Chapter 1220

Mu Zhiyang stood in front of Jiang Yuan without changing his expression.

"It's my box, for holding pancakes." The scallion pancake stall owner was not tall, but looked rather sturdy.

Xiao Si used his hand to brush against the plastic tape on the box, feeling that the texture was similar. Then, he intentionally waited a moment until the other two police officers had walked behind the stall owner before saying, "I've bought scallion pancakes from you before. I wonder if you remember?"

"I remember, you bought a lot." The stall owner chuckled twice: "Thank you for your patronage."

"Your pancakes are quite delicious." Xiao Si said, looking at the ingredients in front of the stall owner, and added: "This crispy layer, is it deep-fried?"

"Yes, all made by myself." The stall owner said.

"You made them?"

"Of course. We're a small business, we save where we can."

"What about the bean paste?"

"The bean paste is my own concoction, several kinds of ingredients, a secret recipe."

"It can't all be your own concoction, can it?"

"That wouldn't be possible, there are too many varieties. Some things are more convenient to buy, and the taste isn't bad either."

"Is that so." Xiao Si nodded slowly. He had also done his homework. For things like bean paste, if it's bought, benzoic acid is a common preservative.

Jiang Yuan, under Mu Zhiyang's protection, also arrived in front of the stall.

Xiao Si didn't even look, but stared at the dark, wrinkled, and short scallion pancake stall owner, took out a photo, and said: "Have you seen this girl?"

"No." The stall owner only glanced at it and denied it.

"Take a closer look." Xiao Si said: "Maybe she's an old customer of yours or something."

"No. My customers here are all factory workers, and there are few women to begin with." The stall owner's explanation was logical and well-founded.

What Xiao Si truly wanted wasn't for the stall owner to bow down and weep.

Xiao Si just took out his phone and said: "Let's leave it at that then, please leave a phone number."

Although the stall owner saw several more police officers around, he could only think for the best at this moment and obediently left his phone number for Xiao Si.

Xiao Si dialed it on the spot, and seeing the stall owner's phone ring, he sent the number to the technical investigation team.

The technical investigation team has records of phone numbers that have had spatial-temporal intersections with the victim's phone. However, the victim took the subway all the way and then rode a bike to Jinshan. Along the entire route, there were still a great many phone numbers with spatial-temporal intersections, and even after leaving the subway station, there were a large number of phone numbers with short-term intersections.

Just like letting the stall owners describe the situation themselves, in this case, it is quite difficult to positively investigate suspects through the spatial-temporal intersections of mobile phones. However, the scallion pancake stall owner's suspicion has increased at this moment, so it can be used for a reverse argument.

Jiang Yuan and the others stood behind, all knowing what Xiao Si meant, and waited quietly.

Soon, the message from the technical investigation team came back. Under normal circumstances, there would naturally be no such speed, but this was Jiang Yuan's special task force, and the technical investigation team had long been prepared.

Jiang Yuan also took out his phone to look, and saw that the technical investigation team had provided the duration of the two phone spatial-temporal intersections: a total length of 18 minutes, divided into two segments.

Although the details were uncertain, having this result as a foundation at least indicated one thing: the scallion pancake stall owner saying he didn't know the victim was mostly nonsense.

He sells scallion pancakes in the factory area, not at the subway station. The fact that the two had such a long spatial-temporal intersection already put him on a suspect list.

It's just that the special task force hadn't investigated further based on this information before. Perhaps it wasn't necessary either. After Jiang Yuan found that blue plastic tape, the remaining physical and chemical analysis would only take a day, and finding any technician around level 2 would yield a roughly similar conclusion.

"Are you sure you don't know this person?" Xiao Si asked again, also to deepen the impression on the suspect.

The scallion pancake stall owner shook his head firmly.

"Alright, come back with us and talk about it." Xiao Si stepped forward and separated the stall owner from the tricycle.

Although it was a breakfast stall, if the other party were to resist, whether it was the scorching pot or the knife for cutting pancakes, they were all quite dangerous things.

No police officer would underestimate these small things.

Police in movies avoid blades and bullets without a scratch, but police in reality could break two legs from a single fall.

At the scene, everyone became tense.

Everyone knew this was the time when conflicts were most likely to occur.

Only the scallion pancake stall owner held onto a glimmer of hope. Under Xiao Si's tough attitude, he took a step back and asked: "I really don't know her. I sell so many scallion pancakes every day, if I could remember every customer, could I still do this job?"

"The time you spent in contact with her was more than just a few minutes." Xiao Si said as he stepped forward and grabbed the stall owner's arm.

