Chapter 184: The Case Is Solved

The night passed without incident!

Early the next morning, Wang Anguo and his team continued to follow up on the case, meticulously sifting through every clue, afraid of missing anything.

But no one could have imagined that just a few hours later, the Second Criminal Investigation Unit would deliver a shocking piece of news: Zhou Guoyong had committed suicide!

It turned out that at 9:00 a.m., following Wang Anguo’s instructions, Li Yuanqing had led a team to the city’s Third State-Owned Oil Storage Depot to summon Zhou Guoyong to the station to assist with the investigation.

At the time, Zhou Guoyong appeared quite calm, but he asked Li Yuanqing and the others to wait a moment, explaining that he had some official business to attend to and would join them shortly.

Since this was merely a summons and not a compulsory measure, Li Yuanqing and his team did not object.

So, Zhou Guoyong stayed in his office to handle paperwork, while Li Yuanqing and the others waited outside.

However, after waiting nearly an hour, no one emerged, and their calls from outside went unanswered.

They immediately realized something was wrong and burst through the door to check on the situation.

But the scene they witnessed upon entering left them completely speechless.

They saw Zhou Guoyong hanging from a ceiling beam with his belt, his tongue sticking out very far.

When Li Yuanqing and the others scrambled to cut him down, they discovered his body was already cold.

Upon receiving Li Yuanqing’s report, Wang Anguo immediately ordered the news to be suppressed and instructed that Zhou Guoyong’s wife, parents, and siblings be placed under surveillance.

At the same time, they were to be interrogated immediately.

Thanks to the prompt response, Zhou Guoyong’s family was unaware that he had committed suicide.

So when they were told that Zhou Guoyong had confessed to the murder of Tan Yuanqiao, they were all stunned!

Subsequently, under the intense pressure of the police investigation, Zhou Guoyong’s wife was the first to break down and confess to the murder of Tan Yuanqiao.

At this point, the truth behind that baffling case from 11 years ago finally came to light.

According to Zhou Guoyong’s wife, Yang Qimei, the deceased, Tan Yuanqiao, had been a close friend of Zhou Guoyong and his wife during his lifetime.

Not only had Tan Yuanqiao and Zhou Guoyong grown up together as childhood friends, but more importantly, they shared a common passion—drinking.

Of course, if that were all there was to it, the events that followed might never have happened. But the problem was that Tan Yuanqiao had a loose tongue whenever he got drunk, and Zhou Guoyong loved gambling as much as he loved drinking.

Eleven years ago, Zhou Guoyong was tricked at a gambling session and lost over 2,000 yuan in one go.

In those days when 36 yuan was considered a fortune, two thousand yuan was a massive sum.

That was enough to keep Zhou Guoyong from eating or drinking for six whole years!

And the person who set the trap was someone Zhou Guoyong couldn’t afford to cross. The man threatened that if Zhou didn’t pay up, he’d have his limbs cut off. With no other choice, Zhou had to do everything he could to borrow the money.

However, such a large sum was impossible to raise, even after Zhou had borrowed from every relative he knew.

With no other options, they turned their attention to their good friend Tan Yuanqiao.

During a drinking session, they casually pried a piece of information from the drunken Tan Yuanqiao: he went to the bank every 15th of the month to collect wages for his workers, and each time he withdrew tens of thousands of yuan.

So, Zhou Guoyong decided to rob that money to pay off his gambling debts!

On the day of the incident, Zhou Guoyong arrived early to stake out the bank where Tan Yuanqiao usually withdrew money.

Shortly after 9:00 a.m., he saw Tan Yuanqiao arrive as expected and immediately began to devise a plan.

When Zhou Guoyong saw Tan Yuanqiao withdrawing money from the bank, he walked up to him, pretending it was a chance encounter, and then said that the water pipe at his house had broken and asked if Tan could help fix it.

Tan Yuanqiao was a helpful person, so he didn’t think anything of it when he heard this. After all, they had been friends for so many years, and out of trust, he followed Zhou Guoyong to his home.

Little did he know that as soon as he stepped inside, Zhou Guoyong struck him from behind with an axe, killing him instantly.

After the murder, Zhou Guoyong immediately stole the money from Tan Yuanqiao’s body before beginning to dispose of the corpse.

To avoid detection, they stuffed Tan Yuanqiao’s body into a pre-prepared oil drum and sealed it with cement.

Then, taking advantage of his work, he transported the large oil drum containing the body to the outskirts, dumped it into a deep pit dug during bridge construction, and covered it with soil.

Since the pit was over ten meters deep and already filled with trash—with more construction debris dumped into it daily—it wouldn’t take long for it to be completely covered.

Therefore, Zhou Guoyong and Yang Qimei believed it was impossible for anyone to dig up that large oil drum.

Moreover, since the drum was made of sheet metal, it would corrode within a few years. By then, at most, only a skeleton would remain, making it impossible to trace the crime back to them.

After killing Tan Yuanqiao, they first paid off their gambling debts, then pretended nothing had happened and went on with their lives.

Although the police did come by to ask about Tan Yuanqiao during that time, they didn’t suspect them.

Still, they feared exposure. Not only did they not dare to spend that money, but Zhou Guoyong also quit gambling.

Later, relying on his ruthlessness and cunning, Zhou Guoyong gradually earned the trust of his superiors and climbed the ranks from an ordinary employee to become the station manager of the oil storage facility.

Moreover, since so many years had passed, Zhou Guoyong and his wife had gradually let their guard down over the past couple of years and began to set their sights on that money.

They first built a new house, began spending lavishly on food, drink, and daily necessities, and even bought a courtyard home in the city for their eldest son.

However, out of a sense of guilt, they would occasionally help Tan Yuanqiao’s wife, earning the gratitude of the Tan family.

In fact, to thank them for their ongoing support, Tan Yuanqiao’s eldest daughter, Tan Shiqing, had even agreed to marry Zhou Guoyong’s son.

Had it not been for this sudden incident, it wouldn’t have been long before the two were registered as husband and wife.

If that had actually happened, the situation would have become even more impossible to resolve.

Zhou Guoyong and his wife had originally believed that their murder would remain buried forever, eventually becoming an unsolved mystery.

But what they never could have imagined was that, a few years ago, the Ba Wang River had changed course, shifting more than fifty meters to the left and effectively enclosing the former landfill within its new banks.

Washed by the current, the large oil drum containing Tan Yuanqiao’s body slowly slid from the deep pit downstream, eventually coming to rest against a bridge pier.

This year, during the reconstruction of the bridge, the body was unearthed.

In fact, on the very day the oil drum murder occurred, Zhou Guoyong and his wife had received word of it, and they were terrified.

But at the same time, they figured that so many years had passed, and it was unlikely the investigation would ever trace back to them.

Yet they never imagined that the police would track them down so quickly.

Realizing he had been exposed, Zhou Guoyong ultimately chose to hang himself, while Yang Qimei could not escape severe punishment.

With that, the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the wages of Tan Yuanqiao, the textile factory’s accountant, and all the factory workers was finally brought to light.