SFTD -Chapter 89 Don’t Insult Beasts (Final)

Captain Huang nodded.

“I understand what you mean. I also feel Zhang Chunyan doesn’t match what her teachers described. Maybe she had something she couldn’t let go of inside.”

“Also, when we first went to the scene, I remember there was some white powder on the iron door across from Zhao Baogui’s house. At the time I thought it was dry powder from firefighting foam, but now it seems it might have been flour.”

Xu Biao followed Zhou Hai upstairs in silence and collected the white powder accumulated on the opposite iron door into an evidence bag.

Just as they came back downstairs, Zhou Hai received an email on his phone. Opening it, he saw two reports.

One was a test report on the residue under Zhang Chunyan’s fingernails—indeed it contained traces of tetramine (rat poison).

The second report came from the hospital: the DNA from the extracted swab sample had been sent to the center, and it matched Zhao Baogui exactly.

Xu Biao took the phone and read it once, pressing his lips together without saying a word.

Then he turned and poured most of a bottle of mineral water into a container with some of the white powder, and dropped in a single drop of iodine disinfectant. The originally pale liquid gradually turned blue.

“It’s confirmed—flour.”

The three-day deadline had arrived, but Captain Huang did not feel relieved at catching the culprit. Instead, he felt heavy-hearted. After everything they had investigated, they clearly understood why Zhang Chunyan had done all this, and they couldn’t help but sigh in sorrow.

“Let’s go. To the hospital.”

One hour later, the burn ward of the First Affiliated Hospital.

When Zhang Chunyan saw the three of them in police uniforms walking in with serious expressions, she froze slightly, the smile on her face slowly stiffening and fading away.

“Police uncles… can you let Xiaoshan go out first?”

“Whatever you want to know… I—I’ll tell the truth.”

Xu Biao and Zhou Hai exchanged a glance. Then Xu Biao stood up and picked up Zhang Chunshan.

“Kid, come with me. I’ll find someone to play with you.”

The child was very obedient. Seeing that his sister did not object, he quietly let Xu Biao carry him out of the ward. Xu Biao handed him to the nurse station along with a large bag of snacks.

Xu Biao quickly returned to the ward. He wanted to hear everything—at least so he would know how to help this girl later.

After closing the door, he sat down beside Zhou Hai.

Zhang Chunyan used her intact left hand to tidy her scattered hair, then looked at Zhou Hai. She knew these eyes could see through everything, though she didn’t understand what that meant.

“Police uncle… if I tell you everything, can you please take care of my brother afterward?”

As she spoke, a tear slipped from her eye and hung on her eyelashes.

Zhou Hai and Captain Hu exchanged a glance, then both nodded.

“Go ahead.”

Zhang Chunyan lifted her head and looked at the three of them steadily.

“I didn’t have a father when I was born. The person we lived with was my uncle. He was very good to me and never hit me.”

“But later he died. That year my brother was one, and I was seven.”

“My mother was a very weak person. Whenever something happened, she would cry. If she couldn’t solve it, she would always take it out on me and my brother.”

After my uncle died, pressured by relatives, she took us to Dongnan City.

We rented the annex of Grandma Li’s house. I heard that No. 6 Hope Primary School didn’t charge tuition and even provided lunch and uniforms, so my mother sent me there.

We didn’t have household registration in Dongnan City, but my uncle’s death certificate helped. I was allowed to stay—but that school was a nightmare.

They mocked my accent, the cracked skin on my hands, the fact I didn’t wear socks, didn’t wear underwear, and wore worn-out shoes…

So I barely spoke at school.

I lived like that for over a year.

Then my brother got sick, and we were three months behind on rent. That’s when my stepfather—Zhao Baogui—appeared.

He gave my mother one thousand yuan and paid off our rent debt.

Then we moved into his house.

My mother has always been like this—whenever she can’t solve a problem, she finds a man to solve it for her. She didn’t even know him at all. For one thousand yuan, she sold herself and us!

Isn’t that ridiculous?”

There were no tears in Zhang Chunyan’s eyes—only helplessness, despair, and a maturity far beyond her age. People always say poor children mature early, but no one expected she had already seen through so much at such a young age.

She drank some water and continued.

“He… had a terrible temper. He and my mother argued every few days. When he drank, he hit people. My mother was already exhausted, but she endured it because at least there was a roof over our heads.”

“Until this spring… he got drunk again in the middle of the night and barged into our room, threw himself onto my bed, and refused to leave.

My mother finally snapped. They fought, and my mother’s ribs were broken—four of them. She coughed up blood. Only then did he get scared and take her to the hospital by taxi.

He didn’t care about her—he was just afraid of killing someone. That’s what he told us when he came back: to behave ourselves.