"I... I'll make a call home." The stall owner didn't know who to turn to for help, so he took out his phone and started dialing.

Cui Qishan, who was nearby, snatched the phone away and said: "You'll have time to make calls later, come with our people."

"No... I..." The stall owner twisted his body, subconsciously wanting to break free, but was held by Xiao Si. Two seconds later, Cui Qishan also stepped forward and clamped the stall owner's arm.

"Don't hurt yourself, don't force us to put handcuffs on you." Cui Qishan was just saying that, but he was also unwilling to waste words with the stall owner on the street.

The stall owner could only turn his head and shout to the neighboring stall: "Call my wife, call my wife..."

The stall owner of the neighboring stall nodded somewhat reluctantly.

"Thanks, definitely remember to tell my wife..." The scallion pancake stall owner shouted again in a loud voice.

Liu Jinghui heard him shout this twice and couldn't help but have a thought, saying: "Check his residence, his wife's location, and the house in his hometown, go check them all."

Jiang Yuan agreed, and Wang Chuanxing quickly made the arrangements.

Half an hour later.

An interrogation room with one-way transparent glass.

Wang Chuanxing returned to Jiang Yuan's side with a tablet.

"How is it?" Liu Jinghui withdrew his gaze from the stall owner in the interrogation room.

"It's him." Wang Chuanxing nodded vigorously and said: "He rents a top-floor one-bedroom apartment in the nearby 'Huayang Xinyuan' residential area. His wife is at home mixing bean paste, proofing dough, and so on. We found a 14-centimeter-long sharp knife in his home, suspected to be the murder weapon, and it has already been sent over. His wife was also scared silly, and Captain Cui brought her over."

"Tell Captain Meng." Liu Jinghui smiled, then quickly restrained it.

Meng Chengbiao, who was in the interrogation room, wore headphones, listened for a moment, and quickly corrected the direction of the interrogation.

"Wang Chunguang, your wife has also been brought in!" Meng Chengbiao's tone was calm, but the simple content exerted immense pressure.

The scallion pancake stall owner instantly broke into a cold sweat.

"Let me tell you about the policy." Meng Chengbiao stopped talking about the case and began to explain to Wang Chunguang what it means to surrender, what it means to have one's crime aggravated, and the difference between immediate execution, suspended death sentence, life imprisonment, and fixed-term imprisonment.

Wang Chunguang couldn't say a word. He didn't even want to listen to Meng Chengbiao's words, but his tense expression showed that he was taking every word Meng Chengbiao said to heart, much more seriously than when he was in school.

"Why did you kill her?" After Meng Chengbiao finished explaining the policy, he didn't continue asking in order, but changed the subject and asked directly about the motive for the murder.

Wang Chunguang's lips trembled a few times, and finally, unable to withstand the pressure, he lowered his head and said: "I thought she had money."

"Were you trying to rob her?" Meng Chengbiao asked.

"Yeah..." Wang Chunguang's voice was low. After a while, it gradually became louder. Perhaps because he had revealed this secret that was meant to be buried for a lifetime, Wang Chunguang no longer had any reservations and said: "She had an Apple phone and was dressed quite well. I asked her if she didn't work, and she said she didn't need to work and preferred hiking. I just assumed she was one of those rich and idle young ladies, so I wanted to borrow some money to spend..."

"She didn't have any cash on her, how were you planning to get money?"

"I wanted to take her phone and buy some gold or something, bring it back and melt it down. I couldn't stay in the capital anymore, it was hard to run the stall, and the expenses were high. I was planning to go back to my hometown, bring some gold or something back, and life would be easier..." Wang Chunguang's voice was lost.

"Why didn't you buy it in the end?"

"There was no money in her phone either. I couldn't even borrow from Huabei." Wang Chunguang sighed as he spoke: "The money in her phone wasn't even as much as I earn in a day, yet she dared to run around playing..."

Meng Chengbiao asked again: "Why didn't you let her go when you didn't get the money?"

Wang Chunguang said without hesitation: "I didn't get a single cent, should I go to jail for 10 years for nothing?"

Meng Chengbiao didn't need to correct the values of these interrogated suspects, but continued to ask: "How did you kill her?"

"I pretended that the urban management officers were coming and asked her to go with me to a small alley nearby to hide. That alley is quite deep, with factory buildings on both sides. If people outside don't walk close, they can't see or hear... After I went over, I used a knife to threaten her, used a plastic rope to tie her up, stuffed her mouth, and brought her home in the tricycle."

Wang Chunguang answered without any shame, only with slight annoyance, despite his disregard for the law.

(End of chapter)