Chen Shi brought Wu Xu to the bureau and handed him over to Lin Qiupu to be detained first. They weren’t in a hurry to start the interrogation. At present, they had to continue to collect evidence.

Lin Dongxue sat on the bench in the hallway with mixed feelings. Chen Shi walked over and sat next to her. He unscrewed a bottle of mineral water and handed it to her. "Would you like to go to the hospital for an examination?"

"No, I just inhaled a little bit of chloroform. I’m fine, but... I'm not in a good mood."

"I understand. Finding out than an acquaintance is a criminal can hurt you a lot."

"Actually, I was very happy to see him driving a van and collecting waste products that day. I thought this man was finally going in the good direction. Who knew that it would be like this!"

Chen Shi knew that she wasn’t sad, but pained. He gently patted her shoulder to provide some comfort.

The process of collecting evidence was quite smooth, but Wu Xu’s mother had been making trouble unreasonably and obstructing the police investigation. Later, when the truth was discovered, it was found that she didn’t know what her son was up to outside. She only vaguely knew that her son had recently made a fortune on the side. She knew it was probably not earned honestly. When in front of the police, she instinctively protected her son.

When the police went to his house to gather evidence, Wu Xu’s mother grabbed the police pants and sat on the ground crying. It was photographed by a neighbor with a mobile phone and posted on the Internet. It was used by some public accounts that wanted more people to view them. They forced the story into the police beating up a mother in her 70’s.

Two days later, the interrogation with Wu Xu officially began. Lin Dongxue offered to serve as the interrogator this time. Chen Shi was her interrogation partner.

After being detained for two days, Wu Xu's expression was haggard and a gray stubble grew around his mouth. When Lin Dongxue sat down opposite him, his spirit lifted a little and he asked, "How’s my mother?"

Chen Shi replied, "The police have no obligation to take care of your mother for you."

Wu Xu was instantly annoyed as he pointed at Chen Shi. "I don't want to talk to this kind of person. Change the person. Otherwise, I won’t tell you anything!"

Chen Shi scoffed and then gave Lin Dongxue a knowing look. He’d leave it to her and temporarily stop talking.

Lin Dongxue began to ask, "Name."

"Wu Xu."

"Gender."

"Male."

"Age."

"38 years old!" Wu Xu raised his head.

"We have already investigated that you and Zhang Xiao served your sentence together. Other prisoners said that at the time that you were almost released. Zhang Xiao had just come in after committing fraud and you cared for him a lot. After he was released from prison, Zhang Xiao came to you soon after. Why did he find you?”

Wu Xu stared at Lin Dongxue for some time before saying, "To do business."

"What business?"

"..."

"I asked you what business."

"..."

"Wu Xu, you know how much evidence we’ve collected. Today's interrogation is to give you a chance for confessing honestl-"

"Lin Dongxue!" Wu Xu said loudly. "I beg of you not to lie to me again. I killed so many people. I know it's hard to escape death. You’re still trying to tell me that I can fight for leniency? I know what kind of person I am in your eyes. The society gave up on me first, and then I gave up on myself. The only thing I can't give up in this world is my mother. I originally just wanted her to live a better life in her later years. Who knew...” He sneered. "You guys are amazing to have found me. I'm willing to accept defeat. There’s nothing more to say."

Lin Dongxue said, "Yesterday, my colleague went to your house. Your mother cried so much, asking us to give you back to her. Listening to the neighbors..." Originally, she wanted to tell Wu Xu the truth. His mother hadn’t eaten for two days. But when the words reached her lips, she stopped. "The neighbors said your mother was crying very hard at night."

"Wahhhh,[1]. Mom!"

Wu Xu buried his face in his hands and cried. His thin shoulder blades shook as he cried. Lin Dongxue opened a pack of tissues and threw it over to the armrest on the interrogation chair. Once he’d cried enough, he could use it to wipe his tears.

