The Same Fate Awaits All Sins Chapter 23

Worship – 08

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At six a.m., Gu Yanta yanked a bleary-eyed and dishevelled Lu Zheng out of bed. "Get up quickly, there's news from the special task force!"

Lu Zheng's dull eyes showed a great deal of confusion. "What task force?"

"The ones who barged in yesterday, demanding to take the case!" Gu Yanta replied while retrieving Lu Zheng's clothes from the dryer and placing them in front of him. "Hurry up and get ready, I'll give you three minutes, waiting outside the door!"

Still not fully awake, Lu Zheng ran his fingers through his messy hair. "What? Three minutes? Look at my hair! I need at least half an hour!"

"No way, a grown man shouldn't fuss over details like that!" Gu Yanta held up five fingers. "Five minutes, tops, move it!"

"Wait, can't I just not go?" Lu Zheng suddenly realised. "Right, I'm not even officially employed by you guys, I still need to work on my thesis!"

"That won't do, you're my personal think tank, and besides, didn't you finish your thesis ages ago?"

"Ah, I just want to sleep a bit longer... I haven't been sleeping well these days, I'm very particular about my sleep quality..." Lu Zheng pouted unconsciously.

The contrast between the Lu Zheng who refused to get out of bed and the usual aloof and arrogant demeanour was stark. His sulking and dragging his feet were nothing short of adorable, leaving Gu Yanta both amused and exasperated. He retreated to the hallway, closed the bedroom door, and said, "Either way, in five minutes, I'm coming in, so do as you will... 30 seconds have already passed."

Inside, the sound of Lu Zheng hurriedly changing clothes rustled through the room, causing a faint smile to tug at Gu Yanta's lips.

Twenty minutes later, Gu Yanta and Lu Zheng arrived at the city bureau. Despite repeatedly trying to flatten his stubbornly unruly hair with water, Lu Zheng's hair defiantly stuck up.

As they entered the bureau, they ran into Ma Qin. The young officer's jaw dropped when he saw the usually neat and meticulous Lu Zheng sporting such a hairstyle. "Consultant Lu! Wh-what happened to your hair?"

"A grown man shouldn't fuss over details like that." Lu Zheng waved his hand expressionlessly.

"The way you say that, why are you becoming more and more like Boss..." Ma Qin muttered as he walked away.

The three members of the special task force were already waiting in the conference room.

"Captain Gu, good morning. We indeed had some issues with our attitude yesterday" Yu Fei changed his tough style from yesterday and said very politely, "I'd like to apologise for my brash behaviour yesterday."

"It's fine," Gu Yanta said nonchalantly as he sat down. "So, what brings the task force here this time?"

"It's like this, yesterday the task force received news from Yuchuan Prison. In the prison's detainee DNA database, a sample was found that was highly consistent with the Y-DNA of the killer from back then!"

In recent years, prisons have standardised their procedures, requiring all inmates to submit fingerprints and DNA samples to establish a comprehensive database. Now, the database has yielded a Y-DNA match highly consistent with the killer's DNA from twenty years ago! This indicated that the killer from twenty years ago hadn't vanished without a trace, he had family still living, and one of them had committed a crime, leaving behind a DNA sample!

"What? Why didn't you say something this important earlier?" Gu Yanta's expression darkened as he lowered his voice. "Is this information confirmed?"

"It's confirmed. Since the case was reopened, we sent the DNA samples retained from twenty years ago to the prison sample database for comparison, and the results just came back this morning." Yu Fei stated firmly, "Now we need your police team's cooperation to help us locate and apprehend the suspect."

"Can you show us the information on this inmate?" Gu Yanta pointed towards Yu Fei's bag.

Yu Fei nodded and pulled out a file from his briefcase. 

Meng Liang, male, forty-five years old, sentenced to two years and three months in prison for fraud. He was incarcerated on May second, 2018 and has served one year and one month. Attached was a typical mugshot of a prison inmate, eyes vacant and expression blank. Nothing about him seemed unusual.

"You're saying that the killer from twenty years ago is paternally related to this man. Why wasn't this discovered at the time?" Gu Yanta asked after reviewing the file.

Lu Zheng, who had been silent, suddenly spoke. "This man's ancestral home is Huangcheng County, Lingzhou. Although it's under Lingzhou's jurisdiction, it's just a single bridge across the river from Yuchuan, no wonder the citywide fingerprint collection back then didn't catch the killer. He could have easily fled back to his hometown during the police's investigation and returned to Yuchuan to continue his crimes once the situation calmed down."

It was only then that Yu Fei noticed Lu Zheng's presence, and he nodded in agreement, impressed by the young man's analysis. "This young man is absolutely right. Back then, investigative techniques were rudimentary, even fingerprint comparisons were done manually by technicians one by one. Despite the police's thorough efforts, the scope was limited to Yuchuan, inevitably overlooking individuals from neighbouring regions."

"Leader Yu, you can rest assured," Gu Yanta said as he stood and gave a crisp salute. "As long as we can catch the killer, our team will fully cooperate with your efforts!"

Once out of the meeting room, Gu Yanta immediately mobilised his team to investigate Meng Liang's paternal relatives. Since this involved cross-regional work, cooperation with Lingzhou's police was required. Lingzhou quickly dispatched technical personnel to coordinate with Chen Chen, and within an hour, they identified several of Meng Liang's cousins who had worked in Yuchuan.

