Muchuan and Xiang Wan - Chapter 90

Chapter 90: Divergent Thinking

It was still that interrogation room.

Chilly, cramped, and oppressive. One would feel greatly pressurized to be there.

This was the second time Xiang Wan had seen Huo Shan.

Perhaps Huo Shan had realized that the interrogation this time was different. His expression was even more nervous than the last time. His hands were clasped in front of his body, rubbing his index finger from time to time in an attempt to make himself relaxed. He grinned at the detectives, but the atmosphere started to get too awkward. In the end, he gave up, looking dejected as if he had wilted.

“Detective, I’ve already told you everything. What do you guys want from me this time?”

Tang Yuanchu wanted to say something but was stopped by Bai Muchuan’s gaze.

He waved his hand to get Tang Yuanchu to get up from his seat as he wanted to sit directly opposite Huo Shan.

Some people, even if they did not say a word, their very presence was stressful enough to another.

Huo Shan looked at him and his expression started to change.

“Detective, I… didn’t do anything.”

Bai Muchuan looked at him coldly and cut straight to the point by putting Kong Xinqiong’s photo on the table. “Tell me, what kind of relationship did you have with this woman?”

Such a straightforward action not only caught Huo Shan unaware, even Tang Yuanchu was confounded.

Accordingly to their usual style of interrogation, they would have asked if Huo Shan knew Wu Hongliang?

So he skipped a step and directly asked about Wu Hongliang’s wife, Kong Xinqiong, already?

… Detective Bai was not someone who played by the rules.

And yet by doing that, he could deal the greatest impact to the suspect for maximum results.

Huo Shan stared wide-eyed at Bai Muchuan for around 30 seconds, seemingly unable to react.

It was the hardest to deal with sudden, unexpected events.

Lying? Not suitable. Huo Shan thought.

What if the police already have the situation under control?

For a long time, Huo Shan contemplated over all these, unable to say a word.

Hmph! Bai Muchuan snorted and banged on the table with one of his hands. The strike had so much strength that tea was spilled on the table and flowed naturally onto Huo Shan’s pants. His body shook like a sieve for a moment as he tried to explain himself.

“Detective, I admit, I know this woman. However, my relationship with her… actually, we only hooked up several times.”

Only several times?

Such an answer was totally unexpected!

He released a little too much content that was shockingly unexpected.

It turned out that this man, who had an unpleasant appearance, was not satisfied with his celebrity wife and slept with the wife of his subcontractor?

Xiang Wan took a peek at Bai Muchuan’s calm and emotionless face. Hats off to you! She exclaimed inside her head.

This guy’s interrogation methods was so much more skillful than Tang Yuanchu. It was no wonder he was the Captain of the entire unit.

Obviously, he had grasped Huo Shan’s character to be outwardly strong but inwardly weak, and so he directly dealt an unexpected blow…

The first round—K.O.!

Bai Muchuan grunted a laugh as he knocked on the table lazily. “Continue!”

Such interrogation method of letting the suspect “continue” to talk by himself was totally brilliant…

The suspect had no way to find out what exactly the police knew, and what else they wanted to know from him? Therefore, people who have not been trained in anti-interrogation techniques would unwittingly say something that the interrogator would not know.

Huo Shan and Bai Muchuan looked at each other.

They looked at each other in the eye, face to face…

About half a minute later, the former lost.

He might have thought that there was no point in trying to turn the tables around with artful sophistry. The moment his mental defenses were put down, it immediately became a torrent of bitterness bursting out from his mouth.

“This woman is the wife of my subcontractor, Wu Hongliang. Back then when we were building ‘The Palace’, the concrete masonry portion was… was subcontracted to him. I’m not familiar with this man. Sun Shangli was the one who introduced that couple to me. She told me she had a classmate whose friend’s husband could do the job.

“In fact, Wu Hongliang did not meet the construction qualification requirements for the project. If not for Sun Shangli, I would not have subcontracted the concrete masonry job to him. It was only much later that I discovered that her supposed classmate was actually the adulterer, Tan Ziyang…

“Detective, can you imagine how grieved I am?”

The moment he brought up Tan Ziyang, Huo Shan started to grind his teeth.

If Tan Ziyang’s corpse was in front of him, he might even be spitting at him.

Bai Muchuan furrowed his eyebrows. “Tell me about your affairs with Kong Xinqiong.”

Huo Shan’s attempt to change the topic failed. His head drooped when he heard Bai Muchuan bring back the topic.

“I didn’t take the initiative to provoke Kong Xinqiong. I got to know her through her husband, Wu Hongliang. That night, we had a team building session. Everyone drank some wine and… she was the one who came on to me. At that time, Sun Shangli was pregnant with my baby… I-I couldn’t control myself so we kept in contact for several times but it’s a just casual relationship, nothing serious about it. We’re just having some fun!”

