Chapter 139

The landlord of that apartment, Wang Dadong, had been unreachable by phone. After Fang Rui and Zhang visited his home, they learned from his wife that he had been arrested and detained during an anti-prostitution operation.

Zhang remarked with exasperation, "We've been looking everywhere for him, only to find out he'd already gotten himself arrested."

Wang Dadong was forty-three years old, unemployed, and lived in a rundown rental unit in an urban village. He had a son in middle school, and the family of three was cramped into a one-bedroom apartment. His son could only sleep in a partitioned area of the living room, and they were living in quite difficult circumstances.

His wife was short and plump, with a fierce demeanor. She complained, "This good-for-nothing man can never hold onto money. Whenever he gets his hands on any cash, he wastes it on all sorts of nonsense. When he gets out, I'm going to break his legs!"

"Small amount of money? Didn't he just sell an apartment?" Zhang asked, puzzled.

"What? He sold an apartment? That's impossible! Where would he get an apartment from? If he had one, would we be squeezed into this rental unit?" Wang Dadong's wife exploded in rage. She grabbed a mop from beside the door, intending to rush to the detention center to beat her husband, but Zhang stopped her.

"You didn't know about this?" Fang Rui handed her the purchase contract to look at. "But his name is on the property deed."

"This... it's his name and ID, and his fingerprint too... Could he be kept by some rich woman? A piece of trash like him definitely couldn't afford an apartment!" Wang Dadong's wife broke down. After all these years of frugal living, she discovered her husband had an apartment and had kept it secret from her. She covered her face and began to sob. Sёarch* The Nôvel(F)ire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

What a miserable marriage this had turned out to be!

Zhang glanced at the photo on Wang Dadong's ID card and thought this scenario seemed unlikely.

"Boss, I don't think that apartment really belongs to Wang Dadong," Zhang said.

"It probably isn't his," Fang Rui agreed, but he was confused. If the killer had kept the apartment vacant, wouldn't the body have remained undiscovered forever? Why did they decide to rent it out before, and why suddenly sell it now?

After leaving Wang Dadong's home, they went to the detention center to find him.

When Wang Dadong saw them, he complained, "Officers, I've already confessed. Why are you still interrogating me? I really haven't done anything else illegal. I only made a deal with Jiaojiao, I don't know any other women, and I didn't do business with them."

"Wang Dadong, did you sell an apartment recently?"

"What apartment? How could I have an apartment to sell?" Wang Dadong said with a smirk, but suddenly remembering something, he quickly changed his tune, "Oh right, I did sell an apartment. Got over a million yuan for it."

"Why doesn't your wife know about this?" Zhang asked.

"A man's business doesn't need to be shared with some woman. I can make my own decisions, why should I tell her?"

Fang Rui placed a photo in front of Wang Dadong, "We found a corpse in the second bedroom of that apartment."

The photo showed a bay window that had been pried open, revealing the body inside.

"A corpse? Officers, you're trying to trick me, right? How could there be a body in a perfectly good apartment?" Wang Dadong's face turned pale. "Besides, I've already sold the apartment to Zhang Mingli. If there's any issue, you should find her."

"This body is from over a decade ago. You were the previous owner, so naturally we need to talk to you."

Seeing that the apartment was involved in a murder case, Wang Dadong quickly tried to distance himself.

"Officers, this apartment isn't really mine, I'm just the nominal owner. It belongs to my cousin Wang Yuanfang. She wanted to buy a second property at the time but didn't want to waste her first-time buyer status, so she put it under my name. She gave me a few thousand yuan, and I agreed. I barely ever went to that apartment. I couldn't possibly have killed anyone, officers, I'm innocent!"

"We never said you killed anyone. Why are you so agitated?"

"It must have been my cousin who killed someone. She's an extremely vicious person, won't even take care of her own parents. I wondered why she gave me so much money and put the apartment in my name - turns out it was a murder house!" Wang Dadong spat in disgust, anger rising within him. After his cousin got rich, she became increasingly arrogant, ordering him around, and now it turned out she had set him up!

"Do you have your cousin's home address and contact information?" Fang Rui asked.

"Yes."

"What does your cousin do for a living?"

Aliali: 6744813cc4f3f33ac44271f6

"She's a high school Chinese teacher. But don't let that fool you - after she made some money, she forgot all about morals and decency. When her elderly mother was seriously ill, she actually said, 'Why won't this old thing just die already?' What kind of person would say something like that?"

"When did she come into money? How did she get rich?"

"About twenty years ago, she suddenly had enough money to buy houses and cars. No one knows where it came from. Her husband is also a high school teacher. They used to be dirt poor, couldn't even afford to raise their child, always borrowing money from us. Then somehow they suddenly became wealthy. Must have embezzled public funds."

"Is her husband's name Zhang Taotao?" Fang Rui asked.

"Yes! That's his name. Officers, how did you know?" Wang Dadong said with schadenfreude, "Don't tell me her husband is the killer? Tsk tsk, who would have thought Teacher Zhang, with all his proper appearances, was actually a murderer. Haha, my cousin is going to be a murderer's wife now. Let's see how smug she acts after this."

Fang Rui suspected that Zhang Taotao's money might have actually belonged to Zhang Mingli's mother. Seeing that Zhang Mingli's mother had gone insane and Zhang Mingli had lost her memory, he probably embezzled their assets and sent Zhang Mingli to be raised by her aunt.

If that was the case, the deceased was likely Zhang Mingli's father listed on her household registration.

"Stop rambling. Focus on reforming yourself in here. Your wife has a hard enough time managing the household," Zhang interrupted, unable to hold back his advice. "When you get out, find a job. You have a child now, so earn money properly and take care of your family."

"What family is there to take care of? If you had a wife like mine, would you want to go home? Even my kid doesn't acknowledge me. What's the point of going back? I'm better off staying here."

Zhang struggled to contain his urge to curse at him.