I was just telling a story, why is the whole internet urging me to turn myself in?

Chapter 69 The Calmest Arrest! He'd even finished grading the exam papers.

At three o'clock in the morning, a black SUV sped through the empty streets of Jiangzhou.

Su Qing sat in the passenger seat with the window half down. The cold night wind, mixed with raindrops, lashed her face, but it couldn't dispel Shen Feng's deep words from her mind.

"No love in this world can be built on the foundation of trampling on another innocent life."

Su Qing slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a stop in the National Defense Agency compound.

She strode into the meeting room of the special case team, walked straight to the whiteboard covered with clues, picked up a red pen, and drew a heavy circle next to the photo of "Liu Degui".

"Captain Su?" Old Zhang and Xiao Li, who were staying up all night checking the surveillance footage, were startled.

"The direction has changed." Su Qing turned around, her bloodshot eyes flashing with a sharp light. "The body at the forensic center is Liu Degui, which means that Chen Mei's ex-husband Li Guoqiang's real body is still outside!"

Su Qing's fingers tapped heavily on the Jiangzhou water system map: "Zhou Mingyuan is a meticulous math teacher. Since he's going to use Liu Degui's body to impersonate Li Guoqiang, he would never bury the real Li Guoqiang anywhere random. He needs an absolute blind spot that will never be discovered."

"The moat is shallow and is regularly dredged, so he left the disguised Liu Degui there to ensure that he would be discovered by people doing morning exercises the next day."

Su Qing's gaze followed the blue watercourses on the map downwards, finally settling on a thick blue line on the edge of Jiangcheng's eastern district. "But Li Guoqiang's body... he needs it to disappear completely!"

Old Zhang followed Su Qing's finger and gasped, "The grain transport canal? That section is over fifteen meters deep, filled with undercurrents and silt from abandoned bridge piers. Forget hiding a person, even if a truck were to sink there, it wouldn't make a sound!"

"That's it." Su Qing grabbed the walkie-talkie on the table. "Contact the water defense squadron immediately and mobilize the heavy-lift search and rescue team! Go into the water at dawn. Even if you have to turn over all the silt at the bottom of the grain transport canal, you must find Li Guoqiang for me!"

For the next 36 hours, the rain in the eastern part of Jiangzhou continued uninterrupted.

On the grain transport canal, three defense engineering vessels were rocking violently in the waves.

Six divers, dressed in heavy diving suits and secured with safety ropes around their waists, repeatedly plunged into the murky, bottomless deep waters.

Until 4 p.m. the next day.

-

"Team Leader Su! Something's been found under pier number two!" came the diver's heavy breathing over the walkie-talkie. "There's a heavy object stuck in the silt layer, wrapped in waterproof tarpaulin, and secured with four lead weights—it looks like a rolled-up human figure!"

Su Qing was startled: "Pull it up! Be careful not to damage the outer packaging!"

Twenty minutes later, a truck-mounted crane slowly lifted the heavy canvas bag onto the shore.

As the forensic doctor carefully pried open the waterproof tarpaulin with scissors, a strong stench of decay instantly dispelled the fishy smell of the riverbank.

Inside the canvas was a curled-up male corpse.

Although it was a bit swollen from being soaked in water, its facial features were still clearly discernible because it was wrapped tightly in canvas.

"There was a clear ligature mark around the neck, which was horizontal and consistent with the characteristics of being strangled from behind with a rope-like tool."

The forensic doctor glanced at the body and gave a preliminary conclusion. Then, he compared it with the photo on the tablet, and said, "Captain Su—it's confirmed. The deceased is Li Guoqiang."

Boom!

A pale bolt of lightning struck down from the sky, illuminating Su Qing's pale face.

Ironclad evidence.

From this moment on, the absurd trick of "replacing the case itself," and the ridiculous logical chain that Shen Feng casually deduced in the live broadcast room, completed its most fatal closed loop in the face of real physical evidence!

Chen Mei killed Li Guoqiang.

In order to create an alibi for Chen Mei, Zhou Mingyuan killed a homeless man named Liu Degui and impersonated Liu Degui as Li Guoqiang.

"Close the net." Su Qing wiped the rain from her face. "Notify the SWAT team. Target: Room 401, Building 3, Old Residential Compound, East District, Jiangcheng. Arrest Zhou Mingyuan!"

By six o'clock in the evening, it was completely dark.

Four unmarked black security vehicles silently pulled up in front of Zhou Mingyuan's old apartment building.

Eight fully armed special police officers, carrying bulletproof shields and breaching hammers, quietly made their way up to the fourth floor.

Su Qing drew his sidearm, placed it against the door, and gestured to the SWAT team leader.

In the face of such a highly intelligent criminal who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, any attempt to persuade him to surrender is futile.

"Bang!"

With a loud crash, the battering ram smashed the old security door, severely deforming it and shattering the lock.

"Don't move! Defense Agency!"

The SWAT officers stormed into the room like wolves, and the bright beams of their tactical flashlights instantly illuminated the cramped two-bedroom apartment as if it were daytime.

However, the expected fierce resistance and the flames of evidence destruction did not materialize.

The room was eerily quiet.

There was a half-cold glass of water on the coffee table in the living room.

The bedroom door was open, and an old table lamp cast a dim, yellowish glow.

Su Qing, holding a gun, slowly walked into the bedroom.

When Su Qing saw the scene before her, her hand holding the gun involuntarily dropped.

Zhou Mingyuan sat at the peeling desk.

He was wearing a faded gray sweater and black-rimmed glasses.

Due to the torment of late-stage liver cancer, his complexion turned a sickly sallow yellow, and he became so thin that he was almost unrecognizable.

At this moment, he was holding a red pen in his hand, and in front of him was a stack of junior high school final math exam papers.

Hearing the loud crash of the door being broken down and seeing the dark muzzle of a gun rushing in, the genius who had orchestrated the most perfect scheme in Jiangzhou in nearly a decade showed not a trace of panic on his face.

He simply drew a bright red checkmark on the last test paper very carefully, wrote "120 points", then gently closed the pen cap and placed it neatly next to the pen holder.

"You've finally arrived."

Zhou Mingyuan turned his head to look at Su Qing, his tone calm, "I thought we would have to wait two more days."

Su Qing looked at him, her throat felt blocked, and she couldn't speak for a long time.

Ignoring the shock of the crowd, Zhou Mingyuan stretched out his withered fingers and pushed forward a piece of paper covered with writing.

"I've finished grading the papers. Could you please forward them to the school's academic affairs office tomorrow? The children are about to go on holiday, and they need to know their grades."

Zhou Mingyuan, holding onto the edge of the table, proactively extended his hands to the special police: "It's written very clearly in the letter."

Su Qing walked to the desk and looked down.

It was a confession letter with neat handwriting and no alterations whatsoever.

My name is Zhou Mingyuan. Two weeks ago, Chen Mei accidentally killed her ex-husband, Li Guoqiang. I heard the commotion next door and went to help her dispose of the body.

I sank Li Guoqiang's body beneath the No. 2 pier of the grain transport bridge.

To ensure Chen Mei wasn't convicted, the following night, under a bridge in the south of the city, I used a lead pipe to smash the back of a homeless man named Liu Degui's head. I smashed his face, burned off his fingerprints, and placed Li Guoqiang's identification on him.

[All the plans, all the murders, were done by me alone. Chen Mei thought from beginning to end that I only helped her dispose of a corpse.]

A math problem has only one correct answer. To find that answer, someone has to wipe away the excess chalk dust from the blackboard.