Chapter 29: Confession — So, you followed the plan and killed Ye Zhen Zhen?
After the recording was played, Zuo Yi pressed the stop button. Ye Kang Ping’s complexion had already become the same hue as clear noodle soup.
Zuo Yi glanced at him as he stowed away the recording device into his pocket. “Do you have nothing you want to say?”
Ye Kang Ping pursed his lips, which was completely colorless at this moment. He mulishly said, “I want to wait for my lawyer.”
Zuo Yi chuckled. “I have Ye Zhen Zhen’s testimony as well as this recording. A search warrant will process through very quickly. It is only a matter of time to find that agreement you spoke of. Naturally, to you, that is also a matter of time—the question is how long will you be imprisoned for.”
Ye Kang Ping’s complexion once again paled. His lips trembled, as did his voice when he said, “I, I want to wait for my lawyer.”
“Alright.” Zuo Yi leaned back into his chair, his head tilted upward. “Since you do not want to speak, then I will make a few deductions. Because the entirety of Ye Hong Sheng’s estate has been set aside for Ye Zhen Zhen, and due to the hard feelings you harbor from this as well as the failed attempt to persuade your father to change his will, you made plans to commit murder. If you killed both him and Ye Zhen Zhen, however, you cannot obtain the inheritance. Therefore, you had not been able to do anything for quite a while. Eventually, you came upon a fortunate opportunity. You ran into someone whose appearance was extremely similar to Ye Zhen Zhen. You signed an agreement with her, arranging for her to impersonate Ye Zhen Zhen. After she infiltrates the Ye family and obtains the inheritance, you will split the assets according to the prior agreement.
Once all the preparations were made, you chose to act on the 13th of March—because that day is your mother’s death anniversary. You knew no one would be at home. According to your plan, you would only need to kill the real Ye Zhen Zhen, thus allowing the fake Ye Zhen Zhen to take her place. Something probably went wrong midway, causing you to have no choice but to kill Ye Hong Sheng. In order to cover it up and make Ye Zhen Zhen seem innocent, you pushed the fake Ye Zhen Zhen down the stairs. You had not anticipated, however, her amnesia after waking up. She truly believed herself to be Ye Zhen Zhen.”
Zuo Yi took a deep breath after he finished speaking, having not left any room for Ye Kang Ping to interrupt. Ye Kang Ping’s eyes had opened wider and wider as Zuo Yi spoke; at the moment, they were nearly popping out of his eye sockets. His complexion was deathly pale, like a corpse, and his forehead was covered with a fine layer of cold sweat.
He had not expected Zuo Yi’s imagination to be so rich. It truly was a pity that he did not become a screenwriter.
“You, you, this is slander! I will sue you!” Ye Kang Ping howled, attempting to appear strong despite being weak in reality. In the interrogation room, the echoing caused his words to sound especially miserable.
Zuo Yi glanced at him indifferently and and mocked, “Mr. Ye, can you read?”
Ye Kang Ping did not know why he asked this and stared at him silently. Zuo Yi pointed to the wall behind him and asked, “These eight large words behind me, do you recognize them?”
Ye Kang Ping involuntarily raised his head to look up.
『Honesty leads to lenience. Resistance leads to severity.』
Ye Kang Ping: “…”
He strongly believed that honesty would lead to him sitting in prison instead.
Ye Kang Ping lowered his head and remained silent. The bell by the interrogation room’s door rang twice, signalling the entrance of a man dressed in subdued clothing. He bowed his head to whisper into Zuo Yi’s ear before turning around and leaving.
Ye Kang Ping saw Zuo Yi’s lips quirk into a slight smile, and his anxious heart soon felt like it was being roasted over a fire. “What, what happened?”
“Mr. Ye, when we brought you to the police station, we also invited your wife over. She is in the neighboring interrogation room.” Zuo Yi smiled elegantly. “Just a moment ago, she confessed everything.”
“That’s impossible!” Ye Kang Ping slammed the table and stood up from his chair in outrage. Right after, Li Xin Ran once again growled for him to sit back down.
The smile on Zuo Yi’s face was still as warm as a spring breeze, but seeing it caused a snowstorm to freeze Ye Kang Ping’s heart. “It seems that Mrs. Ye is more honest and reasonable than you are. According to her confession, you had pressured her into this whole scheme. She was completely against the plan but was forced into participating.”
