The raging flames after the explosion at the scene three years ago, wrapped in black smoke and rushing into the sky in the fierce wind, immediately appeared in front of Jiang Ting's eyes.
His eyes lit up with a cold light, and after a while, he said slowly, "If you know more secrets about me, you might as well wait until you enter the detention center and then talk to the investigators slowly."
When he said this, his expression and voice stabilized, the hand holding the gun was immediately fixed, and the whole person almost returned to an impeccable state in an instant. Qin Chuan was a little regretful that he had recovered so quickly and seemed to want to say something, but was interrupted by Jiang Ting: "On the afternoon of January 18, two years ago, Yue Guangping found out information about the mole and was going to meet with me. It was you who killed him on a temporary visit, wasn't it?"
Qin Chuan exhaled, and after a few seconds of silence, he said, "Yes. As you guessed just now, it was aconitine."
"..."
"What would you have done if it were you?" "From eighteen to twenty-nine, for eleven years, Yue Guangping tried many ways to exchange for the forgiveness and acceptance of his only biological son in this life, but every one of them failed," Qin Chuan sighed. It wasn't until the twelfth anniversary of my mother's death that he finally noticed that my attitude had loosened, and it seemed to send a signal that I was willing to ease the relationship between father and son—and of course, he was ecstatic."
"Did the King of Spades tell you to do this?" Jiang Ting asked.
This was obviously just a simple selective answer, but for some reason, Qin Chuan paused for a moment before saying, "Yes."
Then he didn't give Jiang Ting any chance to speak and immediately continued: "In the next six months, I started to walk around with him, met several times in Jianning, and occasionally made a phone call. This should have given Yue Guangping a great deal of encouragement. He began to invite me to his house in Gongzhou, but I always refused because it was emotionally unacceptable." Here, Qin Chuan added an explanation: "Yue Guangping was married in Gongzhou, and before his wife passed away, the two have always lived in that house, so this reason was completely valid for Yue Guangping."
Jiang Ting narrowed his eyes and didn't make a sound.
When Qin Chuan mentioned Yue Guangping's wife, he didn't have any resistance at all. On the contrary, he had a rational and peaceful attitude. This should be a sign that his mentality and emotions were very stable and mature.
In other words, he was far too different from most father-killers, who were filled with resentfulness.
"So your surprise visit on January 18 was very important to Yue Guangping," Jiang Ting said slowly.
"Actually, I didn't expect it to be so important to him that he would rather postpone meeting you before letting me in first. To be honest, I was in a hurry that day."
Jiang Ting's eyes signaled him to continue explaining.
"During that time, Yue Guangping was under surveillance, so when he called and asked you to meet at the safe house, the King of Spades knew that he must have found something, but it was too late to arrange a car accident, so I had to come to the door temporarily. You can imagine how… shocked Yue Guangping was when he saw me standing outside." Qin Chuan paused for half a second before choosing the word and then said, "I told him that I was passing through Gongzhou on a business trip, and I stopped by to smoke a cigarette, so he let me in without even thinking about it."
What Yue Guangping did not expect was that the time spent smoking a cigarette would cost him his life.
Jiang Ting was silent for a long time before asking, "Did you let him drink medicinal wine?"
"No, it was tea." Qin Chuan smiled sadly, "It was just a drop of concentrated aconitine. The elderly have a bad heart… Afterward, I took the teacup away."
It was such a tragic and sad parent-child murder, but his behavior was unusually calm, as if Yue Guangping had really died of a heart attack.
According to Jiang Ting's usual interrogation style, this kind of emotional question rarely arises. However, he still asked: "When you killed your biological father, you did not feel the slightest bit of emotion at all as the murderer?"
"How should I say this…" Qin Chuan raised his head and pondered.
He just tilted his neck and moved his cervical vertebrae, looked at the ceiling, and said lightly, "I was the murderer, but I was also not. So the emotional touch was not the same as with a normal person."
Jiang Ting asked subconsciously, "What?"
—What does this mean?
Qin Chuan didn't take it seriously: "It has no meaning."
Jiang Ting's pupils contracted as if to penetrate Qin Chuan's handsome face and look into the depths of his calm eyes, but the other party obviously wouldn't explain more. Suddenly, Jiang Ting asked, "Were you afraid at the time of the incident?"
"Why would I be afraid?" Qin Chuan asked back, "I also stayed by my mother's side when she died. What's there to be afraid of?"
"..." This time, Jiang Ting stared at him deeply and smiled indifferently.
This smile only stayed on the corner of his lips for a short moment, and then he only asked: "So you felt using aconitine was easy, and when you tried to murder Fang Zhenghong a year ago, you chose medicinal wine again?"
