The crackdown on organized crime began with the arrest of the mother-in-law.

Chapter 1149 Murder Driven by Jealousy

As they were being escorted downstairs, Song Qiang's eyes remained fixed on the police car parked by the roadside, the muscles in the back of his neck taut like a steel cable about to snap. As they passed his black Cayenne, he suddenly broke free from the officers' grasp, reaching for the car door handle, his knuckles white from the force. "That's my car," he said, his voice laced with suppressed anger, "My training plans are inside..." Before he could finish, he was forced back into place, the cold handcuffs locking his wrists. He struggled violently, a white chafing mark appearing at the knee of his workout pants, mirroring the wear pattern of the size 42 shoe print found at the culvert entrance.

The walls of the interrogation room were a suffocating gray. Song Qiang sat in a specially made interrogation chair, the chains dragging on the floor with a soft, clattering sound. Xiao Wang pushed a photograph of Zhang Baoshan's corpse in front of him; the dark blue jacket in the photo looked like a blot of congealed blood in the murky water, the tear in his left chest swollen from being soaked in water. "You recognize him, right?" The pen tapped rhythmically on the notebook, the nib hovering over the timestamp of "9:30 PM, May 9th."

Song Qiang's gaze lingered on the photo for three seconds before he suddenly looked down, his bangs falling to obscure his eyes, revealing only a slight twitch at the corner of his tightly pursed lips. "Zhang Baoshan," his voice seemed to squeeze from a rusty pipe, his right index finger unconsciously picking at the textured plastic of the chair, "A colleague, but not exactly close." Xiao Wang suddenly slammed the vehicle trajectory map on the table. The Cayenne's route on National Highway 339 resembled a twisted snake, drawing an ugly circle around the culvert. "A 20-kilometer detour to the viewpoint?" he pointed to the inflection point of the trajectory with his pen, "Or did you deliberately 'pass by' the culvert?"

Song Qiang's Adam's apple bobbed violently. He suddenly raised his head, his eyes bloodshot, like a wild beast trapped in a cage: "Is it illegal for me to go sightseeing?" His fists were clenched white under the interrogation table, the cracking of his knuckles particularly clear in the silent room. "I was surprised that Zhang Baoshan died, but don't throw all the dirt on me!" Xiao Wang didn't respond, but pulled up Song Qiang's online shopping record from May 7th. The screenshot of the order for dark blue industrial binding rope flashed coldly on the screen. The production batch number differed from the fiber number on site by only three digits, like a deliberately scrambled code.

"What are you going to use this rope for?" Xiao Wang pushed the evidence bag forward; the fibers inside gleamed with a silvery-blue luster under the light. "It's from the same batch used to bind Zhang Baoshan. There's probably half a roll left in the warehouse, right?" Song Qiang's shoulders suddenly slumped, his breathing becoming heavy, like a blower filled with sand. "For binding equipment," his voice was so low it was almost inaudible, "Moving new equipment to the workshop..." Xiao Wang suddenly raised his voice: "The 'new equipment' you moved at the culvert entrance at 10:15 PM on May 9th—that was Zhang Baoshan's body, wasn't it!"

These words were like a red-hot branding iron, searing Song Qiang so much that he abruptly straightened his back. He stared into Xiao Wang's eyes, the anger in his gaze gradually replaced by fear, like a reef revealing its hideous true face after the tide recedes. "He deserves to die!" Song Qiang's voice suddenly exploded, the chains on the chair legs becoming a tangled mess. "That bastard, how dare he touch Li Lu? He's just a money-grubbing fitness coach; besides wagging his tail at women, what does he know about training?"

Xiao Wang pushed over a photocopy of Li Lu's testimony, the tear stains blurring the words "dating two people simultaneously." "Just because of this, you killed someone?" His pen underlined the word "jealousy" heavily. "On the night of May 9th, you lured Zhang Baoshan to National Highway 339 under the guise of a 'special student,' and then what?" Song Qiang's nails dug deeply into his palms, blood seeping from between his fingers, dripping onto the interrogation record and spreading into an ugly flower-like pattern: "I arranged to meet him at a coffee shop, saying Li Lu wanted to confront him. He looked so smug, as if Li Lu was already his woman..."

"Does a showdown require a rope and a wrench?" Xiao Wang pulled up the surveillance footage. In the video, Song Qiang walked into the cafe through the side door with a black backpack. Half a metal object protruded from the side of the bag, its shape perfectly matching the wrench found in the culvert. Song Qiang's voice suddenly lowered, trembling almost like a sob: "I only wanted to teach him a lesson and tell him to stay away from Li Lu. But he said... he said Li Lu was already tired of me, and that he would tell Li Lu's husband about us..." He suddenly raised his head, his eyes bloodshot like a spider web, "He hit me first! He grabbed the ashtray on the table and hit me, that's why I fought back!"

Xiao Wang flipped through the forensic report; the photo of the wound on his left chest appeared bluish-gray under the light. "To retaliate, you need to hit his head with a wrench and then drag him into the culvert to drown him?" He pointed to the conclusion of "drowning" with the nib of his pen. "Zhang Baoshan's lungs contained a large amount of mud and sand, and his stomach contents contained coffee and sleeping pill components—you spiked his coffee, didn't you?" Song Qiang's defenses completely crumbled; his forehead slammed against the interrogation table with a dull thud: "I added some clonazepam, just wanted him to sleep for a few hours…who knew he'd wake up so quickly…"

According to Song Qiang's confession, he crushed sleeping pills into powder in the coffee shop's restroom and poured it into Zhang Baoshan's Americano while Zhang was on the phone. "He took two sips and said he felt dizzy," Song Qiang's voice was broken, like a tape recorder stuck in a malfunction. "I helped him out of the coffee shop, put him in the trunk of a Cayenne, and drove towards the underpass. Inside, he struggled and hit his head on the partition..." He suddenly began to tremble violently. "When we got to the underpass, I dragged him out, and he suddenly lunged at me and bit my arm. That's when I grabbed a wrench from the floor and smashed it over his head..."

"Where did he fall?" Xiao Wang pressed, his pen flying across the paper. Song Qiang gestured in the air to his temple: "Right here. He collapsed right then and there, his eyes wide open, like he was trying to see right through me..." He suddenly covered his face, a sob escaping between his fingers, "I was terrified. I dragged him deeper into the culvert. When the water was up to his chest, he suddenly moved, and I... I pressed his head down..."

Xiao Wang pushed over the on-site investigation photos. The drag marks inside the culvert looked like a frozen snake in the photos, starting 3 meters from the culvert entrance and ending with dark blue fabric fibers floating on the water. "You used that roll of industrial rope to tie his wrists because you were afraid he would struggle?" Song Qiang nodded, tears mixed with snot streaming down his face, blurring the interrogation record: "I was afraid he wasn't quite dead... The rope was prepared beforehand, kept in the trunk, originally intended... originally intended to be used to tie up training equipment..."

When asked how he disposed of the murder weapon, Song Qiang's voice was so low it was almost a whisper: "I threw the wrench into the silt in the culvert, and I cut the rope into small pieces and washed it away with the drainage outlet of the national highway..."