Ye Kang Ping almost cursed inwardly. Sure enough, a married couple was like a pair of forest birds. When a great catastrophe befell them, they each flew off on their own! If it were not for her harping off his ears about those two houses, would he feel so stifled?!
Oh, that’s right. The search warrant application has already been sent. Our colleagues are really efficient in their work.” Zuo Yi looked at Ye Kang Ping, his eyes curved into happy crescents.
Ye Kang Ping had still not recovered from the previous blow yet now received this strike. That agreement, he had placed it in a drawer in his bookcase. There would simply be no difficulty in finding it!
“Mr. Ye, if you confessed now, we can consider that to be you taking the initiative to surrender yourself to the authorities. After we find the agreement…”
“I confess, but I won’t confess to all of it!” Ye Kang Ping cried. His old man had taught him since he was a child, If it was never yours from the start, then it never will be. At the moment, it seemed that it was too fucking right. “Your deductions are more or less true, but I did not kill my father!”
Zuo Yi glanced at Li Xin Ran, who nodded and began to quickly take notes.
This all began three months ago.
Three months ago, Ye Kang Ping had gone to D City for a project, a tourist city with numerous well-known tourist attractions. As such, he had also been planning to steal a bit of leisure time amidst his busy workload. He had brought along Sun Qian to discuss the project while conveniently having a vacation of sorts.
During that time, Ye Hong Sheng’s body had become increasingly frail. Ye Kang Ping knew, from seeing his father’s appearance, that he could endure for a year longer at most. When that moment came, the Ye estate, of over a billion yuan, would be left entirely in the hands of that girl, Ye Zhen Zhen. Thinking about that had quickly caused his lips to develop blisters from anxiety. His old man had a very crabby temperament, however, and refused to alter his will. Ye Kang Ping could do nothing about it.
In the secrecy of his mind, he pitied Ye Zhen Zhen, to have experienced a tragic car crash at a very young age and to lose both parents in it. His old man adored her, which was a most welcome occurrence, but…that did not mean he could give the entire estate to her! That was unreasonable!
He tried both soft and hard methods, his lips rubbing against each other and becoming thinner from all his talking. Except, his old man obstinately clung to his course. During his despair, he ran into Ye Zhen Zhen in D City—no, it was someone who looked identical to Ye Zhen Zhen!
When he and Sun Qian first saw that person, they believed she was Ye Zhen Zhen. Seeing that she was stealthily in D City, they felt she was certainly plotting something and followed her the entire trip. In the end, they realized she was simply sketching in the park and writing in the afternoon.
Ye Kang Ping and Sun Qian were both puzzled. They knew Ye Zhen Zhen previously liked to draw, but after the car accident, she no longer wanted to draw. Seeing her draw right now deserved nothing but amazement. A City was very far from D City, however, and running to the latter just to draw…was her brain addled?!
He and Sun Qian exchanged looks; Sun Qian went up to investigate situation. The results of the inquiry made them realize they were both scared for no reason.
This person was actually not Ye Zhen Zhen at all!
Ye Kang Ping then had a divine light spark in his mind. He felt that this person was simply sent down by God as salvation. He did not consider why two people might look so alike; he was impatient to obtain the inheritance at that time and did not want to ponder the coincidence too much. Moreover, this marvelously diverse world was full of extraordinary things. The emergence of two people with exactly identical looks did not seem like an unacceptable occurrence.
Therefore, he accepted it like so.
At first, he thought of investigating this doppelgänger before collaborating with her on this, but he had to return to the company the next day and had no time for a slow investigation. He decided to stake everything on this—although there were risks, he did not want to miss this opportunity needlessly.
Ye Kang Ping had not completely told her the plan, but he did instruct her to pretend to be Ye Zhen Zhen. After Ye Hong Sheng died, his inheritance would be set aside for her, and a million yuan would be her share of the profits. He felt that a million yuan would be very tempting to an ordinary person off the street, but she had not immediately agreed and instead gave him her number, saying that she wanted to think it over.
Ye Kang Ping had long been a man of the business world. Normally, when a matter needed to be thought over, it was because the money being offered was insufficient. Thereupon, he brought the offer up to 1.5 million yuan, which would certainly convince her to give him a call.
As expected, the day he returned to A City, she called and said she was willing to cooperate with him. Ye Kang Ping was overjoyed. Exchanging 1.5 million yuan for over 1 billion yuan was simply a bargain beyond belief. Very quickly, he began looking for an opportunity to go to D City again and signed an agreement with the other party. As for whether the name signed on the agreement was real or not, he paid this no mind, as his greatest trump card was his knowledge of her being an imposter.