Having fun?

Xiang Wan couldn’t believe her eyes as she looked at his expression as if he felt that it was all right and proper of him to do that.

After getting Bai Muchuan’s permission, she asked Huo Shan a question on behalf of all women.

“You’re the one who let Sun Shangli down first, so why did you have the cheek to say she fooled around with her first love? You hated her for so long and refused to let her see her kid. Not only that, you even hurled verbal abuse at her as and when you like… Even though she’s already dead, you still want to label her as a slut. Mr. Huo, I really would like to know, how did you manage to do that?”

How could you be so shameless!

She had thought that Huo Shan would be ashamed of himself after hearing her words. Even a tinge of guilt would be sufficient…

Nevertheless, Huo Shan did not.

There was not a waft of guilt. He even used an incredulous expression to look at Xiang Wan.

He asked, “How can this be the same? I’m a man, she’s a woman.”

Xiang Wan was stunned for a moment and sneered, “Oh?”

Hmph! Huo Shan gnashed his teeth. His hatred had not completely dissipated even though both Sun Shangli and Tan Ziyang had died. “So what if I’ve slept with another woman? I’m a dignified boss of a large enterprise. I don’t go whoring, don’t gamble, and never kept a mistress outside. She’s pregnant and I have my needs to take care of. I only had fun with her for a few times, is it too much of me?”

Is it too much of me?

Hurhur! Xiang Wan felt like spitting at his face.

His wife was pregnant with his child and he slept with another woman outside. He asked, “Is it too much of me?”

Huo Shan saw her weird expression and continued his reasoning, “I’m working so hard to make money so as to provide a good life for her and our kid. I’ll always buy anything that she wanted me to get. And look what she did to me? She hang out with her first love on the bed! Hmph! Which married woman would not get criticized when they had a lover outside? She’s a slut!”

Xiang Wan’s heart sank, her face was as white as sheet.

This man discriminated against women to such an extent that his male chauvinism was extreme. Sun Shangli had actually tolerated him for so long before she decided to cheat?

She was so furious that her heart was drumming and she took a look at the others.

The few men inside the interrogation room had calm expressions.

It seemed that she was the exception as the others weren’t as agitated as her…

It was no wonder when women cheat, they would be treated like Pan Jinlian, cursed by the public. Yet countless numbers of Chen Shimei could live well as they would be spared when they turn over a new leaf and gain forgiveness from their family, spouse and society.

Xiang Wan sneered and kept her mouth shut.

Bai Muchuan furrowed his eyebrows when he took a glance at her.

“Borrow a knife to kill a man! Huo Shan, you’re really good at this.”

Huo Shan’s expression changed drastically and stopped talking about Sun Shangli’s infidelity.

“Detective, I didn’t kill anyone, I really didn’t. Detective, you can’t accuse me like this.”

Bai Muchuan said coldly, “Then tell us how you ‘borrowed a knife’ to achieve your aim.”

“Borrowed a knife?” Huo Shan seemed to not understand.

Bai Muchuan said, “Wu Hongliang mistook Tan Ziyang as the adulterer of his wife and killed him in fit of anger?”

“I… I didn’t.” Huo Shan tried to argue his way out, “I didn’t let him kill Tan Ziyang, I only wanted to teach Tan Ziyang a lesson… It just so happened that Kong Xinqiong was getting on my nerves and I’ve pretty much lost interest in her, so I showed Wu Hongliang a video that was secretly taken while Tan Ziyang and Sun Shangli were at it… Anyway, the relationship between Kong Xinqiong and Tan Ziyang seemed rather vague as well. Besides themselves, who else would be clearer than them on how they feel for each other?”

“…”

Huo Shan’s acts were too vicious.

Xiang Wan felt like puking seeing the way he talked.

Bai Muchuan, on the other hand, asked a critical question.

“Wu Hongliang can’t recognize his own wife?”

“In that video, Sun Shangli did not show her face and did not say a word. Only Tan Ziyang spoke…”

“What did he say?”

“He said… said…” Huo Shan lowered his head. “He said, ‘I’ll help you kill that b*stard! Come with me, we’ll go somewhere far away’…”

Of course, the “b*stard” that Tan Ziyang had referred to was not Wu Hongliang but Huo Shan instead.

Huo Shan, however, cleverly showed a video that could mislead Wu Hongliang where coincidentally, he was a husband who was despised by his wife. Tan Ziyang and Kong Xinqiong were already friends and had a good relationship with each other. The subcontract job was actually a request from Kong Xinqiong to Tan Ziyang who, in turn, went to Sun Shangli for the favor…

Thus, Wu Hongliang did not suspect anything.

