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

Chapter 1121 Separate Investigations

Xiao Wang has already contacted the vehicle management office to check Chen Mei's vehicle information: "She has a red electric bike registered in her name. The tracking data from 10 PM on July 3rd shows that she left Liu Bin's company and appeared at the entrance of Zhang Lei's residential area at 10:12 PM, which perfectly matches the call time!" His voice was filled with excitement. "This forms a complete timeline: Chen Mei called to lure Zhang Lei home, Liu Bin ambushed him in the stairwell, and the two worked together to move the low cabinet and dispose of the murder weapon and stolen goods."

Zhou Jianguo, however, offered a different perspective: "If Chen Mei was an accomplice, why did the surveillance footage only capture Liu Bin moving the cabinet?" He circled the words "female footprints" with his pen. "Furthermore, given the weight of the low cabinet, it's more reasonable for two adults to move it, which Liu Bin and Chen Mei could easily have done. But I'm worried about overlooking another possibility—could Chen Mei have been coerced by Liu Bin? If her bank statements show large withdrawals, that might explain things."

By the end of the meeting, sunlight had streamed over the conference table, and everyone's notebooks were filled with densely packed notes indicating what needed to be investigated. Li Ming emptied the tea from his enamel mug, the tea leaves swirling in the sink. "Let's meet again at three this afternoon," he said, gazing at the police tape outside the window. "Until Liu Bin's wrench and Chen Mei's electric scooter are found, all speculation is just conjecture—we need irrefutable evidence."

The 3D model on the screen continued to rotate, exposing every corner of Zhang Lei's house in the point cloud data, as if silently urging the truth to be revealed. The missing low cabinet, like a giant question mark, hung in the center of the model, waiting for the day it would be solved.

When Xiao Wang's police car pulled up in front of Liu Bin's building materials company, the roller shutter door was slowly rising to the hum of its electric motor. The morning light slanted across the piles of steel bars. Liu Bin, wearing rust-stained overalls, was directing workers to unload the goods. The birthmark on his left wrist was particularly clear in the sunlight—a heart-shaped outline with a pale reddish edge, perfectly matching the features in the surveillance footage. "Mr. Liu, I'll take half an hour of your time. There are some things I need to understand," Xiao Wang said, flashing his police badge. As a result, the wrench in Liu Bin's hand clattered onto the steel plate, the echo reverberating through the empty factory area.

The interrogation room was blasting air conditioning. Liu Bin's fingers unconsciously traced circles on the table, black grease embedded in the calluses on his knuckles. "Zhang Lei and I were just doing business," he said, his Adam's apple bobbing. "That 50,000 yuan was a prepayment for a batch of rebar he ordered. Later he said he didn't want it anymore and asked me to return the money. I was just about to transfer it back to him." Xiao Wang pushed the bank statement in front of him. Next to the transfer record from July 2nd, Liu Bin's account showed a withdrawal of 50,000 yuan on the morning of July 3rd. "What did you do with that money?" Liu Bin's eyes flickered: "Pay the workers' wages. Cash is convenient."

While investigating Liu Bin's interpersonal relationships, Xiao Wang found Zhou, an old merchant, in a teahouse in the building materials market. The tea in the purple clay teapot was amber in color, and Zhou's fingers tapped rhythmically on the tea tray: "Liu Bin is a loyal man, but he has a quick temper. He had an argument with Zhang Lei at the market a while ago," he said, adding water to his teacup, the steam blurring his glasses. "Zhang Lei said Liu Bin's steel grade was wrong and he was going to report him to the quality supervision bureau. Liu Bin called him an ingrate, saying that he was the one who brought him into the business." But Zhou emphasized that despite the arguments, Liu Bin never used violence to solve problems. "His wife was diagnosed with uremia three years ago, and dialysis costs a lot of money every month. He's extremely frugal; he wouldn't have the mind to kill someone."

Xiao Wang retrieved Liu Bin's call records. The six missed calls on the morning of July 3rd were indeed from Zhang Lei. However, at 2:17 PM, Liu Bin called Zhang Lei back for 1 minute and 43 seconds. "I told him I'd refund the money over the weekend and not to rush me," Liu Bin wrote in his statement. "He was quite aggressive, saying he'd sue me if I didn't get the refund, but I really didn't expect him to get into trouble." The call records show that the two had no further contact after that. Liu Bin's phone signal, starting at 3 PM, remained at a steel warehouse in the suburbs, more than 20 kilometers from Zhang Lei's home.

Verifying Liu Bin's whereabouts at the time of the incident was the focus of the investigation. At 8 PM on July 3rd, he appeared on the company's surveillance footage, checking accounts with the accountant; the timestamp on the footage clearly showed 7:58:23 PM. "We worked overtime until 9:19 PM," the accountant showed the attendance sheet. "Mr. Liu said he was going to the warehouse to check on the newly arrived goods. He drove away at 9:45 PM; I saw him get into the truck with my own eyes." Warehouse surveillance footage showed Liu Bin's white truck entering at 10:07 PM. After getting out of the truck, he kept counting the steel. The forklift driver could testify: "He checked the quantities with me until 11:20 PM before leaving; he didn't leave the warehouse for even a moment during that time."

Xiao Wang had technicians retrieve surveillance footage of the route from the warehouse to Zhang Lei's house. The shortest route required a 45-minute drive, and from 10 PM to midnight on July 3rd, two lanes of the suburban expressway were closed due to construction, causing severe traffic congestion. "The fastest it would take to get from the warehouse to Zhang Lei's house is 1 hour and 10 minutes," Xiao Wang measured on the map. "Liu Bin left the warehouse at 11:20 PM. Even without traffic, he wouldn't have arrived at Zhang Lei's house until 12:30 AM. By then, Zhang Lei would have been dead for over an hour, leaving him no time to commit the crime." He also retrieved surveillance footage from the gas station. Liu Bin's truck entered the gas station at 11:50 PM, and the gas station attendant remembered him buying a bottle of mineral water. "He complained about the construction and traffic jams, saying he had to take a longer route home, which matches the route shown on the surveillance footage."

Liu Bin's home is located in an old residential area in the west of the city. At 12:40 AM on July 3rd, surveillance footage at the entrance of the complex captured his truck entering and parking at 12:47 AM. "I didn't go out again after I got home," said Liu Bin's wife, lying in her hospital bed with a dialysis tube extending from her arm into the machine. "He poured me a cup of hot water, chatted with me for a while, and I didn't go to sleep until around 1 AM." Neighbors also confirmed that they heard the television from Liu Bin's home around 1:15 AM. "He was watching a rebroadcast of the evening news; it was quite loud, we could hear it from our house."

Xiao Wang also investigated Liu Bin's wrench. The serrated wrench was indeed his usual tool, but comparing it with the bruise mark provided by Zhang Lin, the wrench's diameter was 7 centimeters, 1 centimeter smaller than the mark, and the rust on the wrench's surface did not match the residue on the deceased's wound. "Fingerprint comparison has also ruled it out," the technician said, bringing in the report. "Liu Bin's fingerprints have six discrepancies with the unknown fingerprints on the fire hydrant box, especially the center of the whorl pattern, where the difference is obvious."

Further investigation of bank statements revealed that the 50,000 yuan Liu Bin withdrew on July 3 was indeed distributed to the workers on the morning of July 4, as evidenced by receipts from 12 workers, and the signature times on the receipts matched the time of Liu Bin's withdrawal.