The crackdown on organized crime began with the arrest of the mother-in-law.

Chapter 1112 Suspect, Neighbor Chen Youcai

Those scattered clues—the noodle shop's surveillance footage, Sun Xiaobing's leave slip, the shell company's remittances—will eventually connect in an unexpected moment, pointing to the real murderer. At this moment, all he wants is to offer Zhao Decai a cup of hot tea, so that the old man can taste a belated clarity amidst the bitterness of learning the truth.

Zhao Hongwei's rented apartment building was hidden deep in an urban village. In the peeling paint of the stairwells, electrical wires from each apartment were tangled like spiderwebs around the heating pipes. Xiao Wang climbed the creaking stairs. On the third floor, in a corner pile of garbage, lay a half-eaten bag of noodles—the same brand as the stomach contents in the forensic report. "Zhao Hong lives in 302," the landlady said, clutching her faded keys, her knuckles blackened from years of carrying a coal stove. "Chen Youcai lives next door in 301. The two of them argued constantly last year, and even got into a fight last month."

A faded "Fu" character was pasted on the door of room 302. The verdigris on the doorknob stained the white gloves, leaving a bluish-green mark. When Xiao Wang opened the door with the spare key, a smell of mustiness and engine oil wafted out. On the table by the window, the tea leaves in the enamel mug were still unbrewed, and next to it was a utility bill overdue notice. The recipient was listed as "Zhao Hong," but the signature on the late payment fee calculation sheet was Zhao Hongwei's usual "Hong" character with the top radical.

“Their conflict started last winter,” said Aunt Zhang, who lived across the hall, holding her grandson, the child's drool smeared on her blue blouse. “Chen Youcai complained that Zhao Hong made too much noise when he came home at night, and he would always bang on the door and yell at him. Once, I got up in the middle of the night to get some water and saw Chen Youcai had blocked the lock on Zhao Hong's bicycle. The two of them argued in the hallway until late at night, and Chen Youcai even said, ‘You shady character like you will get your comeuppance sooner or later.’” She suddenly lowered her voice, “Zhao Hong always locks himself in his room, and I’ve seen Chen Youcai peering through the window several times, his eyes filled with a sinister look.”

On Xiao Wang's statement notebook, the name "Chen Youcai" was circled three times. He had a technician inspect the cement floor at the entrance of apartment 301, where they found dark blue polyester fibers in the doorway, with a warp and weft density of 120x80 threads per inch, exactly matching the fibers of Zhao Hongwei's work clothes. "The sound insulation in this building is poor," the landlady added. "A wall separates 301 and 302. Last month, Chen Youcai chiseled through the wall to install a hanging cabinet, which shook a large piece of plaster off Zhao Hongwei's wall. The two almost got into a fight; I had to call the police to separate them."

Police dispatch records from the community police station show that on March 17th of this year, Zhao Hongwei reported to the police that "his neighbor Chen Youcai deliberately damaged property." Photos from the scene show Zhao Hongwei's door splashed with red paint, and the word "liar" crookedly written on the door panel. "Chen Youcai admitted to doing it," the on-duty police officer recalled, "saying Zhao Hong owed him 3 yuan and hadn't paid it back, even calling him a 'convict.' When we mediated, Zhao Hong said he had already paid the money back and that Chen Youcai was just being dishonest; the two almost got into a fight again at the police station."

Xiao Wang found more clues at Chen Youcai's workplace—a scrap metal recycling station in the south of the city. "Old Chen is a petty person," the recycling station owner said, a cigarette dangling from his lips, a forklift rumbling behind him. "Last winter, he bought a batch of steel bars, claiming Zhao Hong had introduced them, but it turned out to be stolen goods. He was fined 7 yuan by the police station. He's convinced Zhao Hong deliberately cheated him and keeps talking about revenge." The payslip showed that Chen Youcai took leave on July 15th. The handwriting on the attendance sheet overlapped with two strokes of the red paint on Zhao Hongwei's door—the angle of the horizontal hook in the character "有" and the curvature of the vertical hook in the character "才" were highly similar.

The surveillance footage from the scrap metal recycling station was played in the conference room. At 9:12 a.m. on July 15, Chen Youcai left pushing a tricycle. In the cargo bed was a rusty steel pipe, about 80 centimeters long and 5 centimeters in diameter, which matched the parameters of the murder weapon deduced by the forensic doctor. "This steel pipe was never returned to the warehouse," the owner said, pointing to the inventory records. "When we did the inventory check on July 16, we found one was missing. Old Chen said, 'I sold it for scrap metal,' but there was no record of this transaction on the recycling station's scales."

While visiting Chen Youcai's mahjong friends, Xiao Wang found a key witness in a corner of the mahjong parlor. "On the night of July 14th, Old Chen lost money," said Lao Li, a mahjong player, rubbing his mahjong tiles. "He said, 'Tomorrow I'll make a lot of money. If that kid Zhao Hong doesn't pay back the money, he'll have to pay with his life.' We thought he was bragging at the time, but now that I think about it..." He suddenly shuddered. "He also said he knew a big secret about Zhao Hong that could put him in jail for life, but he didn't say what the secret was. He just kept drinking."

Xiao Wang's gaze fell on Zhao Hongwei's call log. At 10:03 AM on July 15th, he had called Chen Youcai, a call that lasted 1 minute and 47 seconds. "Base station positioning shows that Zhao Hongwei was at the Hongwei Building Materials warehouse at the time," the technician zoomed in on the map, "Chen Youcai's location was at a scrap metal recycling station, and the two were likely arguing on the phone." After the call ended, Zhao Hongwei immediately called his landlord, saying he "wanted to move," which contradicted his previous statement that he "wanted to go back to his hometown," implying that he had been threatened.

During the search of Chen Youcai's residence, Xiao Wang found an iron box under the bed. Inside was an IOU that read, "Borrowed 11 yuan in cash from Chen Youcai, borrower Zhao Hong, November 5, 2022." However, Zhao Hongwei's bank statements showed that on January 17, 2023, he transferred 1 yuan to Chen Youcai with the note, "Repayment plus interest." "This means the money has already been paid off," Xiao Wang pointed to the alterations on the IOU. "Chen Youcai crossed out the words 'paid off' and wrote 'liar' next to it, clearly leaving it there for blackmail."

The more crucial discovery lay in Chen Youcai's tricycle. Several dark blue polyester fibers were found embedded in the rust inside the cargo bed, their warp and weft density matching Zhao Hongwei's work clothes. "The fingerprints on the handlebars are Zhao Hongwei's," the technician enlarged the fingerprint comparison image, "indicating that Zhao Hongwei may have ridden in this vehicle on the day of the incident, or been forcibly dragged." The tire tread pattern was diamond-shaped, with 70% similarity to the edge wear characteristics of the size 43 shoe print found at the scene, especially the wear on the right front tire, which matched the pressure distribution of the shoe print at the scene.

When Xiao Wang returned to the tenement building, the door to room 301 was sealed off. Neighbors gathered downstairs, gossiping. Some said, "I've always felt something was off between them; I always heard them arguing at night." Others said, "Chen Youcai even broke into Zhao Hongwei's apartment last year and stole a dark blue work uniform." Xiao Wang looked up at the third-floor window. The curtains in Chen Youcai's room were tightly drawn, and sunlight streamed through the gaps onto the floor, like an unhealed wound.

Zhao Hongwei's landlady suddenly remembered something, and she gripped Xiao Wang's arm, her voice trembling.