Sweeping Mouse Ridge – Chapter Three : 2

Two days have passed since the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case occurred. If one word could summarize the police’s state after arresting Zhou Liping, it would probably be “completely bewildered.”

Of course, it wasn’t always like this. Everyone thought that now that Zhou Liping had been apprehended, the entire case would be as easy as dissecting an ox. Therefore, the Special Task Force team was in high spirits. To make the case airtight, they adopted a “surround first, then psychological warfare” strategy, urging all relevant departments to work overtime to obtain and solidify all evidence related to the case before focusing their efforts on interrogating Zhou Liping.

Let’s look at the physical evidence first…

First, the Forensic Pathologist Center reported that DNA comparison of hair samples taken from Xing Qisheng’s residence with that of Corpse C found in the Sweeping Mouse Ridge tunnel ventilation shaft confirmed that Corpse C was indeed Xing Qisheng, the Director of Tongyou Nursery.

Furthermore, DNA comparisons of hair samples taken from Tongyou Nursery’s accommodations and blood samples preserved using autologous blood transfusion technology during congenital heart disease treatment at the hospital with those of Corpses A, B, and D had also confirmed that they were all children from the nursing home.

Among them, the female corpse, identified as B, was named Dong Xinlan, nine years old, suffering from mild cerebral palsy. Both her parents were deceased, and her older sister’s whereabouts were unknown.

The male corpse, identified as A, was named Zhao Wu, twelve years old, also an orphan, suffering from severe congenital heart disease.

The little girl, identified as D, buried at the bottom, was named Li Ying, was five years old, and suffered from Down syndrome and had an intellectual disability. She was abandoned by her parents.

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When Tongyou Nursery staff were interrogated, it became clear that these kids came to the city from Province A a month ago in order to receive welfare care and physical examinations at a private hospital called “Love Hospital.” Funded and run by the “Love Charity Foundation,” it was a comprehensive private hospital that specialized in treating kids with complicated illnesses. It had a good reputation for treating congenital heart disease, cerebral palsy, and myasthenia gravis.

Every autumn and winter, the hospital received a group of children from welfare institutions in Province A and provided them with completely free treatment and physical examinations. According to media reports, this charitable act had been ongoing for several years. Of course, due to the hospital’s limited resources, it was impossible to house the children there. A small building was rented nearby for them to stay temporarily; this was the origin of “Tongyou Nursery.”

Following this, the technical department examined the Vacheron Constantin watch and black Zippo windproof lighter that Tang Xiaotang had found under the tunnel ventilation shaft. Based on the identification by Chi Fengli, Cui Yucui, and others, and a comparison with old photos of Xing Qisheng, it was confirmed that both items were carried by Xing Qisheng.

However, aside from this, repeated investigations of the crime scene yielded no new valuable physical evidence. Not to mention, Chu Tianying and several detectives spent two days and two nights meticulously examining the nursery, counting every single ant hole, yet found not a single fingerprint or footprint that could be used for identification.

Perhaps the tire tracks left by the Michelin Primacy 3ST tires were an exception. The Special Task Force team investigated the vehicles owned by Mingyi Public Relations Company. Through purchase records and information provided by the Spire 4S dealership, they determined that the tire tracks in the nursery were indeed left by the black Spire that Zhou Liping drove past the Qingshikou East Lane traffic light on the night of the incident. This was the most valuable identification since the crime began!

Generally, this evidence alone would be enough to make a suspect confess and surrender, but facing an opponent like Zhou Liping, the Special Task Force team dared not be careless. According to their plan, the car must contain physical evidence that could incriminate Zhou Liping. They reasoned that obtaining more “ammunition” before interrogation would allow them to break down Zhou Liping’s denials.

Therefore, the police expended considerable effort, searching every conceivable parking location, including Zhou Liping’s residence, Tongyou Nursery, and the Runtang High Tech Incubation Park where Mingyi Company was located. They also thoroughly reviewed images from all traffic surveillance systems in the city from the time of the incident until Zhou Liping’s arrest, but several days passed without finding the car.

The Special Task Force team changed its approach, focusing on the possibility of an abandoned vehicle. They collaborated with the traffic police, fire department, and western suburban security team to thoroughly search Sweeping Mouse Ridge, even organizing six search teams to search along the highway leading west from Sweeping Mouse Ridge, almost reaching neighboring provinces, but still found nothing. Considering that Zhou Liping went to work as usual the day after the incident, no matter how far he drove the car or what remote area he abandoned it in, there was always the issue of him returning. Therefore, it was unlikely he had gone too far. The disappearance of the black Spyder sedan further puzzled everyone…

The search for physical evidence had reached a complete impasse. Although the devastating consequences of the fire were within the Special Task Force team’s expectations, the scarcity of valuable evidence still left many officers disheartened.

Next, let’s look at the witness testimonies, including investigations into the victim’s personal circumstances and testimonies from those connected to the case.

First, regarding Xing Qisheng’s personal background: he was 55 years old and was a doctor at a provincial hospital in Province A when he was younger. He married once, but his wife divorced him and went abroad. He had a younger brother named Xing Qixian, who was the vice president of the “Love Charity Foundation.” Perhaps it was through this connection that Xing Qisheng later left the provincial hospital and went to this city and worked as the chief physician of dermatology at “Love Hospital.”

