Chapter 538: Interrogation and Evidence (2)

Yu Xiao nodded and followed Captain Jiang into his car.

“Captain Jiang, I have to thank you again. Once this is all handled, I’ll be sure to tell my dad and thank you for your help!”

Yu Xiao thought it over. ‘Keeping such a low profile isn’t necessarily a good thing. People like Li Qing feel they can walk all over ‘ordinary people.’ It just goes to show how brazen they are.’

He was about to discuss with his family which civil service position to test for anyway, so Yu Xiao planned to tell his father about this. That way, he wouldn’t have to bother his cousin and make him cash in favors.

Besides, he needed to start building his network now to prepare for his future career.

Captain Jiang recalled seeing Yu Xiao’s file; the entry for his father’s occupation read “public official.”

His heart stirred. He asked, “Yu Xiao, if you don’t mind me asking, what high office does your father hold?”

Yu Xiao reclined his seat a bit, shifted in his seat, and then said, “There’s no point in hiding it. My dad is the top official in Jiangcheng. You can look up the name.”

Captain Jiang’s heart leaped in shock, but that was quickly followed by a sense of good fortune. ‘Looks like I’ve run into someone important!’

“Captain Jiang! My dad didn’t originally know about any of this. But now that they’re trying to mess with me, I’m certainly not going to be pushed around! So I have to tell my dad about it!”

“Things are about to get busy! I’ll probably have to trouble you a bit more then, Captain Jiang! You can also reveal my identity to your people. Tell them not to do anything stupid!” Yu Xiao said with a smile.

Captain Jiang glanced at Yu Xiao’s smile out of the corner of his eye and was suddenly struck by how chilling it was.

Captain Jiang replied, “Don’t worry! We will enforce the law with integrity and give the criminals no quarter!”

“But Yu Xiao, why did you come all the way to our Sichuan for school?” Captain Jiang was curious and decided to make some small talk as he drove.

—————–

“Name!”

“Liu Weifu!” Brother Fatty sat in the interrogation chair, his hands fastened to the small table by two specially shaped steel bars.

He was quite familiar with this spot, having been in it a few times before, so he seemed remarkably calm.

“Where were you at ten o’clock on the night of September 26th, 2015?”

The interrogating officer’s question made Brother Fatty pause. He instinctively wanted to touch his nose, but his restrained hands made the simple gesture impossible, and the feeling was deeply uncomfortable. “That night? I was out for late-night beers with my boys!”

BAM! The interrogating officer slammed his hand on the table, shot to his feet, and demanded, “I’ll give you one more chance! Where were you at ten o’clock on the night of September 26th, 2015?”

‘We cased the place,’ Brother Fatty thought, ‘and we didn’t see any cameras. We all synced our stories beforehand.’ His resolve hardened, and he stuck to his guns. “Officer, we really were just out for some late-night beers! If you don’t believe me, ask my buddies!”

The interrogating officer scoffed. “Liu Weifu, you can be as stubborn as you like. Show him the video!”

An officer standing nearby cued up the video they had prepared and placed his phone in front of Brother Fatty.

A moment later, Brother Fatty’s face turned ashen. Fat beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and temples. His lips trembled, and he was speechless.

“Liu Weifu, I suggest you start talking. You have priors, and you were caught in the act today. Don’t think you can just skate by. This time, you people messed with the wrong person!”

The interrogator recalled how Captain Jiang had revealed Yu Xiao’s identity upon his return. Coupled with the orders from their superiors, no one dared to be careless. They were interrogating this crew with the gravity reserved for serious offenders.

“Officer, I’ll talk! But please, can you just tell me who I’ve offended?” Brother Fatty couldn’t help but think back to being stopped by two towering bodyguards at the hot pot restaurant, and a sinking feeling gave him a hint of the answer.

The officer sat back down with ease. “Confess. Don’t ask pointless questions.”

Brother Fatty nodded eagerly. “Okay! I’ll confess!”