It was just that he still needed to find an opportunity to eliminate the real Ye Zhen Zhen. He thought it over and finally decided to act on the 13th of March.
This was implementing the technique of switching the leopard cat for the crown prince. As such, Ye Zhen Zhen needed to disappear; this was callous of him, but since he had started, he must carry the plan through no matter what.
The Ye Mansion was located far from the city, and there were no surveillance cameras installed around the estate. This made it virtually a breeze for him to commit the deed. According to his plan, he would look for a reason to meet up with Ye Zhen Zhen and then secretly kill her on the evening of March 13th. This way, no one would realize that an imposter had taken Ye Zhen Zhen’s place.
There were some barren hills near the Ye Mansion and no neighbors in the vicinity. By burying the corpse in the hills, he reckoned it would be at least eight to ten years before someone discovered it—naturally, such a discovery required a hole deep enough to be dug.
In order to smoothly carry out the plan, Ye Kang Ping was the personification of hardworking. He had even gone a day in advance to the hill to dig a hole, having been afraid that something unexpected would happen the next day that would leave no time to actually dig one.
So as to not leave any records, he intentionally had Sun Qian drive the car to D City to pick up the fake Ye Zhen Zhen. The other person had also asked where the real Ye Zhen Zhen was if she was impersonating her. Sun Qian randomly gave a reason as to why an imposter was needed. Naturally, they could not let this outsider grasp hold of information that could be used against them.
Ye Kang Ping related his story up to here, and the interrogation once again regained its calm atmosphere. Zuo Yi and Li Xin Ran both looked silently at Ye Kang Ping. Under their gazes, Ye Kang Ping could not breathe. Sure enough, the line, ‘honesty leads to leniency,’ was a scam!
At last, Zuo Yi leaned forward and asked with a somewhat deep voice, “So that evening on March 13th, you followed the plan and killed Ye Zhen Zhen?”
They originally believed the only death to be Ye Hong Sheng’s; they had not expected another victim to suddenly appear without basis.
Shocked after hearing Zuo Yi’s question, Ye Kang Ping nearly stood up as he hurriedly denied, “No! When we got there, Ye Zhen Zhen was already dead!”
Chapter 29: Confession — So, you followed the plan and killed Ye Zhen Zhen?
After the recording was played, Zuo Yi pressed the stop button. Ye Kang Ping’s complexion had already become the same hue as clear noodle soup.
Zuo Yi glanced at him as he stowed away the recording device into his pocket. “Do you have nothing you want to say?”
Ye Kang Ping pursed his lips, which was completely colorless at this moment. He mulishly said, “I want to wait for my lawyer.”
Zuo Yi chuckled. “I have Ye Zhen Zhen’s testimony as well as this recording. A search warrant will process through very quickly. It is only a matter of time to find that agreement you spoke of. Naturally, to you, that is also a matter of time—the question is how long will you be imprisoned for.”
Ye Kang Ping’s complexion once again paled. His lips trembled, as did his voice when he said, “I, I want to wait for my lawyer.”
“Alright.” Zuo Yi leaned back into his chair, his head tilted upward. “Since you do not want to speak, then I will make a few deductions. Because the entirety of Ye Hong Sheng’s estate has been set aside for Ye Zhen Zhen, and due to the hard feelings you harbor from this as well as the failed attempt to persuade your father to change his will, you made plans to commit murder. If you killed both him and Ye Zhen Zhen, however, you cannot obtain the inheritance. Therefore, you had not been able to do anything for quite a while. Eventually, you came upon a fortunate opportunity. You ran into someone whose appearance was extremely similar to Ye Zhen Zhen. You signed an agreement with her, arranging for her to impersonate Ye Zhen Zhen. After she infiltrates the Ye family and obtains the inheritance, you will split the assets according to the prior agreement.
Once all the preparations were made, you chose to act on the 13th of March—because that day is your mother’s death anniversary. You knew no one would be at home. According to your plan, you would only need to kill the real Ye Zhen Zhen, thus allowing the fake Ye Zhen Zhen to take her place. Something probably went wrong midway, causing you to have no choice but to kill Ye Hong Sheng. In order to cover it up and make Ye Zhen Zhen seem innocent, you pushed the fake Ye Zhen Zhen down the stairs. You had not anticipated, however, her amnesia after waking up. She truly believed herself to be Ye Zhen Zhen.”
