Captain Yang returned very quickly.
Xu Nian and the others had just brought Wu Xiaozhen into the interrogation room when, within minutes, a large group of people rushed back in a flurry.
Goodness, it really was a crowd. The entire building had been empty before, but now it buzzed with activity. Even after Captain Yang had already entered the interrogation room, the sound of rapid footsteps hurrying upstairs continued outside.
As external consultants who had played a crucial role in the case, Guan Xia and her team naturally secured a spot in the observation room. Fortunately, Jianyang City, being the capital, had the resources to accommodate so many people.
Sandwiched among a group of tall officers, Guan Xia quietly observed the scene inside the interrogation room.
Unlike the previous suspects they had encountered, Wu Xiaozhen, despite her fierce appearance, cooperated fully with the police. Without Captain Yang needing to employ any advanced interrogation techniques, she confessed everything clearly.
Wu Xiaozhen placed her hands calmly on the table, her eyes downcast, as if reminiscing. "The first time I thought about killing someone was when I was 21. I remember it clearly. Yang Wende’s grandmother brought him to our house to borrow money. His father had died in a drunk-driving accident after killing someone, leaving behind a mountain of debt. They sold their land, but it wasn’t enough. The victim’s family kept harassing them, demanding compensation. It was the first time I saw that kind of expression on Yang Wende’s face."
At this point, Wu Xiaozhen raised her eyes and gave Captain Yang a faint smile. "That look of confusion, helplessness, and fear—completely different from the smug, fearless expression he had when he burned me as a child, knowing his father would back him up. It suddenly struck me that his arrogance and recklessness weren’t because he was naturally bold, but because he had someone shielding him. Once that protection was gone, he became timid, afraid of the world."
Wu Xiaozhen chuckled again, as if savoring the memory.
At first, Guan Xia was puzzled about who Yang Wende was, but she soon understood—he was the one who had scarred Wu Xiaozhen as a child, altering the course of her life.
Captain Yang and the female officer conducting the interrogation listened quietly, patiently waiting even when Wu Xiaozhen paused to laugh.
After a long silence of over ten seconds, Wu Xiaozhen continued.
Still smiling, she said, "From that day on, I made it my mission to keep tabs on Yang Wende. I watched as his family fell into poverty, how people looked down on them, how they were constantly harassed. Before his father died, he was a truck driver, earning good money. By the time Yang Wende was my age, they’d already bought him an apartment in the county, waiting for him to graduate from vocational school and get married. But then—poof! The apartment was sold, and he had to drop out. Their relatives and friends had lent them money, but none dared to give much, afraid they’d never get it back. They couldn’t even pay the compensation, let alone afford school."
"You have no idea how happy it made me to see him like that," Wu Xiaozhen’s eyes gleamed brighter as she spoke. "I watched as his so-called friends turned on him. He still thought he was untouchable, daring to talk tough—only to get beaten up. Badly. His eye swelled shut, and he lost a tooth. His family couldn’t afford to fix it, so from then on, he spoke with a lisp. Every time he opened his mouth, people mocked him. Eventually, he stopped talking altogether, just smiling nervously at everyone."
"Later, he even had to work at a construction site to pay off the debt," Wu Xiaozhen added with satisfaction. "I didn’t see him working, but I went looking for him during the New Year. The difference was staggering. He used to be as fat as a pig, but now his face was sunken, his body hunched from hard labor. That’s when I realized—people like him are nothing without someone propping them up. Without that, they suffer more than anyone else, finally tasting the bitterness they deserve."
"So that’s why you killed those people afterward?" Captain Yang interjected.
Wu Xiaozhen’s eyes widened, and she raised her voice. "Don’t they deserve to die for raising such monsters? Even books say, ‘A child’s faults are the parents’ sins.’ If their children commit evil, isn’t it right for me to kill them? They should blame themselves for failing to raise them right—or regret having them in the first place."
From her words and actions, it was clear Wu Xiaozhen had her own twisted logic. Captain Yang saw no point in arguing and simply pressed on. "Then tell us—how did you kill them in late September 2019? And how did you dispose of the bodies?"
For the rest of the session, Wu Xiaozhen held nothing back, meticulously recounting every detail of her killings over the years.
According to her, in August 2019, while returning home from an errand in Jianyang City, she passed a residential area where a group of people were holding up banners and enlarged photos, wailing at the entrance. Curious, she stopped to watch.
From overhearing the crowd, she learned these were the parents of victims—children who had been severely burned in a fire started by a classmate who didn’t want to do homework.
The children were young, their lives just beginning, but everything had been ruined. What infuriated her most was that the arsonist, being underage, couldn’t be legally punished. The parents of the child who started the fire exploited this, delaying compensation and even claiming they had to move due to public backlash, citing their child’s severe depression.
They had money to relocate but not to compensate the victims. The grieving parents had gone to great lengths to track down their new address, but even then, the arsonist’s family refused to face them or pay.
