I See Murders Before They Happen

Chapter 88: Chapter 86: The Motive for the Crime

Zhuang Yanzheng ran over, looking at the mud on Su Miaoyi and Chu Xingrou.

The snow had just begun to melt, and the meltwater was mixing with the dirt on the ground.

Su Miaoyi was especially filthy—it was on her clothes, in her hair, and smeared across her face. Her down jacket had been torn open.

Feathers still drifted through the air around them.

”Is everyone okay?” Zhuang Yanzheng strode toward them.

Chu Xingrou shook her head, gasping for breath. ”I’m fine.”

Su Miaoyi was also catching her breath. She shook out her right hand and glanced at Song Yucheng. ”I’m fine. He’s in worse shape.”

His fist had smashed into the wall, and his knuckles were bleeding.

Zhuang Yanzheng glanced at her hand before walking over to Song Yucheng.

He helped Song Yucheng up.

”Thanks,” Song Yucheng said.

”Don’t even try to talk with a voice like that,” Zhuang Yanzheng said, hearing a rasp that sounded like it had been rusting for a century.

Song Yucheng fell silent.

...

Song Yucheng was taken to the hospital while the others returned to the municipal bureau.

Zhuang Yanzheng went to the interrogation room to question the man they’d caught—the one with the face tattoo they called ”Erqing.”

They also took a blood sample from him for DNA matching.

Cao Hong was also placed in an interrogation room.

Cao Hong’s case was under Jiangcheng’s jurisdiction.

But since Su Miaoyi’s apartment had been ransacked, he still needed to be questioned about it.

Su Miaoyi was in Zhuang Yanzheng’s office.

She first cleaned herself up in the bathroom.

Then Yan Cheng treated the wound on her hand.

After that, she started cleaning the office.

Feathers from her down jacket had gotten all over the room.

On the way back, they had filled his car, too.

Some had even landed on Cao Hong’s head.

What she didn’t know was that while Zhuang Yanzheng was in the interrogation room, he had picked a couple of feather clumps off his own clothes.

Su Miaoyi did not leave.

She waited in the office until Zhuang Yanzheng returned.

”How’d it go? Did he confess everything?” Su Miaoyi asked, immediately standing up when she saw him return.

Zhuang Yanzheng nodded. ”He spilled everything as soon as we started asking. The DNA results came in just as I was leaving the interrogation room.”

It was a match.

”The killer’s name is Liu Qing,” Zhuang Yanzheng said. ”He’s twenty-one, a middle school dropout. After he quit school, he got into petty theft. He never got caught over the years, so he grew bolder and started stealing more and more valuable things.”

”So what happened with Wei Lan?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”He originally planned to take Wei Lan that night, but after killing her grandfather, he panicked. Wei Lan wouldn’t stop screaming and struggling, and in his desperation, he killed her too,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.

Su Miaoyi looked like she wanted to curse someone out. Her lips twitched, but in the end, she just asked, ”Did he meet them at the pedestrian overpass?”

Zhuang Yanzheng nodded. ”Just like we heard from our inquiries there. A little over a month ago, Liu Qing got into a fight on the overpass and was getting beaten. Wei Hong stepped in to break it up. That’s how they met.”

”And then what? He repays a kindness with this?” Su Miaoyi asked, completely baffled.

She clearly remembered the woman at the overpass describing how brutally Liu Qing had been beaten.

If Mr. Wei hadn’t stepped in to break up the fight...

Liu Qing would have been beaten half to death.

”Liu Qing’s face was bleeding from the fight, and Wei Lan was the one who went over and gave him a tissue.” Zhuang Yanzheng paused, at a loss for words. ”And that’s when Liu Qing set his sights on her.”

Su Miaoyi rolled up her sleeves. ”And for that, he kills people?”

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her, at the way she looked like she wanted to tear someone limb from limb.

He thought back to what Liu Qing had said in the interrogation room.

Liu Qing had said it was the first time he’d ever seen such a beautiful, docile girl.

An angel out of a comic book.

He had fallen for her instantly.

