"Really? How did I see you texting?" If there were no problems, this guy wouldn't lie; his facial expressions were too obvious.
"I, I..."
"Do you know Er Niu's whereabouts?" I asked urgently.
At this moment, the surrounding police officers had also surrounded Du Laojie, being wary of him. If he made any strange moves, we would subdue him on the spot.
However, just as we were getting closer, someone suddenly shouted from not far away, "What are you doing? Get lost!"
A guy suddenly ran out. His figure was the same as the person we saw on surveillance earlier. Gao Mingqiang and the others immediately ran over and pointed their guns at him, threatening, "Police! Get down immediately!"
"Don't hurt Du Lao, I did it all!" The man didn't resist. He raised his hands, and Gao Mingqiang immediately went over and cuffed him from behind.
Du Lao cried out, "I told you not to come out! How can you be so stupid? They'll leave in a bit!"
"Forget it, Du Lao, I can't keep hiding like this. I know you're good to me, but I'll take responsibility for my actions. I won't back down anymore."
"Well said, 'I'll take responsibility for my actions.' Having such awareness at least proves you're not entirely bad," I said as we, along with Er Niu and Du Lao, descended the mountain.
In the provincial interrogation room, before questioning Er Niu, we had already obtained his personal information. Zhang Er Niu, 36 years old, was from Guwu Village, Hunyuan Town, Guangming City. A poisoning incident did occur in the village five years ago. After we brought back samples for analysis, I compared them with the case files and found that the police at the time did not detect that specific poison. However, we also encountered problems when testing for poison this time.
It seems there's another case hidden within this.
I temporarily handed over the analysis work to Xie Chuchu. I planned to finish interrogating Zhang Er Niu first, as the case of the strong man was the most important at the moment.
"Zhang Er Niu, confess. Did someone instruct you to do this intentionally?" I asked directly.
"Intentionally do what? I don't understand what you mean, Officer," Zhang Er Niu said calmly, looking up with his broad yet haggard face at Liu Yuning and me.
He looked like he hadn't slept well recently, likely due to hiding. I presented the video from the drug rehabilitation center and some lab reports: "Were you trying to kill someone then? Who ordered you to do it? Do you know we are investigating a case at the drug rehabilitation center? You appearing there at this time, don't tell me it's a coincidence?"
Zhang Er Niu showed no surprise at the video content, as if he had expected us to record it. It seemed he had indeed gone there to kill someone intentionally, meaning he likely knew beforehand that a special surveillance camera was installed there.
But I could see that Zhang Er Niu didn't seem like a cunning or intelligent person. There was definitely someone behind him.
"Why can't I be there? The drug rehabilitation center isn't owned by you, and besides, it's abandoned?"
"In this footage, your actions are clearly uninhibited, as if you were doing it intentionally for us to see. I believe there's only one purpose for this: to attract our attention so we investigate you and have no time to deal with the strong man's case! Whoever is behind you is indeed brilliant, but no matter how powerful he is, he cannot escape justice in the end!"
"What behind-the-scenes person? I don't know what you're talking about. The reason I wanted to kill him is because he took everything from me. That bastard is a scumbag. I introduced that job to him, but after he got promoted, he fired me. Because of this, my wife left me and took my beloved daughter with her. Do you think there are such scumbags in this world?"
"Who did you kill?" Liu Yuning asked.
"Huang Xiong, an old acquaintance from my hometown. He was also from Hunyuan Town, one of the five survivors."
"Alright, we'll confirm that. But if you conceal anything else and we find out, your consequences will be severe. If you were merely instructed by someone, the situation would be different. You understand what I mean, right?" I said calmly, hoping Zhang Er Niu would reveal the person behind him.
But he shook his head and said, "You'll find out we had a feud if you investigate. I've wanted to kill him for a long time. This has nothing to do with any behind-the-scenes people! Officers, are you overthinking things? Alright! You want to know where the body is, right? You should have found it earlier. I buried him under a tree in the village!"
Zhang Er Niu easily admitted to killing someone, which was within my expectations. However, he always claimed no one instructed him, and I didn't quite believe it.
But if I asked again now, he definitely wouldn't admit it. I had no choice but to leave the interrogation room with Liu Yuning. Next, we would split up. One group would search for the body, while the other would go to the company where Zhang Er Niu used to work. After some inquiries, we discovered that Zhang Er Niu indeed had many conflicts with Huang Xiong. The company employees also said Huang Xiong was missing. When we returned, the body had already been brought back to the provincial department.
I went to the forensic laboratory. Xie Chuchu told me, "From the previous analysis of the soil and hair, I found abnormal blood potassium and red blood cell counts, containing a certain toxin. However, I cannot analyze it yet. The person who administered the poison seems very skilled. They added a masking agent to the toxin, which is caroin, preventing us from obtaining accurate data. This is their counter-reconnaissance ability at a technical level."
"This guy is really interesting. I wonder if he has anything to do with the strong man's case. This inadvertently reminds me of a plot from a novel, which has now been adapted into a TV series."
"Often, reality is more bizarre than fiction!"
As we were talking, we opened Huang Xiong's body bag. A pale face slowly emerged as the zipper was unfastened.
The injuries on Huang Xiong's body were consistent with what we saw on the surveillance footage. The person was definitely killed by Zhang Er Niu. We examined him and found nothing else. Our attention returned to the toxins.
However, when Xiao Dong re-examined Huang Xiong's body, another toxin was discovered. After comparison, it was found to be identical to the one found in the soil. Xie Chuchu said, "Could it be that Huang Xiong's true cause of death was poisoning, and Zhang Er Niu was merely tampering with the body at the time?"
Mentioning this reminded me of the surveillance footage. We didn't see the victim's appearance at the time, nor did we know if he struggled. But based on the composition of the toxin and the time of intake, he had already died before Zhang Er Niu could act.