Sweeping Mouse Ridge – Chapter Eleven : 5

Deathly silence.

No wind, no rustling of grass; even the broken windmill hanging from the old locust tree had stopped its withered, cracking clatter.

In an instant, he felt dizzy and lightheaded, his vision blurred, as if he had been thrown upside down into a tunnel ventilation shaft. The shaft opening was cold and damp, the walls were deep and dark, and the bottom was unfathomable. He was falling uncontrollably, falling…

No! He was just bluffing me. He couldn’t possibly guess what method I used!

“Huyan Yun, you’re crazy! What nonsense are you talking about? I told Zhang Chunyang to obediently lie down in the freezer; how could that be? Why should he listen to me?”

“He won’t listen to you, but he’ll listen to Xing Qisheng,” Huyan Yun said calmly. “The phone records show that in the last few minutes before his death, besides calling 110, Xing Qisheng also called his office. This proves once again that there was a pre-arranged ‘stand-in’ in the office. Xing Qisheng didn’t call Zhang Chunyang’s cell phone because he considered that if the news of Zhang Chunyang’s ‘death’ leaked, the police would definitely check the communication records once they launched a criminal case investigation. If they found that he had called the ‘post-death’ Zhang Chunyang, they would be exposed. Xing Qisheng called his office landline. The call was short, but that doesn’t matter. If it works, one sentence is enough.”

“One sentence…” Zhou Liping swallowed hard twice. “What was it?”

“You told Xing Qisheng to tell Zhang Chunyang, ‘Tao Zhouyao seems to have sensed something and has already canceled her plane ticket; she’s going to the morgue to see if you’re really dead.'”

Damn it!

Utterly damned!

For an entire night, he felt like a mole hiding in a burrow, listening to the pickaxe hammering away at the ground, clinging to a sliver of hope for all the reinforcements and camouflage he had done. But at this moment, he clearly saw the beam of white light shining through the hole created by the pickaxe.

Zhou Liping closed his eyes.

“Hearing this, Zhang Chunyang panicked. What if Tao Zhouyao found him missing in the morgue or discovered he wasn’t actually dead? Then the whole charade would be ruined. Given Xing Qisheng’s character, he could easily betray him and tell Tao Zhouyao the truth. Then, with the ‘immediate stroke’ video in Xing Qisheng’s hands, Tao Zhouyao would undoubtedly obey him.

“With Tao Zhouyao’s influence, she had plenty of people willing to help Xing Qisheng. For the method of hiding and disposing of the three children’s bodies, and for the safety of both Tao Zhouyao and Xing Qisheng, they’ll definitely have Zhai Qing send someone to kill Zhang Chunyang to silence him! As I just said, that night, Zhang Chunyang, like Xing Qisheng, was in a state of high tension, almost neurotic, reacting immediately to the slightest disturbance, so he decided to rush back to the morgue. At this moment, you had Xing Qisheng speak a second sentence to Zhang Chunyang.”

Zhou Liping opened his eyes.

“The second sentence was, ‘Zhang Chunyang must be back in the morgue within twenty minutes and find an empty freezer to lie in—'”

“No, that’s impossible! Zhang Chunyang won’t accept that idea!” said Zhou Liping. “Zhang Chunyang pulled strings to get that freezer installed; he made a hefty kickback. He knows it has a gravity sensor; once a body’s inside, it automatically locks and starts freezing. Zhang Chunyang wouldn’t want to die like that!”

“Looks like you’re quite familiar with the freezer’s features,” Huyan Yun chuckled.

“That freezer malfunctioned for a while, and repairing it from the manufacturer would have cost a fortune. Love Hospital knew I learned about refrigerator and freezer repair and maintenance in prison, so they asked me for help,” Zhou Liping quickly explained.

Huyan Yun didn’t seem to care: “After I came up with this method to make Zhang Chunyang automatically lie down in the freezer, I specifically called the forensic pathologist and got confirmation from her that Zhang Chunyang had frozen to death. This made me even more convinced that my reasoning was correct. Next was solving the last problem: Zhang Chunyang wasn’t stupid. Even if he didn’t know the structure of the freezer, he wouldn’t dare lie down in it when he saw the chilling air inside…

“I didn’t realize what had happened until I visited the Love Hospital morgue myself. It turns out that the building was originally an office building that the Love Charity Foundation rented to operate a hospital; in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety, the landlord specifically requested that Love Hospital manage the morgue. The morgue was a separate building with an independent system, including its electrical system; next to the morgue was a small shed with a generator and a distribution box mounted on the wall.