After venting his emotions, Wu Xu finally calmed down. "I had nowhere to make a living after I was released from prison. I was quite annoyed. I quarreled with my mother every day. Later, a prisoner friend, Chubby Xiao, contacted me and asked me to go out for a drink. That night, we drank a bottle of alcohol on the riverside and just vented. He said that what this society oppresses are the weak and those who were truly in the underground society would go back to their old business after being released from prison. They’d even do better than before. On the other hand, honest people who believed in the government and were seriously reformed would always be bullied. I understood the meaning behind the kid’s words and asked if he had any plans. He told me that he got acquainted with a big guy in the detention center, Shen Ya, the main criminal from that case back then.

"Chubby Xiao said that Shen Ya's method was fucking badass. He kidnapped prostitutes, forced them to tell him their bank card password, killed them, dismembered the corpse, and threw them away. Shen Ya took his girl to wander around and commit crimes. He ate so well. He earned tens of thousands. He lived gloriously, but was found out by the police because of bad luck. In the winter, the sewer pipes were frozen. The dismembered body wasn’t washed away and was found. Chubby Xiao told me that night not to think about Shen Ya being arrested and sentenced to death. When he was committing the crimes, he lived luxuriously. Xiao also told me that the police weren’t so clever. Only a part of the cases could be solved. Most of them wouldn’t be solved in over ten years..."

Chen Shi interrupted him, "Zhang Xiao is now dead. You think you can blame everything on him now, right?"

Wu Xu glared at him and continued, "I thought that what Chubby Xiao said made sense. I was like this anyway. I would rather hurt the people of the world than let them do it to me. So, we started to act. It was simpler than I thought. We went to those places to find the ladies. We’d talk and sound out how long they’d been working for. We looked for the kind who said that they’re looking to stop that line of work after a couple of years. Those women usually had savings.” Wu Xu nodded his head meaningfully, then raised his eyebrows as if he was a master passing on his skills. This expression made Lin Dongxue furrow her brows.

"We got our first ticket in June. Zhang Xiao followed a prostitute to a place where nobody else was present and used chloroform on her. I followed behind in case something went wrong. This stupid fatty was useless. The woman kicked and beat him. She almost ran away. I went to help and got the woman into the car. For this reason, the two of us had a quarrel. I asked him to quit if he couldn’t do it, but he said that he was definitely able to do it. I said sure and that he should handle the rest by himself since he could do it. He insisted that he’d be able to do it.

"That night, Zhang Xiao started to sort the woman out. He pierced her with a needle. I laughed. I asked if he was a motherfucking Rong Mama[2]? I told him to get lost and watch me. I went up and slapped her really hard a few times. But this woman was very tight-lipped. She thought that she had the backing of the triad and we wouldn’t do much to her. How naïve! I used pliers to pull out her nails. Do you know what it’s like to have your nails pulled out? A whole piece comes out and the meat below is pink. It doesn’t bleed in the beginning, but it’ll slowly gush out after a few seconds, as if it’s like red nail polish, hahaha… By the third nail, she couldn’t handle it anymore. Fatty Xiao was also dumbfounded. This damn fatty was actually eating potato chips. After seeing the nails on the ground, he couldn’t eat anymore because of the disgust..."

Wu Xu had said all this calmly and his eyes were blank. The interrogation room was so quiet that they could hear his tongue clicking after each sentence. The temperature around them seemed to have dropped a few degrees...

1. The author used “Wuuu” here. Although I feel like “wah” is often only associated with babies and children, I'm not aware of any terms in English that express sobbing/crying using onomatopoeia except “wah”

2. A character in “My Fair Princess”(AKA “Princess Returning Pearl”) who is an evil character. She also had a scene where she used a needle to hurt someone. Here’s a photo for reference: https://pic2.zhimg.com/80/v2-d9bc9c94d4f71d4e05d0e7a675723abd_1440w.jpg