"I didn't want to kill Fang Zhenghong." Qin Chuan corrected him and said, "Although Fang Zhenghong's personality is very sensitive and suspicious, he caused me a lot of trouble, and he is not easy to get along with, it really never got to the point where I had to kill him. For me, the best thing was for Fang Zhenghong to retire early due to illness, or at least to completely delegate power and do nothing, then my daily work will become much more convenient. "
"As for choosing Yan Xie to blame, it has also been carefully considered and weighed in many ways — the Yan family's deep background in the provincial party committee is very difficult for anyone. As long as there is no hard evidence, Chief Lu will not easily blame Yan Xie and will at most secretly investigate in private. At the same time, on the bright side, as long as Chief Lu shows the slightest reluctance to target Yan Xie in front of Fang Zhenghong, with Old Fang's extreme character, he will think of it as Chief Lu shielding Yan Xie. Thus, creating hidden dangers and cracks between the middle and high levels of the Jianning Municipal Bureau."
"And it did go the way I planned." Qin Chuan twitched his lips, somewhat intrigued: "Chief Lu privately dismissed the two interns of the General Affairs Department, and the clues were interrupted and could no longer be investigated. Neither the reaction of Yan Xie nor that of Fang Zhenghong was beyond my expectations."
There were really not many people who could calculate the human heart to this extent. Forget Fang Zhenghong, even an old fox like Chief Lu quietly said that Qin Chuan's ability or talent in this area was indeed quite extraordinary.
Jiang Ting shook his head slightly. He didn't praise him, but asked, "Then why did you poison Yan Xie later? Don't tell me you didn't actually want to kill him?"
Qin Chuan rubbed his forehead as if he didn't know how to explain his original intention. After a while, he pushed up his glasses and said as sincerely as possible: "If I really wanted to kill Xie, he would have died a hundred times by now."
Jiang Ting raised half of his eyebrows: "Oh?"
Qin Chuan shrugged: "You may have misunderstood me, thinking that I am a poison-killing maniac. But in fact, I am a clear, goal-oriented person, and I am not that persistent about human life. If Yan Yan died, I would even feel very sad… If he just got hurt or crashed, left Jianning City Bureau forever, and went back to take over the family business, like Fang Zhenghong's early retirement, it would have been a good situation for me. I just want their place but not their lives."
"Then you never thought that Yan Xue would not drink medicinal wine at all or that the poisoned medicinal wine would be drunk by others?"
"No," Qin Chuan said lightly, "First of all, the weather is getting colder, and Yan Xie will drink medicinal wine to dehumidify every year around the beginning of winter, which is his habit. Secondly, I am sure that few people in the criminal investigation division other than him touch that wine, and even if someone does, most of them were applied externally rather than taken internally, because, after all, few people can stand the taste of medicinal wine."
Speaking of this, he spread his hands and said, "Let's take another 10,000 steps back. Even if someone had actually drunk that wine and died, there is no way I could have done anything because there is no 100% perfect setting in the world. If you overly pursue one-hit kills, you will inevitably leave traces in the layout, which is very detrimental to concealment."
An indescribable expression appeared on Jiang Ting's face, which was usually not so complicated.
"Understandable." Then he laughed and said, "What about the time when Xian Shengrong was hired to assassinate Yan Xie in Jiangyang County? Wasn't he serious about taking Yan Xie's life?"
Qin Chuan said: "Believe it or not, I really didn't ask Xian Shengrong to 'definitely' kill Yan Xie. I told him it was better to shoot the tires of the police car to cause an accident and create opportunities for the killers hired by Wang Xingye. However, Xian Shengrong's movements were still slow, so the group led by surname Fan took the lead, crashing the police car into the river, and even shooting on the river's surface with their guns… The more important thing is that not even one person had been able to hit Yan Xie…"
Qin Chuan showed a troubled and helpless expression.
"Actually, if I had a choice, I wouldn't want Xian Shengrong to shoot, because as long as there is a rifling of the bullet, there will inevitably be traces left, and this gun belongs to Yue Guangping. Even if Chief Lu doesn't believe that Yue Guangping's death has anything to do with me, he knows the father-son relationship between us. I don't want to leave any possibility of Chief Lu suspecting me… By the way, do you mind if I sit down? I'm really tired after a whole day's work."
He pointed to the sofa beside him. Jiang Ting looked at it for a few seconds and signaled him with the muzzle:
"Sit down, but don't make any extra movements."
"How can I," Qin Chuan joked, "after hearing how accurate your marksmanship is?"
He went around the coffee table, sat in the middle of the sofa, leaned deeply on the backrest, and let out a breath: "You don't even suspect that I have hidden any weapons in the sofa…"
"No." Jiang Ting said, "Because I searched everywhere before you came back."
"..." Qin Chuan murmured, "I was moved by your trust for a few seconds."
