Chapter 678 - 563: Ten Days 5

Chapter 678: Chapter 563: Ten Days 5

Yang Guofa was still trying to make excuses, desperately justifying his actions.

"Honestly, even if I hadn’t snitched, I don’t think Liu Baoli and the others would have succeeded. Think about it. When he told me about his plan outside, I even asked him, ’Should we bring knives?’"

They had basic defensive weapons for their mountain patrols.

"But Liu Baoli said no, we couldn’t use knives. If we hurt someone, we’d be in trouble too. He said we were just trying to capture them, that their crime wasn’t a death sentence, and using knives was too dangerous."

"Isn’t that stupid? You don’t have the guts to be ruthless, but do you know what kind of person Wang Shulin is? He once got in a fight, one against four. He just pinned one guy down and kept beating him. His own head was covered in blood from being hit, but he still beat that guy until he was almost a vegetable."

"He’s a savage, the kind of guy who will fight you to the death. That’s why I knew right then that Liu Baoli would never succeed."

"So what could I do? We were in the middle of nowhere, not a living soul for miles. If he decided to get vicious and kill us all, who would know he did it? We would’ve died for nothing."

"So tell me, isn’t Liu Baoli the one to blame?"

By the end, Yang Guofa sounded utterly self-righteous.

Zheng Chengbao waved his hand, cutting off the rambling Yang Guofa.

Having handled so many cases, he knew one thing very clearly: being a Monday-morning quarterback was meaningless.

What happened, happened.

People are complex creatures. In certain situations, they can’t see the forest for the trees, misjudging the circumstances just like Liu Baoli did.

Or they can be like Yang Guofa, who, out of fear, not only snitched but also pretended to be asleep, too afraid to make a move.

Many things simply happened the wrong way at the wrong time.

You could even blame fate.

If the heavy snow hadn’t fallen early in the mountains that winter, if the four of them hadn’t been trapped, then Li Suhua and her colleague would have happily finished their report and returned to Anjing, and this tragedy would never have occurred.

Zheng Chengbao quickly ran through all of Yang Guofa’s claims in his mind, looking for loopholes.

Then he said, "So, you’re saying that after they made their move, you were all subdued. Wang Shulin was hit with a thermos by Li Suhua, which sent him into a rage. And then what?"

A flicker of terror crossed Yang Guofa’s eyes. He gave a bitter, self-deprecating smile. "What else? He beat us."

His memory seemed to return to that night.

The fight broke out suddenly.

Although Yang Guofa had warned him, Wang Shulin hadn’t taken it that seriously. When he went to sleep, he actually fell asleep.

Faced with the surprise attack, Wang Shulin was stunned at first.

But he was fierce and an experienced fighter. Even when pinned to the ground by Liu Baoli and Lu Weihong, his hands immobile, his head was still free.

Wang Shulin yelled as he viciously headbutted Lu Weihong.

Lu Weihong cried out in pain and let go.

Liu Baoli was dragged to the ground with him, wrapping his arms and legs around Wang Shulin’s neck in a chokehold.

At that moment, Wang Erpeng joined the fight.

In the ensuing four-man brawl, Lu Weihong—who was used to a city office job and lacked any real fight in him—was the first to fall. Wang Erpeng straddled him and gave him a savage beating.

Wang Shulin bit Liu Baoli hard and broke free in the process. He grabbed a piece of firewood and started bashing Liu Baoli with it like a madman.

Seeing the two of them gaining the upper hand, Li Suhua, who was on the bed, launched a surprise attack from behind, landing a solid blow on Wang Shulin.

The blow made Wang Shulin stagger.

But Li Suhua was, after all, an ordinary woman with no professional training and limited strength. Wang Shulin wasn’t knocked out. Even as he fell to the ground, he didn’t forget to kick wildly at Liu Baoli.

That blow to the head completely unleashed Wang Shulin’s ferocity.

He scrambled to his feet, lunged, and tackled Liu Baoli, grabbing his head and slamming it violently against the ground.

After a few slams, he felt another blow on his back.

It was Li Suhua again.

"Fuck your mother!" Something was trickling down Wang Shulin’s forehead, but he ignored it. He grabbed Li Suhua’s arm, pulled her to the ground, mounted her, and began to strangle her.

He squeezed until Li Suhua’s face turned bright red.

It took Wang Erpeng rushing over, prying at Wang Shulin’s arm, and shouting that he was about to kill her for Wang Shulin to finally let go and collapse onto the floor.

Liu Baoli and Lu Weihong were already lying on the ground, silently enduring the pain.

Amidst Li Suhua’s violent coughing, Wang Shulin touched his head and felt sticky blood all over his hand.

"Fuck!"

Wang Shulin scrambled up, grabbed the fire tongs from beside the stove, and started furiously whipping Liu Baoli with them. His feet weren’t idle either, as he kicked him relentlessly.

"You’re fucking dead!"

Cursing, he turned and started whipping Lu Weihong.

After just a few strikes, Lu Weihong was twitching in pain, clutching his head and howling for mercy, begging him to stop.

Wang Shulin paid him no mind, kicking him again and again.

"Stop hitting him," Li Suhua pleaded from the side.

Wang Shulin whipped his head around, rushed over, mounted Li Suhua again, and wrapped his hands tightly around her neck. "You fucking hit my head!"

While choking her, he grabbed her head and repeatedly slammed it against the floor.

"Bro, that’s enough!"

Wang Erpeng quickly came over to stop him.

Wang Shulin let go of Li Suhua, blood blurring his vision. He turned his head and saw Yang Guofa still lying there, motionless, pretending to be asleep.

"Fuck your mother!"

Wang Shulin rushed over and kicked him right in the head.

"Don’t hit me, don’t hit me!" Yang Guofa cried out in pain, quickly covering his head with his hands.

Only after venting his anger with a flurry of vicious kicks did Wang Shulin finally exhaust himself and collapse to the floor.

He reached out, yanked his backpack over, brutally unzipped it, and pulled out a short-barreled, homemade shotgun.

"Liu Baoli, you son of a bitch!"

Wang Shulin got up, about to blow Liu Baoli away.

"Bro, don’t! You’ll kill him!" Wang Erpeng desperately grabbed onto Wang Shulin.

Wang Shulin was dragged back down into a sitting position. He glared at the four of them, each gasping for breath, a murderous light swirling in his eyes. But slowly, it subsided. He pointed at his military greatcoat.

Wang Erpeng quickly brought it over, cautiously persuading him, "Bro, let’s not kill anyone."

Wang Shulin pushed him away, pulled a cigarette from the coat pocket, and lit it with trembling hands.

He wiped the blood from his forehead again, the pain causing his vision to swim. He took a deep drag, then pointed the gun barrel at Liu Baoli and said through gritted teeth, "Liu Baoli, I don’t think I ever fucked with you, did I? What the fuck do you want?"

Liu Baoli just gasped for air, saying nothing.

Wang Shulin took another harsh drag, threw the cigarette down, and rushed at Liu Baoli, kicking and stomping him again.

...

Yang Guofa shivered, snapping out of his daze. His voice trembled as he said, "Anyway, that night, Wang Shulin was like a madman. He just kept beating us. I felt like I was going to be beaten to death."

"I hated Liu Baoli’s guts back then. If it weren’t for him, none of this would have happened."

Zheng Chengbao nodded slightly, signaling for Yang Guofa to continue.

Yang Guofa gulped down the water from the cup beside him, then said, "Later, he tied all four of us up. He threatened to kill us, yelling that if he did, no one would ever know."

"He had a gun, for real. Tell me, is Liu Baoli out of his mind? He deserved to die."

Speaking of Liu Baoli, Yang Guofa was still filled with resentment.

After all these years, especially during hard times, Yang Guofa would always reflect on it and conclude that everything he had suffered was Liu Baoli’s fault for being so self-righteous back then.

Zheng Chengbao asked, "So, was that the night Wang Shulin raped Li Suhua?"

’He was in a murderous rage, but feared the consequences of killing, so he chose to rape Li Suhua instead.’

"No, that was later." Yang Guofa shook his head. "As for why, I can’t really say. I feel like they were just starving, their minds were a mess."

’Hunger?’

Off-camera, a thought struck Shen Xin. He suddenly realized he had forgotten about that detail.

’Yang Guofa had said before that they brought food with them when they went into the mountains.’

’But bringing too much food would be a burden, and since they didn’t plan on a long trip, they probably didn’t pack a lot.’

’And that mountain shelter, being an important rest stop on the patrol route, was supposed to be stocked with food.’

’That’s why there were instant noodles and eggs.’

’But they patrolled this route often, so Shen Xin figured that even if there was food stocked, there wouldn’t be much.’

’Instant noodles would last, but eggs? They definitely wouldn’t stay fresh for long.’

’Besides, patrols were usually done by two people, so the stocked food was probably just enough for two people to have an extra meal.’

’But this time, it was Liu Baoli’s group of four at first.’

’Then Wang Shulin and his partner showed up, making a total of six people. With three meals a day, the consumption rate would have multiplied.’

’They were trapped for a full ten days. By the end, the food must have run out.’

’With the mountain snowed in, hunting wouldn’t have been easy.’

’So, when the food ran out and they were plagued by hunger, it’s possible that people were affected and driven to do crazy things.’

Yang Guofa continued, "The next day should have been the 7th, our fourth day trapped in the cabin. It started snowing again that morning, so we couldn’t leave. Anyway, we wasted another day inside."

"Wang Shulin also threatened us, telling us not to say a word about his gun when we got out. He said he’d kill anyone who talked."

"Nothing much happened that day, just constant snow. By the fifth day, the 8th, the snow still hadn’t stopped. They talked about heading down the mountain, but in the end, they didn’t go."

"The snow was too heavy, the distance too great, and the path was dangerous. Then, that afternoon, probably because they thought they’d been in the mountains for too long and were afraid the preserve station staff would worry we’d had an accident and call the police to search for us, Wang Shulin made Liu Baoli call the station again."

"They went out to make the call that afternoon when the snow let up a bit. The two of them told the station everyone was fine, just snowed in, and that they’d head down when the snow stopped."

"On their way back, the two of them ran into a giant panda."

Zheng Chengbao’s gaze sharpened.

’Finally, the giant panda.’

After all, this case also involved a dead giant panda.

And it was thanks to the giant panda that the case had progressed this far.

Yang Guofa slipped back into his memories. "It was a female giant panda with a cub. It was limping, probably from a fall."

"There are dholes and leopards in the mountains. A starving leopard might attack an adult panda, but that’s rare. They usually only go after the cubs."

"After all, adult giant pandas don’t really have any natural predators in the mountains."

"When it comes to pandas getting injured, it’s usually their own fault. They fall."

In the preserve’s records of giant panda rescues from previous years, over seventy percent of cases were due to various fall-related injuries.