Chapter 988 - 508: The Outcome Came Too Easily! (Part 2)

Jiang An did not respond immediately.

In stark contrast to the hint of relaxation on Zhang Biao’s face beside him, his brows furrowed even tighter.

Years of experience as a criminal investigator told him that in any criminal case, a suspect’s confession could never pass muster with a simple "I did it."

It had to reconstruct the entire course of the crime in full and concrete detail, especially those particulars that only someone who had personally experienced it could possibly know.

Yet this Li Mountain in front of him was giving a statement that was oddly vague.

He swept everything lightly under the rug of a "mental episode," giving only the barest, most indistinct answers about his specific actions, the timing, the means, even his mental state—almost to the point of "answering I don’t know to everything."

This kind of excessively generalized evasion, instead made a sharp edge of unease flicker across Jiang An’s heart.

A thought suddenly flashed through his mind: what if this man in front of them was taking the fall for someone else?

Although from a rational and common-sense perspective, Jiang An found it hard to believe there could really be someone willing to assume another’s name and bear the brunt of the law’s harshest punishment.

But his professional vigilance made it clear to him that in the tangled complexity of criminal cases, no low-probability scenario could ever be absolutely ruled out.

After all, turning a case from a state of unresolved suspicion into an unshakable ironclad case could never rely solely on a suspect’s oral confession.

It required solid physical evidence, rigorous forensic examinations, credible witness testimony, and all of these pieces of evidence interlocking and mutually corroborating, forming a complete, closed, and unassailable chain of proof.

The absence or contradiction of any single link could cause the whole to fall short of the conviction standard of "facts of the crime are clear, and the evidence is true and sufficient."

Thinking of this, Jiang An suppressed the doubts in his heart and continued the interrogation in a calm yet forceful tone: "Just now you mentioned that after the crime you disposed of the bloody clothes."

"Where did you throw them? Do you still remember the exact place?"

Li Mountain’s gaze drifted for a moment, then he answered, "Ah, I threw them... just threw them into the river. It’s been so long, the clothes were covered in blood, there’s no way I’d dare keep them."

"Back then, besides yourself, who else noticed there was blood on you?" Jiang An pressed on immediately.

"There was... at the time there was my wife, and then..." Li Mountain’s speech began to slow.

"Your wife?" Jiang An keenly seized on this related person. "Where is she now?"

"We divorced long ago." Li Mountain lowered his eyelids, his voice dropping a little. "After something like this... I guess she was afraid of being implicated too, and later she left."

"Do you have any children?"

"No." This time he answered very quickly, even tugging at the corner of his mouth in a half-crying, half-smiling expression. "A man like me, what would I want children for? Wouldn’t that just be harming them..."

Jiang An did not continue down this line of conversation. Instead, he tilted his head slightly and exchanged a glance with Zhang Biao beside him.

Zhang Biao immediately straightened his expression and took over in a more formal tone: "Now, please recall again and answer: why exactly did you kill that family of three? That night, how did you get into their home?"

Li Mountain suddenly grew agitated, his voice rising: "I... I really can’t remember clearly!"

"The way there and the way back, the whole thing is just a blur!"

"As for why I killed them? I don’t know either! Maybe... maybe when I was having an episode, everyone looked like a bad person to me, and I just, just couldn’t control myself..."

Hearing this, Zhang Biao gave a slight nod and said in an even tone, "This situation does fit the general pattern."

At this moment, on the other side of the one-way mirror, the excitement that had appeared on Director Lu and Director Hou’s faces as the case progressed had quietly faded away.

Both of them were veteran criminal investigators who had been through countless cases and fought on the criminal investigation front line for many years; they knew all too well the iron rule that a case could not be decided on confession alone.

For them, any case that relied only on a suspect’s confession without substantive supporting evidence was far from meeting the standard in their minds for a case they could close with an easy conscience.

