Chapter 293: What He Did Doesn't Match His IQ

After ruling out villages, hamlets, unfinished buildings, and abandoned factory buildings…

What else was there that he hadn't thought of?

Yu Dazhang suddenly realized he had missed an important link.

Whether it was an unfinished building or an abandoned factory, there were caretakers on duty.

One, to prevent outsiders from entering and causing accidents.

Two, to prevent illegal occupation or sabotage.

A quick search online would show that many unfinished buildings nowadays are already occupied.

Those buyers who emptied their savings and piled up debt had no choice in the end but to move into such harsh environments.

And those unfinished buildings could actually be lived in just by installing a window.

Without caretakers, the occupancy rate might even surpass that of properly developed properties.

There was never any shortage of people looking for a free ride.

Abandoned factories didn't even need mentioning — without someone watching, the equipment and tools inside would be carted off before long.

Looking at it this way, these two places weren't suitable for hiding people either.

Where else could it be?

The interrogation room fell silent. Fang Peng across the table stared coldly at Yu Dazhang, his face expressionless, but a hint of mockery flickered in his eyes.

Just as Yu Dazhang frowned in deep thought, he felt a tap on his left arm.

He turned and cast a questioning glance at Liu Miao on his left.

Liu Miao tapped the notebook on the desk twice with his pen.

Yu Dazhang looked over and saw four big characters written on the notebook: Abandoned School.

Exactly — this place was even better for hiding people… Yu Dazhang's eyes lit up.

Compared to the places mentioned earlier, an abandoned school not only had no visitors, but also no caretakers, and no surveillance either.

Even homeless people wouldn't choose to live in an abandoned school.

The reason, though…

It was just too creepy. If you heard footsteps on the stairs at night, anyone with a weak heart could easily be scared to death.

Besides, the layout of a school wasn't suited for living.

"Still not planning to talk?" Yu Dazhang spoke again:

"Then let me give you another hint — for you, the best place to hide someone is a school. An abandoned school."

He deliberately stressed the word "school."

Because he noticed that when the school was mentioned, a flash of panic crossed Fang Peng's eyes, and even his facial expression wavered with struggle.

For Yu Dazhang, who had been waiting for Fang Peng's response, this was undoubtedly the best signal.

Liu Miao had hit the mark!

A surge of excitement welled up inside him. He turned and gave Liu Miao a knowing look.

Liu Miao understood, stood up, and walked out of the interrogation room.

"You still have a chance now. Even if Xiaoyue died because of you, in the end it still depends on whether it was intentional or negligent."

Yu Dazhang shifted from guessing to persuasion:

"If it's only negligent homicide, the sentence is three to seven years; if the circumstances are relatively minor, the term is even shorter."

"So you see, you still have a choice right now."

"But if you stubbornly refuse to talk, and it leads to Ru Yao and Shu Rujia's deaths as well, then you won't have a single chance left."

Yu Dazhang had already studied the relevant legal knowledge about sentencing for causing death back at the police academy, and had heard the instructors explain it many times.

After all, he studied criminal investigation, and once he became a detective, he would definitely encounter homicide cases — so this was essential basic knowledge for a criminal investigator.

In a case like Fang Peng's, he was basically done for.

Xiaoyue had been imprisoned by him for a long time before her death; that alone was enough to establish subjective intent.

So earlier Yu Dazhang had skipped over this part and gone straight to telling him the sentencing for negligent homicide.

Doing so both told the truth and could lower Fang Peng's guard.

Sure enough.

After those words, Fang Peng's hands clenched tightly into fists. Struggle flashed in his eyes, but he still gritted his teeth and insisted:

"You have no evidence."

Yu Dazhang had long expected that answer and replied at once:

"I told you, finding evidence is only a matter of time. There aren't many abandoned schools in the outskirts of Songhai — if we really start checking them, it won't take more than a few days."

"But if you tell us now, it counts as a voluntary confession, and it will definitely be an important reference when sentencing comes."

Just a little more… Yu Dazhang could already feel he was about to break.

Fang Peng's face grew uglier and uglier, his eyes filled with despair, and even his voice turned feeble:

"Y-you have no evidence."

He was still holding out, but clearly without conviction.

Because what Yu Dazhang had just said wasn't a bluff — it was a statement of fact.

Right here in this interrogation room, Yu Dazhang had been able to deduce that the hiding place was an abandoned school. If they really started checking, they would definitely find the imprisoned girl.

The reason he was still stalling here with Fang Peng was simply to shorten the rescue time as much as possible.

"You really won't shed a tear until you see the coffin."

Yu Dazhang let out a helpless sigh, sounding as though he were lamenting for the other man.

At the same time, he was mulling it over in his mind.

This Fang Peng looks like he has strong psychological resilience, but his IQ isn't actually that high.

In his view, these two traits shouldn't appear in the same person.

Being able to successfully imprison three girls, and for so long without being discovered — that's clearly not something an IQ like Fang Peng's could pull off.

Besides, that kind of psychological resilience of his looks very much like something trained into him.

But the strange thing is —

Fang Peng has never served in the military, nor been to prison. Apart from those two great classrooms of life, where else could someone train up that kind of psychological resilience?

Just then, Liu Miao opened the door and walked in, sitting down beside Yu Dazhang again.

A small-scale map of Hongkou District was spread flat on the table by him.

Yu Dazhang lowered his head to look — a circle had been drawn on it in blue pen, and around that circle, several dots had been outlined in red lines.

Each dot had a time marked beside it.

This work was done so meticulously… Yu Dazhang sighed in admiration.

He didn't need Liu Miao to explain at all — at a glance he could tell what those dots on the map represented.

The blue circle was the location of Fang Peng's home; the red dots around it were the already-abandoned schools in the vicinity.

Liu Miao had even marked down the year each school was abandoned.

He'd only been out for a short while, yet he'd already tracked down all the abandoned schools around Hongkou District.

Thinking a super first-tier city as densely populated as Songhai wouldn't have any abandoned schools?

That just means you don't understand the birth rate.

Back in the nineties, the birth rate already began its trend of decline.

Add to that the migration of rural population into the cities, which shrank the student pool at rural schools, and many schools simply couldn't keep going.

Among them, a large portion were private schools, and the reasons those shut down were even simpler.

Shrinking enrollment led to financial problems that couldn't sustain operations — broken funding chains, high-interest fundraising, that sort of thing.

Yu Dazhang swept his eyes over the various red dots marked on the map, and finally fixed his gaze on the two red dots closest to the blue circle.

Du Xing Middle School, abandoned in 2008.

Minjiang High School, abandoned in 2004.

"Want to know what's on this?"

Yu Dazhang raised his head to look at Fang Peng. His eyes were flashing with an excited gleam, as if he already knew where the people were hidden:

"This is a map of Hongkou District. If you don't talk now, you really won't get another chance."

(End of chapter)