"I just thought I shouldn't make the same mistake as Chief Lu. If he started to suspect you after Yue Guangping's death or focused on investigating you when Zhenghong was poisoned a year ago, then things should have been different a long time ago. Just because you and Yue Guangping are biological father and son, he has hardly taken any action against you during this year, and Chief Lu is to blame."
"Chief Lu is getting old…" Qin Chuan sighed for a long time, then rubbed his face with his palm and said, "He may have investigated me for a while, but I didn't do a lot of things myself, like silencing Xian Shengrong, doing trivial things like manipulating Old Fang's Elantra… so even if he investigates, he can't get any evidence. To be honest, I'm surprised you suspect me, perhaps because you're an outsider."
Jiang Ting was noncommittal: "The people at the King of Spades have handled a lot of 'trivial matters' for you?"
Qin Chuan said, "Almost."
"Then, when you attacked Yan Xie several times, did you do it yourself, or did the King of Spades ask you to do it?"
Qin Chuan held his forehead and laughed, asking, "What happened between you two? Why do you believe that he wanted to kill Yan Xie, just because you could be presumed guilty?"
Jiang Ting's face was white and cold in the darkness, and his expression was like the muzzle of a gun in his hand—motionless.
"Okay, I admit that his subordinates did convey this meaning, but…" Qin Chuan shook his head with a smile: "First of all, Yan Xie, this person has had security education in his family since he was a child, and he has been a criminal police officer for so many years that it's really not easy for outsiders to attack him. Secondly, the infiltration of drug dealers in the high levels of Jianning public security is far less than in Gongzhou, so if I want to climb quickly, it's hard to wait for the King of Spades to operate layer by layer, and I mostly have to rely on myself."
The King of Spades did not only rely on Qin Chuan in this area; he must also have connections in the provincial government. There was no doubt about this. But Jianning was not the Gongzhou of those years after all. Jianning, as the provincial capital city with two sets of government teams, has limited personnel control over the municipal bureau. If he wanted to quickly bring Qin Chuan into a crucial position, it was obviously not easy to do through the provincial government.
So Fang Zhenghong, who stood in front of Qin Chuan, and Yan Xie, who was in a more important position, became the most direct stumbling blocks.
"So if you really want to divide the responsibilities, I will take 60% of the responsibility, and the King of Spades will take 40%." Qin Chuan seemed to find this quite interesting and said, "But you should be glad that it was me who made the move; my priority was just to get Yan Xie out of the Criminal Investigation Division; if it was the King of Spades who had done it personally, it might be a life-and-death situation."
Jiang Ting leaned his back against the corner of the living room, and after a while, he let out a light laugh from his nose, as if the ice sculpture exuding a biting chill had finally come to life, oozing with undisguised mockery: "It looks like I have to thank you that you and the King of Spades aren't exactly of the same mind."
"Oh, no, I disagree quite a bit with that drug lord. For example…"
Jiang Ting was still standing there, but Qin Chuan suddenly stopped talking. He took off the gold-rimmed glasses, put them on his side, and rubbed the center of his eyebrows with the knuckle of his index finger. It lasted for a few seconds before he smiled slowly: " Like he didn't dare to actually kill you, but it doesn't matter to me—"
Jiang Ting's pupils froze, and in the next moment, Qin Chuan kicked over the coffee table like a violent leopard!
Woosh—
He kicked the heavy, solid wood furniture into mid-air and smashed it toward Jiang Ting with the sound of the wind!
Two gunshots rang out, the coffee table fell apart, and the wooden blocks burst all over the floor. The bullet casing fell to the floor with a clang. Jiang Ting raised the muzzle, turned on the light with his backhand, and suddenly heard a "crashing" sound above his head. The glass burst—Qin Chuan had smashed the living room chandelier!
Countless pieces of debris poured down in the darkness, like a glass rainstorm pouring on the face.
Jiang Ting turned his head like lightning to block his eyes. At this moment, Qin Chuan, who was covered with glass shards, grabbed his right hand holding the gun with a snap, and forced his index finger into the trigger—
Bang!
Bang!
Jiang Ting gritted his teeth and lowered the muzzle of the gun, but Qin Chuan's palm continued to rise.
Bang!
In the competition, the last bullet popped out of the chamber. Jiang Ting turned his head sharply, and the scorching air rubbed against his neck!
As long as the muzzle was one centimeter away, his neck would have been pierced in the opposite direction. But it was too late to be afraid. Jiang Ting bent his knees and kicked Qin Chuan away. He threw away his empty gun and took out his folding knife. Suddenly, Qin Chuan picked up the long-handled umbrella hanging at the entrance and pulled out a cold light——
It was a tri-edged dagger inserted into the umbrella handle!
Jiang Ting's eyelids twitched slightly, and in the darkness, Qin Chuan showed him a regretful smile.