Silent Testimony - Chapter 98

At the Puchen Municipal Public Security Bureau, in the interrogation room of the Criminal Investigation Brigade, Shen Ning sat alone in the interrogation chair wearing a dark gray cashmere coat. Her expression remained as composed as ever.

In the monitoring room on the other side of the one-way glass, Qiu Wan was adjusting the equipment. Li Hewei leaned against a wooden table nearby, flipping through the interrogation records.

“Look at the second set,” Qiu Wan said. “She explains the motive and process of Tao Yang’s murder.”

“Mm.” Li Hewei scanned the cold text, her brow furrowing. She skipped the gruesome details of Tao Yang’s death to focus on why Shen Ning had framed her. She asked Qiu Wan, “Sister Qiu, where are the files for the Chu Xiaoyi case?”

Qiu Wan sighed. “The traffic department only started using electronic archives three years ago.” While digital archiving in Chinese police stations can be traced back to 2006, the timing varied significantly across different cities and departments.

“What about the paper files?”

“Destroyed in a fire three years ago.”

“A fire? Why did everything happen three years ago?” Li Hewei stood up straight, unconsciously tightening her grip on the documents. She looked directly at Qiu Wan. “Don’t you find that suspicious?”

“I do. But the reported cause of the fire was an electrical short circuit.”

Feeling the difficulty of the situation, Li Hewei looked back at the monitor at Shen Ning, who sat with her eyes half-closed. She whispered, “How can we investigate without the files…”

Qiu Wan’s voice was heavy. “We had a meeting. Captain Jiang said the case is old and has already been classified as a car accident. He feels there’s no need to waste police resources.”

Li Hewei flared up instantly. “Waste police resources? Shen Ning put her own life on the line to bait us into this—we can’t even give her an explanation?”

“Nothing is finalized yet. Captain Peng and Director Liu have reported it to the Provincial Department to discuss the necessity and feasibility of an investigation.” Qiu Wan confirmed the equipment was ready and signaled to Li Hewei. “Go on. She wants to talk to you privately for a while.”

“Alright.”

Li Hewei nodded, picked up a pre-prepared paper cup, and pushed open the door to enter the interrogation room.

“Would you like some water?” she asked softly, stepping closer to Shen Ning.

A faint smile touched Shen Ning’s lips as she reached out for the cup. “Thank you.” (Criminal suspects are typically not required to wear handcuffs unless they have committed a serious violation of regulations or pose a specific security risk.)

Li Hewei sat across from her and got straight to the point. “Shen Ning, you shouldn’t have done this.”

Shen Ning remained silent for a moment. Her eyes betrayed a clear sense of helplessness. She replied with a bitter smile, “I already took the wrong first step. There is no turning back.”

“Because of Shen Zong?”

At the mention of the name, Shen Ning bit her lip almost imperceptibly. She didn’t dodge the question. “Yes. My hands are stained with blood; they can’t be washed clean.”

“But according to your statement, that was self-defense and an accident. You should have reported it!” Li Hewei offered the same advice Qiu Wan had.

“You don’t understand.” Shen Ning shook her head. “I couldn’t stay calm. I watched him stop breathing right in front of me…”

“I even felt he deserved it—that he should go down to the afterlife to atone to my mother.”

Li Hewei summarized the case as she understood it. “You believe Shen Zong’s solicitation of prostitutes indirectly caused Chu Xiaoyi’s death, so you grew to hate those with chaotic private lives. You originally wanted to teach Tao Yang a lesson for my sake, but you accidentally killed him. Is that right?”

“Yes.” Shen Ning looked up at her former classmate. After a long pause, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Li Hewei let out a long breath. “Tao Yang and I have already dissolved our marriage. His mother said she will leave everything to the law, so she likely won’t accept your apology either.” She added, “Shen Ning, when I did composite sketches for the police during grad school, I had to sign non-disclosure agreements. There is no such thing as an unregistered sketch.”

She produced a photo. “This is the agreement I signed with the police in August 2009. I had to draw a wanted suspect based on a photo of the criminal’s son. All my drafts from before graduation are here. There is no sketch that resembles your mother.”

Shen Ning’s throat suddenly constricted. “I…”

Li Hewei spoke solemnly. “Shen Ning, I know what you want, and I will do everything in my power to mediate. But you must understand—currently, there is insufficient evidence. There is no reason for the police to be forced to investigate.”

“There is! I have it!” Shen Ning’s eyes suddenly widened. “No. 113 Wangshen Road, Licheng Community, Building 2, Unit 1, Apartment 202. My mother’s body is preserved there.”

