Chapter 15: The Farmer and the Snake
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After filing the report, Shen Ting spent the entire afternoon keeping watch outside the suspicious residential complex.
Unfortunately, this time he had no chance to save a wayward girl!
That evening, he went to pick up Shen Manman.
He saw her running out of the kindergarten, hopping along while holding Teacher Gao’s hand.
She was also clutching a small box in her left hand. When she reached Shen Ting, she opened it.
“Brother, have some strawberries!”
“This biggest one is for Mom, this second-biggest one is for Dad, and this third-biggest one is for you, Brother!”
Hah. Why not just say the smallest one was for me?
Shen Ting typed on his phone:
“Manman, where did these strawberries come from? Have you eaten any?”
“Teacher Gao gave them to us. Everyone got some.
“I already ate mine. I saved these for all of you.”
Beside them stood Teacher Gao, wearing a down jacket and no makeup, yet still visibly slender and beautiful. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled.
“Actually, everyone only received three strawberries.
“Manman insisted on bringing hers home for you.”
Wow!
Her smile was so lovely, and she was so gentle!
Although Shen Manman could not hear, she could guess what Teacher Gao had said. Pouting, she replied, “Teacher Gao, weren’t you supposed to keep that a secret from my brother?
“And I really did eat some! My friend doesn’t like strawberries. She says she eats them every day at home, so she gave me two.”
She pointed behind her. “Xiaoyu! Xiaoyu gave them to me.
“Thank you, Xiaoyu!”
The girl was about the same age as Shen Manman, but her clothes looked remarkably fashionable.
And although she was only five or six years old, Shen Ting could already sense an aloof air about her.
She said nothing, merely signing a few words to Shen Manman:
“Manman, see you tomorrow.
“I’ll bring you even tastier strawberries!”
Then she calmly climbed into the black luxury car that had come to pick her up.
“Okay, Xiaoyu! See you tomorrow!”
Shen Manman waved enthusiastically.
Then she turned to Shen Ting and exclaimed:
“Brother, that’s my best friend, Xiaoyu!
“Don’t let the fact that she doesn’t talk much fool you—she’s a really nice person.
“She didn’t know sign language before, so she specially went to learn it. She even came to school to teach me!”
“That’s right. Xiaoyu may seem aloof, but she’s actually very warmhearted,” Teacher Gao added with a smile.
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A gentle breeze stirred the strands of her hair. Her eyes curved into lovely crescents, and her gaze was as soft as water.
Shen Ting cleared his throat.
“Teacher Gao, thank you for your hard work. We’ll… see you tomorrow!”
“Okay. See you tomorrow!”
Shen Ting rode away on his electric scooter, inwardly miserable.
He had actually wanted to ask Teacher Gao for her contact information, but when the words reached his lips, they somehow turned into “See you tomorrow.”
“As expected! Even a system can’t save a lifelong bachelor!”
On the way home, he happened to come across someone selling strawberries from a roadside stall. The owner was a rather refined-looking middle-aged man who appeared exceptionally clean-cut.
Shen Ting waved his hand grandly and bought two pounds, giving them all to Shen Manman.
…
When he returned home, Shen Ting was just about to check on the case when a notification tone rang out:
[New development in the case: The killer has confessed. Case solved!]
That fast?
The investigation team was impressively efficient!
Shen Ting immediately shared the relevant materials. Most of them consisted of the suspect’s interrogation videos.
A man like Zhou Gexin was shameless, but he was also especially vulnerable to intimidation.
Under the “attacks” of professional interrogators, he quickly broke down and confessed.
Many of the details were more or less exactly as the group members had speculated.
Several days earlier, the injuries to his head had nearly healed. Seeing that his pockets were empty, he had once again thought of Song’s father, the great benefactor who had saved him.
But Song’s father had already blocked him, so he had no choice but to lie in wait outside Glorious Timber.
As fate would have it, he encountered Song Xiaoqian returning from an errand. She was on the phone with her boyfriend, scolding him for being useless.
Zhou Gexin assumed that Song Xiaoqian was mocking him.
The crucial point was—
Her mockery had struck painfully close to home.
From childhood to adulthood, his parents, siblings, teachers, relatives, and neighbors had all called him useless, a good-for-nothing scoundrel.
Those words were like thorns piercing his heart.
The more people said them, the less accustomed he became to hearing them. Instead, they drove deeper and deeper.
The several times he had ended up in prison for fighting had all been because someone said something similar and shattered his composure.
This time was no different.
Song Xiaoqian’s words made him angrier than he had ever been.
On top of that, he knew that Song Xiaoqian was wealthy.
Rather than humiliating himself by begging for money, he decided to take it by force.
He also knew that Song Xiaoqian had a habit of going for night runs. He knew the route was remote, with numerous side roads—a perfect place to strike.
Besides, while in prison, he had repeatedly listened to murderers boast about how they had killed people. He had learned quite a bit from them.
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He quickly devised a simple plan: kill her, dismember the body, and dump the remains.
But his family was dirt-poor, and he had no means of transporting a body.
On the day of the murder, he went to his third brother Zhou Shengli’s house to “borrow” an electric tricycle.
Calling it a loan was merely a polite way of putting it. He had simply stolen it.
Zhou Shengli knew perfectly well that his younger brother was no good. He might drive the tricycle off and sell it for drinking money at any moment.
But in the end, Zhou Gexin still snatched the keys away.
He also took the axe Zhou Shengli used for breaking up blocks of brine.
After that, everything was simple.
Zhou Gexin drove the tricycle along the back roads and lay in wait on Song Xiaoqian’s jogging route.
When Song Xiaoqian passed by, he suddenly rushed out and attacked her.
After knocking her unconscious, he quickly hauled her onto the tricycle, then took the back roads to a distant forest, where he dismembered her.
He then carried the remains to the reservoir he had selected in advance and dumped them there.
Unexpectedly, however, her head bounced onto the national highway along the way.
Moreover, when he reached the reservoir, he inexplicably felt unsafe.
After hesitating for a long while, he went to the upper reaches of the river and chose a more suitable place to dispose of the body.
He had thought his plan was foolproof, but he never imagined he would be arrested so quickly.
kikO: “(▼ヘ▼#)
“This Zhou Gexin is absolutely vile.
“A year ago, Song’s father saved his life in the snow!
“He didn’t have to be grateful, but how could he kill the man’s daughter over a few words—words he had completely misunderstood?”
Tang Ren: “This is what you get when Mister Dongguo meets the wolf, Lü Dongbin meets the dog, and Song’s father meets Zhou Gexin~~”
Qin Ming: “The story of the farmer and the snake never goes out of date, no matter the era!”
The Jigsaw: “But this snake, Zhou Gexin, was far too venomous and vicious. The price paid by the Song family was far too great.”
Everyone in the group fell silent.
Shen Ting also sighed for Song Xiaoqian and her parents.
But as a stranger, he had already done everything in his power by helping identify the killer.
“All right. The case has been confirmed closed. It’s time to distribute the rewards!”
As Shen Ting left a message in the group, everyone’s spirits lifted, and the system notification sounded immediately afterward.
[Congratulations on successfully solving the case within the two-day time limit.
“Rewards are now being distributed…”]
[Reminder: The richness of the rewards will depend on each member’s performance and contribution in solving the case!]
…
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