Which of the three possibilities was most likely?
The murder case could not be judged subjectively, and they needed to find more definitive evidence. Yue Xingwen asked Ke Shaobin to copy all the project information related to the Dexin Group, and also downloaded all the online reports on this matter, as well as the Weibo comments, and carefully read them from beginning to end.
He found several suspicious points.
First, the person with the Weibo ID ‘Seeking Justice’ registered his Weibo in September, it was a month ago.
This showed that as early as a month ago, this person was ready to expose Dexin Group’s postponing the workers’ wages. The construction of the Xinyue Plaza project started in March and the workers had not been paid monthly since April, with unpaid wages for as long as six months.
This person endured from April until September to register for the Weibo’s side account. In September, what might have happened on the construction site that made this person have the idea of ‘exposing this matter on Weibo’ and register an account in advance?
This person must have received a good education, had a high level of language organization, could incite public sentiment, and was familiar with the means of exposing incidents on the Internet.
Many migrant workers on the construction site were junior high school graduates, some of them were too old to catch up with the nine-year compulsory education, and they had not even attended primary school for a few years. They only knew a few words, and they could not even play with their mobile phones, not to mention registering a side account, posting Weibo on the Internet, also marked with a hot search label and tagged(@) various media for help.
In this way, the suspect range of people who post Weibo could be narrowed—— this person would be relatively young, very familiar with mobile phones, the Internet and media, and this person’s education should be in high school or above.
The second point of suspicion; After the Weibo’s post, there were many strange comments in the reply, especially the one with the most likes: “It is said that the wages of the workers of the Xinyue Plaza project are still unpaid for a full six months’, the Weibo ID called ‘Insider’ was obviously also a worker at the construction site. He clicked this person’s Weibo to see, and it was also a side account, with only some forwarded news in the home page.
There were two possibilities, either the person who posted Weibo registered many side accounts, left comments and likes for themselves, and gradually exposed the matter; Or, this person had several accomplices. So, after this person posted Weibo, this person’s companions had left comments and forwarded them, so that the heat of the incident had increased. If this was the case, then the workers on the construction site must know who the person who posted the Weibo was.
Multiple accomplices committing crimes?
Thinking of this possibility, Yue Xingwen looked at Jiang Pingce and said, “If, the murderer still has accomplices, then perhaps Zhao Xuemei, Zhao Qiang, Long Rui, who left in the early hours of the morning, may all be insiders? The three people cover up each other, and it’s possible to make an alibi with each other to clear the suspicion?”
Jiang Pingce followed his thoughts and analyzed them. “In other words, Zhao Xuemei made the scream at a calculated time. After the murderer fled the scene and confirmed safety, she screamed at 5:30am to wake up the crowd at the construction site. At that time most people were sleeping, the murderer was able to blend into the crowd and reduce the presence. And the three people who had left the dormitory, if they made alibis for each other, would the police’s investigation fall into a dead end?”
The three people who were not present testified against each other; the others were ‘asleep’ and it was not known who had gone out, and the murderer left no trace at the scene, so it was really difficult for the police to obtain evidence.
The murderer hidden among the workers was the real organizer of the incident, and Zhao Qiang, Zhao Xuemei and Long Rui were all accomplices? If that speculation held true, how were they supposed to find the murderer when they were covering for each other?
Yue Xingwen frowned and said, “I wonder how the progress on police’s side. They should have high-tech means, such as finding fingerprints, hairs and other things to take back for identification? If nothing is found and the surveillance does not capture the murderer’s tracks, the case is likely to be characterized as an accident.”
Jiang Pingce said, “What about the deceased’s mobile phone? It was taken away by the police, right?”
Liu Zhaoqing said helplessly, “The bodies had been carried away, and the mobile phone must be with the police. There were a lot of people around the scene, so we couldn’t just go and search the mobile phone in the deceased’s pocket, otherwise, a few of us would become suspects.”
Yue Xingwen was silent for a moment before saying, “Let’s continue to keep in touch with the workers and wait for the follow-up evidence from the police. I guess that they will still come back to the construction site, they can’t close the case so quickly.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Yue Xingwen’s guess was correct. In the afternoon, the construction site suddenly became extremely lively.
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There were official words, his jurisdiction region had taken a life, and also caused a hot search on the Internet. If he did not handle it well, he would not be able to keep his official post. Therefore, Secretary Qin was very gracious and gentle. He talked a lot with the workers, and his concern was overwhelming.