“I also have photos from when I personally performed the autopsy. They aren’t fakes.”

“Da Wei, framing you was just a temporary measure. I decided from the start that I would turn myself in at the right time.”

She cried out hoarsely, “Right now, you are the only one I trust.”

Li Hewei recorded the address. Qiu Wan immediately arranged for nearby patrol officers to follow up.

“There is one more point of doubt,” Li Hewei continued. “You didn’t kill Du Guozhou yourself. Instead, you directed Shen Hao to commit the crime in the back seat of the car using the same method, right?”

Shen Ning confessed without hesitation. “Yes. I had to have an alibi to direct suspicion toward you and bring up Tao Yang’s case. Only a serial murder case would get the Provincial Department to intervene directly.”

The confession matched. Shen Ning wanted the police to find the truth behind Chu Xiaoyi’s death and bring the killer to justice, yet Shen Hao had repeatedly tried to murder Li Hewei.

Li Hewei’s lips thinned. “You were afraid he would hurt me again, so you suggested the murder of Du Guozhou and framed me to end it?”

“Yes. You said you loved drawing; you gave your scholarship to me, and you never fought for awards or exchange opportunities. After my mother died, you exhausted yourself trying to help me investigate…” Shen Ning’s voice choked up as she spoke.

Though Li Hewei lacked the original owner’s memories, her eyes still reddened at the depth of their friendship. She watched as Xiao Liao led Shen Ning away. Her feet felt as heavy as lead. She was snapped out of her daze by Qiu Wan. “Come on, we’re going to the scene.”

“What’s the situation?” Li Hewei asked, pulling her rationality back together.

“Chu Xiaoyi’s body was specially treated, but the surface is showing slight signs of decomposition,” Qiu Wan said as they walked. “I need you and Xiao Tao there to collect evidence on the spot.”

“Alright.”

Under a thick, dark navy fog, the silence was broken by two police cars pulling up to the main gate of the Licheng Community. The group proceeded on foot to the apartment. Tao Ling, who had arrived early by taxi, caught Li Hewei’s eye for a brief moment before they immediately set to work.

A crystal coffin sat to the left of the living room. Chu Xiaoyi lay inside.

Zhao Xiaoting took photos, whispering, “Even with the decomposition, there are clear crush injuries on the legs and abdomen. But where are the impact injuries?”

Beside her, Xiao Zhou asked, “Boss, do we open the coffin?”

Qiu Wan consulted Li Hewei. Seeing her nod, she ordered, “Open it.”

Several officers worked for a while to slide the lid back, opening the airtight crystal coffin. The moment the skin hit the air, the color began to change rapidly. Tao Ling put on gloves to perform the preliminary examination.

“Crush injuries on the thighs, abdomen, and from the wrist to the forearm,” Tao Ling signaled. “Prepare the evidence bags for samples.”

“Sister Xiaoting, take a photo. Blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”

Li Hewei leaned in to observe. “What kind of blunt object?”

Tao Ling measured it with a ruler. “The contact surface is 12 centimeters long and 7 centimeters wide. Something like a club. Repeated strikes.”

Qiu Wan was confused. “Not an impact from a vehicle?”

“No.”

Recalling her conversation with Shen Ning, Li Hewei instructed An Yu, “She preserved Chu Xiaoyi’s internal organs in containers. Look for them carefully.”

“On it!”

Three minutes later, An Yu and He Ying found four glass containers at the bottom of a rice bin in the corner of the bedroom, preserving the liver, heart, kidneys, and spleen.

In the study, Xiao Lv cried out, “Boss! A notebook and photos!”

“Bring them here.”

Xiao Lv ran over with the photo album and notebook. Qiu Wan flipped through them.

The date in the top right corner of the photos: March 10, 2010, 23:12. The start time for the autopsy recorded in the notebook: March 10, 2010, 23:12.

All the crush injuries matched the current state of the body.

“Sister Qiu, we need to take the remains back for a CT scan to determine the extent of the fractures and see if they align with a car accident,” Tao Ling said. She took the containers of organs and observed them. “If a body is hit violently by a vehicle, the internal organs usually suffer varying degrees of damage. But looking at these, while the proximal end of the kidney near the crush injury seems squeezed, the other organs appear intact.”

“Alright, do it.”

Qiu Wan called Old Xu to have the body transported. Tao Ling placed the containers into a large evidence bag. To avoid any jostling, she carried them by hand. As she retreated to the corner to wait for her colleagues to finish up, she couldn’t help but feel a wave of sorrow. What must have been going through Shen Ning’s mind as she dissected her own mother? How did she manage to record every detail, word by word, in that notebook?