After working there for a while, for unknown reasons, he left the hospital again and became the director of Tongyou Nursery. Although “Love Hospital” was only a private hospital, it was not small in scale. His departure from being the chief physician of a key department to becoming the director of what was essentially just an illegal guesthouse was a dramatic fall from grace. The reason for this remained to be investigated.

Xing Qisheng’s ex-wife gave birth to a son named Xing Yunda, 28 years old, who was currently the vice president of Mingyi Public Relations Company. On the day of Zhou Liping’s arrest, the police launched a preliminary investigation into Mingyi Company and found that Xing Yunda was not at work. It took a lot of effort to find him at his live-in girlfriend’s house. After telling him the news of his father’s death at Sweeping Mouse Ridge, his behavior was very strange. His pale, thin face was initially very numb, but then his mouth suddenly twitched. He kept asking who killed his father and said viciously that he would kill the murderer himself to avenge his father. As he spoke, he pulled out a sharpened Guan Jianchang from his waist. The police were completely unprepared for this. Several people rushed up to him and held him down, taking the knife away…

His numbness and mania did not seem to be faked, but the fact that a young man who was nearly thirty years old and the vice president of a public relations company showed such an immature mentality still puzzled the police. Lin Fengchong even secretly sent people to investigate whether he had an alibi for the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case. It was later discovered that he was playing PUBG with some friends that night, playing all night and even streaming it on Huya. Everything was recorded on video. Having enjoyed killing in online games, there was absolutely no possibility that he would have gone to Sweeping Mouse Ridge to commit such a heinous act.

Upon receiving news of Xing Qisheng’s death, Xing Qisheng’s younger brother, Xing Qixian, and Cui Wentao, the Director of the Province A Welfare Institute, immediately took the high-speed train to the city. They expressed their full cooperation with the police investigation. Xing Qixian was 48 years old, a refined middle-aged man, neatly dressed, and spoke politely, but his voice was very low, almost inaudible unless one listened very closely. He couldn’t help but shed tears when talking about his brother’s death, but he did so with restraint, the tears falling just between a dry tissue becoming wet and a wet tissue drying quickly. He couldn’t offer much information about the recent case, only repeatedly emphasizing two things: first, his brother had lived out of town for many years, and he rarely contacted him, except for work-related matters; second, his brother was a good person, and he had never heard of him having any enemies.

In contrast, Cui Wentao, the Director of the Province A Welfare Institute, was completely different from Xing Qixian. Lin Fengchong imagined that the director of the welfare home would be a kind-looking old man or woman. Therefore, upon first seeing Cui Wentao, he was even more shocked than seeing a social media influencer without makeup: this man was not only short but also had a shifty, slippery appearance, resembling a weasel that hadn’t eaten all winter. Because of his protruding teeth, his thin lips seemed perpetually open, and this open mouth produced a lot of talk. Upon seeing the police, he kept nodding and bowing, saying, “Yes, yes, yes, okay, okay, definitely, definitely, definitely, no problem, no problem, no problem,” as if he could talk for the entire season of “The Rap of China.” But upon closer listening, it was all nonsense.

Cui Wentao’s overly respectful attitude towards Xing Qixian struck Lin Fengchong as odd, because organizationally, the Province A Welfare Institute’s Director was a government employee, while the “Love Charity Foundation” was ultimately a privately run charity… It wasn’t until Chai Yongjin quietly reminded him, “You’ve forgotten, Boss Du’s daughter was driven to her death by a student loan company affiliated with this foundation,” that he realized the truth.

It’s worth noting that Du Jianping didn’t appear in person throughout the entire reception of Xing Qixian and Cui Wentao, leaving Lin Fengchong to act on his behalf.

Lin Fengchong was determined to vent Du Jianping’s anger on them, so he showed no mercy to Xing Qixian and Cui Wentao, speaking harshly and bluntly. However, one of them was cold and taciturn, while the other was rambling and irrelevant. After a while, Lin Fengchong realized this wasn’t working and had to change his tone to be less hostile. Only then did he manage to glean some information: Province A was an economically underdeveloped and impoverished province. Until the reform and opening up, it suffered from problems such as consanguineous marriage and the practice of sending children to counties instead of rural areas for immunization, resulting in a particularly large number of disabled children.

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Later, thanks to the development of the mining and printing industries, the economy improved somewhat, but these two industries were major polluters, leading to a continuous increase in the birth rate of deformed children. These children were abandoned in large numbers, many of them orphans, or left in the care of elderly relatives after their parents went to work in other cities, and then their parents could not be contacted after the elderly relatives passed away…

Even if the number of existing welfare homes in the province were increased tenfold, it wouldn’t be enough. The civil affairs department could only call on counties, townships, and other towns to “solve the problem themselves.” The main method was public fundraising, which was then used to support the various expenses of the welfare homes. The Love Charity Foundation was established at this time.

