When the young man was arrested, Inspector Ji asked me a question, “What do you think makes me different from ordinary cops?”

I replied, “You’re an inspector, they’re just police officers.”

He didn’t seem too pleased with this reply. He said that that’s only what I could see on the surface and that I should look past the surface and go deeper.

I couldn’t find an answer, so I shook my head.

He wasn’t upset by my ignorance and decided to enlighten me himself. “I’m different from ordinary cops in that I’m…extraordinary!”

After he said that, he paused to glance at me, then continued with his self-praising, “A traffic police officer would usually just treat this case as an ordinary road accident and they wouldn’t look at it from a different angle. But not me. I used to be from the criminal investigation team and I know how scheming and clever criminals can be these days. They often disguise a murder as an accident in order to get away. So, whenever I deal with a traffic accident case, I would look at it from a different angle. Could this actually be yet another murder in disguise?”

He paused again, then applied this concept to the case itself. “Let’s take this case for example. Initially, we had concluded that this was just an ordinary hit and run case and only found out that the victim didn’t die from the collision after getting the report from the coroner. So now, this traffic accident has turned into a homicide. Or at least that’s what I thought until something else you said made me believe that there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

I stared blankly at him. “Something else I said? What did I say?”

He said, “You said that after the truck driver had killed the Peugeot driver, he threatened to kill you with a knife.”

“That’s right!”

“Think about it. Which driver would carry a knife on him at all times?”

His words made me start to doubt myself.

He went on, “Logically speaking, wouldn’t the truck driver get out of his truck to check the other person’s injuries before deciding what to do? But if we go with what you said, it means that he hopped out of the truck with a knife. You mean he intended to kill the other person right from the start?”

I was so shocked that I didn’t know what to say. I had to admit that Inspector Ji’s analysis made a lot of sense, but I still refused to believe that the truck driver wasn’t trying to kill me that night.

So I retorted, “But the truck driver didn’t kill that driver with a knife!”

“Of course not. That would definitely make it look like a murder. Besides, using a weapon might leave clues behind and expose the murderer’s identity, so just slamming the victim’s head against the road would actually make it harder for the police to think it was a murder.”

He swallowed some saliva to moisten his throat and continued with his analysis, “But there’s one thing I don’t understand. You were badly injured in that accident and your seatbelt was stuck, so you couldn’t move at all and wouldn’t be able to defend yourself. If the truck driver wanted to silence you, he could have done the same thing to you as the Peugeot 408 driver. Why brandish a knife instead?”

I had to say that while Inspector Ji wasn’t too bad at deductions, sometimes he got a little too hung up on certain details and spent too much time and effort on them, which sometimes came across as being very insensitive.

When he saw that I had fallen silent, he figured he shouldn’t continue talking about my potential death anymore and switched the topic. “Do you still remember what we talked about when I first asked you questions? I told you that the victim had just taken out a life insurance policy about half a year ago.”

I said, “Of course I remember that. You also said that the insurance company suspects the victim was trying to defraud the company and specially got you to investigate this case.”

He said, “You know, the one who bought that policy for the victim was actually his wife and she’s also the beneficiary. I now suspect that the wife hired someone to kill her husband and make it look like an ordinary road accident in order to get that insurance money.”

When I heard this, I felt a rage rise from within my heart. That woman was a modern day Pan Jinlian! That young man was like Granny Wang, while I could be considered at least some sort of Wu Song since I injured that young man and brought him to justice. If I were part of the Water Margin*, my good name would have spread across the world and passed down from generation to generation. And even though that wasn’t going to happen today, I deserved recognition from the police and public acknowledgement of my good deeds!

Such dreams occupied my mind as I waited for my reward to come. Three days later, I did receive something, but it wasn’t what I expected. I had been served a letter suing me for damages.

I read the letter and realized that the person suing me was that young truck driver. I couldn’t understand why this was happening, so I gave Inspector Ji a call to ask what was going on.

Inspector Ji sounded perplexed as he sighed and said, “I mean, you were a little too aggressive too, don’t you think? You threw a hot water flask at his face, so he’s suffered very severe scalds.”

I argued, “I was trying to defend myself.”

He asked, “And what were you defending yourself against?”

I couldn’t believe he was asking me this question. “He was holding a knife and about to kill me, so I threw a flask at him. Isn’t that defending myself?”

Inspector Ji emphasized on his words, “He was just HOLDING a knife. He did not attempt to kill you.”

I nearly burst into rage. “He was holding a knife and standing BEHIND me! If he wasn’t trying to kill me, then what was he trying to do?!”

He replied, “In his words, the paring knife had dropped onto the floor, so he came to you with the knife intending to ask you where the kitchen was so that he could wash it. But you were on the phone and he didn’t want to interrupt your call, so he just stood behind you and waited.”

These sounded like nothing but excuses to me. This murderer had failed in his attempt and he was now trying to cover up his act! I shouted into the phone, “He’s planned to kill me for a long time now! Why else would he follow me around secretly for a few days in a row?!”

Inspector Ji replied, “He said that he was following you because he wanted to talk to you about the repairs to your car.”

“Repairs to my car?” I repeated. “What has that got to do with anything?”

