Chapter 681: Wrapping Up
His eyes were wide open, his face filled with terror. He didn’t understand why he was saying these things. Those weren’t the words he wanted to say at all, but they just spilled out on their own.
Xu Wuyi’s expression remained unchanged as he continued his questioning. "How did he help you?"
Zheng Hai wanted to shut his mouth, wanted to clench his jaw, but he simply couldn’t.
"When I first started in the Star Realm trade, I didn’t know anything and lost a lot of money. Once, when I went back to my hometown, I ran into him visiting his relatives, so we chatted for a bit.
"He heard I was losing money in business, so he gave me some pointers. He told me which avenues were viable and which were dead ends."
"Is that all?"
"That’s all. I followed his advice later, and it actually worked. But we didn’t have any other interactions. He didn’t give me money, he didn’t introduce me to any contacts, and I never sent him any gifts."
Xu Wuyi paused for a few seconds before asking, "Did he set up the connection with Li Mingyuan for you?"
Zheng Hai shook his head. "No. I hooked up with Li Mingyuan on my own; it had nothing to do with him. When I met Li Mingyuan, Zheng Mingchuan had already been transferred back to Beijing for many years. We never stayed in touch."
"Then, after you met Li Mingyuan, did you ever tell Zheng Mingchuan?"
"No. Why would I tell him something like that? We weren’t that close to begin with. It was just the camaraderie of being from the same village. He’s a high-and-mighty big shot now. How would I dare try to latch onto him?"
Xu Wuyi stared at him. "Does Zheng Mingchuan know you’re doing these things?"
Zheng Hai thought for a moment. "He probably doesn’t. The last time we saw each other was three years ago. I had just gotten in touch with Li Mingyuan back then and hadn’t started doing any real work yet. After that, I never saw him again or contacted him."
"Do you have any mutual friends or shared financial interests?"
"No. My relatives and friends back in my hometown don’t really interact with him. His family did seek me out a few times after I struck it rich, hoping I’d help them out, but I avoided them.
"I didn’t want people to think I had any connection to him, to save him from trouble and to save myself from trouble too."
Having asked his final question, Xu Wuyi withdrew his right hand. The unseen force enveloping Zheng Hai dissipated in an instant. Zheng Hai’s body jolted violently, and he gasped for air. He looked down at his hands, then up at Xu Wuyi, his face a mask of horror and bewilderment.
Xu Wuyi asked no further questions. He simply stood up and walked toward the door. The interrogation room door clicked shut behind him, cutting off Zheng Hai’s hysterical screams.
The corridor was quiet, echoing only with the sound of his solitary footsteps. He walked slowly, turning over Zheng Hai’s words in his mind.
The two men did know each other, and they had indeed been in contact, but that was the extent of it. Zheng Mingchuan’s advice to Zheng Hai was, at best, a casual favor between fellow villagers; it didn’t even qualify as a genuine debt of gratitude. As for financial ties, there were absolutely none. From a legal standpoint, this posed no problem whatsoever.
But from the perspective of the Inspection Department, this outcome couldn’t help but arouse suspicion. A middleman embroiled in a seven-billion smuggling case just so happened to be from the same village as a high-ranking official. That big shot just so happened to have given him advice before he struck it rich. And all of this just so happened to yield no concrete evidence.
It was too coincidental. So coincidental that one couldn’t help but overthink it.
But Xu Wuyi knew that overthinking was useless. Solving cases relied on evidence. No evidence meant exactly that—no evidence.
He returned to the Fourth Squad’s office area and pushed the door open. Zhou Bin and the others were waiting for him. Seeing him enter, they all looked up.
Fang Xiaoxiao was the first to ask, "Captain Meng, how did it go? What did Zheng Hai say?"
Xu Wuyi walked over to the round table, sat down, and gave a brief summary of the interrogation. After he finished, a brief silence fell over the office.
Zhou Bin furrowed his brows. "So, Zheng Mingchuan and Zheng Hai really do have a connection, but it’s just the minimal ties of being from the same village and doesn’t amount to anything substantial?"
Xu Wuyi nodded.
Fang Xiaoxiao protested, still unconvinced. "But isn’t that too much of a coincidence? How did Zheng Hai, a petty merchant trading agricultural products, just happen to connect with Li Mingyuan? How did he just happen to become his middleman? And how does he just happen to be from the same village as Zheng Mingchuan?"
Sun Jing leaned back in his chair and said in a slow drawl, "Xiaoxiao, you don’t get it. There are plenty of coincidences in this world. We’ve been working cases for so many years—what kind of outrageous things haven’t we seen? Zheng Hai and Zheng Mingchuan being from the same village is nothing. I’ve even seen blood brothers where one is a high official and the other is a criminal."
Li Zhaowen pushed up his glasses and said, "I’ve already looked into all of Zheng Mingchuan’s public records, as well as all traceable accounts and assets under his name.
"There are zero issues. He’s as clean as a blank sheet of paper. We interviewed people who know him, and their assessment is that he is extremely protective of his reputation and certainly doesn’t lack money."
Hearing this, Xu Wuyi nodded slightly. Zheng Mingchuan was different from Li Mingyuan. His Martial Arts level was mediocre, he had little need to spend extravagantly, and his family background wasn’t bad. There was absolutely no need for him to take risks to scrape together money through such means.
Zhou Bin sighed. "Then we’ll just have to leave it at that. Evidence is evidence; without it, we have nothing. We can’t go investigating a man with zero evidence against him just because we think things are too coincidental."
Fang Xiaoxiao wanted to say more, but seeing Xu Wuyi’s calm demeanor, she swallowed her words.
Xu Wuyi stood up, walked over to his workstation, sat down, and activated his personal terminal. "Let’s continue with the case. Li Mingyuan’s case isn’t over yet; we still need to chase down the remaining clues."
There were no clues on Zheng Mingchuan for the time being—only a point of suspicion that barely qualified as one. Xu Wuyi didn’t mind; he would continue to keep an eye on him. If it really was just a coincidence, nothing would come of it. But if he was truly guilty, he would be caught sooner or later.
The squad members exchanged glances and nodded, each returning to their respective seats to continue with the tasks at hand.
Days passed one by one, and Li Mingyuan’s case gradually drew to a close. Among the suspects brought in, those who deserved sentencing were sentenced, those who needed locking up were locked up, and those who warranted release were let go. Out of thirty-seven individuals, twenty-eight were ultimately formally indicted. After repeated verification, the amount of money involved was finalized at 9.3 billion, up from the initial 7 billion.
This figure marked it as a major case in the history of the Inspection Department. And with the conclusion of this case, the reputation of the Fourth Squad was thoroughly cemented. Now, within the entire Inspection Department, there wasn’t a single person who didn’t know Meng Zhishou, the captain of the Fourth Squad. The man wearing the black-and-white mask, the ruthless operative who had gone alone to the Celestial Swallow Battle Group to drag Li Mingyuan back.
Someone had secretly given him a nickname: "The Black and White Reaper." When this nickname spread, Fang Xiaoxiao laughed for an entire day, declaring it brilliantly coined—both fitting and badass.