ebookland Chapter 1161 Reconstructing the Scene
Chapter 1161 Reconstructing the Scene
He deliberately wore a dark blue work uniform, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the scorpion tattoo on his left arm—his "signature" when collecting debts. "I wanted to scare him," his voice trembled, his fingertips tracing the path of a motorcycle on the table, "to pull out the belt and shake it a couple of times, to let him know I'm not someone to mess with."
At 9:47 PM, he rode his motorcycle into Beishan Park, the headlights cutting two yellow lines through the fog. Sun Biao stood under a sycamore tree by the fountain, his gray jacket collar open, his black briefcase bulging. "He said the money couldn't be recovered, but he had a client list that could be used to pay off 200,000 yuan," Liu Zhiqiang's breathing quickened, as if he could smell the damp asphalt of that night again. "I looked through it, and it was all old clients who had already paid off their debts. I was furious."
The argument escalated amidst the sound of the fountain. Sun Biao suddenly sneered, saying he was going to the police station to turn himself in and expose all the forgery of contracts and violent debt collection they had committed over the years. "He said, 'Anyway, I'm single, going to jail is better than being driven to death by loan sharks,'" Liu Zhiqiang's voice suddenly rose, the chains taut. "Do you think he's human? We've suffered together for five years, shouldered risks together for five years, and he thinks he can just turn himself in like that?"
As Sun Biao turned to leave, Liu Zhiqiang grabbed his jacket, the buttons snapping off onto the cobblestones. "I felt like I had a fire going on in my head," he whispered, his fingers unconsciously mimicking a strangulation motion, "so I wrapped the belt around his neck... He grabbed my arm, his nails almost digging into my flesh, and he even broke the silver bracelet my dad left me." He suddenly rolled up his sleeve, revealing four crescent-shaped scars on the inside of his elbow. "Look, these are the marks he made; the forensic doctor can see them."
It took a full three minutes to strangle Sun Biao. Liu Zhiqiang said that during those three minutes, he heard a "hoarse" sound coming from the other man's throat, like a broken bellows, and his eyes were wide open, bigger than copper bells. "I was terrified," he said, his teeth chattering. "I remembered watching 'Forensic Heroes' before, where they said that if the police see handcuffs, they'll assume it's a fellow criminal." He found a bunch of keys in Sun Biao's pocket, including a pair of handcuff keys, but after trying seven times, he couldn't open the lock and was sweating profusely with anxiety.
“The dew in the bushes soaked my work clothes,” Liu Zhiqiang’s voice trembled with tears. “As I dragged him inside, pieces of my jacket got caught on holly branches, like…like he was still grabbing me.” He squatted down next to the body and smoked, but it took him three tries to light his lighter. The smoke from the Zhonghua cigarette made him cough, and the ash fell all over Sun Biao’s glaring eyes.
"Why didn't you take the briefcase?" Xiao Zhou suddenly asked, his pen nib hovering over the paper. Liu Zhiqiang's shoulders trembled violently: "I forgot... all I could think about was how to hide the belt, how to explain it to the loan sharks..." He suddenly covered his face, the chain dragging haphazardly across the table. "Now I realize I should have turned myself in, I shouldn't have tried to hide it..."
The lights in the interrogation room gradually dimmed, and the sky outside the window was already turning white. When Liu Zhiqiang signed his confession, the pen lingered on the words "strangulation" for a full half minute, the ink spreading into a black blotch on the paper, much like the pool of blood in Beishan Park that night. When Li Ming closed the transcript, he noticed a coffee stain on the cover, shaped like a coiled snake—exactly the same as the tattoo on Liu Zhiqiang's left arm.
The motion-activated lights in the corridor turned on with the sound of footsteps. Li Ming watched Liu Zhiqiang's retreating figure as he was escorted to the detention center, and suddenly remembered the book "Financial Investment" in Sun Biao's bedside table. On the title page was written, "2024 Goal: Buy a house and bring my mother to live with me." Two rural youths, driven by desire, ultimately failed to escape the labyrinth of this city, leaving behind only two iron chains gleaming coldly under the interrogation room lights, and a stain of blood forever etched in Beishan Park.
The day after Liu Zhiqiang confessed, when the police car escorting him stopped at the west gate of Beishan Park, the morning mist was seeping down the cracks in the asphalt road, making the May 18th sunlight appear pale.
Two officers pulled him out of the car, the chains rattling as they dragged him along the ground. The scar on his left eyebrow looked like an unhealed wound in the backlight. "This is it," he said, his gaze falling on the rose bushes at the park entrance. Suddenly, he trembled violently, his knees buckled, and he collapsed to his knees, his forehead pressed against the damp ground. "On the night of May 14th, I dragged him in from here..."
Li Ming stood by the police cordon, the crime scene investigation record in his hand dampened by the morning mist. "Start identifying from where you met Sun Biao." His voice traveled through the pine-needle-scented wind, landing on Liu Zhiqiang's pale face—the arrogance he displayed during interrogation had long been gnawed away by the gloom of the crime scene, leaving only emptiness.
Liu Zhiqiang's finger trembled as he pointed to the sycamore tree east of the fountain, where a circle drawn by the police in chalk still remained at the base of the tree. "At 9:47 PM, I rode my motorcycle here," his Adam's apple bobbed, sweat dripping from his chin onto the front of his work pants. "Sun Biao was standing under that tree, his gray jacket open, carrying a black briefcase, saying he had a 'surprise' for me." Technicians had found three fresh scratches on the trunk of this tree, 1.2 meters from the ground, which matched the height of Liu Zhiqiang's confession of "grabbing Sun Biao's jacket." The dark blue fibers remaining in the scratches were completely consistent with the composition of his work pants.
Following the route he indicated towards the fountain, Liu Zhiqiang stopped at a crack in the cobblestone path, where half a black resin button was still embedded. "That's where the argument started," he said, his toes pointing to the edge of the crack. "He threw the client list on the ground, saying it was only worth 200,000 yuan. I was furious, so I grabbed his jacket collar, and that's when the button broke off." During the on-site investigation, the spacing of the four holes and the resin material of the button were completely consistent with the one missing from Sun Biao's jacket. The silver-white wool fibers wrapped around the buttonholes were found to be of the same origin as the fibers remaining on the edge of the belt in the tail box of Liu Zhiqiang's motorcycle.
Reaching the edge of the fountain on the tiles, Liu Zhiqiang suddenly collapsed to the ground, only managing to avoid falling into the puddle with the help of police officers. "I strangled him right here," his voice was rough, as if sanded through, his left hand unconsciously mimicking the action of strangulation. "I wrapped my belt around his neck, and he grabbed my arm, his nails digging into his flesh, even breaking the silver bracelet my father left me..." On the tiles on the north side of the fountain, technicians had extracted light red stains, which tested positive for benzidine, and the DNA matched Sun Biao's. The dripping pattern of the stains indicated a height of 1.2 meters, consistent with Liu Zhiqiang's estimated height. Furthermore, the four crescent-shaped scars on his left elbow perfectly corresponded to the forensic report's conclusion that "skin tissue residue was found under the deceased's fingernails."