Zuo Yi took a deep breath after he finished speaking, having not left any room for Ye Kang Ping to interrupt. Ye Kang Ping’s eyes had opened wider and wider as Zuo Yi spoke; at the moment, they were nearly popping out of his eye sockets. His complexion was deathly pale, like a corpse, and his forehead was covered with a fine layer of cold sweat.
He had not expected Zuo Yi’s imagination to be so rich. It truly was a pity that he did not become a screenwriter.
“You, you, this is slander! I will sue you!” Ye Kang Ping howled, attempting to appear strong despite being weak in reality. In the interrogation room, the echoing caused his words to sound especially miserable.
Zuo Yi glanced at him indifferently and and mocked, “Mr. Ye, can you read?”
Ye Kang Ping did not know why he asked this and stared at him silently. Zuo Yi pointed to the wall behind him and asked, “These eight large words behind me, do you recognize them?”
Ye Kang Ping involuntarily raised his head to look up.
『Honesty leads to lenience. Resistance leads to severity.』
Ye Kang Ping: “…”
He strongly believed that honesty would lead to him sitting in prison instead.
Ye Kang Ping lowered his head and remained silent. The bell by the interrogation room’s door rang twice, signalling the entrance of a man dressed in subdued clothing. He bowed his head to whisper into Zuo Yi’s ear before turning around and leaving.
Ye Kang Ping saw Zuo Yi’s lips quirk into a slight smile, and his anxious heart soon felt like it was being roasted over a fire. “What, what happened?”
“Mr. Ye, when we brought you to the police station, we also invited your wife over. She is in the neighboring interrogation room.” Zuo Yi smiled elegantly. “Just a moment ago, she confessed everything.”
“That’s impossible!” Ye Kang Ping slammed the table and stood up from his chair in outrage. Right after, Li Xin Ran once again growled for him to sit back down.
The smile on Zuo Yi’s face was still as warm as a spring breeze, but seeing it caused a snowstorm to freeze Ye Kang Ping’s heart. “It seems that Mrs. Ye is more honest and reasonable than you are. According to her confession, you had pressured her into this whole scheme. She was completely against the plan but was forced into participating.”
Ye Kang Ping almost cursed inwardly. Sure enough, a married couple was like a pair of forest birds. When a great catastrophe befell them, they each flew off on their own! If it were not for her harping off his ears about those two houses, would he feel so stifled?!
Oh, that’s right. The search warrant application has already been sent. Our colleagues are really efficient in their work.” Zuo Yi looked at Ye Kang Ping, his eyes curved into happy crescents.
Ye Kang Ping had still not recovered from the previous blow yet now received this strike. That agreement, he had placed it in a drawer in his bookcase. There would simply be no difficulty in finding it!
“Mr. Ye, if you confessed now, we can consider that to be you taking the initiative to surrender yourself to the authorities. After we find the agreement…”
“I confess, but I won’t confess to all of it!” Ye Kang Ping cried. His old man had taught him since he was a child, If it was never yours from the start, then it never will be. At the moment, it seemed that it was too fucking right. “Your deductions are more or less true, but I did not kill my father!”
Zuo Yi glanced at Li Xin Ran, who nodded and began to quickly take notes.
This all began three months ago.
Three months ago, Ye Kang Ping had gone to D City for a project, a tourist city with numerous well-known tourist attractions. As such, he had also been planning to steal a bit of leisure time amidst his busy workload. He had brought along Sun Qian to discuss the project while conveniently having a vacation of sorts.
During that time, Ye Hong Sheng’s body had become increasingly frail. Ye Kang Ping knew, from seeing his father’s appearance, that he could endure for a year longer at most. When that moment came, the Ye estate, of over a billion yuan, would be left entirely in the hands of that girl, Ye Zhen Zhen. Thinking about that had quickly caused his lips to develop blisters from anxiety. His old man had a very crabby temperament, however, and refused to alter his will. Ye Kang Ping could do nothing about it.
In the secrecy of his mind, he pitied Ye Zhen Zhen, to have experienced a tragic car crash at a very young age and to lose both parents in it. His old man adored her, which was a most welcome occurrence, but…that did not mean he could give the entire estate to her! That was unreasonable!
He tried both soft and hard methods, his lips rubbing against each other and becoming thinner from all his talking. Except, his old man obstinately clung to his course. During his despair, he ran into Ye Zhen Zhen in D City—no, it was someone who looked identical to Ye Zhen Zhen!