While my mother was hospitalized, he forced me to drink liquor. After that I remember nothing.

When I woke up, my clothes were gone and my body was covered in injuries. I knew what he had done. After that, he became even more brazen.

When my mother returned, he still dragged me into his room when he was drunk, beating and assaulting me.

My mother didn’t dare speak out. She couldn’t stop him—she only cried.

I couldn’t beat him, and no neighbors dared intervene.

Old Grandpa Sun across the hall heard the noise and called him a beast. They fought, and he pushed the old man down, twisting his ankle. Then Grandpa Sun called the police.

When the police came, my mother swore nothing had happened—just a family quarrel. And it ended there.

My mother told me: don’t air dirty laundry. Just endure it, grow up quickly, and leave this home.

But I hated them. I hated Zhao Baogui… and I hated my mother even more.

Until after National Day, when school started, we had a fire safety lesson given by a firefighter uncle.

I remembered when I was little, my mother was kneading dough in the kitchen, boiling water in the stove. I don’t know why, but when she shook a bag of flour, a fireball suddenly erupted and burned her arm with seven or eight blisters.

So I asked the firefighter uncle about it. He explained that flour is dust, and if it becomes suspended in the air and meets an open flame, it can explode.

He also mentioned a flour explosion case in Anhui a few days earlier.

At that moment, I had a plan.

Last year, when I was cleaning clothes, I saw several packets of tetramine in their wardrobe. I only bought a lighter from a convenience store downstairs.

On November 2nd, Zhao Baogui bought two bags of flour—an old man pushed a cart selling it, very cheap, he came every year.

That night he got drunk again, insulted my cooking, hit me, and then… did that to me again. My mother just sat in the kitchen sighing and stringing beads, not even stopping him.

I knew I had to act.

On November 3rd, I made breakfast early. After we ate, I put tetramine into six meat buns.

Every Monday they came home late because they went to Anshan Road to string bead bracelets.

They came back at eight. After dinner, I washed the dishes. Then I lay down with my brother.

At ten, I got up once.

They were slumped against the kitchen wall, their faces very bad, eyes closed, breathing weak.

I opened the flour bag and scattered flour in the kitchen, living room, and their room.

Then I turned on the fan. Flour dust filled the air. My eyes stung, so I ran out, shook off the flour, and went back to my room.

I closed the door, soaked blankets with water to block it, pushed a table against it, and even hung a blanket outside the window. I tore all the bedsheets into strips.

After preparing everything, I climbed onto the table, lit the lighter, and threw it out the window.

But I didn’t expect the explosion to be so strong. I was thrown back by the blast and broke my arm. My brother woke me up, and I helped him onto the windowsill so he could climb onto the balcony outside.

I don’t know how long passed. I felt extremely hot and my mind was unclear. Then I heard fire truck sirens. Someone broke down the door and rescued us.”

After she finished speaking, Xu Biao turned off his body-worn recorder.

Zhou Hai slowly raised his head and looked at Zhang Chunyan trembling on the bed. Even after reliving her most painful memories, she hadn’t cried. This child had endured far too much.

He gestured to Captain Huang and kicked Xu Biao’s chair. The three of them left the room and stood in the stairwell, quietly lighting cigarettes.

Feeling the sunlight outside the window, Captain Huang narrowed his eyes. Only such sunlight could dispel the darkness brought by Zhang Chunyan’s confession.

“If it were me… faced with such a beast of a stepfather, I might have done the same. But why did she even kill her mother along with him?”

Xu Biao slammed his fist against the wall, his eyes turning red.

“Beast? Don’t insult beasts! Damn it! That man is garbage—pure trash!”

Zhou Hai took a deep drag and exhaled a ring of smoke.

“Maybe she hated her mother the most. Her mother kept remarrying, trying to escape life but only sinking deeper into misery. Even the cruelty of that stepfather was partly enabled by her mother’s weakness and compromise. Even the neighbor across the hall showed more warmth than her own family.”

Captain Huang opened his mouth several times, wanting to argue, but said nothing. Zhou Hai was right—Zhang Chunyan had completely lost hope in her mother.

After a long silence, Zhou Hai stood up and looked seriously at Captain Huang.

“Can this be treated as voluntary surrender?”

Captain Huang looked up in surprise. No one knew better than him how principled Zhou Hai was; hearing him say this was rare.

He patted Zhou Hai’s shoulder.

“I’ll try. When we entered the ward, we didn’t ask anything. She voluntarily confessed everything. Legally, it should be fine. Besides, the suspect is under fourteen. The court will show some leniency. After all, they’ve lost all guardians.”

Zhou Hai extinguished his cigarette and looked out at the sparse yellow leaves outside the window, letting out a long breath.