SFTD -Chapter 196 A Severed Thumb (Part 26)

“I didn’t kill anyone. I couldn’t have killed her!”

“Why do you say you couldn’t?”

Zhu Mingtao frowned tightly. “I faint at the sight of blood.”

Chu Menghan let out a mocking laugh. “What kind of excuse is that?”

Zhou Hai sighed. “He’s not lying. Those symptoms just now really were hemophobia. That was only from looking at photographs—if he saw actual blood, he’d collapse instantly.”

Liu Da looked bewildered. “This is honestly my first time seeing a suspect like this. You mean he’s no longer a suspect?”

Zhou Hai glanced at Liu Da and nodded.

“Call Chu Menghan over. I want to talk to Zhu Mingtao alone. There seems to be another kind of relationship between him and Mu Ya.”

Liu Da took out his phone and called Chu Menghan over.

After hearing Zhou Hai’s judgment, Chu Menghan’s expression darkened, but she still accepted his conclusion. Zhu Mingtao had looked like he was about to collapse earlier, and it didn’t seem fake. A person couldn’t control their complexion or sweating like that.

Zhou Hai went alone into the interrogation room. Even the officer recording the session was asked to leave. The moment Zhu Mingtao looked up and saw Zhou Hai, his whole body tensed.

“I’m forensic examiner Zhou Hai. The evidence Captain Chu showed you earlier was all discovered by us. You say you faint at the sight of blood, but that alone isn’t enough to clear you of suspicion. I know you and Mu Ya were very close. It wasn’t as simple as a teacher-student relationship like you claimed. If you don’t tell the truth, no one can help you.”

Zhu Mingtao clasped his hands together and rubbed them hard, as though he had finally made up his mind. He looked at Zhou Hai.

“You’ll understand if you look at my body. But only you can look.”

Zhou Hai nodded and picked up the keys to unlock Zhu Mingtao’s handcuffs. Outside the glass, Chu Menghan nervously stepped closer. Ever since Zhou Hai had nearly been killed by that heavyset woman last time, she didn’t want him getting hurt again because of one of her cases.

Liu Da patted her shoulder from behind. “Calm down. Have some faith in Zhou Hai.”

Inside the interrogation room, Zhu Mingtao had already taken off his shirt. His pale, slender body was covered in bluish-purple whip marks. Some wounds were fresh, while others had faded into pale white scars left from a month or even longer ago. There were bruised finger marks around his neck, and handprints at both sides of his waist. Even without removing his pants, Zhou Hai knew there were more injuries underneath.

“Masochism? Bisexual?”

Zhu Mingtao nodded with difficulty.

“What exactly is your relationship with Mu Ya?”

As Zhou Hai asked, he draped the shirt back over Zhu Mingtao’s shoulders. Perhaps because he had just revealed his deepest secret, Zhu Mingtao no longer seemed as guarded. After getting dressed again, he sat properly in the interrogation chair.

“Usually… I liked using binoculars to watch people. I wanted to see what men and women together looked like. After all, I didn’t want to spend my whole life only being with men.

Last August, I accidentally saw Mu Ya in Room 201 of Building Seven. She was standing naked by the window, leaning halfway over the sill. Her movements and expression were wild. I recognized her instantly and was so startled I dropped the binoculars.

When I found them again and looked back, they seemed to have already finished. But Mu Ya was still standing there naked at the window, staring directly at me. She touched her chest and smiled faintly. I knew she had noticed me.

And I reacted immediately. You have to understand—that was the first time I had ever reacted to a woman. After that, I started paying attention to her. At school she was still as quiet as ever, but if you observed carefully, she wasn’t like that at all.

She liked seducing men. Casual touches, teasing gestures… she seemed addicted to the feeling. But she never made a move on me, only gave me meaningful smiles.

Then one day during the National Day holiday, she knocked on my door. She threw herself into my arms. We barely even spoke before we slept together. The next morning, she disappeared again.

After that, she kept appearing and disappearing, appearing and disappearing. Then before Spring Festival, she stayed at my house for over ten days. We lived like lovers. But on the morning of the seventh day of the New Year—February 24th—she disappeared again.

I called her and searched everywhere, but couldn’t find her. Gradually, I slipped back into my old way of life.”

Zhou Hai let out a long breath. In the eyes of society, Zhu Mingtao was an outcast. If the truth came out, he would lose his work, his friends—everything. No wonder he had refused to speak.

“Then where have you been these past few days?”

“After Mu Ya left, I stayed at a male friend’s house starting from February 25th. My dashcam recorded my travel routes.”

Zhu Mingtao gritted his teeth, accepted the paper and pen Zhou Hai handed him, and wrote down a name and phone number. Zhou Hai picked up the note and folded his arms, holding it toward the two-way mirror. On the other side, Chu Menghan and the others immediately sprang into action.

“Have you offended anyone?”

Zhu Mingtao thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. My life is very simple—school, home, and occasionally meeting friends.”

“Then who has keys to your house?”

Zhu Mingtao shook his head again. “Only Mu Ya had a key. No one else has ever been to my home.”

Zhou Hai stared into Zhu Mingtao’s eyes. It felt like he was getting closer and closer to the truth, yet the truth always seemed to twist away at the last moment. If a teacher had been framed, who would benefit from it?

He truly couldn’t think of anyone. This was just a small agricultural university; they were already short on faculty. Competition couldn’t possibly be that fierce.

That meant the motive could only be related to private life. And the most likely person behind everything was Mu Ya’s ex-boyfriend. Anyone involved with such a promiscuous girlfriend would need enormous tolerance—but once that tolerance snapped, there would be an explosive outburst.

“Do you know who Mu Ya’s boyfriend was?

“The man living with her in Room 201 of Building Seven?”

Zhu Mingtao shook his head. “I don’t know who he was, but I remember her mentioning him once. Mu Ya said her perverted boyfriend was a student at the agricultural university. She never said anything else.”

“Perverted?”

“Yes. Mu Ya only said he was Perverted—always making her try shameful things. But she never went into specifics.”

Zhou Hai returned to the next room. Xu Biao had already collected a throat swab from Zhu Mingtao and sent it to Sister Zeng for DNA comparison. Xiao Zeng and the others had already escorted Zhu Mingtao away. Until the real culprit was found, he was still the prime suspect.

“Did you verify Zhu Mingtao’s boyfriend?”

Liu Da nodded.

“The moment you held up that note, I already sent people to verify the timeline and check the surveillance at the residence. Looks like he wasn’t lying. But why didn’t he say anything in the beginning?”

“Because if he did, everything would’ve been ruined.

His work.

His life.

His future.”

After thinking about it, Liu Da understood. At first, Zhu Mingtao had probably believed the police didn’t have any concrete evidence, and since he hadn’t done anything, he thought they wouldn’t find anything if he stayed silent. But after seeing the photos and learning about the crime scene, he realized that staying silent would cost him far more than just his reputation.

Just then, news came from Xiao Hu.

“We still can’t trace the phone used to send the instructions. Looks like the killer already destroyed it. But by tracking the registration information, we identified the number. The registration matches the same Liu Xin that the elderly landlady mentioned.”

“Then can we track the movement history of that phone?”