“After returning, Zhang Chunyang sneaked into the shed, opened the distribution box, and simply pulled the switch for the corresponding freezer. This wouldn’t affect the power supply to the other rooms, not even the lighting in the freezer compartment, so the two workers on duty were completely unaware. Next, he disguised himself again as a family member mourning the deceased and entered the morgue, lying down in the ‘T E 3’ freezer.

“It was a little cold at first, but he quickly overcame it; the freezer had air circulation, so there was no risk of suffocation. He was just waiting for Tao Zhouyao to come and ‘examine the body.’ Even if Tao Zhouyao didn’t come, because of the power outage, the gravity sensor wasn’t activated, and the freezer wasn’t locked, so he could get out whenever he wanted.

“When the police investigated the morgue, they found that the ‘T E 3’ freezer was only turned on and off once, at 10:50 p.m. on the night of the incident. This is because the timer was independently built in and had its own battery, so it was unaffected by the freezer system’s power outage—of course, you know all of this. Not only do you know it, but you also accurately predicted every step Zhang Chunyang would take next. From this moment on, Zhang Chunyang has boarded the death train with the itinerary you designed for him. Every stop is predetermined, and there’s absolutely no possibility of him getting off midway…”

“Nonsense!” Zhou Liping’s patience was nearing its limit. “The power was off, and the morgue was locked at 11:00 p.m. sharp, so how did I kill Zhang Chunyang?!”

“It’s simple.” Huyan Yun stared into his eyes and uttered the final answer, word by word—

“The morgue’s locked, but the small room next door is not. After you and Li Ziyong separated after your fight, you went into the small room and turned the switch that was off back on.”

Zhou Liping’s vision blurred, and Huyan Yun appeared as a double image… He couldn’t see his opponent clearly, while his opponent could see him inside and out, even his internal organs!

“The freezer’s power restarted, the gravity sensor immediately activated, the ‘T E 3’ freezer automatically locked, and the temperature inside rapidly dropped to minus eighteen degrees Celsius. In such a low temperature, Zhang Chunyang’s consciousness couldn’t remain conscious for long. He might have struggled briefly, he might have cried for help, but the two workers were drunk and fast asleep; besides, the freezer’s iron door had excellent soundproofing…”

Zhou Liping stared ahead, seeing in the darkness a version of himself crumbling, shattering, on the verge of total collapse and utter defeat. He tried to gather himself together, piece himself back together, and glue himself back together with his own hands, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t erase the cracks and the marks of damage.

He glared fiercely at Huyan Yun, though his vision was so blurred that he couldn’t even see if Huyan Yun was actually standing in the direction he was staring at: “You just said that night Xing Qisheng and Zhang Chunyang were using each other while also distrusting each other. So what makes you so sure that if Xing Qisheng told Zhang Chunyang to crawl into the freezer, Zhang Chunyang would definitely do it? Wasn’t he afraid that Xing Qisheng would come down from Sweeping Mouse Ridge after finishing his business, go to the small room next to the morgue, turn on the power, and stab him in the back? Don’t forget, Xing Qisheng has a very close relationship with Love Hospital. He might not be unaware of the morgue’s electrical system—”

“As expected…”

Although it was only two words, the composure, calmness, and all-knowing confidence contained within them made Zhou Liping’s voice tremble slightly: “What? What did you say?”

“I said—as expected,” Huyan Yun said, “As expected, I guessed right. You even thought of that.”

“I…what did I think of?”

“When you forced Xing Qisheng to call Zhang Chunyang, you knew that Zhang Chunyang would definitely be wary of Xing Qisheng’s tricks, but you weren’t worried because you knew Zhang Chunyang would still sneak into the freezer. He was confident he had a ‘backup plan’—even if the freezer was electrified and locked, he could still escape.”

“What backup plan?”

“The cell phone,” said Huyan Yun. “When the police found Zhang Chunyang’s body in the freezer, they discovered his cell phone wasn’t in his pocket but beside him. The detectives assumed it had accidentally slipped out, but that wasn’t the case. Zhang Chunyang dared to crawl into the freezer because he believed he could use it to call for help if absolutely necessary… When Zhang Chunyang discovered the freezer was locked and starting to cool down rapidly, he did indeed take out his phone to try and call the police for help—unfortunately, despite his careful planning, he was one step behind you.”