When he and Sun Qian first saw that person, they believed she was Ye Zhen Zhen. Seeing that she was stealthily in D City, they felt she was certainly plotting something and followed her the entire trip. In the end, they realized she was simply sketching in the park and writing in the afternoon.
Ye Kang Ping and Sun Qian were both puzzled. They knew Ye Zhen Zhen previously liked to draw, but after the car accident, she no longer wanted to draw. Seeing her draw right now deserved nothing but amazement. A City was very far from D City, however, and running to the latter just to draw…was her brain addled?!
He and Sun Qian exchanged looks; Sun Qian went up to investigate situation. The results of the inquiry made them realize they were both scared for no reason.
This person was actually not Ye Zhen Zhen at all!
Ye Kang Ping then had a divine light spark in his mind. He felt that this person was simply sent down by God as salvation. He did not consider why two people might look so alike; he was impatient to obtain the inheritance at that time and did not want to ponder the coincidence too much. Moreover, this marvelously diverse world was full of extraordinary things. The emergence of two people with exactly identical looks did not seem like an unacceptable occurrence.
Therefore, he accepted it like so.
At first, he thought of investigating this doppelgänger before collaborating with her on this, but he had to return to the company the next day and had no time for a slow investigation. He decided to stake everything on this—although there were risks, he did not want to miss this opportunity needlessly.
Ye Kang Ping had not completely told her the plan, but he did instruct her to pretend to be Ye Zhen Zhen. After Ye Hong Sheng died, his inheritance would be set aside for her, and a million yuan would be her share of the profits. He felt that a million yuan would be very tempting to an ordinary person off the street, but she had not immediately agreed and instead gave him her number, saying that she wanted to think it over.
Ye Kang Ping had long been a man of the business world. Normally, when a matter needed to be thought over, it was because the money being offered was insufficient. Thereupon, he brought the offer up to 1.5 million yuan, which would certainly convince her to give him a call.
As expected, the day he returned to A City, she called and said she was willing to cooperate with him. Ye Kang Ping was overjoyed. Exchanging 1.5 million yuan for over 1 billion yuan was simply a bargain beyond belief. Very quickly, he began looking for an opportunity to go to D City again and signed an agreement with the other party. As for whether the name signed on the agreement was real or not, he paid this no mind, as his greatest trump card was his knowledge of her being an imposter.
It was just that he still needed to find an opportunity to eliminate the real Ye Zhen Zhen. He thought it over and finally decided to act on the 13th of March.
This was implementing the technique of switching the leopard cat for the crown prince. As such, Ye Zhen Zhen needed to disappear; this was callous of him, but since he had started, he must carry the plan through no matter what.
The Ye Mansion was located far from the city, and there were no surveillance cameras installed around the estate. This made it virtually a breeze for him to commit the deed. According to his plan, he would look for a reason to meet up with Ye Zhen Zhen and then secretly kill her on the evening of March 13th. This way, no one would realize that an imposter had taken Ye Zhen Zhen’s place.
There were some barren hills near the Ye Mansion and no neighbors in the vicinity. By burying the corpse in the hills, he reckoned it would be at least eight to ten years before someone discovered it—naturally, such a discovery required a hole deep enough to be dug.
In order to smoothly carry out the plan, Ye Kang Ping was the personification of hardworking. He had even gone a day in advance to the hill to dig a hole, having been afraid that something unexpected would happen the next day that would leave no time to actually dig one.
So as to not leave any records, he intentionally had Sun Qian drive the car to D City to pick up the fake Ye Zhen Zhen. The other person had also asked where the real Ye Zhen Zhen was if she was impersonating her. Sun Qian randomly gave a reason as to why an imposter was needed. Naturally, they could not let this outsider grasp hold of information that could be used against them.
Ye Kang Ping related his story up to here, and the interrogation once again regained its calm atmosphere. Zuo Yi and Li Xin Ran both looked silently at Ye Kang Ping. Under their gazes, Ye Kang Ping could not breathe. Sure enough, the line, ‘honesty leads to leniency,’ was a scam!
At last, Zuo Yi leaned forward and asked with a somewhat deep voice, “So that evening on March 13th, you followed the plan and killed Ye Zhen Zhen?”
They originally believed the only death to be Ye Hong Sheng’s; they had not expected another victim to suddenly appear without basis.
Shocked after hearing Zuo Yi’s question, Ye Kang Ping nearly stood up as he hurriedly denied, “No! When we got there, Ye Zhen Zhen was already dead!”
