Chapter 1 Lu Maowang

At this moment, Lu Maowang sat in a chair, a beam of light shining straight down from the ceiling onto his head, making him nervous and uncomfortable.

"Lu Maowang, we arranged a hospital room for you, but you didn't tell us and secretly went home, bringing a suitcase packed so neatly. Where were you planning to escape to?" Zhang Lin asked coldly.

Lu Maowang felt guilty, but still stubbornly said, "Why, why would I escape? I was bored in the hospital, and my body was pretty much recovered. I figured I barely escaped death, so I shouldn't waste my youth. I just wanted to travel and get some fresh air."

Seeing that Lu Maowang was treating them like fools, Zhang Lin slammed his hand on the table. "Tell the truth! Otherwise, you'll suffer."

"Okay, okay... I'll tell the truth." Lu Maowang's voice got lower and lower. "I, I just wanted to avoid the trouble of being interrogated. I didn't do anything wrong. I just didn't want to get involved in this mess, so I thought I'd go out for a trip and come back when it was over."

Under the light, his mouth opened and closed, and the shadows of the fat folds on his forehead were even deeper, making him look even more like a Shar-Pei dog with a fat human body.

"Heh, you've got it all figured out. But if you don't cooperate with the investigation, and we find evidence that you committed a crime, that will be an aggravating factor."

Unable to escape, Lu Maowang admitted defeat. "I, I didn't mean that. I just don't like trouble. I didn't break the law."

"You saw Zhao Di being pushed into the water, didn't you?"

"This... no, I don't know anything about that." Lu Maowang looked troubled. The top of his head was sizzling under the hot light, and sweat flowed down his cheeks along the grooves of his forehead wrinkles.

"Are you sure you don't know? Then explain this." The police officer turned the laptop one hundred and eighty degrees, and on the screen was the video from Zhao Di's sports camera of Jia Wenjun pushing Zhao Di into the sea. The video played to the end, and a huge face peeked out from the top of the screen, and the police officer pressed the pause button.

The face on the screen was very glaring, and the more Lu Maowang looked at it, the more flustered he became. "Officer, I really don't know. I was asleep at the time. I sleep with my eyes open. I drank too much alcohol before, and my facial nerves were a little damaged. Now I can sometimes close my eyes and sometimes I can't."

"Do you have a certificate from the hospital?"

"This, no, I don't have one. It doesn't affect anything, so I didn't go to the hospital. I just drink less."

Zhang Lin looked at him. "So, there's no evidence that you sleep with your eyes open."

Lu Maowang was anxious. "Officer, I'm not lying."

"We'll check whether you're lying. Explain this next video."

"Ah? What other video?" Lu Maowang was completely panicked. He knew that this video in Zhao Di's sports camera didn't prove anything. If the police wanted to say he was Jia Wenjun's accomplice, accomplices don't "commemorate" the crime scene with photos.

If they said he saw it unintentionally, so he secretly filmed it, the angle of the shot would suggest it was relatively concealed, this behavior could also be considered "righteous action," leaving evidence for the police.

So even if Lu Maowang felt that his own face appearing at the end was a bit of a hassle, after all, Sun Jiao Jiao had told everyone before that he stole Zhao Di's underwear. After being brought back to the police station, he had already decided that he would never admit it. They had no evidence, and the police couldn't do anything to him just based on Sun Jiao Jiao's crazy words. So Lu Maowang still felt that things wouldn't get too serious.

However, he didn't expect the police to have another video in their hands.

Feeling flustered, Lu Maowang looked at the screen. The police officer clicked on the laptop, and the video showed Lu Maowang carrying a bucket of water into Zhao Di's house. Lu Maowang thought of something, and his hands immediately began to shake.

Zhang Lin naturally saw all the changes in his expression, knowing that this man definitely had something to hide and must be investigated thoroughly.

At this time, Zhao Di, wearing a suspender top and shorts, appeared on the screen. After letting him into the house, it seemed like something temporary happened in the bedroom. She turned around and went into the room, asking Lu Maowang to install the water barrel himself in the living room.

But when Lu Maowang saw Zhao Di enter the room and not come out, he didn't immediately install the water bucket. Instead, he sneaked to the balcony and took a bright red lace panty from a pile of underwear on the drying rack and stuffed it into his pocket.

This scene was clearly captured by the camera in the living room. The date of this video was the day before boarding the ship, when he went to Zhao Di's house to deliver water.

Lu Maowang covered his face with both hands. The light above his head made him feel ashamed and unable to hide.

"How many times have you done this?" the police officer asked.

"Firs, first time."

"I see you won't give up until you're at the Yellow River. I have many more videos of you like this here. Do you want to see them again?"

Lu Maowang's face turned pale after hearing this. "No, no need."

"Tell the truth, how many times?"

"Too many, I can't remember." Lu Maowang said softly, avoiding eye contact.

Zhang Lin deliberately provoked him. "You've always had evil thoughts about Zhao Di, wanting to do something to her. You were with the person on the ship who pushed her into the water."

Lu Maowang was so shocked that his voice cracked. "Oh my, Officer, you can't talk nonsense. I'm a bit of a pervert, but I wouldn't dare to kill anyone."

Zhang Lin stared at him. "Who said she was killed?"

"Ah?" Lu Maowang looked flustered and quickly put his hands down to explain. "I, I mean I didn't conspire with anyone to push her into the sea. Zhao Di is an internet celebrity. I saw her posing seductively online for men all over the internet all day long, so I wanted to take advantage of my proximity to get some of her underwear. That's why I reached out. To be honest, it's not my fault. If she didn't take the initiative to seduce me, I wouldn't have had the guts."

"How did she seduce you?"

Lu Maowang lowered his head, a little emotional. "Every time I went to deliver water to her, she deliberately wore those thin and revealing clothes. What else could that be but seduction? But I'm a man of principle. She's married, how could I mess around with a married woman, right? So I always pretended not to see it and didn't respond to her at all."

Zhang Lin sneered. "You didn't respond, but you stole her underwear. Did you also steal Zhao Di's underwear on the ship?" The police really knew about him stealing Zhao Di's underwear on the ship. Lu Maowang's cold sweat kept coming down. "Officer, Sun Jiao Jiao is mentally unstable, you can't believe her words. I didn't steal Zhao Di's underwear on the ship. There were so many people, how could I go and steal it?"

"Did I say it was Sun Jiao Jiao who said it?"

"Ah?" Lu Maowang was stunned, remembering that everyone on the ship had heard it. If it wasn't Sun Jiao Jiao, then who said it?

No matter who said it, he couldn't admit it!

"They're talking nonsense. Who stole underwear? Why do they say it was me who stole it? Is there any evidence?" Lu Maowang was sure that the police had no evidence to prove that he stole underwear, after all, it wasn't like the community where there were cameras everywhere.

In any case, he couldn't have anything to do with Zhao Di's disappearance. Human life was at stake, and his second half of life might be over, so Lu Maowang couldn't admit it even if he died.

"Then why was Zhao Di's underwear in your luggage bag on the ship?" The police officer's words stunned Lu Maowang.

"What? In my luggage bag?!" Lu Maowang was dumbfounded. It was true that he stole the underwear, but he threw it under the bed in Baima Mountain at that time. Later, Jia Wenjun found it, and she questioned Baima Mountain on the spot. Where did that thing go in the end? Wasn't it on Jia Wenjun? How could it be in his luggage bag?

Those suitcases were all checked by the police before disembarking, because one person was missing and one person died on the ship, no wonder the police hadn't notified him to take his luggage bag back until now.