The many years of suffering awakened the beast in him…

Huo Shan stammered a little but his expression was agitated. “I… I really didn’t ask him to kill. I thought at most he would just beat up Tan Ziyang. He killed him by himself, it’s got nothing to do with me… Detective, it’s got nothing to do with me!”

Bai Muchuan knocked on the table. “Calm down!”

After Bai Muchuan raised his voice at him, Huo Shan started to calm down and stopped talking.

Bai Muchuan asked casually, “So where is Wu Hongliang?”

After he absconded with the money, there had been no news of him. Everyone thought he was hiding from debts, but he had actually committed a murder.

Huo Shan looked at Bai Muchuan in a daze then he shook his head again and again.

Suddenly, he hugged his head and cried bitterly.

“Detective, I’m innocent. Back then, when Wu Hongliang finished the project, I paid him the money and did not contact again… Later on, after he ran away with the funds, there were workers who came to me directly for pay and I have been cleaning up after him. That period happened to be just around Lunar New Year and I was so busy all because of him. Detectives, if I had known that he had fled because he killed someone, I would have reported to the police right away…”

“What you’ve said makes sense,” grunted Bai Muchuan coldly. “But why didn’t you tell us about Wu Hongliang when you’re here the last time?”

“I…”

Huo Shan seemed lost for an instant. Next, he pursed his mouth and looked as though he had been wronged.

“I was embarrassed to say it, as, after all, I hooked up with his wife several times.”

Hearing how he repeated the words “hooked up several times”, Xiang Wan felt like laughing with contempt.

Bai Muchuan was still as usual with his indifferent expression. “Did you come in contact with Kong Xinqiong again after that? How much do you know about her current situation?”

Huo Shan shook his head but when he saw Bai Muchuan’s face turn gloomy, he quickly nodded his head.

“After Wu Hongliang fled, that woman did come to look me up. But I was busy cleaning up after her husband so I was rather irritated. How could I have the mood to sleep with her?”

Bai Muchuan interrupted, “Did you sleep with her?”

Huo Shan curled his lip and lifted his first finger. “Just, just once,” he replied in a weak tone. “Later on, she did come to look for me again, but I-I didn’t want to see her anymore so I got my secretary to give her some money.”

“Is that all?”

“There’s more, more. She was not too pleased, so she kept calling and messaging me for a period of time. I got peeved so I blocked her. Then she made another trip to the company but I didn’t see her. After that, we lost contact and I don’t know where she had gone to…”

The interrogation room was silent once more.

At that moment, no one was certain if Huo Shan was well aware or not aware that Wu Hongliang had killed someone.

Nonetheless, judging from Huo Shan’s reaction, he really didn’t know that Wu Hongliang and Kong Xinqiong’s only child had died.

And Kong Xinqiong was still in the hospital, unconscious…

…

Xiang Wan was unable to recover from the sadness and disbelief for a long while after coming out from the interrogation room.

There were people who said that she was meticulous and sensitive. But at the same time, she was also able to feel a variety of emotions, which many people were unable to feel. She could only give a bitter laugh inside her head. Because of this sensitivity, she tended to suffer from emotional distress as well. Every time she experienced an incident, it felt like she was given a lesson on society to let her understand that human nature did not turn uglier, but that humans had all along been ugly since ancient times.

Love might be God’s curse for women.

Where they go crazy, weep and even die for it.

Whereas men, they may cry for love, but they will never give up their own interest for it.

Sun Shangli had died such a tragic death.

…

“Bai Muchuan, why must she die?”

…

“She committed suicide while Kong Xinqiong attempted suicide. Who’s the one who wanted them dead?”

…

“Is it Huo Shan? I don’t think so.”

…

Xiang Wan asked all these questions.

Bai Muchuan did not reply. His hand patted gently on her shoulders.

“Wait for me to solve the case and everything will be clear.”

Xiang Wan lifted her head, her mouth moved but did not ask anything.

She placed her hands into her pocket as she slowly walked out from the main entrance of the Criminal Investigation Unit.

It was five o’clock in the afternoon.

Xiang Wan looked up toward the gradually declining sunset.

When the sunset shone onto the building, it reflected the brilliant golden light.

The sunset was unable to shine on the back of the building where it was stuffy and dark.

“Maybe…”

Ever since the beginning, the story was already not as simple as it seemed.

The police would catch criminals out in the open, while the devil remained hidden in the shadows.

Countless people lost their lives as they were being used to feed the devil himself.

When Xiang Wan arrived back at home, she turned on her laptop and wrote that sentence.

Those were her thoughts toward this case.

And she wrote how she felt into her book.

…

When Fang Yuanyuan came back, Xiang Wan was still sitting before the laptop.

“Hey! Quick, tell me about the progress.”

