Good and Evil: Chapter 112, Epilogue, Deep Reflections, and Xu Lang’s Apprehensions

After hearing Liu Maocai’s confession, everyone present was left speechless. A single minor grievance had led to the murder of a living person, dragging two innocent individuals into the fray as well.

Following his admission, the police searched Liu’s home. They discovered a remaining supply of chloroform, and in the courtyard, they unearthed the blood-stained clothes, gloves, and other tools used in the crime, all buried deep underground. The police then traveled to the hometown of Liu Maocai and Shen Jun to conduct an investigation. According to the recollections of the village elders, the collective had indeed lost two draft oxen decades ago.

When the villagers learned that it was Shen Jun and Liu Maocai who had stolen the oxen, they were stunned. While they found it believable that Shen Jun would steal, the idea that Liu Maocai was involved—and had even conceived the plan—was something they could not accept. This was especially true when they learned that Shen Jun had been murdered by Liu Maocai over a twenty-year-old theft.

In truth, even after the facts surfaced, neither Shen Jun’s family nor his wife, nor even Liu Maocai’s own family, wanted to believe it. But facts are facts, and the truth does not change simply because one’s emotions refuse to accept it.

Sherlock Holmes once said: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

With the motive identified—as absurd as it sounded—and the tools, bloodied clothes, and confession in hand, the case was considered solved. Just before Liu Maocai was to be handed over to the judicial authorities, Xu Lang asked him one question: "Why didn't you destroy the wooden boards instead of keeping them in your yard?"

Liu Maocai answered slowly, "I don't know. Perhaps I thought that if the case remained unsolved, those two boards might come in handy later."

Hearing this, Xu Lang looked into Liu’s eyes and said nothing more. It was clear that had the police not uncovered the truth, Liu likely would have used the same method to kill others in the future—a deeply dangerous signal.

Not long after, the judicial authorities filed a public prosecution against Liu Maocai for the intentional murder of Shen Jun, and the court delivered its verdict. Liu was sentenced to life imprisonment for intentional homicide. However, because he proactively confessed after his arrest and made restitution to the victim's family, he was granted a lighter sentence as a mitigating factor, resulting in a final sentence of twenty-five years.

After the case concluded, Xu Lang visited Liu Maocai in prison. They had a conversation, after which Liu began to actively reform himself. At forty-seven, Liu was in his prime; if he behaved well, he might eventually be eligible for a sentence reduction.

Looking at the case as a whole, neither the petty thief Shen Jun nor the murderer Liu Maocai should have ended up on this path of no return.

While Shen Jun was a habitual thief who loved to take advantage of others and had been in and out of police stations, he did not deserve to die. Was he truly innocent? Theoretically, perhaps, but not entirely. Stealing and selling the collective's oxen twenty years ago was a grave offense in that era. Those oxen were not private property; they were the lifeline for thousands in the village. Depriving them of those oxen was an act of extreme selfishness.

Furthermore, after Shen Jun settled in the city, his wages were low and he struggled with expenses. This was understandable, but his repeated theft from the factory was both illegal and immoral. He had worked there for over a decade, yet that was no excuse. Had he lived honestly and worked hard, he would not have provoked Liu Maocai’s murderous intent.

As for the other two men, Zhu Hongfang and Yang Xuewen: while they were the most innocent victims of the affair and nearly became Liu’s scapegoats, were they truly without fault? Not entirely. Had they not been greedy for those crates of "high-proof homemade liquor," they would never have been at the scene, and none of what followed would have happened.

After the case, both men learned a hard lesson. Zhu Hongfang actually quit his life-long hobby of drinking, which was no small feat. Yang Xuewen was so shaken that he stopped selling homemade liquor entirely, sticking only to commercially available brands. It was a realization that there is no such thing as a free lunch; even if one falls into your lap, it might just be a trap—or worse, it might crush you.

Regarding Liu Maocai: setting aside his past theft and the murder, was he smart? He was very intelligent, hardworking, and possessed strong practical skills, as evidenced by his seven years of military service. Upon returning home, he became the head of the security team for the Caihua Road district, proving his capability and reputation.

His design of the "two-way locked room" was exceptionally bold. He knew Zhu and Yang well and was aware they recognized his voice. Pretending to be Shen Jun in the pitch-black warehouse was a massive gamble; had they realized it was him, his plan would have crumbled.

His manipulation of their fear—first by exploiting their panic to make them believe the door was locked from the outside, then by using their fear of the unknown to make them lock it from the inside—was brilliant. It created a "two-way" mystery that trapped them in their own logic. Liu’s timing in bringing Qin Yumei to "rescue" them was also calculated; he needed to arrive before they woke up and discovered the truth about the latch.

Liu Maocai’s plan was intricate and daring. If not for the minor detail of him knocking on the door, he might have escaped justice entirely. If he had destroyed the wooden boards, the police would have lacked the evidence to search his property.

Liu was indeed intelligent—perhaps more so than many officers—yet a man who appeared honest and hardworking threw his life away over a long-forgotten secret, killing a former friend. It serves as a reminder that the line between good and evil is often crossed in a single thought.

While high-IQ criminals are rare, they are often sensitive and fragile, living in a state of contradiction. People like Liu Maocai, or the public restroom corpse-hider Xue Sheng, represent a dangerous escalation. Had Liu not been caught, his future crimes would only have become more sophisticated.

Following the conclusion of the case, Xu Lang returned to his home, withdrawing from the world. Since returning from Zhangjiatun, he had changed. He barely left his home, feeling a persistent, gnawing sense that he was being watched. This feeling, which had intensified since the case of Tian Yang’s "resurrected" girlfriend, was his greatest source of unease.

He feared for those around him—especially Shu Yue, the only family he had left. He avoided seeing her, terrified that he might lead danger to her door. He was also haunted by the disappearance of Ye Du and the cryptic final words of Song Anguo, which hinted that Song knew something about his parents' death.

Xu Lang began to suspect that everything was tied to his departure from the Criminal Investigation Division. He sensed a vast conspiracy unfolding.

One day, while browsing the news, he stumbled upon a report about a wealthy textile factory owner murdered in a burglary. The owner’s much younger wife had inherited his entire fortune, and the case was being handled by none other than Shi Dehua, the defense attorney who had represented the murderer Xue Sheng.

Xu Lang had always disliked Shi Dehua for his history of exploiting legal loopholes to save criminals for money. That a high-profile criminal lawyer was handling a simple civil estate dispute seemed suspicious. Something was amiss, and Xu Lang felt the shadows closing in.