The Same Fate Awaits All Sins Chapter 28

Worship – 13

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Interrogation Room

Xu Leixin sat with his head hung in his chair, looking as lifeless as a wilting eggplant.

"I'll ask you again, what exactly is your relationship with Meng Yong?" Jiang Ziyu, seated opposite Xu Leixin, demanded sharply.

"Officer, I don't know any Meng Yong, who even is he?" Xu Leixin replied evasively.

"Then why were you at the abandoned warehouse at that particular time? Whose body was in the warehouse? Are you going to claim you just happened to stumble upon the place while taking a walk?" Jiang Ziyu slammed the table as he spoke.

The loud bang made Xu Leixin flinch. He said nothing, lowering his head even further.

At that moment, Lu Zheng entered the room.

"Why are you lying?" Lu Zheng flipped through the information in his hands without raising his eyes. "You know how Li Wenli died, don't you?"

"I don't know, we broke up months ago!" Xu Leixin's voice grew quieter and quieter.

"Then why did you mention her new boyfriend the first time you came to the station to assist in the investigation?" Lu Zheng raised his gaze and questioned.

Xu Leixin clenched his teeth. "I just blurted it out."

"Xu Leixin, let me make this clear, if you cooperate with our investigation now and expose the real culprit, we can be lenient given your status as a minor. However, if you refuse to cooperate, we'll have no choice but to treat you as a suspect. Intentional homicide is not something you can just weasel your way out of," Lu Zheng said, his piercing gaze so intense that Xu Leixin didn't dare meet his eyes.

"I... I didn't kill anyone!" Xu Leixin shouted, raising his head.

"Then why were you at the burial site in the middle of the night, attempting to assault the police?" Lu Zheng demanded angrily.

"I... I didn't assault the police, I didn't know you were the police, I just went there to..." Xu Leixin trailed off suddenly, realising he had almost let something slip.

"Why did you go there? What did Meng Yong instruct you to do? Why are you helping him kill and bury bodies?" Lu Zheng pressed on sharply.

"I didn't kill anyone!" Xu Leixin screamed hoarsely.

"So, it was you who buried the body, right?" Lu Zheng continued relentlessly.

"I..." Xu Leixin was momentarily at a loss for words.

"Since you won't say anything, we'll have to treat you as a suspect for now," Lu Zheng said, turning to Jiang Ziyu. "What's the situation on Meng Yong's side?"

Jiang Ziyu leaned in and pretended to whisper a few words in Lu Zheng's ear.

Lu Zheng nodded. "Got it. Xu Leixin, even if you stay quiet, you won't hold out for long. Meng Yong's throat will be able to speak by tomorrow. If he turns the tables on you, claiming his disability makes it impossible for him to commit the murder and accuses you instead, you'll lose the chance to earn any leniency. Not even jumping into the Yellow River will clear your name!"

Xu Leixin's body trembled like a leaf in the wind, and bean-sized beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, dripping onto his cheeks.

"I didn't kill anyone, that woman was sick! She came looking for death herself!" Xu Leixin suddenly became agitated, trying to rise from his chair. The handcuffs pulled him back down with a loud thud, forcing him back into his seat.

"Was it her?" Lu Zheng placed a photo of Pei Jing in front of Xu Leixin.

Xu Leixin nodded silently.

"Who struck the fatal blow?"

"Meng... Uncle Meng. But it's not his fault, she was the one who came looking for trouble." Xu Leixin said through gritted teeth.

"What exactly is your relationship with Meng Yong? You can tell me now, can't you?" Lu Zheng asked, his arms crossed over his chest, his tone calm and steady.

"My parents divorced when I was young, and no one cared for me. I was raised by my grandmother. She used to sell breakfast near Yuchuan Vocational College and knew Uncle Meng. After my grandmother passed away, it was Uncle Meng who looked after me," Xu Leixin said, his voice cracking as he began to sob. "It's all that woman's fault. She was sick, she kept saying she should die by Uncle Meng's hands. She'd come to harass us every few days, saying if Uncle Meng didn't kill her, she'd go to Aunt Meng and her brother and tell them that Uncle Meng was a murderer! Uncle Meng had no choice... he had to strangle her. He's not physically well, so I... I helped him bury her."

"When did this happen?"

"Around... more than a year ago... I heard that Uncle Meng had been arrested, and I got scared. I thought the place wasn't safe, so... I decided to dig up the body and bury it somewhere else," Xu Leixin continued to sob as he spoke, lost in his own thoughts. "This was all just a coincidence, otherwise, Uncle Meng wouldn't have killed anyone again. I really don't know anything about what happened to Li Wenli... Uncle Meng was in such a state, there's no way he could have killed her..."

From Xu Leixin's description, it was clear that Pei Jing's severe depression and delusions likely stemmed from physiological trauma from her childhood. With her mental state, unable to even ensure her own well-being, she certainly wasn't fit to care for her underage brother.

Lu Zheng closed his eyes and thought deeply for a long moment. He stood up and patted Jiang Ziyu on the shoulder. "Let's stop here for today," he said, then pointed at Xu Leixin. "Think carefully about what I've said, once you've made up your mind, we'll talk again."

