Chapter 345: Chapter 343: Uncooperative

The interrogation room was quiet for a long while after Brother Zheng finished shouting.

Lu Xian kept his eyes lowered, not speaking for a long time.

Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t say anything either, just watched him quietly.

After another long moment, Lu Xian said, "Tell you? With that big mouth of yours, you can’t keep a secret to save your life unless it’s official business. You make it sound like the sky is falling over every little thing. How could I have told you? And what good would it have done? So I could owe you a huge favor? So I’d have to walk around with my head down in front of you for the rest of my life?"

"You!" Brother Zheng was too furious to speak.

"I, Lu Xian, clawed my way up from some small town to the Jinghai City Bureau, and I’ve always relied on myself—on my own abilities. I’ve never accepted help from anyone. I risked my life for this!" Lu Xian said resentfully. "I’m not like you rich kids with family connections. I don’t need anyone’s help. I can do it myself—in my work, and in everything else!"

"I don’t need anyone’s charity, and I don’t need anyone’s pity. I look down on those who rely on their families, and I would never accept any help from them!"

"So you go and kill people?!" Brother Zheng shot to his feet, roaring. "Scamming people! Brainwashing them! Destroying family after family! Laundering money! Murder! You did it all! Is this what you call ’relying on yourself’?! If you thought the pay here was too low, if you didn’t want to be here anymore, you could have resigned! Found another way to make a living! Why did you have to kill?! What gives your ’self-reliance’ the right to demand other people’s lives?!"

Lu Xian’s angry, agitated expression froze.

"Are you really relying on yourself? Do you actually think you are?" Brother Zheng slammed his hand on the table. "I can understand your pride. I can understand not wanting to ask for help. But why?! Why did you have to kill?! You used to hate criminals more than anyone! Why have you become like this?!"

"It’s because you all forced me!" Lu Xian suddenly shouted, his gaze shifting to Zhuang Yanzheng. "It’s all you! It’s all because of you! If it weren’t for you, how would I have been exposed?! If it weren’t for you, I’d still be fine at the City Bureau! Why would I have left here and been reduced to killing people?!"

"You... you!" Brother Zheng pressed both hands on the table, his chest heaving, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at him. "You actually think that way! You’d stay here, obstructing investigations, acting as their protective umbrella, and covering for that group so they could run wild and commit even more evil? You think that just because you didn’t do it with your own hands, it’s not your crime? Covering for them makes you just as heinous!"

Brother Zheng slammed the table again. "If you had problems and you didn’t want to tell us, you could have told the Bureau! You could have told the higher-ups! We always find a way to solve things! Why did you have to kill?! What about the people who were killed, the people you scammed?! Aren’t they innocent?! Some of them saved for half their lives, or even their entire lives, and you scammed it away without a second thought! You prey on the elderly and those cut off from society—people with little education, people who are struggling and desperate for quick money. You’re deliberately trying to drive them to their deaths! You had problems! But were *those* people not innocent?!"

The more Brother Zheng spoke, the more upset he became, finally raising a hand to wipe his eyes.

There was a knock on the interrogation room door.

Zhuang Yanzheng turned his head. Lu Zhishen came in, walked to his side, and whispered, "We found Fan Hui. He was already dead in his home when we found him."

Zhuang Yanzheng nodded.

Lu Zhishen showed him a photo on his phone, then left the interrogation room and went outside to listen in as well.

Su Miaoyi and Chu Xingrou looked at him.

"Fan Hui is dead," Lu Zhishen said. "When we broke down the door, he was lying in his living room. There was a lot of blood from the back of his head. I did a quick check—heavy blow from a round, blunt object. On my way up, I checked the trunk of Lu Xian’s car. There were traces of blood, but not much."

"Lu Xian attacked him a second time after bringing him home," Su Miaoyi said.

"He’s been sent to the autopsy room." Lu Zhishen took out his phone to show them. "We also found strange letters and numbers in the car. Written in blood."

Su Miaoyi and Chu Xingrou both took a look.

Chu Xingrou said, "E? S? A direction?"

"Fan Hui wrote it. I saw the scene," Su Miaoyi said. "The numbers are a time. I used that direction and time to find Fan Hui’s residential complex and discovered Lu Xian."

"So that’s how it was," Lu Zhishen said. "He didn’t know where Lu Xian was taking him. Maybe he knew he wasn’t going to make it and wanted to leave some clues. Though at the time, he probably thought the clues wouldn’t be found, since Lu Xian would likely leave right after killing him. But it was the only thing he could do."

Su Miaoyi nodded.

The three of them looked toward the interrogation room again.

Zhuang Yanzheng had Brother Zheng sit down. Brother Zheng didn’t say any more, composing himself.

"Why did you kill Fan Hui?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

"He’d made enough money and wanted to pull out? He knew quite a lot. How could we let someone so disloyal live?" Lu Xian said.

"So three years ago, you had Cong Yu—that is, Mia’s subordinate, Twenty-one—try to kill him once?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

"You people know quite a bit," Lu Xian said. "Yes. But Fan Hui realized what was happening and ran beforehand. We’ve been looking for him all these years. Twenty-one came to Jinghai to look for him too but didn’t find him. I don’t know if Fan Hui was just too good at hiding, or if he wasn’t in Jinghai at the time."

"Then why did you come yourself this time?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked. "Weren’t you unwilling to come to Jinghai?"

"I was unwilling. Very unwilling," Lu Xian said. "But I had no choice. I couldn’t find a suitable assassin on short notice, so I had to come myself."

Su Miaoyi listened to his words from outside.

’Their organization has a massive downline structure. It’s huge, with lots of people and lots of money. But... they probably don’t have many skilled fighters.’

’They have a lot of money, so whenever they need someone ’taken care of,’ they just hire an assassin.’

’Mia’s assassin organization was more or less wiped out, so Lu Xian probably really couldn’t find a suitable replacement.’

"There are so many assassin organizations on the dark web. You couldn’t find a suitable one?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

"I couldn’t find any as skilled as Mia," Lu Xian said. "If they aren’t as good as Mia, I won’t use them. Back then, even using Twenty-one was a clumsy affair."

’That was true; there really weren’t many people more skilled than Mia.’

’Tian Min could be considered one, but Tian Min wasn’t on the dark web.’

Su Miaoyi closed her eyes for a moment. Suddenly, the image of Sister Ying appeared in her mind, and a voice rose from the depths of her heart.

’Sister Ying is incredibly skilled. Much more skilled than Mia.’

"Then what about Zhao Yongliang from Chang City?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked. "What’s his story? Why was he able to leave safely without being killed?"

Lu Xian looked at him. After a moment, the corners of his mouth lifted into a smile, but there was no trace of amusement in his eyes—only hatred. "I don’t know."

"You don’t know?" Zhuang Yanzheng watched him.

"That’s right." Lu Xian’s lips curled. "I don’t know."

...

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