The city leaders came to comfort people personally, the workers’ emotions were appeased. Many people cried to Secretary Qin about the plight of their families and hoped to be paid as soon as possible, and Secretary Qin said that he would urge the developer to solve the problem as soon as possible.
Immediately after, someone from the safety department came to the construction site for inspection. As a result, some safety hazards were really identified, especially the drainage and circuit distribution of the underground parking lot were not in compliance, and the project was required to be rectified again.
Then the police also came. Several criminal police officers directly took Zhao Xuemei, Zhao Liang, Zhao Qiang, and Long Rui away. In addition, they also took away Yan Kai, who had bullied Xiao Liang.
One after another, people came and went, and the people on the construction site were in a state of panic.
Yue Xingwen could not follow them to the police station to hear the questioning, but he heard the workers discussing in private——
“Is there something going on with Zhao Xuemei and Zhao Qiang ah?”
“There’s definitely something. Wasn’t it Zhao Xuemei’s birthday last month? Zhao Qiang, this blockhead, also went outside to secretly buy a cake for Xuemei, and I bumped into him…”
“Zhao Qiang and Zhao Dayong aren’t fighting over her, right?”
“It’s possible. They’re both from Zhao Village, Zhao Xuemei and Zhao Dayong used to be neighbors.” The young worker who had told Yue Xingwen a lot about the ‘past of the Zhao Village’ said, “Zhao Dayong, although he is a stuffy gourd and doesn’t like to talk. A few years ago, when he went out to work, he still sent clothes to his nephew every month, and sent them to Zhao Xuemei for her to pass on.”
“Once, I saw Xuemei wearing a particularly nice dress and said someone had sent it to her, so maybe it was from Zhao Dayong.” The young worker gossiped in a low voice, “Zhao Xuemei is good looking and hardworking, so both Zhao Dayong and Zhao Qiang probably like her, and because of this they got into a fight.”
“So, it’s like this!” A group of people around them showed the expression of a melon-eating crowd*.
*onlookers
“Zhao Dayong’s death shouldn’t have been done by Zhao Qiang, right? Why did the police take all of them away ah?” There was a dark-skinned man with a curious look on his face who said, “It’s not enough to kill someone out of jealousy because of a woman, right?”
“It’s hard to say.” An old man exhaled smoke rings leisurely, “Maybe Zhao Xuemei and Zhao Dayong ran out in the middle of the night to have an affair and were caught by Zhao Qiang, who in his anger lost his hand and pushed the person to fall of the building?”
“……” Yue Xingwen found that the imagination of these experts was quite rich.
“Alas, when this happened to Zhao Dayong, the leaders were alerted, so our wages should be paid, right?” A worker frowned and said, “If we don’t pay, the family will really make a fuss.”
After listening for a long time, Yue Xingwen realized that these people did not even mention Weibo at all. Yue Xingwen simply took the initiative to ask, “Big brother, do you have Weibo? This incident at our construction site was posted to the hot search on Weibo.”
“What’s Weibo?” Someone showed a confused expression.
“I can only use WeChat and video call with my family.” A young man took out his mobile phone and said that.
“Let me borrow your mobile phone for a moment, I’ll show you.” Yue Xingwen took the mobile phone from the young man’s hand, and his phone really did not have Weibo installed in it. Jiang Pingce, Liu Zhaoqing, Ke Shaobin and others also came to help, using the excuse of ‘showing you the news’ and borrowing their phones to help them download Weibo.
In fact, they wanted to see whose mobile phone had a weibo and had posted a message.
On the girl’s side, Lin Manluo, Qin Lu and Qin Miao were also helping the female workers to download Weibo.
Everyone worked for an hour and only 8 workers in the whole construction site had downloaded Weibo in their mobile phones and had their own accounts to follow some news and showbiz gossip. For the rest, most of them did not use Weibo, some did even know what Weibo was, and usually only used WeChat.
Yue Xingwen was puzzled, “Don’t you all know that the news of the deceased at the construction site is on the hot search?”
The workers were puzzled. “I don’t know!”
“Who posted the photo? This guy spoke for us and is a good person!”
“Could it be a reporter? You see, this person also found a lot of media forwards on Weibo, this person must be a reporter.”
Yue Xingwen: “…”
It seemed that the person who posted the Weibo did not actively inform the workers about this, perhaps for fear of exposing themselves? Could it be that the ‘insiders’ and ‘worker’ who posted at the top of Weibo were all side accounts of the same person?
