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

Chapter 335 Lili said

Zhou Yi's question startled Zheng Tianlan, who was clearly terrified of his father.

"No...I don't know, I probably...I probably don't know."

"Going back to the original question, why didn't you call the police when you learned from Huang Yanli that Bai Xiuxiu had kidnapped your father, Zheng Guangming?"

Zheng Tianlan's lips trembled slightly as she said, "Lili said, don't call the police yet. We need to confirm whether my dad and that woman are deliberately deceiving us, or if we've really been kidnapped."

"What if he really has been kidnapped? You couldn't have not considered this possibility," Zhou Yi asked. "Are you planning to just stand by and watch him die?"

Zheng Tianlan hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

“We waited for three days without any news. My dad’s mobile phone was always switched off. That’s when we realized that he might really have been killed.”

"Then why didn't you report it to the police afterwards, instead creating the illusion that Zheng Guangming went abroad?"

“Because…because Lili said that if we call the police, they will investigate and eventually find out about our relationship. Rather than that, we might as well say that he went abroad. As long as he is nowhere to be found, we can just say that he ran away with another woman.”

Zhou Yi sighed helplessly: "Zheng Tianlan, I don't know whether to call you naive or stupid. You just say everything Lili says, Lili says. Don't you have any thoughts or opinions of your own? Don't you think Huang Yanli's words are full of loopholes?"

"Huh? But Lily said..."

Zhou Yi said coldly, "Or are you saying that these words weren't actually said by Huang Yanli, but that you're deliberately making up a story for the police?"

Zheng Tianlan quickly waved her hand, saying that she was not lying and that everything she said was true.

Zhou Yi stretched out one hand and held up one finger at a time.

"First of all, the purpose of the kidnapping was for ransom. They only made one phone call, didn't get the ransom, and didn't continue to call to demand it. They didn't discuss the terms and methods of ransom delivery, and then they killed him to cover it up. Do you think that's reasonable?"

"Secondly, going abroad requires relevant legal procedures. Unless it's illegal immigration, normal travel abroad will inevitably leave entry and exit records. Do you think Zheng Guangming went abroad for inspection by smuggling to Southeast Asia, or do you think that the disappearance of such a large company owner would go unnoticed?"

"In the end, all of this is just what Huang Yanli told you. You didn't see anything or hear anything. How can you be sure that your father was really kidnapped and killed? Haven't you ever suspected that he was murdered for some other reason?"

Zhou Yi's words left Zheng Tianlan speechless.

At the very last sentence, he shuddered and exclaimed in shock, "You mean... Lili killed my dad?"

"Impossible, how could this be? She can't even carry a slightly heavy bag, how could she kill someone?"

Seeing his firm denial, Zhou Yi had to admit that Huang Yanli was truly a dog training master, having trained Zheng Tianlan, this loyal dog, to be a perfect dog.

"Then let me ask you, on March 16th, when Zheng Guangming left home, were you the one who saw him off?"

Zheng Tianlan immediately shook her head: "I didn't see my dad at all on March 16th."

"If it's not you, then who is it?"

"It should be my dad's driver, Xiao Feng, Feng Qiang."

"Didn't Feng Qiang resign and go back to his hometown in early March?"

Zhou Yi's words caused Zheng Tianlan's expression to change drastically, as if she had just remembered this matter.

"I...I remembered it wrong..." he said in a panic.

"Huang Yanli and you rehearsed your statements, right? Did she teach you how to answer questions when facing police interrogation?"

Zheng Tianlan remained silent.

"Is this Feng Qiang the one who took Zheng Guangming to see Bai Xiuxiu that day? The driver is usually the one who knows Zheng Guangming's daily schedule best. Zheng Guangming arranged for Bai Xiuxiu to stay outside and would go to her place to stay overnight every few days. Feng Qiang must know this very well. And theoretically, he should have gone to pick up Zheng Guangming the next day. But he definitely couldn't pick him up. Either he waited for a long time in vain, or Huang Yanli found an excuse to send him away."

"Afterwards, Huang Yanli was afraid that Feng Qiang would find out something was wrong, so she bribed him to find an excuse to resign and return to his hometown, but in reality, he wanted to run away. Otherwise, with this driver around, the police would have known whether Zheng Guangming had gone abroad or not with just a question. Is that right?"

Zheng Tianlan said, "I really don't know. Don't ask me. Lili taught me. She told me to say whatever she wanted. She said that as long as we insist that my dad went abroad, the police can't do anything to us."

"Oh? So, when you told us in your office that Zheng Guangming called you from abroad, Huang Yanli also told you to say that?"

"This……"

Zhou Yi sneered. It really proved the saying that a bad person's cunning is no match for a fool's quick thinking.

He must have felt quite smug when he said those words to himself and Xia Yu.

"Zheng Tianlan, have you ever been to Hongcheng?" Zhou Yi asked.

Zheng Tianlan shook her head blankly.

Have you ever run a fruit business? Especially selling watermelons?

He shook his head again: "My dad said I'm not cut out for business..."

