Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Hou Qiang glanced at it and shrugged:

"I found it."

"You appeared at Lijing Garden three times. The first time was on the afternoon of the day of the incident, when you asked the security guard, Feng Wanqiu, which building she lived in at the entrance of the community."

The second time was in the evening, when you crawled into the community through a broken section of the north fence.

The third time was around 10 p.m., when you crawled out from the same spot.

The surveillance cameras captured your face clearly. Two hours after you went in, Feng Wanqiu died.

Hou Qiang's lips twitched, but his tone remained nonchalant:

"Can't I just go in for a stroll? That neighborhood isn't a military restricted area. I want to go in and enjoy the scenery. Is that illegal?"

"Then why was your cell phone signal present on the thirteenth floor, where Feng Wanqiu's apartment is located, during the time of the incident?"

Hou Qiang was silent for a few seconds, then his eyes darted around:

"I lost my phone. It was lost that afternoon, and I don't know who picked it up."

"I lost my phone, but not my keys. These keys can open the iron gate on the north side of Lijing Garden, and the lock on that gate was only changed three days ago."

The property management records show that a person claiming to be a "owner" called to request the lock change. We checked that phone number—it's yours.

Jiang Ruolan pushed the property management lock-changing record in front of him, her tone calm but pressing, "You changed the lock three days in advance, scouted the place two days in advance, went to the street office to find Feng Wanqiu on the afternoon of the day of the incident to test her reaction, sneaked into the community at night, used a key to open the iron gate of the fence, took the elevator to the thirteenth floor, and knocked on Feng Wanqiu's door."

She died less than an hour after you went in.

Hou Qiang's lips stopped twitching.

For the first time, his gaze wavered—not out of fear, but out of calculation.

He was quickly calculating how long he could hold out, what Duan Pengfei could still do for him outside, and the most crucial question—how much direct evidence the police actually had.

Jiang Ruolan saw through his thoughts.

She took out a technical appraisal report and placed it on the table:

"We extracted your shoe print from the floor of Feng Wanqiu's bedroom. The pattern on your shoe soles is quite distinctive—there is a nail puncture mark on the sole of your right shoe, and a worn chip on the edge of the sole of your left shoe."

Both of these characteristics have corresponding marks next to the bloodstains at the crime scene. When you slit her throat, blood splattered on the ground, and you accidentally stepped on it, leaving your shoe print.

You threw away the knife and burned your clothes, but you didn't throw away your shoes.

Hou Qiang's expression finally changed.

His wandering gaze settled on the report. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he only let out a snort.

"How much did Duan Pengfei pay you?"

Jiang Ruolan leaned back in her chair, her tone suddenly becoming very soft, as if she were talking about something trivial.

"Nobody gives me money."

Hou Qiang said through gritted teeth.

"Then why did you kill Feng Wanqiu?"

"I didn't kill her."

"Your shoe print is in her blood."

silence.

The air in the interrogation room seemed to have been sucked out of all sound, leaving only the mechanical ticking of the second hand of the clock on the wall.

Hou Qiang lowered his head, a fine layer of sweat beading on his forehead, his two handcuffed hands repeatedly clenching and unclenching.

After a long time, he suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse and low:

"She brought it on herself. Brother Duan said that as long as she stops fixating on the parking lot, everyone can live a good life. But she didn't listen."

Not content with just complaining to the local street office, she wanted to escalate the complaint to the city government and even expose it on television. Brother Duan said she was driving her to the brink of despair.

The parking lot is Brother Duan's lifeline; all his assets—warehouses, goods, and vehicles—are tied up there. If it's demolished by the urban management officers in a joint enforcement operation, he'll lose everything.

I was just doing something for Brother Duan. He couldn't come out in person, so I ran the errand for him. I didn't intend to kill her; I just wanted to scare her and shut her up.

But when she saw me, she screamed. I covered her mouth, and she bit me. I panicked, and then…”

"What?"

"Just cut her off."

When Hou Qiang said this, his voice suddenly became very soft, as if he had finally unloaded a sack he had been carrying for several days. "I brought that knife with me, but I really didn't intend to kill her."

She bit me so hard. Look at my hand—there's a chunk of flesh bitten off my thumb. When she bit me, I acted impulsively and swung a knife.

By the time I realized what was happening, she was already dying. Then, following what Brother Duan had taught me, I tied her hands behind her back and stuffed a towel into her mouth.

Brother Duan said that this way the police would think it was a revenge killing and wouldn't trace it back to us.

He also told me to throw her phone out the window, saying he wanted to stage the scene as a robbery-murder attempt. But I said that since she was already tied up, what was the point of robbing her? He told me not to worry about it and just do as he said.

He knows everything, Brother Duan. He learned a lot from those big shots in prison.

"Who provided the cable ties, towels, and knife?"

"The cable ties and towel were given to me by Brother Duan. The knife is mine."

"How much did Duan Pengfei pay you?"

Hou Qiang paused for a moment:

"Twenty thousand. Cash. He put it under my pillow in my dorm room. I took half, and the other half is still under the pillow and I haven't had time to take it yet."

"He told you to run away?"

He said he would come back after things calmed down. He said Director Dong would help him suppress the matter, and then no one would pursue it.

He said he and Director Dong were best friends, and that there was nothing Director Dong couldn't handle in Yi'an.

Hou Qiang suddenly smiled as he said this, but there was no joy in the smile, only a bitterness and self-mockery of being used as a pawn. "But he himself didn't even call me again."

When I ran away, I only had two thousand yuan in my pocket, and I never received a single penny of the promised follow-up payment.

I realized it when I was eating a cold steamed bun at the provincial capital's train station—he never intended to protect me from the beginning. I was just a scapegoat.

At four o'clock in the morning, Duan Pengfei was arrested in his parking lot.

When the SWAT team stormed into the office converted from a shipping container, he was sitting in a swivel chair with an unlit cigarette between his fingers and an ashtray piled high with cigarette butts in front of him.

He neither resisted nor ran away; he simply put the cigarette on the table, stood up, and stretched out his hands.

His expression was calm, as if he had been waiting for a long time.

In another interrogation room, Duan Pengfei's attitude was completely different from Hou Qiang's.

He neither remained silent nor became agitated; from the moment he sat down, he used a calm and unhurried tone to defend himself.

He said he did ask Hou Qiang to "talk" to Feng Wanqiu, but he never asked Hou Qiang to kill anyone.

He said that Hou Qiang took the cable ties and towels from the parking lot warehouse himself, and that it had nothing to do with him.

He said Hou Qiang was lying and that he threw dirty water on him in order to get a reduced sentence.

He kept repeating the same thing: "At most, I was an instigator; I didn't kill anyone myself."

Jiang Ruolan waited for him to finish speaking, then asked:

"What is your relationship with Tung Chien-ming?"

Duan Pengfei's lips moved, and a complex emotion flashed in his eyes.

He was silent for a moment, then smiled.

..................