“Ever since I got out of prison, I’ve been working for Li… Li Qing. I watch her places for her, and sometimes I do jobs like this one.”

“Every time we do a job, me and the boys get a decent bonus. That includes the night of the 26th.”

“On the 15th, I got a call from Li Qing. She told me to take some men and teach a guy named Yu Xiao a lesson—to beat him up!”

The pen of the officer taking the report flew across the page as he occasionally glanced at the blinking light of the audio recorder.

“For this job, she first gave me twenty thousand yuan! I gave each of my four guys 2,500!”

The interrogator cut him off. “How was the money given to you? Is there a record of the transfer?”

“She sent it directly through a WeChat transfer. I never even met her face-to-face! I just took my men to case the school using the information Li Qing gave me.”

Brother Fatty began to shirk responsibility. “It’s all recorded on my phone. She sent me Yu Xiao’s personal info, his habits, all of it! We were just the ones carrying it out!”

At this stage, all Brother Fatty could do was try to lessen his own culpability.

“Continue! How did you do it? We’ll ask our own questions in a bit!”

Brother Fatty nodded profusely, his earlier swagger completely gone.

“We tailed him for a few days and eventually found that Yu Xiao regularly passed through a small wooded area. That’s when we hatched the rest of the plan!”

Brother Fatty then recounted the entire operation: how they cased the location, how they beat Yu Xiao, including everything they used to do it.

“After the job was done, we took a picture and sent it to Li Qing. She then transferred another twenty thousand yuan to me! And, of course, I gave each of my guys 2,500.”

The interrogator commanded, “Get your phone, open WeChat, and give it to our technician!”

Brother Fatty complied meekly. He wasn’t foolish enough to try deleting anything; he simply unlocked his phone and handed it over.

“Now, tell me about today,” the officer demanded. Truthfully, the confession combined with Yu Xiao’s medical report was already enough to lock these men up, and Li Qing wouldn’t get away either.

However, based on Captain Jiang’s instructions before the interrogation, Yu Xiao wanted to nail Li Qing. This meant today’s incident, which was technically a criminal attempt, might be prosecuted as a completed offense.

Brother Fatty had no idea what Yu Xiao was thinking, and even if he did, all he could do was confess obediently. “Last night—oh, no, it was after 1 a.m. this morning—Li Qing contacted us again!”

“She wanted us to break one of Yu Xiao’s legs! She transferred eighty thousand yuan straight to me! She said after it was done, she’d give us another bonus based on the video we filmed! And that it would be even better if we broke both his legs!”

“She said all that over the phone, though. I only have the record of the money transfer!”

The interrogator asked a very pointed question, “If the police hadn’t gotten involved today, what were you planning to do to Yu Xiao?”

Brother Fatty was already panicking and completely missed the trap in the question. “We were just going to take him to a deserted spot outside the city. If he behaved, we’d break one of his legs, just like Li Qing wanted. If he gave us trouble, we’d break both!”

After that, the officer asked a few more questions before he was done with Brother Fatty.

“Okay! Let him read the report! If it’s all correct, have him sign and add his thumbprint! Bring in the next one!”

An officer at the side stood up, unlocked the chair’s restraints, cuffed Brother Fatty, and led him out of the room.

On his way out, Brother Fatty passed Knife, whose face was grim. He sighed to himself. ‘Knife is a clever one, but in a situation like this, us doing time is a foregone conclusion.’

CREAK… The metal door opened, and Brother Fatty was pushed into a holding cell, where two of his men were already waiting.

“Brother Fatty! Are… are we going down for this?”

Brother Fatty slumped onto a bench, leaned his head against the cool wall, and said limply, “Looks like it. And Li Qing is in deep trouble this time.”

“Damn it, I completely forgot to ask which big shot we pissed off! Ugh! We’re getting screwed and we don’t even know by who!”

The guy in the Versace shirt—the one Brother Fatty had smacked in the back of the head earlier—grumbled, “If I’d known it would end like this, I would’ve blown that money on a good time! This is a total loss!”