sjar Chapter 1055 Excluding Suspicion of Usury
Chapter 1055 Excluding Suspicion of Usury
"Check all loan companies in the city named 'Honest'!" Xiao Wang's voice carried a suppressed excitement over the walkie-talkie. Three hours later, technician Xiao Lin, staring at the computer screen, suddenly stood up: "That one in the suburbs changed its legal representative three months ago. The new boss, Li Biao, has a history of gang fighting!" The rain outside had turned into icy pellets, tapping against the branch office's windows. As Xiao Wang grabbed his coat and rushed out, the corner of his coat swept a photo of Zhao Dehan's daughter off the table—a smiling little girl holding a perfect test paper, swaying slightly under the lamp.
The chilly autumn wind whipped withered leaves against the dilapidated iron gate of the loan shark company. Xiao Wang led his team into the company, located on the outskirts of the city. The faded words "Honest Lending" on the gate looked particularly ironic in the twilight. Inside, the pungent smell of cheap cigarettes mixed with moldy ledgers filled the air.
"Zhao Dehan? The one who borrowed 300,000?" Bald boss Li Biao leaned back in his scratched leather chair, his thick gold chain gleaming coldly with his movements. "I have plenty of people who borrow money from me. I can't blame every missing debtor on me, can I?" He exhaled a smoke ring, the smoke twisting into an eerie shape under the fluorescent light above him.
Xiao Wang slammed Zhao Dehan's loan agreement onto the greasy table, the edges of the paper still stained with dust from the deceased's rented room: "The contract shows the loan date is November 5th, with repayment due on November 15th. Zhao Dehan disappeared on the 12th, and you didn't go to collect the debt on the 15th?" His gaze swept over the densely packed debt collection records on the wall, each marked in red with varying degrees of threat.
Li Biao suddenly burst into laughter, shaking the ashtray on the table: "Officer, we're doing legitimate business!" He flipped open the ledger, "Look, we made over a dozen calls on the 15th, and the phone was disconnected! We sent people to his house, but they were empty!" The ledger did indeed record continuous call logs, but Xiao Wang noticed that on November 12th, the company's surveillance footage had a two-hour gap.
"What happened in the last two hours?" Xiao Wang pressed his finger heavily on the monitoring schedule. Li Biao's face instantly darkened: "Equipment malfunction. It's like this now that it's fixed. Don't believe me? Ask the technician!" The young man playing games in the corner nodded hurriedly, his glasses slipping down to his nose without him even having time to straighten them.
Over the next two days, Xiao Wang led a team to conduct a detailed investigation of everyone at the loan company. They retrieved all the surrounding surveillance footage, reviewing frame by frame the movements of Li Biao and his employees. In the cold monitoring room, technician Xiao Zhang's eyes were bloodshot, his fingers mechanically sliding across the keyboard: "Team Leader Wang, on November 12th, Li Biao stayed at the company until 8 PM, then went to the casino. The surveillance footage and casino records can prove it."
The investigations into other employees yielded similarly nothing. Accountant Wang Fang was at the hospital caring for her sick mother that day, as confirmed by her medical records and surveillance footage; thug Lao Zhou was drinking at a bar that night, a fact corroborated by the bartender and surveillance video. Even the technician who claimed equipment malfunction was confirmed to have been repairing the surveillance system at another branch at the time.
While visiting clients of the loan company, Xiao Wang unexpectedly learned something. A client who had previously borrowed money from Zhao Dehan secretly told him: "Li Biao is ruthless, but he wouldn't go so far as to kill someone. He only wants money; if he kills someone, who will he get the money from?" This client's words made Xiao Wang think deeply. Indeed, from a profit perspective, the loan company had no motive to kill Zhao Dehan.
However, Xiao Wang did not give up easily. He carefully examined Zhao Dehan's loan agreement and related records again and discovered a strange detail: the interest rate on this 300,000 yuan loan was unusually low, far below the normal interest rate of the lending company. "Why give Zhao Dehan such a low interest rate?" Xiao Wang questioned Li Biao again.
A flicker of panic crossed Li Biao's eyes, but he quickly regained his composure: "He was lucky; couldn't he have gotten here during our event?" This answer was clearly unconvincing. Xiao Wang assigned his team members to investigate the lending company's cash flow, attempting to find clues from the massive amount of transaction records.
With the bank's assistance, they discovered that after Zhao Dehan's 30 yuan loan was deposited into his account, it was quickly transferred in multiple installments to different accounts, but its final destination was difficult to trace. Some of these accounts were opened with false identities, while others disappeared into a complex financial network after multiple transfers. Just when the investigation reached a stalemate, team member Xiao Liu found a clue in an old newspaper—the week Zhao Dehan took out the loan was a crucial moment in the bidding process for a major project for Yuanfang Building Materials.
Xiao Wang stood once more at the entrance of the loan company, watching Li Biao's arrogant figure disappear behind the iron gate. In the cold wind, he gripped his investigation notebook tightly. His intuition told him that while the loan company wasn't the direct culprit in Zhao Dehan's death, it was certainly intricately connected to the case. And the truth hidden in the darkness was waiting to be revealed, bit by bit.
Xiao Wang slammed Li Biao's company ledger onto the table. A yellowed business card slipped from between the yellowed pages; the words "Honest Lending, Zhao Dehan, Business Manager" embossed in gold gleamed eerily under the incandescent light. "So he wasn't just a borrower, he was an accomplice." Team member Xiao Liu gasped, staring at the densely packed guarantee records in the ledger. "If these borrowers can't repay their loans, Zhao Dehan, who provided the guarantees, will be jointly liable."
The autumn wind whipped up dust and rattled against the windows of the Criminal Investigation Division. Xiao Wang drew a relationship diagram on the whiteboard, circling three bright red names around Zhao Dehan: Zhang Guang, Chen Feng, and Liang Kuan. "Let's start with Zhang Guang. He was just splashed with red paint by Li Biao's men last month," Xiao Wang said, pinning a photo to the whiteboard. The photo showed a middle-aged man huddled in front of a dilapidated rented room, dark red paint still dripping from the words "Pay back your debts" on the wall.
During a visit to Zhang Guang's auto repair shop, oil slicks mixed with rainwater overflowed from the drain. "Zhao Dehan introduced me to this loan," Zhang Guang said, wiping his oil-covered hands, his Adam's apple bobbing violently. "They said the interest rate was lower than others, but it's all compounded, and now they want me to pay double!" He suddenly lifted his shirt, revealing a gruesome knife scar on his abdomen. "This was a warning from Li Biao's men three days ago. They said if I didn't pay back, they'd stab me in the heart." Xiao Wang noticed an iron rod hidden under his workbench; its fresh wear indicated recent frequent use.
When the investigation turned to Chen Feng, the clues became shrouded in mystery. This man, who sold fish at the market, had suddenly disappeared two weeks prior, and the stench of fish entrails mixed with blood from his freezer spilled into the aisle. "He borrowed 15 yuan saying he was going to take over a seafood stall," the stall owner next door said, pinching his nose. "Zhao Dehan vouched for him, but now he's run away, and Li Biao's men come to smash up the stall every day!"