Yue Xingwen checked it out in a circle. There were a total of 8 people who had Weibo on their mobile phones, 7 of whom were not familiar with Zhao Dayong, and the remaining young man was the young worker who told Yue Xingwen a lot of ‘Zhao Village’s past’ love gossip—— his name was Zhao Anming.
Yue Xingwen turned his gaze to him and said, “Brother Zhao, how long have you been using Weibo ah?”
Zhao Anming said with a smile, “After graduating from middle school, I registered an account and usually scroll up on entertainment news and stuff.”
Yue Xingwen said, “Can I borrow your mobile phone to read the news?”
Zhao Anming generously handed over his mobile phone.
Yue Xingwen opened Weibo, and saw that his history was not related to the construction site’s death news, all the entertainment gossip, follow a few beautiful stars, and there was no option to switch accounts, his own account called ‘Tomorrow will be better’.
Was he innocent? Or was he so careful that he deleted all his side accounts and browsing history after posting Weibo?
Yue Xingwen could not judge the identity of this person for the time being—— Was Zhao Anming an innocent passerby who provided clues, or a real murderer who wore a mask and hid deeply?
He came from Zhao Village and knew about the death of Zhao Dayong’s brother and sister-in-law, knew that Zhao Dayong and Zhao Xuemei were neighbors, and revealed that the deceased Zhao Dayong, Zhao Xuemei, and Zhao Qiang were in a love triangle. It seemed that he was a gossipy worker from the Zhao Village. However, how true was the information he gave? Was he deliberately misleading people’s judgment?
What if he was the mastermind of this matter and the others in Zhao Village acted in cooperation with him?
Yue Xingwen handed the mobile phone back to the other party and politely said, “Thank you brother Zhao. Are there more people in your Zhao Village who are related to each other? There’s a Wang Village in my hometown, and the whole village is full of relatives.”
Zhao Anming laughed. “Of course, all the girls in our village have not married outside before, and after a long time, the relationship between relatives is almost indistinguishable. My wife is my sister-in-law’s cousin’s niece.”
It sounded chaotic, but the cohesion of such a village was also very strong, after all, everyone was related to each other. Yue Xingwen always felt that it was not quite right for this Zhao Anming to be attentive and give them so much information about Zhao Village.
Around 4:00p.m, several people who had been taken by the police had returned. Since they were back, it meant that these people were not suspected enough to be detained and the police were just taking them in for questioning.
The workers quickly rushed forward to show their concern.
Zhao Anming asked, “A-Qiang, how is it? What did the police say ah?”
Zhao Qiang looked embarrassed and touched his nose while saying, “The police approached us to ask what we were doing out at 4:30am and suspected that we had something to do with Dayong’s death. Dayong and I are brothers who grew up together, we just had a few arguments, how could I possibly kill him!”
Zhao Anming: “Then, what are you doing out in the middle of the night ah?”
Long Rui looked at Zhao Qiang and Zhao Xuemei with a complicated expression.
Zhao Xuemei’s face was flushed, she turned around and walked away quickly. Zhao Qiang’s ears were also red, and chased her away from the crowd.
Everyone immediately surrounded Long Rui. “Old Rui, tell us, what’s going on?”
Long Rui took out a cigarette from his pocket and lit the fire, his expression changed greatly and said, “Both of them ran to the side of the construction site to make love early in the morning. Alas, I was smoking nearby and happened to bump into it. I didn’t want to say anything, but if I didn’t, the police suspected they had something to do with Dayong’s death, so I had no choice but to say it.”
Everyone: “…”
Yue Xingwen and Jiang Pingce glanced at each other.
Things were actually moving towards Yue Xingwen’s speculation—— These three people made an alibi for each other!
Zhao Xuemei and Zhao Qiang saw Long Rui smoking, and Long Rui saw the two of them cheating.
The suspicion was all eliminated at once.
Did they conspire and collude in advance? Or, were they really innocent?
Yue Xingwen looked at Zhao Anming beside him, and the younger man still had the same surprised expression of love for gossip. “I thought Xiaomei and Dayong were a couple, but I didn’t expect that she likes Zhao Qiang?”
Were the people in this Zhao Village all drama queens?
what can I say.. we love some good tea lol
thanks for the chapter <3
I feel that the nephew is more sus now: he’s young and educated. He could have had an accomplice take the photos and send them to him to upload.
In small communities (villages, small towns, work collectives), life is very boring and measured, so any event brings colors to this routine, it is savored and inflated like bubbles like chewing gum. Therefore, excessive drama is normal for villages.
Thank you very much for the translation 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