”Liu Qing followed the grandfather and granddaughter to their home, staked out the place for a few days to learn their routine, and found out that Wei Lan was intellectually disabled. Then one night, he snuck in and went to see Wei Lan,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.

”Liu Qing knew Wei Hong was hard of hearing and had even tested it inside their home. If he and Wei Lan spoke softly in her room, Wei Hong couldn’t hear a thing from his own room.”

The first time, Liu Qing just brought her some treats and didn’t do anything to her.

The second time, he coaxed her into being quiet and then assaulted her.

He went back two more times after that.

On his final visit, he found the door was bolted from the inside.

He realized he’d forgotten to put a knife he’d used back where it belonged on his previous visit.

He had intended to just leave that night.

But he felt it would be a waste to have come all this way without seeing her.

After thinking it over, he decided he couldn’t keep going on like this and resolved to take Wei Lan away with him.

So he used a piece of wire to pick the lock and went inside to get Wei Lan.

He was coaxing Wei Lan into the living room when Wei Hong suddenly emerged from his room and saw him.

Wei Hong cried out.

Hearing him shout, Liu Qing worried the neighbors would hear and tried to cover his mouth.

The two of them began to struggle.

That’s when Liu Qing decided to kill him.

During his stakeout, Liu Qing had noticed that the grandfather and granddaughter never had any visitors. They lived entirely on their own.

So he figured he could kill Wei Hong and take Wei Lan.

No one would find out for some time.

By the time they did, he and Wei Lan would be long gone.

But after he killed Wei Hong, Wei Lan suddenly started to panic and cause a commotion.

She kept screaming non-stop and started hitting Liu Qing.

Nothing he did could calm her down; his usual methods of coaxing her were useless.

He was already nervous and scared after the murder, and Wei Lan’s hysterics made him panic even more.

His panic turned into violent rage.

He grabbed her by the hair, dragged her into the bedroom, and assaulted her again.

He’d hoped it would quiet her down.

But in his furious, nervous state, he lost control of his strength and strangled her to death.

When he saw that Wei Lan was dead, he was so terrified he just sat in the room for a long time.

Once he came to his senses, he ransacked the apartment, taking all the cash and anything else of value.

On his way out, he ran into Zhong Heng from the seventh floor.

His nerves were already stretched to their limit, so when he saw Zhong Heng about to shout for help, he went over and killed him too.

His plan was to take the stolen money and leave Jinghai, but unexpectedly, a heavy snowstorm hit that same night.

That’s also why the crime scene didn’t look like a staged burglary—he genuinely intended to steal, his methods were practiced, and he wanted to run off with the money.

Liu Qing contacted several drivers, but no one was willing to go out on the roads.

The forecast said the snow would continue for a long time, so no one was willing to risk driving.

And having committed murder, Liu Qing didn’t dare use his ID to buy a ticket, so he just holed up in his place to wait for the snow to stop.

When the snow finally stopped, he contacted the drivers again, but now they said the New Year was coming up and they didn’t want to take any long-haul trips.

It was only today that Liu Qing finally found a driver willing to take him.

And he was caught the moment he stepped outside.

”No sense of the law, no moral compass, dumb as a rock, a total screw-loose, and just plain ignorant.” Su Miaoyi leaned back into the sofa, then added resentfully, ”I should’ve been the one to catch him.”

”And what would you have done if you’d caught him?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked, looking at her.

’Beat him up first, then we’ll see.’

”Don’t think I didn’t see you sneak in a kick before we put him in the car,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.

Feeling a pang of guilt, Su Miaoyi didn’t dare meet his gaze and turned her head to look at the doorway instead.

There had been no one around in that spot, and no surveillance cameras. Seizing the opportunity when no one was looking, she had landed a kick.

Zhuang Yanzheng snorted.

Su Miaoyi shot him a look, then raised her hand and slapped the down jacket beside her.

A puff of down feathers instantly sprayed out.

”Tch!” Zhuang Yanzheng complained, watching the feathers fly.

Su Miaoyi shot him another glance, then stood up to get a broom.

...