether he knows Han Weimin or whether he has scouted the savings bank on Linbei Road.

Because it cannot be explained logically.

Zhou Yi put down the pen, thinking to himself, "Is this the only way?"

I can no longer verify whether the June 14th case has been resolved ahead of schedule; all that remains is fate.

Suddenly, a possibility occurred to him: in the case file of the June 14th case, one of the references Song Yiming and Xu Nian used to determine the time of death during the autopsy was the state of digestion of the food in the victim's stomach.

Pork residue was found in Han Weimin's stomach, but no pork was found in Zhang Guilan's stomach.

This is an extremely ordinary piece of information, but considering the current investigation results, it's quite different.

He immediately pulled up the contact lists of various units in Hongcheng, found the train station, and then called it.

After revealing his identity, Zhou Yi said he was looking for Han Jiajia.

After waiting for seven or eight minutes, the phone was finally answered. Han Jiajia asked doubtfully, "Is this Officer Zhou?"

"Hello Ms. Han, I have a question I'd like to ask you."

Hearing Zhou Yi's voice, Han Jiajia was still stunned for a moment. When her colleague called her, she said that a policeman had called her. Her first thought was Zhou Yi, but then she thought that Zhou Yi would not call her for no reason. So she couldn't help but feel nervous, afraid that something had happened at home.

It really was Zhou Yi. "Wh...what?"

Does your dad usually like to eat pig's head meat?

Han Jiajia was completely puzzled when she heard this question: "Huh?"

But she still replied, "He really likes to eat it, he buys it several times a month, but my mom and I don't like it."

"Do you know where he buys the pig's head meat he usually eats?"

Han Jiajia felt that Zhou Yi's voice sounded somewhat excited.

"I don't know exactly where it is, but it should be not far from my house, because sometimes when he goes out to buy pig's head meat, he doesn't ride his bike and walks there. Oh, I think I once heard him casually mention that the owners are an elderly couple who are very nice people."

All there! Han Weimin loves pig's head meat and is a regular customer of the stall, which means he has some connection with Li Yong. Although Li Yong is rather low-key and doesn't talk much, as a regular customer, the old man probably chats with Han Weimin from time to time.

The autopsy report of the June 14 case shows that Han Weimin ate pork that night, while Zhang Guilan did not, which is consistent with the information provided by Han Jiajia.

It is highly likely that Han Weimin's conversation with the old man while buying meat led him to become Li Yong's target.

Even before his shift that night, Han Weimin may have bought his favorite pig's head from Li Yong as a treat, which led Li Yong to decide to commit the crime that night.

Without any other clues, how could Wu Yongcheng and his team, who were investigating the case, have thought of a small vendor selling pig's head meat? No matter how much they investigated the social connections of Han Weimin and his wife, they would not have found anything related to this.

"Okay, I understand, thank you." Zhou Yi hung up the phone.

Han Jiajia on the other end of the phone looked completely bewildered. Why would someone make a special call just to ask about pig's head meat?
Is Officer Zhou out of his mind?
My previous goodwill towards Zhou Yi suddenly diminished significantly.

At this moment, the colleague who had called her earlier asked, "What do the police want with you?"

"It's nothing, they just asked about my family situation."

"By the way, how did that young man Sister Wang introduced you to last time go? Did it not work out?"

Han Jiajia thought for a moment and said, "It seems... alright. Maybe I should try to get to know them a bit more."

Zhou Yi, on the other hand, had no idea about Han Jiajia's psychological changes. He was just relieved that this time it was almost certain.

On the night of June 14th, I'll go back to the vicinity of Linbei Road and stake out the case again to confirm whether it really has "died before it even began."

Looking up, I saw Qiao Jiali walk in.

"What's making you so happy? It's written all over your face!" Qiao Jiali asked with a smile.

"Team Leader Shi helped Luohe catch a wanted criminal."

"Really? Team Leader Shi is pretty good."

"Sister Qiao, when are Captain Wu and the others coming back?"

"It should be soon. It's already Friday. They must have been gone for about a week."

Zhou Yi nodded: "More or less."

Qiao Jiali said gloatingly, "Then Captain Wu is going to be so bored."

"What?"

"Because every time Captain Wu went to the provincial capital with Director Xie, there were endless meetings. He said his head was buzzing from all the meetings, so he would smoke during every meeting. Although everyone else smoked, he smoked the most. Once he smoked so much that Director Xu thought there was a fire. After that, Director Xu made a rule that smoking was not allowed during meetings."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Yi burst into laughter, almost doubled over. "My goodness, Captain Wu must be dying of pent-up frustration."

"That's right. Hey Zhou Yi, don't you think Captain Wu seems to be smoking much less lately?"

Zhou Yi nodded: "Sister Qiao, I hadn't realized it until you mentioned it, but it seems to really be..."

Seeing that Zhou Yi remained silent, Qiao Jiali turned her head and noticed his furrowed brows. Her heart skipped a beat. She quickly asked, "What's wrong?"

After being reminded by Qiao Jiali, Zhou Yi noticed that Wu Yongcheng seemed to be smoking much less frequently lately.

When Zhou Yi first joined the Third Brigade, he felt that Wu Yongcheng was almost always smoking, and there were always whole cartons of cigarettes in his drawer.

But from some point onwards, Wu Yongcheng started smoking less and less.

It wasn't a big deal at first, but he suddenly remembered the night after they ate mutton stew, when Wu Yongcheng asked him if he wanted to be the captain of the Third Brigade.

I didn't find it strange at the time, but now that I think about it, it feels like I'm entrusting my child to someone else.

Could it be that Captain Wu developed lung cancer from smoking?

That's why he suddenly stopped talking.

But then Zhou Yi thought again that it was probably impossible.

In my previous life, I worked as a beat cop at a local police station for three years. In 2000, I passed an internal exam and joined the criminal investigation team of the Nanming branch.

In 2004, due to his outstanding performance, he was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Division of the Municipal Public Security Bureau.

At that time, Wu Yongcheng was no longer with the Hongcheng City Bureau. It was said that he had been transferred, but it was unclear whether he had been transferred back to his hometown.

Zhou Yi didn't know which year Wu Yongcheng was transferred, but he was certain it was at least two thousand years later.

Moreover, prior to this, there had never been any internal news about the deputy head of the criminal investigation team dying of cancer. If such a thing had happened, it would have spread internally long ago.

Zhou Yi thought for a moment, then smiled slightly and said, "It's nothing. I was just thinking about something else and got distracted."

Zhou Yi estimated that Wu Yongcheng was experiencing some physical discomfort, but it was definitely not a terminal illness.

The idea that he should smoke less and entrust his children to others is probably just him overthinking things, believing that his days are numbered.

Zhou Yi sighed inwardly. It seemed he would have to have a heart-to-heart talk with Captain Wu when he returned.

(End of this chapter)