"Boss, most of these individuals are no longer in Yuchuan. If we want to investigate, we'll have to contact the local police to coordinate the investigation," Chen Chen said, adjusting his glasses. "Do you think we need Director Wu to approve a request for a coordinated investigation? It might take a day or two, depending on the level of cooperation and efficiency from the local authorities..."

Lu Zheng, glancing at the screening results, pointed at one name. "No need for all that, just focus on this person."

Meng Yong, male, forty-seven years old, suffered a spinal cord injury during a workplace accident in Yuchuan in 1999, resulting in paraplegia. The construction company compensated him with a hundred thousand yuan.

"This... Consultant Lu, he's a disabled person..." Chen Chen hesitated.

"Where is Meng Yong now?" Gu Yanta asked urgently. "Chen Chen, check quickly."

Chen Chen's fingers flew over the keyboard, and after a brief pause, he replied, "Got it! Boss, this guy lost both his legs after a workplace accident, and with the help of the China Disabled Persons' Federation, he opened a small shop. It's located... on the campus of Yuchuan Vocational and Technical College!"

"Send a team immediately to detain Meng Yong and collect his fingerprints and DNA samples! There's a high probability that he's the true culprit in the serial murders from twenty years ago!"

By noon, the school campus was bustling with activity. The bell had just rung for lunch, and a torrent of students surged towards the cafeteria in a scene that could only be described as spectacular. The ninth great cuisine of China – cafeteria food – was in high demand. The aunt serving food expertly wielded her oversized ladle, scooping up a serving of braised potato and chicken from a massive pot. With a practised shake, she flicked off the two lone pieces of chicken clinging to the ladle before plopping the rest onto a girl's lunch tray.

"Next!" The aunt shouted at the top of her lungs.

The girl looked at the pitiful braised potatoes in her lunchbox, sighed, and turned toward the nearby kiosk.

"Uncle, one braised chicken leg and a bottle of Nutri-Express."

"Yo, Xiao Yu, here for extra food again today?" Uncle Meng, the shopkeeper in a wheelchair, took her change, handed her a vacuum-packed chicken leg and a drink, and added a braised egg. "The egg is for you, you don't eat proper meals, just snacks all day. Look at you, all skin and bones like a bean sprout!"

In her eyes, Uncle Meng had always been kind and amiable. She laughed, opened her lunchbox, and grumbled, "Don't even mention it, the cafeteria food is expensive and awful. Look, I ordered braised potatoes, and they didn't even give me a chicken butt!"

Uncle Meng laughed heartily. The girl took her snacks and was about to leave when suddenly, a group of young men barged in, looking stern and intimidating.

She thought to herself, Uncle Meng is such a nice guy, he shouldn't have caused any trouble, right? Her curiosity got the better of her, and she didn't go far. Instead, she stayed close to the doorway, peeking inside. The leader of the group, a tall and handsome man, pulled out his badge and slapped it on the counter in front of Uncle Meng. "We're from Yuchuan City Bureau's criminal investigation team. We highly suspect that you're connected to the serial murders from twenty years ago, please come with us!"

The handsome officer retrieved a pair of handcuffs from his belt. The girl clearly saw panic flash across Uncle Meng's face as his trembling hands were cuffed.

As soon as the news came out, the campus was in an uproar! The seemingly honest and dependable kiosk owner, a disabled man no less, turned out to be a serial killer from twenty years ago!

The whole campus buzzed with speculation, no one noticed a gloomy-eyed boy sitting silently in a corner for the entire day... 

City bureau.

"Boss, the results of Meng Yong's fingerprint and DNA comparison have come out! It's confirmed that they are consistent with the fingerprints and DNA left at the scenes of the 1998.4.19 serial murders!" Chen Chen pushed open the interrogation room door and placed a report in front of Gu Yanta.

"Meng Yong, do you have anything to say for yourself?" Gu Yanta slammed the table and bellowed.

The middle-aged man before him, slightly overweight with a ruddy complexion, looked as though he had been living a decent life. Yet, his expression resembled that of a frail, dying old man. His pant legs hung limply over his wheelchair. From appearances alone, he was just an ordinary middle-aged disabled man, a symbol of perseverance, even deserving admiration for starting his own business. No one would ever associate him with the heinous and depraved killer of twenty years ago.

Meng Yong lifted his eyes slightly and rasped, "I knew this day would come, do what you must."

"Why did you kill those women? Speak!" Gu Yanta's eyes blazed with anger. If not for the surveillance cameras, he would have already pinned the bastard to the ground and beaten this scumbag black and blue. This man had caused so many families to be shattered, yet he'd lived peacefully for twenty years. If he still had his legs, who knows how many more lives he'd have destroyed!

"I forgot, it's been so long, I don't remember." Meng Yong lowered his head, shut his eyes, and wore a resigned expression, as if saying, kill me or chop me up, it's up to you.

"Let me ask." Lu Zheng gently pressed Gu Yanta's hand and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Gu Yanta realised his emotions had gotten the better of him, and jabbed a finger toward Meng Yong in frustration before leaving the interrogation room.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: December 16, 2024 by Angel

Edited: January 14, 2025 by Angel