Inspector Ji explained, “The car workshop forgot to get you a new airbag the last time you repaired your car, right? Quite coincidentally, that young man had sent his truck to the same workshop. When he sent it in for repairs, it was the left side of the front that was damaged. But when he went to collect the car, he noticed that the right side had also gone through some repairs. He suspects that someone at the workshop did something to his truck, so he wanted to ask if you had a similar problem.”

I huffed angrily, “Excuses! Lies! Please don’t tell me that the police believed his story?!”

Inspector Ji said, “Of course, we wouldn’t believe just anything he says. But you see, you were the one who invited the young man into your home and you were also the one who left the knife on the table, plus his explanation makes very good sense. More importantly, there is no evidence to prove that he had any intention to kill you, so it’s very hard to explain your actions as self-defense.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore and shouted in a righteous tone of voice, “I brought a murderer to justice! Not only did I not receive any recognition for it, I’m being sued for it now? In what world would such a thing happen?!”

Inspector Ji chose his words carefully. “Strictly speaking, the young man is only a suspect. We cannot consider him the murderer yet.”

I exclaimed, “What do you mean? I saw his truck collide into that Peugeot 408! Are you saying that I was seeing things?”

Inspector Ji quickly explained, “Of course you weren’t seeing things. Besides, the traffic police has already done an analysis of the scene and we’ve confirmed that his truck is indeed the same type as the one that escaped that night. It’s just that…”

“It’s just what?”

“It’s just that the young man refuses to admit that he was the one who knocked into that car!”

“That’s ridiculous! That was HIS truck! If he wasn’t the one who drove into the Peugeot, who would it be?”

Inspector Ji fell silent for a moment before slowly explaining, “According to the young man, his truck was being repaired at the car workshop at the time of the accident, so it was impossible for him to have driven it out or knocked into someone.”

I scoffed loudly. “He doesn’t know who else to blame, so he’s blaming the car workshop for this accident now?”

It was meant to be a sarcastic remark but Inspector Ji pounced on it, “You think it’s the people at the car workshop too? When the young man mentioned it, I didn’t quite believe him. This seems to be a real possibility after all!”

I immediately began to panic when I heard Inspector Ji’s reaction. If the truck driver that night really turned out to be someone other than the young man, then it meant that the young man would not be found guilty of murder and I would be guilty of grievous hurt instead. If that happened, then I was no longer the reputable Wu Song. I would become the notorious Butcher Zheng! It was fine if I just had a bad reputation. The problem was that I might actually get charged in court for this!

With that thought in mind, I decided that I was going to insist that the one driving the truck that night was definitely the young man, so I said, “Don’t listen to his nonsense! I saw him run that truck into that Peugeot and he tried to kill me too! He was the one who did it and now he’s trying to push the blame to someone else!”

Inspector Ji asked, “Are you sure he was the driver that night?”

This was a matter of my own pride and safety, so even though I wasn’t sure, I continued to insist it was him.

Inspector Ji was still a little unsettled. “But you suffered a mild concussion and you have a history of losing part of your memory, so I’m not sure if your statement will…”

I didn’t like the sound of this at all. “I lost my memory at that point in time, but I remember everything that happened that night now. This temporary loss shouldn’t affect the reliability of my statement!”

But he said, “This concerns another person’s future, so the judge will be a lot stricter in ensuring that the witness’ statement is reliable. I hope you can understand that.”

What?! I got even more panicky now. “You can’t possibly just let the murderer get away with this just because my statement is supposedly unreliable, right?”

He quickly promised me, “Don’t worry about that. Besides your statement, we have other ways to convict the murderer.”

“What other ways?”

“It’s very clear that this traffic accident is actually a well-planned murder and it is possibly related to the insurance policy I mentioned earlier. Since the beneficiary of this policy is the victim’s wife, she’s the biggest suspect in this case. Judging from how elaborate this modus operandi was, it’s quite obvious that someone hired another person to murder the victim. If that’s the case, money will have to be paid to this hired hitman. In other words, the police just needs to watch the wife’s bank account and cashflow very closely and we’ll eventually find the murderer.”

That didn’t assure me. “What if they decide to do a cash exchange instead of a bank transfer? Besides, that young man might be detained by the police now, but there are plenty of other third party platforms that can receive the money on his behalf as well!”

Inspector Ji was confident as he said, “You don’t have to worry about that. The police are already keeping close tabs on the wife, so any move she makes will not escape the watchful eye of the police. This case will definitely come to a close soon!”

After making this declaration, he seemed afraid that I would ask more, so he changed the topic by showing me some concern, “The more urgent matter at hand now isn’t when the murderer will be apprehended – it’s your court case. Nobody in law enforcement would ever want to watch a righteous and upright man suffer punishment wrongfully!”

It was a pity that Inspector Ji wasn’t a writer of sorts. The last few statements he made were so touching, I felt a passion rise within my heart.

My heart resonated with what he said at the end. I was a righteous and upright man, so I should never have to suffer wrongful punishment.

When he realized I had stopped talking, he figured that he had achieved his aim, so he quickly said that he knew several lawyers and could introduce them to me if necessary. Then he added a few words of concern before excusing himself hastily to attend to other cases and hung up.

TL notes:

*Water Margin characters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Water_Margin_characters

TLDR Wu Song is a hero, Butcher Zheng is a real nasty guy, Pan Jinlian is a beautiful but evil woman, Granny Wang badgered others into committing murder