The headquarters was located in the provincial capital, with branches in each county. Through charitable fundraising and other means, it obtained a large amount of funds, effectively becoming the financial backer of the Province A Welfare Institute and its branches in various counties, townships, and towns. It gradually gained control over the construction and management of each branch, while the Province A Welfare Institute headquarters increasingly became a purely administrative institution.

Regarding this point, Cui Wentao gave an analogy: “Our headquarters is like an online shopping mall. We don’t have our own platform; when you open the online shopping page, it’s all franchise stores, except that we are responsible for supervision and logistics.” Children like Dong Xinlan, Zhao Wu, and Li Ying, who were murdered, were selected from branch hospitals, gathered at the headquarters, and then sent to this city.

Logistics seemed to be handled by Province A Welfare Institute, but supervision was uncertain. When Lin Fengchong asked, “Who was the person who sent these children from the province to this city?” Cui Wentao gave a name.

Lin Fengchong then asked, “Why didn’t this person stay in the city to supervise the children’s safety?” Cui Wentao said that with Tongyou Nursery, there was no need for anyone to stay; everything was handled by Tongyou Nursery. After the children’s medical examinations and treatments, the nursery would notify the Province A Welfare Institute to send someone to pick them up.

Lin Fengchong’s tone immediately became stern: “Tongyou Nursery is responsible? Can it bear the responsibility? Now that such a big thing has happened, who should be responsible?” Cui Wentao blinked without speaking, glancing at Xing Qixian out of the corner of his eye but not daring to look any longer.

Xing Qixian remained silent for a long time before saying, “We must admit that there are indeed loopholes in our supervision. Fortunately, it’s never too late to mend the fence after the sheep are lost. How to identify and address these shortcomings, improve our work, and prevent such incidents from happening again will be the focus of our charity foundation’s next steps.”

Lin Fengchong was stunned after hearing this.

As the two men left the Municipal Public Security Bureau, Lin Fengchong explicitly told them, “Do not leave the city until the case is fully investigated, in case the police need to contact you at any time.”

Xing Qixian remained silent, while Cui Wentao hurriedly said, “Yes, yes, yes, good, good, we still need to wait for Chairman Tao to return so we can report to her.”

The “Chairman Tao” Cui Wentao referred to was Tao Zhuoyao, the 38-year-old, single president of the Love Charity Foundation. Her father, Tao Bing, had previously served as the director of the Social Welfare and Charity Promotion Department of the Civil Affairs Bureau of Province A. Although retired for many years, he remained a powerful figure in the local area and also held the position of honorary president of the foundation.

Tao Zhuoyao spent a considerable amount of time each year residing in the city—the Tao family originally owned three residences in the city, but before the anti-corruption storm began, they somehow managed to transfer or clear out the property rights, causing the Discipline Inspection Commission to find nothing during their investigation—she currently resided in a suite on the fourth floor of Building E of the five-star Hefeng Hotel. It should be noted that the “Love Charity Foundation” rented the entire Building E as its office in the city, employing over twenty staff members. Furthermore, the Hefeng Hotel and Tongyou Nursery were not far from each other; although they were not in the same neighborhood on the map, they were all within a fifteen-minute walk of each other. This fact would become increasingly important in the investigation as time went on.

At 1:00 a.m. the day after the incident in the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case, Tao Zhuoyao boarded an Air France flight to Paris. Her departure was very sudden, and it was unclear why she would take such a red-eye flight to leave the country so hastily. Even Xing Qixian, the vice president, was baffled.

When Lin Fengchong asked him, “What’s the matter with Tao Zhuoyao’s urgent departure abroad?” he stammered and evaded the question, which made Lin Fengchong realize that Tao Zhuoyao had left the country without informing him or any of the leaders of the Love Charity Foundation. However, the booking system showed that she booked her flight at 9:30 p.m. the previous night. The autopsy results proved that Xing Qisheng was still alive at that time, so the police did not link her departure to the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case.

When Lin Fengchong called her, she was already in Paris. Her voice was tired, with a hint of barely perceptible panic. After learning about the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case, there was a long, dead silence on the other end of the line. Then, she suddenly began to sob loudly, repeatedly saying, “I don’t know; I really don’t know anything…”

The old detective, Lin Fengchong, made two judgments based on his intuition: first, Tao Zhuoyao might genuinely not know about the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case; second, she must know something related to it.

When Lin Fengchong tried to press for further information, Tao Zhuoyao did something that left him both amused and exasperated: she hung up the phone! When he called back, it was switched off!

This reminded Lin Fengchong of playing chess with classmates when he was a child, where losing a game often led to him overturning the chessboard. But with four lives on the line, how could he simply overturn the chessboard and pretend nothing had happened? After repeatedly calling Tao Zhuoyao’s phone and finding it switched off, he asked Xing Qixian for her WeChat account. When he couldn’t add her as a friend, he sent her a text message, essentially urging her to return to China soon to cooperate with the police investigation and not to conceal anything, otherwise she would face legal consequences. However, Tao Zhuoyao never replied.

Lin Fengchong contacted the Paris police to monitor Tao Zhuoyao’s movements, but this line of communication was temporarily broken.