“But Li Youqiang and Fu Daqing said they know you. How do you explain that?” Zhou Yi tried to provoke him.

“Li…Youqiang?” Zheng Tianlan frowned, thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t know these two people. Who are they?” There’s a technique for discerning whether someone is lying about whether they know certain information during interrogation.

It refers to reaction speed.

If you deny it immediately and without thinking, you are most likely lying.

Because in high-pressure situations like interrogation, people are under immense mental stress, their thinking isn't very smooth, and they need to think before they can give feedback.

Similar situations are like important interviews, where, except for a very few exceptionally talented individuals, most people become incoherent due to nervousness.

Those who deny things without thinking are precisely those who know what the police's questions mean and what the consequences will be.

Therefore, driven by the primal survival instinct of creatures to seek advantage and avoid harm, they will immediately deny it.

Zheng Tianlan's denial is basically true.

If he doesn't even know Li Youqiang and Fu Daqing, it means he might genuinely be unaware of the hired murder. From the first time he met Zhou Yi and the others, he was simply foolish enough to blindly obey Huang Yanli.

Therefore, the real mastermind is Huang Yanli.

But this also raised a question that Zhou Yi couldn't understand: what was Huang Yanli's logic in hiring someone to kill Zheng Guangming?
If Zheng Guangming discovered the affair between her and Zheng Tianlan, then it's impossible that Zheng Tianlan was completely unaware of it.

If it weren't for this incident, would she really kill someone just because Bai Xiuxiu's appearance threatened her position?
If anyone was going to be killed, it should have been Bai Xiuxiu. It was even more inappropriate to do it when Zheng Guangming was not home at night, which only increased the risk of not having an alibi.

Besides, Bai Xiuxiu wasn't pregnant. Zheng Guangming has slept with so many women. If Huang Yanli would hire someone to kill someone just because of that, then the hills of Xiaoqiushan Park would probably be full of dead bodies by now.

Zhou Yi couldn't understand it at all; he simply couldn't fathom Huang Yanli's motive for murder.

Could it really be because a woman's heart is as unfathomable as the sea?
Furthermore, there is another very interesting fact: the autopsy results showed that the male corpse suspected to be Zheng Guangming was not murdered, but died of a heart attack.

Whether his heart attack was due to his own physical condition or caused by the perpetrator's provocation is currently unconfirmed.

From a forensic autopsy perspective, it's impossible to determine whether a person died of fright during an autopsy.

Forensic experts can only examine and provide professional conclusions such as "sudden cardiac death" or "stress-induced cardiomyopathy," but these are only for reference and have no direct or necessary relationship with whether the person died from fright or stress.

No forensic pathologist would write in an autopsy report that the deceased died from excessive fright.

The person who would write this is definitely not a forensic doctor, but a charlatan.

Zhou Yi had read similar horror novels before, which wildly exaggerated the idea that the deceased died of fright, claiming they must have witnessed extremely terrifying scenes before their death. Some forensic doctors even claimed that the autopsy revealed the deceased died of fright because their hearts were shattered.

Yeah, that's pure nonsense. You might as well use those books to roast sweet potatoes.

Zhou Yi glanced at his watch; it was already quite late, and it seemed that Zheng Tianlan had already confessed everything she could.

Next, we should summarize the information with Pan Hongjie and others.

“Zheng Tianlan, if you have any other questions, think them over carefully. Once you’ve made up your mind, tell us yourself.” Zhou Yi stood up, pointed at him, and said, “I’m giving you a chance, you’d better cherish it.”

After saying this, Zhou Yi greeted the deputy judge, opened the door, and left.

Zheng Tianlan's face showed seven parts panic and three parts bewilderment. She stammered, "I...I already told you."

"Sign," the deputy police officer said sternly, handing him the statement.

"Well... can I go back first after I sign? I... I don't want my wife and daughter to know."

"Go back? Ha, it seems Officer Zhou wasn't wrong. You really aren't thinking straight. You're not going back. Just wait to go to jail."

"Huh? I...I didn't do anything..." Zheng Tianlan started crying again.

……

While Zhou Yi was interrogating Zheng Tianlan, the others were also busy advancing the relevant investigation.

On Wu Yongcheng's side, after a five- or six-hour long drive on the highway, Jiang Biao and Chen Yan took turns driving at a rest stop.

When they entered Lujiang City, it was already dark. After familiarizing themselves with the route, the Santana from the Third Brigade headed towards the county hospital where Fu Daqing was being held.

As they turned a corner, a dark figure suddenly darted out from the roadside and nearly hit their car. Fortunately, Jiang Biao reacted quickly and slammed on the brakes.

However, Wu Yongcheng, who was in the back seat, wasn't wearing a seatbelt, and his face slammed directly against the back of the seat in front of him, causing him considerable pain.

Jiang Biao cursed, "Are you looking for death?!"

The dark figure didn't stop; it scrambled away as fast as it could.

Jiang Biao restarted the car and drove forward. After driving only a dozen meters, Wu Yongcheng suddenly seemed to remember something and immediately shouted, "Biaozi, turn around quickly!"

(End of this chapter)