lcionline Chapter 1136 Li Xiaodong Identifies the Crime Scene
Chapter 1136 Li Xiaodong Identifies the Crime Scene
"I just wanted to borrow some bearings to sell for money, but he insisted on calling the police and even hit me with a steel pipe!" He suddenly ripped open his collar, revealing a bruise on his left shoulder. "Look! This is what he did!"
Xiao Wang didn't reply, but instead played the recording of Li Xiaodong's conversation with "Brother Leopard." "...Don't worry, it'll definitely be paid back by tomorrow morning. I've found a sucker..." The voice in the recording carried a smug, sinister laugh, completely different from his current furious expression. Li Xiaodong's face gradually turned ashen, his fingers curled into fists, his nails digging deeply into his palms.
“Tell me what happened on the night of July 14th.” Xiao Wang added hot water to the teacup, the steam blurring Li Xiaodong’s face. He remained silent for a full three minutes, trying to speak three times but swallowing his words back, finally slumping back in his chair like a deflated balloon: “I owe Brother Leopard 7 yuan, and the 15th is the deadline…” His voice was low, almost a whisper, “On the afternoon of the 14th, I went to the bearing factory to borrow money from Li Jun, but he wouldn’t lend it to me, so I thought I’d steal some bearings to sell for money.”
According to Li Xiaodong's confession, he knew that Zhang Jianguo would take inventory in the warehouse every Thursday night, so he secretly made a copy of the warehouse key. "At 10:30 pm, I climbed over the wall to get in," he said, tracing the path of his climb on the table with his fingers. "Zhang Jianguo was doing bookkeeping in front of the third row of shelves. I took a burlap sack and started packing bearings. He suddenly turned around and saw me..." Li Xiaodong's breathing became rapid, his eyes fixed on the ventilation opening in the corner, as if he were back in that night.
“He grabbed a steel pipe and started hitting me,” Li Xiaodong said, his right hand flailing wildly in the air as if mimicking a blocking motion. “I grabbed the pipe and pulled him aside. He lost his balance and crashed into the shelf, his head hitting the bearing housing.” He suddenly covered his face, a sob escaping from between his fingers: “I was terrified. I tried to run, but he grabbed my trouser leg and wouldn’t let go, yelling that he was going to call the police…”
Xiao Wang placed the autopsy report in front of him; the photo of a ruptured right ventricle made Li Xiaodong shudder violently. "You hit him in the chest with that 6205 bearing, didn't you?" Xiao Wang's voice was calm, yet it struck Li Xiaodong's heart like a hammer blow. His lips trembled, tears mingling with snot streaming down his face: "He wouldn't let go... I grabbed the bearing from the ground and threw it at him... Just once... Just once..."
"Then you dragged him to the corner, wiped the fingerprints off the steel pipe, and ran off with the bearing," Xiao Wang added, his tone flat. Li Xiaodong suddenly looked up, a flicker of surprise in his eyes, which then dimmed again: "I hid the bearing under the bed in the rented room, thinking I'd sell it after things calmed down..." He suddenly laughed, a laugh tinged with despair, "I didn't expect him to hold on so tightly, even his hair got stuck in the bearing..."
The interrogation continued until dawn. Li Xiaodong's confession perfectly matched the results of the on-site investigation and autopsy. When asked how he knew there were bearings in the warehouse, his eyes drifted to the window: "I used to go to the factory with Li Jun, and I heard Zhang Jianguo say that the 6205 model bearings were the most valuable..." His voice trailed off, "If I had known he would fight to the death, I would never have gone..."
When signing the statement, Li Xiaodong's hand trembled so much he could barely hold the pen, and it took him three tries to finally sign his name at the end. Xiao Wang watched him being led away by the police, the bloodstained bearing gleaming coldly in the morning light. Drag marks in the warehouse, fingerprints on the vents, fibers from the motorcycle… all the fragments were finally pieced together, but the honest and hardworking warehouse keeper would never return.
As he walked out of the interrogation room, the sky was already beginning to lighten. Xiao Wang took out his phone and sent a text message to Zhang Jianguo's wife, Liu Guiying: "The murderer has been caught, the case is solved." When the notification popped up that the message had been successfully sent, he seemed to see that woman in the floral shirt standing under the clothesline, watching her husband's white shirt swaying in the wind, and finally, he couldn't help but cry out loud.
On the morning of the third day after Li Xiaodong's arrest, a thick fog, like unyielding milk, shrouded the entire city in a hazy mist. The flashing lights of three police cars cast red and blue halos in the fog, their wheels splashing through the wet asphalt. Li Xiaodong, dressed in an orange-red prison uniform, had his hands cuffed behind his back with heavy iron chains. Each link of the chains was covered in dried grime, clanging dully in the bumpy car. At his ankles, the shackles had chafed his skin, and the seeping blood mingled with the orange of his uniform, forming an eerie dark brown.
As the dilapidated red-brick warehouse of the bearing factory came into view, Li Xiaodong suddenly convulsed as if struck by lightning. He bit his lower lip tightly until he tasted blood, then released it, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth down his chin onto the front of his prison uniform, spreading into a small dark stain. "We're here," the police officer beside him whispered, but he abruptly closed his eyes, pressing his head against the cold car window, where a white mist immediately condensed, reflecting his distorted profile.
The police car slowly pulled up in front of the warehouse. Dew condensed into tiny ice crystals on the rusty iron gate, refracting the sunlight through the mist. Outside the police cordon, Zhang Jianguo's wife, Liu Guiying, wore a black cotton-padded coat with a white paper flower pinned to her collar. She clutched a portrait of Zhang Jianguo tightly in her hand, warmed by her body heat. In the photo, Zhang Jianguo smiled kindly, the wrinkles around his eyes seeming to still carry the smell of warehouse oil. As Li Xiaodong was helped out of the car by the officers, she suddenly let out a piercing scream, trying to rush forward like an enraged mother beast. Two officers held her back, their fingernails scratching white marks on their uniforms.
“It’s this door.” Li Xiaodong’s voice was hoarse, as if it had been sanded, his knuckles digging into the greasy iron door, leaving several crooked white marks. A half-circle of rusty wire was still wrapped around the doorknob, a mark left by the police after the incident; the end of the wire was caught on a piece of dark blue fabric—later tested and found to be a perfect match for the cotton-polyester blend of Zhang Jianguo’s work pants. Warehouse manager Lao Li said these were Zhang Jianguo’s most frequently worn work pants, with a patch sewn onto the right knee.
The moment the warehouse door was pushed open, a stench of engine oil, mold, and a faint putrid smell assaulted the senses, causing everyone present to instinctively frown. Dust filled the warehouse, swirling in the sunlight streaming in through the vents like countless tiny, suspended planets. Li Xiaodong paused, his gaze sweeping in terror over the mountain of bearing boxes. Those cardboard boxes marked "6205" seemed to transform into Zhang Jianguo's wide-open eyes. His Adam's apple bobbed violently, and cold sweat instantly soaked his hair, clinging to his skin like icy snakes.