Chapter 250

At that moment, Fang Yuan paid no attention to Gu Changzheng’s changing expression—perhaps he didn’t care at all! He continued speaking, his demeanor not that of a confessing criminal, but of a demon boasting of his deeds!

“Hah! I felt a massive surge of dopamine in my brain as I opened her up—it sent me straight to the peak of ecstasy! To avoid police suspicion, I packed her corpse into a box, drove it to a small park by Garden Community Road, and, to match the previous victims, I used a fake phallus to leave signs of assault on her genitals, then cut off her vulva!”

“You’re saying the two previous victims were actually raped by you?” Gu Changzheng asked. “Then why did you cut off their genitalia?”

“Hmph! These women are all hypocritical, filthy bitches! Removing those curses makes the world cleaner!”

“You’re lying! Cutting off the victims’ genitalia was meant to conceal some truth, wasn’t it?” Gu Changzheng suddenly shouted.

A flash of cold malice clearly crossed Fang Yuan’s eyes. Gu Changzheng continued: “Because the first two victims weren’t killed by you—the real killer is Zhang Shaodong! Xia Fei wasn’t killed by you either, right?”

“Hehehehe!” Fang Yuan burst into laughter. Gu Changzheng watched him coldly—this was the classic tactic of a liar: when exposed or unable to fabricate a better lie, they laugh to mask their panic.

After laughing, Fang Yuan spoke calmly: “Then tell me, Officer Gu—if I didn’t kill them, why would I take the blame myself? Doesn’t that defy logic?”

Gu Changzheng thought inwardly: Deflection—throwing the question back at the interrogator. Another classic liar’s trait!

He smiled faintly, speaking slowly: “What were you wearing when you dumped Xia Fei’s body?”

Fang Yuan blurted out: “A gray hoodie!”

“After killing Xia Fei, you hid and dumped the body immediately—what else did you do?” Gu Changzheng pressed quickly.

Fang Yuan was confused by the question, thinking how to answer, when Gu Changzheng added: “Didn’t you change your clothes?”

At these words, Fang Yuan froze, then his face changed: “I was wearing the same clothes the whole time!”

Gu Changzheng stared fixedly into his eyes until Fang Yuan, unable to bear it, looked away.

Gu Changzheng sneered: “The hoodie found at Xia Fei’s dumping site belonged to Zhang Shaodong—not you. Verifying this isn’t hard. Where did you eat with Xia Fei? Finding a few witnesses shouldn’t be difficult, right?”

“You tried desperately to clear Zhang Shaodong. After receiving his call, you went to help him dispose of Xia Fei’s body—and from that moment, you decided to take matters into your own hands. That night, while handling the corpse, you were nervous and accidentally left a cigarette butt at the scene. Then, that same night, you personally killed Su Yuqing. You seem to have a peculiar obsession with red dresses—you dressed Su Yuqing in the red dress you’d prepared, raped her, then followed Zhang Shaodong’s method: you slit her abdomen and cut off her vulva. But when you opened her, perhaps to signal mental instability, or due to some subconscious impulse, you deliberately made the incision in a Z-shape, didn’t you? Yet your professional technique betrayed you—your incision on Su Yuqing differed from the previous ones!”

Fang Yuan suddenly laughed: “Hehe, hehehe! Brilliant! Officer Gu, you’re incredible—you caught every detail! Hehe! Fine! You’re right! I killed Su Yuqing and Chen Mengyao!”

“What about Fang Shengnan? And Zhou Hui?” Gu Changzheng pressed.

“Fang Shengnan? I originally planned to kill her too, but I left her for Xiao Dong. Why? I’m sure someone as clever as Officer Gu can guess.”

Gu Changzheng felt a chill run through him—he remembered: Fang Shengnan was the girl Zhang Shaodong had once admired! No wonder that crime scene bore such a taunting message to the police. That time, though the wounds matched the same blade, they weren’t Z-shaped—Zhang Shaodong couldn’t fully replicate Fang Yuan’s method. But to make the police believe it was the same killer, Fang Yuan had told him in advance about the changes he made to the victims.

“And Zhou Hui? Were you trying to mislead us into thinking she was the mastermind?”

"Yes!" Fang Yuan answered sharply this time. "After we killed Zhou Hui together, we wanted to mislead the police into believing she was the mastermind. First, we sank her body in the river—so it wouldn’t be found quickly. The bloodstain at the orphanage? We left it on purpose—to create confusion and make the police unsure whether Zhou Hui was even dead. That room? I arranged it myself. The photos on the wall? I planted them as decoys. Isn’t it said in military strategy: truth is falsehood, falsehood is truth? I included Zhou Hui’s photo in the list of intended victims—genuinely, yet that would make the police even more suspicious. As long as I could mislead them longer, until we’d killed everyone and safely sent Xiao Dong away, then my life would end. At that point, all suspicion would fall on me—a terminal cancer patient! Hahaha! Isn’t that perfect?"

“But you made one huge mistake.”

“Yes,” Fang Yuan sighed. “Maybe it’s fate. Perhaps Xiao Dong was the biggest variable in this plan—I never expected him to act against my orders and kill Fang Shengnan early.”

“Was Xia Mingde killed by Zhang Shaodong?”

“Oh? You found out about him too?” Fang Yuan sounded surprised. He looked first disappointed, then resigned. “After the fire, Xiao Dong lured and killed Xia Mingde. Because of what Xia did to turn him into what he is, the man deserved to die. After killing him, Xiao Dong told me—we buried him behind the orphanage hill.”

“You buried him in the pine forest—that was Zhang Shaodong’s idea, wasn’t it?”

Fang Yuan paused again, then nodded and smiled: “Hehe! I’m growing more impressed with you. Falling into your hands isn’t unfair. Yes—that place was what Xiao Dong hated most. Burying him there was the perfect choice!”

“Did you later dig up Xia Mingde’s body?” Gu Changzheng asked.

“Why dig him up?” Fang Yuan asked. After a few seconds of silence, he began to chuckle, then laugh loudly: “Hahaha! I get it—it’s him! It must be him! Hahaha!”

Gu Changzheng glared at him—he knew who Fang Yuan meant. Clearly, Zhang Shaodong had become mentally unstable after the fire.

“Did you change your plan to take all the blame and protect Zhang Shaodong only after learning you had terminal cancer?”

Fang Yuan stared at Gu Changzheng, his expression shifting between dark and pale. He glanced at the officer beside him, who was operating the camera and taking notes, then whispered: “Officer Gu, I want to tell you something privately. Come closer.”

Gu Changzheng hesitated. Fang Yuan said: “I don’t know when I’ll die. If you don’t listen now, you’ll never know the truth.”

Gu Changzheng clenched his teeth, glanced at the camera behind him, leaned forward—and heard Fang Yuan whisper a single sentence in an extremely low voice. Gu Changzheng’s face turned ashen.

Then, the ECG monitor connected to Fang Yuan’s body flatlined into a single straight line.