Having been burned herself at a similar age, Wu Xiaozhen felt a deep resonance with the victims. She followed the case closely.
By mid-September, the arsonist’s parents were still dodging payments and even began twisting the narrative, blaming the victims’ families. They argued that since several children had been present, why were only these two severely burned? Maybe those kids were intellectually disabled, they suggested—too slow to escape the flames.
"Wouldn’t it be better if such children weren’t treated at all?" they had the audacity to say. "They’d be spared a lifetime of suffering, and the parents should be thanking us for relieving them of such a burden—free from guilt or public judgment."
This blatant distortion of the truth sent Wu Xiaozhen into a rage, as if she had been transported back to her own childhood trauma.
When she was eight years old, Wu Xiaozhen suffered severe burns. Her parents went to seek justice, but Yang Wende's father responded with cruel words: "She was already ugly to begin with, and on top of that, she’s so tall for a girl. Even if she grew up, no one would marry her. Better to get some money now while you can—consider it a profit."
Nearly twenty years had passed since the incident, but Wu Xiaozhen still couldn’t suppress the rage inside her. One night, she made a decision: she would kill the father of the child who had set her on fire. She wanted to strip him of his protector, to leave him vulnerable, to make him suffer the consequences he deserved.
From 11 a.m. until nearly 3 p.m., Wu Xiaozhen recounted her story. Everyone in the room forgot about eating, forgot their exhaustion—their eyes remained fixed on the interrogation.
From her testimony, Guan Xia also learned about Wu Xiaozhen’s confrontation with the copycat killer who had mimicked her crimes.
According to Wu Xiaozhen, even before the brawl that landed her in prison, she had already tracked down the killer and intended to murder him. It wasn’t because he had copied her methods—what she couldn’t stand was that while she killed for justice, he did it for selfish reasons. To her, his imitation was an insult.
She spent a long time stalking him, pinpointing his address, observing his routines, and meticulously planning the murder. But before she could act, the brawl occurred, and she was imprisoned for eight months. By the time she got out, the killer had disappeared. She had no choice but to wait for another opportunity.
That wait lasted over four years. When she finally found him again, the killer proved cunning and shameless—the moment he spotted her, he fled without a fight, even running toward a police station after she wounded him.
Forced to retreat, she refused to give up. She continued hunting for another chance.
But because she lived at home, her time wasn’t entirely her own. By the time she located him again, he had already killed another victim—a well-behaved, underage child. Furious, she finally acted the night before.
The fight was chaotic. She was injured, and in the dead of night, she couldn’t properly clean up the biological traces she left behind. Knowing her criminal record would make her the prime suspect, she decided there was no turning back. After killing the copycat, she dumped his body at the base of a mountain where it would be easily found.
With the police distracted by the investigation, she took the opportunity to eliminate all the other targets she had marked over the past four years but hadn’t yet killed.
Like before, these three victims were people she believed deserved death. The first was the parent of a child who had pushed a high school girl in front of a bus, leaving her with a severed leg and permanent disability.
The second was the parent of a child who, annoyed by noise, had lured a neighbor’s child to the rooftop and shoved them to their death.
The third was the parent of a boy raised to favor sons over daughters—not only did he abuse his sisters, but he also stabbed a classmate multiple times over a trivial argument, leaving them severely injured.
Wu Xiaozhen admitted she had more targets, but as the police closed in, her window of opportunity shrank. Passing by the Tong’an precinct, she decided to turn herself in.
With her final words, the serial murder case was finally solved. The investigative team’s morale, recently restored, surged again—but they still had to unravel the second killer’s motives.
Though he was dead, his reasons remained a mystery. There was also the matter of the missing organs from his last victim—they at least owed the deceased a proper burial.
Captain Yang questioned Wu Xiaozhen about this, given how long she had stalked the second killer.
Wu Xiaozhen replied that she didn’t know. After her release from prison, her parents kept a tight watch on her. She could only sneak out after they fell asleep, returning before dawn. By the time she found the killer again, his last victim was already dead.
It was clear she wasn’t lying, so Captain Yang didn’t press further.
Fortunately, the Tong’an precinct’s administrative staff soon delivered good news: the second killer’s identity had finally been confirmed.
Everyone crowded around to examine the sparse details.
Name: Chen Yuanwei. Gender: Male. Age: 38. No fixed address—he moved every six months, renting in urban villages or fringe neighborhoods. Unemployed, surviving on odd jobs.
One detail stood out: Chen Yuanwei’s father was Chen Maofeng, former chairman of Maofeng Construction Co. In 2014, the company went bankrupt due to a broken capital chain, leaving behind 200 million yuan in unpaid debts. That same year, Chen Maofeng jumped to his death.
Reading this, Pang Le scoffed. "Well, well—so our killer was a rich kid once. I thought he just hated the wealthy."
