Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

When Lu Zheng led his team in, Ding Hai was huddled in an empty room at the end of the third-floor corridor, leaning against the moldy wall, holding a dagger with a gleaming blade in his hand.

Beside him lay a wet plastic bag containing two cold steamed buns and a bottle of mineral water—his entire supply.

He was so thin that his cheekbones protruded high, his eyes were sunken, his stubble was growing all over his face, and his clothes were so dirty that their original color was no longer visible.

But when he looked up and saw the police rushing in, there was no fear in his eyes, but rather an indescribable, almost liberating calm.

"Don't move! Put down the knife!" Lu Zheng pointed his gun at Ding Hai's chest, while four SWAT officers behind him spread out in a fan shape, their flashlight beams shining directly into Ding Hai's face.

He didn't squint or look away; he just stared straight at the blinding light, and the corners of his mouth slowly curved into a smile.

"I knew you would come," he said, his voice hoarse and low, as if he hadn't had water in a long time. "I've been waiting for days."

"Put the knife down!" Lu Zheng shouted again, his finger already on the trigger.

Ding Hai glanced down at the dagger in his hand, then slowly, very slowly, placed the knife on the ground.

The blade struck the terrazzo floor with a crisp sound that echoed for several seconds in the empty hallway.

He stood up, stretched out his hands, palms facing up, in an unusually cooperative posture.

Lu Zheng stepped forward and pressed him against the wall. The cold wall pressed against his cheek, and the handcuffs clicked and locked his wrists.

Until that moment, Ding Hai did not resist at all. Only when he was being led through the third-floor corridor did he pause at the door of the room where Su Nian was murdered, turn his head, and glance at the sealed door.

Lu Zheng didn't give him time.

Two SWAT officers each grabbed one of his arms, dragged him down the stairs, and shoved him into a police car parked downstairs.

The torrential rain pounded on the police car roof, making a dense, pattering sound. Rainwater streamed down the windows, blurring the ruins of the old city outside into a gray blur.

Ding Hai sat in the back seat, his hands cuffed in front of him, looking through the car window at the outline of the tenement building in the pouring rain, and suddenly spoke:

"I'm sorry to her."

The sound was very soft, almost drowned out by the rain, but Lu Zheng, sitting in the passenger seat, still heard it.

Jiang Ruolan glanced at Ding Hai through the one-way glass at the door of the interrogation room.

He sat quietly in the iron chair, his handcuffs fixed to the table.

There was no leg shaking, no looking around, no blustering or cursing like a petty thug after being caught; he simply lowered his head, staring at his hands on the table as if examining something unfamiliar.

Jiang Ruolan stood outside the door for about half a minute, then pushed the door open and went inside.

She didn't bring Lu Zheng with her; she was alone.

Ding Hai looked up at her.

The two stared at each other for a few seconds under the harsh white light.

Jiang Ruolan noticed that his eyes were bloodshot and his eye sockets were slightly red, but it wasn't from crying; rather, it was chronic congestion caused by long-term sleep deprivation.

His lips were chapped, and there was a small, scabbed cut at the corner of his mouth, probably from biting himself.

"Your name is Ding Hai."

Jiang Ruolan sat down opposite him, her tone calm, as if confirming a fact he already knew.

"Yes."

"Do you know why we arrested you?"

"Know."

Ding Hai's voice was calm, unnaturally calm, "I killed Su Nian. I also killed Fang Zhiqing."

When he said those two sentences, his tone was no different from when he was stating his ID number; there was no trembling, no sobbing, and no deliberate display of regret or composure.

This unusual calm made Jiang Ruolan's nerves tense—she had seen many suspects, some who cried and wailed, some who denied everything, and some who became hysterical after being exposed, but she had rarely seen anyone like Ding Hai who confessed everything right away, and whose tone was as if he were stating something that had nothing to do with him.

Such people are often not truly calm; rather, they have already calculated everything deep inside, and all the answers are prepared in advance.

"Let's start from the beginning."

Jiang Ruolan pressed the record button, opened her notebook, and said, "Start with Fang Zhiqing. Why did you kill her?"

Ding Hai leaned back in his chair, his gaze passing over Jiang Ruolan's shoulder and landing on the gray wall in the corner of the interrogation room.

After a long silence, he finally spoke:

"Three years ago, Zhou Haipeng, Wei Xiaojun, and I started a business together in New South Wales. We traveled back and forth between New South Wales, Nghe An, and Shek Kiu, mainly selling methamphetamine in small batches, no more than 200 grams each time, and only doing business with acquaintances."

Fang Zhiqing was Zhou Haipeng's girlfriend, but during that time Zhou Haipeng was having an affair with another woman. When Fang Zhiqing found out, she made a scene and wanted to break up.

She threatened Zhou Haipeng, saying she would expose our drug trafficking activities and report us to the police. Zhou Haipeng panicked and consulted with me and Wei Xiaojun about what to do.

That night, the three of us invited Fang Zhiqing to Zhu Minghai's mobile phone store.

Zhou Haipeng talked to her for almost an hour. I kept watch outside, while Wei Xiaojun waited in the next room.

Fang Zhiqing refused to divulge anything, claiming she possessed a recording Zhou Haipeng had secretly made during the transaction. She threatened to hand the recording over to the police if he didn't give her all the money and help her leave New Jersey within three days.

"She wants money?"

"I need 300,000."

When Ding Hai got to this point, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly, it was hard to tell if it was a bitter smile or something else, "Zhou Haipeng doesn't have 300,000."

The three of us combined didn't have it. If her recording really got handed over to the police, all three of us would be in jail. That's why Zhou Haipeng grabbed her by the neck.

We held her hands and feet down for him. The whole process was faster than I expected; she struggled a few times and then stopped moving. When Zhou Haipeng released her, she was no longer breathing.

Jiang Ruolan's pen flew across the paper as she wrote.

She didn't look up, and asked:

Who put the plastic bag on?

Ding Hai was silent for a few seconds:

"Zhou Haipeng. He took a plastic bag from the store shelf, put it over Fang Zhiqing's head, and sealed the opening around her neck with tape."

But he didn't know that Fang Zhiqing was still alive—she had been choked unconscious but was still breathing faintly, and the plastic bag was the real cause of death.

The forensic report stated that the death was due to asphyxiation, not mechanical asphyxiation, indicating that the deceased was still breathing after the plastic bag was sealed, and that the cardiac arrest was caused by slow oxygen deprivation.

This means that when Zhou Haipeng sealed the plastic bag, Fang Zhiqing was still alive; she slowly lost her last breath inside that bag.

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