Zhou Liping raised his hand, rubbing his eyes with his palm to hide the excruciating pain of blood rushing to his skull, which felt like it was about to burst… His scheme had been foiled; he was simply outmatched. But to have even his deepest, most buried thoughts exposed was a humiliation that pierced his very soul.

Huyan Yun saw through his predicament but still finished speaking: “Because you saw the phone he was using—I’m not criticizing iPhones, but the iPhone 8 still hasn’t fixed the bug of automatically shutting down in low temperatures… For Zhang Chunyang, who was shivering in the freezer that night, that was a truly fatal bug.”

It was over.

Completely over.

Everything was over.

All his planning and scheming that night, the restraint and forbearance he’d endured during his two weeks of detention, had collapsed like a dam breached by a flood…

He couldn’t admit defeat, and he couldn’t surrender, because it wasn’t time yet!

He gasped for breath, swallowing hard a few times to ease the stinging, drowning sensation in his nose, and raised his heavy head again, even a little higher than before: “So, do you have evidence?”

—So, do you have evidence?

In that instant, he felt a surge of joy, because he not only suddenly saw the baby-face opposite him clearly but also, for the first time all night, saw a hint of dejection on that face.

“So, do you fucking have evidence?”

He took a step closer to Huyan Yun, pressing him with a vicious snarl.

Huyan Yun lowered his eyelids, pursed his lips into a circle, and softly uttered a “whoosh.”

“Everything I just said was pure deduction, without a single piece of evidence.” Huyan Yun turned his gaze back to him. “I did try to find evidence; for example, I tried to find your fingerprints on the switch in the distribution box, but unfortunately, I didn’t find any. Even in that tense situation, you didn’t forget to wipe your fingerprints; I truly admire your composure, courage, meticulousness, and incredibly strong willpower. As a reasoner, to only make deductions without producing evidence is a failure and unconvincing, and I deeply apologize for that.”

Zhou Liping chuckled coldly twice.

“I’ve finished speaking, but there are two questions I haven’t figured out, and I hope you can give me the answers,” Huyan Yun said.

Zhou Liping remained silent.

Huyan Yun said to himself, “First, why did you move that Spire? There wasn’t any evidence against you on it, and you should understand that no matter how clever the tactic of hiding it in plain sight, the police will find it sooner or later. Driving the car up the Sweeping Mouse Ridge, circling around, and then back into the alley took time, and that night, nothing was more precious to you than time.”

No reply.

Huyan Yun gave a wry smile: “The second question, I’m afraid, you’re even less likely to answer… It’s about how, after your arrest, if you had just produced your confession about moving Zhang Chunyang’s body, the police would have released you quickly, but you never did. Of course, you said it’s because Xing Qisheng promised you that if you kept Tao Zhouyao’s secret, he would help you get Dong Yue’s household registration sorted out, but in my opinion, that’s a complete lie… So I don’t understand why you would rather suffer in the detention center in handcuffs and shackles for so long than reveal this lie to save yourself, and then suddenly blurt it out a few days ago?”

Still no answer.

“If you won’t say anything, fine, but there are a few things I still want to say.” Huyan Yun stared at him, speaking seriously, “Whether it’s Xing Qisheng or Zhang Chunyang, they are both utter villains and scum. They abuse their power and status to commit crimes, extort and plunder, and recklessly infringe upon the rights and even lives of innocent people… But, Zhou Liping, please remember: justice and fairness in a society can never be achieved through vigilante justice. Ten years ago, when you killed Fang Zhifeng, you could say it was self-defense, but this time it’s different. This time, you intentionally killed someone when they were completely defenseless! Your actions are a reprehensible and unforgivable crime!”

Huyan Yun let out a deep breath and continued, “As a strategist, I admit I haven’t found any evidence to convict you. But as a citizen of a society governed by the rule of law, I still feel it’s necessary to remind you that your best course of action is to turn yourself in to the police and honestly confess your crimes. Of course, you might laugh at my suggestion as naive and ridiculous, or you might think that only vigilante justice for those two scumbags is truly doing justice. But you should know that if you hadn’t killed Xing Qisheng that night but instead arrested him and Zhang Chunyang together and handed them over to the judicial authorities, the law would still have given Zhao Wu, Li Ying, and Dong Xinlan justice.”

Zhou Liping stared at him silently for a long, long time, then turned around, strode out of the nursery, and left Sweeping Mouse Ridge.