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

Chapter 1080 Escorting Zhao Liqiang to Identify the Scene

Upon arriving at room 302 of the Hongyun Hotel, Zhao Liqiang dragged Li Jiansheng onto the bed when the latter suddenly opened his eyes and bit Zhao's left wrist tightly. "I screamed in pain and grabbed the bedside lamp, smashing it over his head." Zhao Liqiang rolled up his sleeve, revealing a faint ring of teeth marks on his wrist. "When he let go, his mouth was covered in blood, splattered on my shirt—the black hoodie, which I later burned."

The cause of the "3x4 cm contusion on the back of the head" in the forensic report finally became clear: the curvature of the lamp base perfectly matched the shape of the wound, and the pale red fluorescence on the bed sheet was the blood that Li Jiansheng had sprayed out at the time. Xiao Wang remembered what the hotel landlady had said about "something reddish," and the test results for the bloodstains remaining in the washing machine drain pipe were now in the case file—AB type blood, consistent with Li Jiansheng's.

Zhao Liqiang's voice began to tremble, as if he were frightened by his own memories: "I thought he was dead, so I went to the bathroom to get a rag to wipe the blood. When I came back, he had actually stood up, leaning against the wall, still clutching a piece of broken glass in his hand." He pointed to his left arm, where there was a recently healed scratch, "This cut was quite deep, and blood flowed down my arm into my sleeve." During the on-site investigation, there were indeed fresh cracks on the bathroom glass door, and Li Jiansheng's fingerprints were extracted from the shards.

"So you hit him with a claw hammer?" Xiao Wang pushed a picture of the hammer head in front of him, with dark red tissue fragments embedded in the rust.

Zhao Liqiang's shoulders trembled violently, the chains dragging on the ground with a grating sound: "He pressed a pane of glass against my neck, saying we'd die together. In a moment of panic, I grabbed a hammer—and just once, smashed it into the back of his head." He gestured the angle at which the hammer fell, perfectly matching the forensic doctor's determination that "the fatal blow was to the center of the occiput." "He fell without a sound, his head hitting the foot of the bed; I can still hear that dull thud now."

There was indeed a fresh dent on the wooden edge of the bed leg, and the DNA of the remaining skin tissue fragments matched that of Li Jiansheng. Xiao Wang opened the autopsy report: a fracture and dislocation of the greater horn of the hyoid bone—a typical characteristic of strangulation. He looked up at Zhao Liqiang: "Why did you strangle him?"

“I was afraid he wasn’t quite dead.” Zhao Liqiang’s voice was low, almost a whisper. “Isn’t that how it always goes in the movies? I straddle him, choking him until my arms ached.” His fingers unconsciously mimicked the action of strangulation. “His legs twitched twice, then he stopped moving completely.” This explained the ligature marks on Li Jiansheng’s neck and the damage to his hyoid bone, and it also corresponded perfectly to the conclusion of death as “mechanical asphyxiation.”

Zhao Liqiang recounted the process of disposing of the body in fits and starts, as if piecing together fragmented memories: "I stuffed him into the back seat of the van, and there was a lot of blood on the floor mats." This matched the dark blue fibers in the gaps of the back seat, which were the cotton-polyester blend of Li Jiansheng's work clothes. "When I passed the scrap yard, I stole a big black plastic bag, thinking that throwing it in the garbage station would be the safest option."

At 3 a.m., at the garbage collection station, Zhao Liqiang dragged Li Jiansheng's body into the warehouse. "His left wrist got caught on my trouser leg," Zhao Liqiang suddenly shuddered, "When I pulled hard, his watch fell to the ground, and the strap broke in two." During the on-site investigation, Xiao Yang did find a broken watch near the end of the drag marks, with the name "Li Jiansheng" engraved on the inside of the case.

When Xiao Wang produced the photo of the watch, Zhao Liqiang's mental defenses completely collapsed. He collapsed onto the table and wailed, his sobs interspersed with broken confessions: "I shouldn't have killed him... I shouldn't have..." Tears soaked the record paper, the ink spreading and obscuring words like "loan sharking" and "substandard steel bars," but unable to cover up the bloody facts.

In the corridor outside the interrogation room, Zhang Lin rushed in with a supplementary forensic report: "Captain Wang, the DNA from the skin tissue under Li Jiansheng's fingernails matches perfectly with the bloodstains at the scratch on Zhao Liqiang's left arm." This report became the last straw, firmly locking Zhao Liqiang's confession against the evidence at the scene.

The rain was still falling, the tapping on the interrogation room window like a countdown timer. As Zhao Liqiang was being led out, he suddenly turned back to look at Xiao Wang, his eyes devoid of ferocity, only empty: "That notebook... was it burned?" Xiao Wang didn't answer, only watching his figure disappear at the end of the corridor—that notebook recording his crimes had actually been hidden by Li Jiansheng in his daughter's piano, now lying in an evidence bag, waiting to become the final evidence to convict Zhao Liqiang.

The interrogation lasted four hours. When Xiao Wang walked out of the interrogation room, the sky was already beginning to lighten. He rubbed his aching shoulders, watching the sky gradually brighten in the east. He knew in his heart that this murder case, stemming from loan sharking and shady construction dealings, had finally come to an end with irrefutable evidence and the murderer's confession. But the image of Li Jiansheng's daughter, Li Mengmeng, playing the piano remained etched in his mind; the melody of "Für Elise" seemed to tell the tragedy of a family consumed by evil.

Back in his office, Xiao Wang meticulously compared Zhao Liqiang's confession with the on-site investigation report and forensic report, ensuring every detail was airtight. From the steel pipes in the abandoned factory to the bloodstains at the Hongyun Hotel, and the watch at the garbage collection station, each piece of evidence was like a puzzle piece, ultimately revealing the complete truth behind Li Jiansheng's death. He knew that justice might be delayed, but it would never be absent, and Zhao Liqiang would ultimately pay a heavy price for his actions.

The iron gate to the landfill groaned rustily in the morning light, and Zhao Liqiang's chain scraped against the concrete, making a broken, intermittent sound. Xiao Wang walked behind him, the stench of decay mixed with disinfectant filling his nostrils—exactly the same smell he'd caught during the first reconnaissance. Outside the cordon, Xiao Yang was outlining the ground with chalk, the white powder contrasting sharply with the reddish-brown soil.

“This is it.” Zhao Liqiang’s voice was muffled by his mask, unclear. He stopped right where Xiao Yang had initially marked the “body discovery point” with chalk, 2.3 meters from the west wall, perfectly matching the forensic measurement of the body’s length. Xiao Wang held up a photo of the scene; the folds in the black plastic bag in the photo overlapped with the trajectory of Zhao Liqiang’s finger at that moment: “How did you get him out of the car?”

Zhao Liqiang's Adam's apple bobbed violently as his gaze swept across the ramp leading to the landfill entrance: "At three in the morning that day, I parked the van on the ramp. When I was backing up, the rear bumper hit a rock, leaving a dent." He pointed to the scratches on the ground, where silver-gray paint still remained, consistent with the test results of the damaged parts of the van. "I dragged him by his left ankle toward the warehouse, and the heel of his shoe scraped a mark on the ground—the brown leather shoes you found."