Chapter 61
Chapter 61
“No,” Pei Yuming said, shaking his head. “I only ran into them by chance when I went back this time.”
This matter was not hard for the police to investigate. Earlier, Cao Lei had asked about the deposits in Pei Yuming’s father’s account. At that point, based on the irregularities in his father’s bank statements, the police had already traced the case to that fraud ring.
He had originally meant to tell Pei Yuming about it, but the conversation had been interrupted and the moment had passed.
At present, however, the police had only identified these three people within the fraud ring. The money that had been scammed had indeed been frozen by their technicians, totaling 380,000 yuan, exactly as Pei Yuming had said, down to the last cent.
But how had Pei Yuming known all this?
Especially the exact amount recovered. Even Cao Lei himself had only just been told through his earpiece.
Utterly baffled, Cao Lei glanced at the surveillance camera several times before he could not help confirming with him again. “Lao Pei, let me ask one more time. Aside from that ‘Flashback’ world you described, in the real world we’re both in right now, you really haven’t met those fraudsters, correct?”
“Correct. I haven’t met them,” Pei Yuming said firmly.
“You know that after we catch them, we’ll verify this, right?”
Pei Yuming nodded. “What I’m saying is true. Here, I really haven’t met them.”
Cao Lei licked his lips. Somehow, he actually found himself believing that Pei Yuming was telling the truth this time.
But if he really had never met them, how could he explain the entire situation so clearly?
Could that so-called “Flashback” really have happened?
Cao Lei immediately rejected the ridiculous thought. The pressure of solving the case must have been getting to him. Even his brain was starting to malfunction.
Or perhaps his supposed contact with the two male fraudsters had been a lie. Maybe he had only run into those two by chance, just like in his story, where he saw the two men in the residential complex demanding money from his father. But for some reason, he had not dared to step forward and stop them. He had only watched from the shadows. Then, when he later turned the incident into a story, he had changed the scene, making it so that he had bravely gone up to stop them and had ended up injured and taken to the police station because of it.
As for the details of the fraud, perhaps he had investigated it in secret? Maybe he had discovered long ago that his father was being scammed, but for some reason had not dared to call the police?
But how did that explain the 380,000 yuan?
Cao Lei felt as if his head was about to catch fire. He scratched hard at his scalp a few times and forced himself to calm down. Then he sat back down in his chair and asked, as if casually, “You said earlier that Lu Dong helped you this time?”
“Mm.” Pei Yuming had no idea what Cao Lei was wrestling with.
“Judging from what you said about him before, and everything you’ve told us since, it’s clear your relationship with him wasn’t as harmonious as it looked on the surface. So why did he suddenly go all out to help you this time?”
“I don’t know either.” The confusion on Pei Yuming’s face was completely genuine. “I’m certain that deep down, he actually looks down on me too. You can tell from Zixuan’s attitude toward me. But this time, he was especially proactive and helped me with a lot of things. He was even the one who found the lawyer, and later he communicated with the police, and so on. I really can’t figure it out either. Officer Cao, tell me, can a person’s nature really change all of a sudden?”
Cao Lei did not answer. He was considering the motive behind Pei Yuming suddenly raising this question. From the previous account, he was certain that Pei Yuming was indeed deeply dissatisfied with Lu Dong. It would not even be an exaggeration to call it resentment.
But now Pei Yuming had suddenly changed his tune. Did that mean something had shifted in him psychologically?
If they assumed Pei Yuming was the killer in this case, did his change in attitude mean he was beginning to feel some remorse? Was he paving the way for an imminent confession?
Cao Lei stared fixedly at him and said slowly, “Maybe. But I’m more inclined to think people are complicated. Maybe in that situation, he genuinely wanted to help. After all, you two had known each other for so many years, and especially with two fraudsters on the other side, they were enemies to both him and you. You were one of his own. Of course he would do everything he could to help you.”
Pei Yuming’s expression was faint. His eyes even looked a little unfocused, and no one knew what he was thinking.
After a while, he finally spoke slowly. “Lu Dong said that even family members have times when they fight until the whole house is in chaos… I was thinking, the way I treated him before, and Bai Xue, and my brother… In short, was I too extreme? Maybe I should have listened to what they truly thought. Maybe, possibly, everyone had their own difficulties. Or maybe they never meant to hurt me in the first place. It’s just that when people face temptation, when they face desire, sometimes they become weak and indulgent. After all, not everyone has an iron will. Including me. I’ve been lazy too. I have my own selfish motives, and I have another side I don’t want people to know about. Tell me, Officer Cao, is it right for me to think this way?”
Cao Lei patted him on the shoulder, closing the distance between them. “Mm. So what do you mean by that? What are you trying to say?”
Pei Yuming pressed his lips together. “Maybe I should sit down and have a calm talk with them.”
“Heh. Fair enough.” Cao Lei secretly ran his tongue over his back molars and forced down, for the forty-eighth time, the urge to expose him.
Pei Yuming softly reminded the girl who was about to be squeezed into his arms, “Careful.”
The girl’s face flushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Pei Yuming took out his phone and opened the video recorder. Before aiming the camera at the Man in Black diagonally behind him, he asked quietly, “Do you need my help?”
The girl froze for a moment, then nodded hard, her voice already choked with tears. “I do… Thank you, sir.”
Pei Yuming nodded in understanding. “All right.”
With that, he aimed the camera without hesitation at the Man in Black’s hand as it touched the girl’s buttocks. At the same time, he yanked the man’s arm away and snapped sternly, “I’ve recorded evidence of you molesting this lady. There are surveillance cameras in this carriage too. When we get off, you’re coming straight to the police station with us!”
When the Man in Black first saw someone stopping him, anger clearly flashed across his face. But when he saw the phone in Pei Yuming’s hand pointed right at him, he panicked on the spot. Without even trying to make excuses, he admitted fault at once. “Sir, I was wrong. Please let me off. I really can’t go to the police station. If my family or my workplace finds out about this, I’m finished!”
“Now you know you were wrong? What were you doing earlier?” the Woman in the Red Dress squeezed over from the side and mocked loudly.
The Man in Black’s face turned bright red. With the gazes of people from two surrounding carriages boring into him, he wished he could crawl under the subway train.
As they spoke, the train began slowing as it pulled into the station. The Man in Black glanced at the subway staff on duty outside the window and immediately panicked even more.
He leaned past Pei Yuming and spoke directly to the girl hiding behind him. “Miss, I’m sorry. I really lost my head for a moment. How about we settle this privately? I’ll transfer you a thousand yuan as compensation for emotional distress. What do you think?”