Probably being influenced by Xiang Wan, Fang Yuanyuan was also very curious toward the case that happened at “The Palace”. She had spent the day discussing with her colleagues at the editorial department. When Xiang Wan told her that she was with Bai Muchuan almost the whole day, her first question was to find out more about the case.

However, Xiang Wan turned to look at her lazily.

“Young lady, you’re perspiring all over and you look a little exhausted. Shouldn’t you go take a bath first?”

“…” The impetuous had met the lazybones. Fang Yuanyuan wished she could strangle her.

“Are you telling me or not? Or I’ll delete you from my friend list and not contact you again, immediately.”

“We’re not friends,” Xiang Wan corrected, “we’re cousins.”

“What the! Fine, you win.” Fang Yuanyuan rolled her eyes but after a few minutes, she came back to the bedroom again. “Sis, you didn’t buy any ingredients to make dinner?”

“Hurhur! You’re so naive. Did you really think I’ll make you dinner everyday?”

“Have you eaten with your Detective Bai that’s why you don’t care about me?”

“For goodness sake, Detective Bai is not mine but the people’s. And…” Xiang Wan smiled at her sweetly, “I haven’t eaten as well. You either order take-outs or buy ingredients and make dinner for me.”

“… D*rn, you’re evil!”

Fang Yuanyuan cussed as she snorted. She changed clothes and went out to buy food.

“Don’t pin on me to serve you! I’m only buying for myself.”

Hearing her peeved mumblings, Xiang Wan smiled at her back and continued to write her story.

Living together with Fang Yuanyuan actually felt good.

…

As she was being interrupted earlier, she took a long time to get her momentum back.

While she was writing her story, she suddenly had a weird thought toward the case.

As she thought about it, she began to feel disturbed. She couldn’t hold the urge and decided to call Bai Muchuan even though she knew it might result in him and the whole team of detectives being rushed off their feet.

“Bai Muchuan, that subcontractor, I’m afraid that when you managed to find him, he could be another corpse.”

Bai Muchuan seemed to be having dinner with others as his surrounding was rather noisy. She could hear men talking beside him.

“You have divergent thinking[1].” Bai Muchuan gave a casual laugh. “Rest assured, I’ll speed up the process…”

“How long do you need?” Xiang Wan asked weakly.

Bai Muchuan thought for a while.

After a moment, he replied, “I don’t know.”

For someone who had gone missing for six to seven years, how would he know how long it would take to find him?

Previously, Xiang Wan had thought that it was a piece of cake for the police to find a person.

But when things had come to this, she realized that looking for a person was like looking for a needle in the haystack. Furthermore, the technology six to seven years ago was not as advanced as it was today. When one did not contact anyone and had the intention to hide…

By only thinking about the search alone, Xiang Wan already felt that this task was a pain in the ass.

At the same time, she felt spooked that she actually had the notion that Wu Hongliang would definitely die.

“If we’re late and he really died, what should we do?”

Bai Muchuan was not surprised by her questions.

He understood her and could accept all these sudden, inexplicable divergent thoughts of hers.

This was also an important reason why Xiang Wan was willing to be honest and talk about her feelings with him.

“Bai Muchuan, I’m worried that he may die. I’m worried that we may not be in time and many people will die.”

“Why did you have such a feeling? Hm?” He seemed to be asking a question, but it appeared that he was actually consoling and calming her uneasy mood. “Xiang Wan, this is the first time you came in contact with cases like this, so you did not know that many people would actually develop some impractical thoughts. This is a process that new police officers have to go through, then slowly you will become calm and objective.”

“Is that so?”

Xiang Wan was unsure about that. She narrowed her eyes as she looked at the screen—to look at what she had written for the update.

“I feel that this case is actually hidden in an even deeper fog. Even if you found Wu Hongliang and solved the case, it is only this case. Just like the 720 case, we still have some doubts to clear, but the case was solved. By solving a case, we only undo a black hole. There will still be other black holes that will slowly open by itself…”

“Xiang Wan.”

Bai Muchuan called her name, his tone getting all the more serious.

“Are you alright?”

Xiang Wan was slightly surprised.

Immediately, she rubbed her forehead and chuckled.

“What I’ve said earlier stunned you much? Haha, we writers also have an occupational disease. When we talk, we’re also using the style that we write our story… But I’m not a nutcase, don’t think too much about it!”

Bai Muchuan remained silent.

After a long while, he suddenly spoke with a smile, “Have you eaten?”

The moment the topic changed, Xiang Wan’s thoughts were pulled back to reality from the case.

“Not yet, but soon. Yuanyuan has gone out to get food…”

She was smiling happily when all of a sudden, she heard the sounds of the door opening and closing, as well as footsteps. She turned to look out of reflex.

She saw Fang Yuanyuan, who had nothing on her hands, looking ghastly pale and her forehead covered in sweat.

[1] Divergent thinking is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions.