Chapter 15: Interrogating the Criminal

After returning home, Jiang Cha recalled Song Bo’s words and remained indignant. “What does he mean? Is he implying I’m not smart enough to understand him?”

“Jiang Cha! There’s a big problem!” Song Yang burst in hurriedly from the doorway, shouting as he ran.

“What’s happened?” Jiang Cha rushed out to see Song Yang gasping for breath, speaking in broken sentences.

“Those people… they’ve all been caught! They’re being interrogated now.”

Jiang Cha quickly set down her things, wiped her hands, and followed Song Yang out.

“Caught? Where are they now?” Song Yang hurriedly led Jiang Cha along.

“At the village committee office. Uncle Song asked me to bring you over since we’re witnesses.”

Inside the village committee, Song Yingjie sat in the center, his brow furrowed with anger.

On either side sat Qi Yu, the head of the Women’s Federation, and the village chief.

As Jiang Cha stepped inside, she saw several middle-aged men tightly bound, sitting off to one side.

Behind Song Yingjie stood Song Bo and a few others. “You’re here, have a seat,” the village chief called out.

When his gaze briefly flickered toward Jiang Cha, she noticed a trace of discomfort.

Jiang Cha caught the look immediately—she knew the village chief still resented the promise made to Jiang Dazhu about marrying her off to his youngest son.

Later, the party secretary sternly reprimanded the village chief, who promised the matter was closed and would never be mentioned again.

Yet now, that expression reemerged, making Jiang Cha suspect the village chief was still quietly holding a grudge.

Jiang Cha silently scoffed, but more pressing was the matter of the tomb robbers and poachers before her.

“All eyewitnesses are present. Officer, you may begin questioning,” Song Yingjie announced.

Only then did Jiang Cha notice several people in police uniforms seated at a table behind Qi Yu.

She hadn’t seen these officers before—they must have been sent from the county by the party secretary.

Since rescuing the pangolin the previous night, Song Yingjie had promptly reported the incident to the authorities.

This morning, the department dispatched police and relevant personnel, but since Jiang Cha and the others were at school, the matter was temporarily put on hold.

Now, with the witnesses gathered at the scene, the police began their routine procedures.

Jiang Cha looked at the four bound men—the number was right. One limped, and a prominent dark mole marked his face.

This must be the person the pangolin mentioned.

Jiang Cha approached Song Bo’s side, not wanting to engage with him.

Song Bo lowered his voice and said, “These are the men Wang Ermazi named. After the police arrested him at his home, he quickly implicated his accomplices.”

Jiang Cha nodded, her expression softening just a bit, a hint of pride in her nod.

“Since you took the initiative to tell me, I’ll forgive you.”

The police began questioning them.

“Name?”

“Wang Ermazi.”

“Li Daguo.”

“Balang.”

“&*%…”

Though the first three’s Mandarin was rough, Jiang Cha could barely understand them. The last man’s speech sounded like gibberish.

Song Yingjie explained, “Officer, the last one belongs to a local minority group and doesn’t speak Mandarin.”

He then turned to Song Yang. “Go bring Aunt Zhang from the village entrance; she understands that language.”

Song Yang sprinted off after receiving the task. Jiang Cha observed the men.

Wang Ermazi’s face was dark as coal. Li Daguo wore a blue vest and a white cloth wrapped around his head. The third, Balang, was dressed entirely in white.

Song Bo whispered an explanation, “These four are from four different minority groups. They don’t understand each other’s languages and also struggle with Mandarin, so communication is difficult.”

He pointed to Wang Ermazi. “He’s from the Bao’an ethnic group, Li Daguo is Blang, Balang is Yi, and the last one is Bai.”

Jiang Cha pondered how they managed to come together for tomb robbing despite the language barriers.

She nodded thoughtfully; Mengba is known for its many ethnic minorities.

Still, to find four different minorities right in this small village was unexpected.

Before long, Song Yang returned with a middle-aged woman bustling in hurriedly.

“Party secretary, I heard you wanted to see me?”

Song Yingjie nodded. “Yes. You understand the Bai language, right? Please translate for the officers.”

The woman glanced around at the serious atmosphere and the tightly bound men, curiosity glinting in her eyes.

“What’s going on? Party secretary, did these people commit some crime?”

Song Yingjie’s face hardened. “Don’t ask questions you shouldn’t. Just translate exactly what is said, word for word.”

The woman nodded eagerly. “Alright, alright.”

The interrogation took five hours to sort through.

Jiang Cha drifted mentally, the questioning arduous and fraught.

Two hours were lost just in translation, but in the end, the men confessed their crimes.

As Jiang Cha had suspected, they were drawn by the pangolin’s value and hatched a sinister plan.

Once inside the forest, Wang Ermazi, who knew a bit about feng shui, discovered that the cave they found held a grand ancient tomb.

Compared to the pangolin’s worth, the thousand-year-old tomb was far more valuable.

If they could unearth any burial treasures, they would all become rich.

They had hesitated; tomb robbing promised great wealth but also great risk—getting caught or encountering dangers inside the tomb could cost them their lives.

Yet greed clouded their judgment, and they decided to dig.

They stayed in the forest for a full month, hollowing out the cave until they finally located the tomb.

They found the coffin and tried to figure out how to carry it out to sell for a good price.

But on the day they attempted to remove it, Jiang Cha and her group happened to enter the cave.

Startled by the tiger pack, they fled.

Jiang Cha now appreciated the advantage of the language barrier.

When the men mentioned the tiger pack, the police grew impatient and demanded they stick to the main points.

“Get to the point!”

The men then revealed that before capturing the baby pangolin’s family, they had killed over twenty pangolins.

They stripped off their scales and sold the meat on the black market, fetching up to eight hundred yuan per animal.

Jiang Cha and Song Bo exchanged glances.

With the criminals’ questioning complete, it was now their turn.