After a long moment, Director Lu slowly turned his head, his brows knitted tight, and said in a low voice, "Director Hou, this case... isn’t it going a little too smoothly? I can’t shake the feeling that something’s off."

"From beginning to end, we have a confession, but almost none of the key details can be cross-verified. It’s like an oil slick floating on the water—clearly visible, but impossible to scoop up."

Director Hou let out a deep sigh, his breath laden with exhaustion and helplessness. "Aren’t you right."

"If the suspect really committed the crime during a psychotic episode, his memories of that period may themselves be muddled or even missing."

"The ’truth’ we’re hearing now is probably just a ’story’ he has pieced together or even guessed at afterward, based on scattered traces—like that bloodstained piece of clothing."

"To restore what actually happened at the time of the crime is next to impossible."

"What’s more, so much time has passed that even if there was physical evidence back then, it has likely long since vanished without a trace, leaving us nothing to work with."

"Yes, that’s the trickiest part."

Director Lu’s gaze remained fixed on Li Mountain on the other side of the glass. Looking thoughtful, he went on, "But I have another impression... When this Li Mountain describes the entire process of the crime, besides the confusion in his tone, there also seems to be a kind of... a kind of almost impatient eagerness for us to find him guilty, a desire to be punished."

"Too intent on being punished?"

Hearing this, Director Hou turned his head to look at Director Lu, doubt on his face. "You mean... this might not be just remorse or guilt brought on by mental illness? But rather..."

"It’s possible," Director Hou mused, nodding, "but I’m wondering if there might be another explanation."

"For example, could he be using ’mental illness’ and ’forgetfulness’ as a shell to wrap up some other purpose?"

As the two of them sank into deep thought, the conversation in the interrogation room continued.

Jiang An and Zhang Biao took turns putting forward several questions from different angles, trying to catch contradictions or weak spots in Li Mountain’s account.

However, Li Mountain’s reactions remained the same throughout. His answers were like a tightly sealed wall, every time circling back to that core statement: "I really can’t clearly remember what happened during the episode."

"All I know is that I killed someone. That thought is something I pieced together, bit by bit, from seeing the blood on my clothes and so on, just guessing."

Half an hour later, Jiang An turned his head and slowly got to his feet.

He reached out and gave Zhang Biao’s shoulder a gentle pat, a trace of weariness in his voice: "I’m going out for some air."

Zhang Biao gave a slight nod, but inside he was boiling like water at a rolling boil.

With this decade-old cold case on the verge of being solved—three lives lost, far-reaching impact—by convention, a personal second-class merit was almost as good as in his pocket.

If he pushed a bit further, applying for a first-class merit was not entirely out of the question.

"Secure the second-class, strive for the first," those four words kept flashing through his mind.

By this point, who exactly had found the key to cracking the case, and where the breakthrough had first come from, no longer mattered to him.

After all, the primary handling unit on this case was the Dongcheng City Criminal Investigation Brigade; in the end the honor would belong to the collective, and as captain of the criminal investigation team, he naturally stood at the very forefront of that commendation.

At this moment, Jiang An pushed open the heavy interrogation room door. The air surging in from the corridor felt exceptionally brisk, rushing into his lungs and giving him a sudden jolt of alertness.

But he did not feel the slightest relief.

The joy that should have risen with the clarification of the case had, without his noticing, settled into a vague unease.

Everything had gone too smoothly!

From the emergence of leads to the suspect’s confession, the process had been so seamless it bordered on abnormal, instead leaving him with a hollow, unsettled feeling deep inside.

Suddenly, Jiang An thought of the eight familiar characters on the wall: "坦白从宽,抗拒从严" ("Leniency to those who confess, severity to those who resist").

Those eight characters had pried open countless tightly shut mouths and driven many people to choose to come clean.

But was there always guilt hidden behind a confession?

Some people, perhaps yes—but certainly not all.

Just then, steady footsteps came from the other end of the corridor.

Director Lu and Director Hou were walking side by side from the far end where light and shadow intersected, their expressions grave...