"It's going to rain." Gu Yanta stood by the forensic office window, gazing at the dark clouds rolling in the night sky.

"The time of death was at least a year ago, and age is between twenty-five and thirty. There's a fracture in the cervical vertebra, they should have been strangled to death." Lin Feiyu said, pulling off his gloves and washing them under the tap. "Identifying the victim will be difficult."

Gu Yanta nodded. "Consultant Lu already got it out of him, the deceased is likely Pei Jing, the little girl who survived twenty years ago."

"Then the best option now is to find her relatives and verify the DNA. After all this time with no missing person report, does she still have any family?" Lin Feiyu sighed. After working as a forensic pathologist for so long, he had seen countless unclaimed corpses. There are dozens of such cases every year.

"I heard she has a younger brother, but he's hard to find."

"Is it him?" Lin Feiyu noticed a photo of the boy in Gu Yanta's files. He picked it up and studied it for a moment.

"Mhmm, it's a picture of him as a child." Gu Yanta glanced at the photo.

The boy in the photo appeared to be around ten years old. He resembled his sister as a child, as if they were carved out of the same mould. The boy was smiling carefreely, with a pair of cute dimples on his face, looking very sunny.

"I feel like I've seen him somewhere... How old is he now?" Lin Feiyu frowned.

"This is a picture from ten years ago, he'd be in his twenties now."

Lin Feiyu suddenly slapped his thigh. "I remember now! This is one of Jingjing's key patients! There were several times when I went to pick her up after work, and we'd pass by the boy. It's just that..."

"Just what?"

"His appearance hasn't changed much from when he was younger, but there's something different about his temperament now. That boy gives off this gloomy aura," Lin Feiyu said, shuddering as if recalling a chill. "It makes you feel uncomfortable all over."

———

"You're saying... he's Dr. Lai's patient?" Lu Zheng raised his head from the sink, toothbrush still in hand.

"Mhmm, Brother Lin said it himself, he's seen him several times at the hospital," Gu Yanta was lying on the sofa watching television. Over the past couple of days, the sofa had become his base since a certain someone had taken over the bedroom.

Lu Zheng spat out the toothpaste foam and quickly tidied up his toiletries. "I remember, a couple of days ago, I went to see Dr. Lai about the collaboration project, and he was in the doctor's office at the time. No wonder those eyes looked so familiar! Turns out he's Pei Jing's younger brother."

"Should we call Dr. Lai now to ask about the situation?" Gu Yanta pulled out his phone and hesitated.

Before the words were even out of his mouth, Gu Yanta's phone blared loudly. Checking the caller ID, he saw, "Lin Feiyu."

"Speak of the devil and he will appear!" Gu Yanta muttered as he answered the call.

"Old Gu, what do I do? Jingjing is missing!"

"What? What happened?" Gu Yanta sprang up from the sofa as Lu Zheng gestured for him to put the call on speaker. Lin Feiyu's anxious voice came through loud and clear, "I texted her around six, saying I'd be working late tonight, and she replied saying she understood. But when I got home just now, she wasn't there. Her phone's off, and when I asked her unit's night shift, they said she left right after finishing her shift."

"Chief Lin, calm down for a moment, is it possible that Dr. Lai went to a relative's or a friend's place and her phone just ran out of battery?" Lu Zheng interjected from the side.

"You're... Consultant Lu? Why are you..." Lin Feiyu was too anxious to dwell on why Lu Zheng and Gu Yanta were together this late at night. He rattled off the situation like a machine gun. "Jingjing's family is from another province, she came to Yuchuan with me after graduation and doesn't have relatives here, and I've already asked all her friends. Besides, even if she went out, she'd have told me! Something's definitely happened, what do I do now?"

Lin Feiyu's voice was laced with sobs. He and Jingjing had been dating since their student days, and their deep affection for each other was widely known.

"Alright, don't panic, Consultant Lu and I will head out to check possible locations. In the meantime, you keep calling Jingjing's friends and colleagues one by one to ask," Gu Yanta said reassuringly.

After hanging up, Lu Zheng looked at Gu Yanta and said, "Dr. Lai might be in danger. Considering the surveillance footage before Li Wenli's murder, there's a high possibility that the copycat is Pei Jing's younger brother."

"I know, the question is, where do we look? Yuchuan is so big, I'm afraid we might be too late..." Gu Yanta ran a hand over his face, unable to finish the thought.

"Meng Yong was arrested, which would have shattered the copycat's mental idol, dealing a significant blow to his psyche, he's likely in a very unstable state right now. In his eyes, everything Meng Yong did is worth emulating, especially the game element in the tenth case, which holds profound meaning for him. It's highly probable he's about to carry out the final game ahead of schedule." Lu Zheng said decisively. "We should check the abandoned warehouse again!"

"The game requires two participants, besides Dr. Lai, there's likely another victim, probably male!"

"Let's go!" Gu Yanta grabbed Lu Zheng's arm, and the two rushed out in a hurry.

‿︵‿︵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: January 1, 2025 by Angel

Edited: January 1, 2025 by Angel