Zhao Zichen was beyond disappointed and I could understand his feelings.
I said, “You were expecting him to repent and apologize to Sun Qiaoqiao before he died. But you are wrong, this kind of person will never see a coffin without tears, he will never repent and apologise. Before he died, Sun Qiaoqiao asked us to avenge his death, and we have already done so. Shi Sheng, how long have you been in this business?”
Before Shi Sheng could say anything, Zhao Zichen suddenly said, “You don’t need to ask him.”
“What?”
Both Shi Sheng and I didn’t understand the meaning of Zhao Zichen’s words.
Zhao Zichen took a deep breath and said, “I followed him for the past two days and found that he was only responsible for production. The raw materials were provided by someone, and he was not responsible for distribution; the top and bottom families were the same person, and the bottom family would send a car over to transport the goods; he himself had no access to the actual purchasers. Even he and the top and bottom families had never met.”
I frowned, “So he’s just an outsourced factory, he’s not even a pawn in this criminal chain.”
Shi Sheng gritted his teeth and said in a panic, “Yeah, I, I’m not much of a criminal at all, you guys let me go!”
Zhao Zichen smiled wryly and suddenly crouched down in front of Shi Sheng, I couldn’t see Zhao Zichen’s face, but looking at Shi Sheng’s terrified look, I guess Zhao Zichen’s expression wasn’t too good either.
Suddenly, neither me nor Baldy reacted when Zhao Zichen fiercely pulled up the dagger on Shi Sheng’s waist and then stuck it in his neck swiftly.
“What are you doing?!”
Shi Sheng was twitching in a pool of blood, not dead for a moment, but the pain of not being able to breathe was torturing him before he died.
Zhao Zichen stood tall and wiped off the blood splattered on his face.
“You’re mistaken, I’m not seeking revenge for Sun Qiaoqiao. Your mistake was not to threaten me, for Sun Qiaoqiao’s medical record book, your men used my father to threaten me. I’m sorry, but I decided then and there that I would get you killed for revenge.”
Shi Sheng covered his throat with difficulty, and before a moment pa*sed, he was not moving.
The whole room was quiet. Baldy and I were both people who had human lives on our hands, but even looking at Zhao Zichen, who was soaked in blood at this moment, made me shudder.
Only the young man, stoned on his melon seeds, said, “Brother, you’ve done it again. What did Boss Ge teach you back then? Be compa*sionate, not bloodthirsty, you’ll go off the deep end sooner or later like this.”
“Stop talking about such useless things, how long has the boss been gone. I’ll kill, you collect the corpse, stop nagging and clean up.”
“Next time you don’t make such a big scene, let us know before you want to open up the post-bloodletting, it’s hard to clean up when it’s all over the place.”
I grabbed Zhao Zichen’s wrist and said with suppressed anger, “Zhao Zichen, do you know what you’re doing? You’ve killed someone!”
“I know, he killed Sun Qiaoqiao, I killed him, fair enough. That’s what we’ve been doing for generations in the Zhao family, doing justice for the gods and taking revenge.”
I didn’t feel like I knew Zhao Zichen.
“No matter what, you can’t kill anyone, you don’t have the right!”
“Who has the right? The police? Will he be sentenced to death? Sun Qiaoqiao’s autopsy report has been destroyed, the body hasn’t been burnt yet, but after such a long time, a lot of evidence has disappeared. He was only a minor player in the gun manufacturing and sales case. He would have been arrested and imprisoned for a few years at most, and would have been released again soon. I promised to help Sun Qiaoqiao get revenge ……”
I said, “Then you’ll have to wait for the police to come and try him too. He must have committed other things on him that might be enough to sentence him to death.”
Zhao Zichen was aggressive: “What if there isn’t?”
“If there isn’t, the gun trafficking charge is enough for him to suffer ……”
Zhao Zichen said in a deep voice: “Zhang Chao, if Sun Qiaoqiao is dead, then Shi Sheng must deserve to die. That’s what’s called fair, otherwise none of it is.”
We both argued, and Zhao Zichen didn’t give an inch.
“There are many ways to take revenge, and h*momorphic revenge is the least desirable. Only a judge can sentence someone to death, we can’t. He killed someone, and then you take revenge on him by killing him, are you going to make yourself like him?”
Zhao Zichen was a bit bemused: “Do we really have to argue about this here? Or are you going to have me arrested?”
“I can’t talk to you right now, but that’s the end of it, we can’t do things like stopping killing by killing.”
I didn’t want to argue with Zhao Zichen anymore, Shi Sheng was already dead, just like Zhao Zichen himself said, and I couldn’t possibly arrest him for it.
But I felt very bad in my heart. All special forces soldiers have a common principle that they can only go into battle and kill the enemy when they are in uniform, and they can’t kill anyone again when they take off their uniform.
Zhao Zichen was also smart enough not to say any more, not knowing how much of my words he had heard. It wasn’t that I was having an attack of sainthood, once he was allowed to kill at will, he would soon fall into madness.
The shopkeeper began to gather Shi Sheng’s body.
Shi Sheng’s two eyes were wide open as he stared reluctantly at the ceiling. He was considered a lord of his generation, but he never thought he would die so casually.
I have seen many corpses, and there are worse deaths than this on the battlefield.
“How many days can you hide this corpse so that no one can find it?” I asked casually.
“How can you say that? Are you looking down on people? I’m a professional in this business, collecting corpses and smearing blood. You can’t find where the bodies are hidden even if you ask the police to bring a police dog to sniff them inch by inch.”
I said helplessly, “It’s an illegal business, but you’re still a big shot. You can tell me honestly how many days you can hide it after you bury it, and I don’t believe that no one will be able to find it in a lifetime. Shi Sheng’s death is easy to explain, the military commissioned us to collaborate in this case, Shi Sheng was carrying a gun, Zhao Zichen does not know kung fu, and was scared out of self-preservation when he knifed Shi Sheng, this is normal resistance. Zhao Zichen, I will only tell this lie for you, if there is a next time, I can’t protect you.”
Zhao Zichen laughed, “Fine, fine, in the future, Zhang Shao commands. Don’t worry, this corpse, you can hide it for as long as you want him to, those up and down the line of Shi Sheng will never find out that Shi Sheng is dead.”
I shook my head, “I hope that after a while, those people will find out that Shi Sheng is dead. A person on the line suddenly disappears, that would raise more alarm in that gang than knowing definitively that he was dead. We can’t forget that we’re fighting a criminal team with a very strong sense of anti-surveillance and a high level of vigilance.”
Zhao Zichen also said seriously, “That trafficking gang has a really strong anti-surveillance awareness, and Shi Sheng, the outsourced person, happens to be the weakest link in their criminal chain. Whether we can get in touch with the real boss behind Shi Sheng will depend on tomorrow.”
