Chapter 3

Otherwise, the case couldn't proceed against Zhou: he hadn't had time to commit the crime.

Unfortunately, the police had found no such shortcut that year.

Even if it existed, he certainly wasn't going to reveal it himself.

In both cases, Zhou had been the main suspect.

In both, the same times mattered: six and six thirty.

A year earlier, Ma Guobing had died around six.

Now, Ma Xiaohu had died around seven.

In each case, Zhou's alibi began at half past six and continued until the next morning.

The same timeline. The same alibi.

If his current alibi proved genuine, this case might end exactly as the earlier one had, without charges.

Our immediate task was to establish whether it held up.

I went over Xiaohu's case again.

Two points.

One: Zhou had been at the scene around six.

Two: he said he'd been at a store in town from half past six until morning.

The first was supported by footage and his own admission.

The second depended entirely on three witnesses.

Our opening was the impossible journey: forty kilometers of rough mountain trail in thirty minutes on foot.

Unless Zhou could explain it, we had reason to doubt those witnesses.

Even if they stuck to their statements, we could reject them as inconsistent with ordinary possibility.

Zhou would remain under suspicion.

But if he supplied a reasonable explanation—if, for example, he admitted there was a shortcut from the mountain to town—his current alibi could be substantiated.

And the alibi in his father's case would collapse.

Even if we couldn't convict him over Xiaohu's death, we could reopen Guobing's.

One case or the other, Zhou would have to answer for a death.

Which one was up to him.

11

We told Zhou we were reopening Ma Guobing's case.

Then we interviewed him for the fourth time about Xiaohu.

“There's footage of you at the scene at six, and you've admitted it. Are you still standing by your alibi? That you were at the grocery store from six thirty until the next morning?”

He remained silent for a long time.

Instead of answering, he repeated his earlier question.

“Officer, without that alibi, could I really be convicted?”

Again, I answered from experience.

“Very likely. Of course, you can retain a lawyer to defend you.”

“No need!”

He seemed to reach a sudden decision and sighed.

“My alibi is true. I really was at the store from six thirty until morning. I can't have been the man in black killing Ma Xiaohu in that third video at six forty!”

“All right. Then explain this. You were at the scene at six and in town, forty kilometers away, at six thirty. How? How did you walk through the mountains between those places in thirty minutes? Without an explanation, your alibi doesn't stand up.”

After careful consideration, Zhou finally admitted there was a shortcut.

Once more, he insisted he hadn't caused Xiaohu's death.

He also understood what revealing that route would do to his alibi in Guobing's case.

Seeking leniency for cooperating, he volunteered that he'd accidentally caused Guobing's death a year earlier.

It was an underground river inside Dayu Mountain, discovered by chance years before.

Not only did it shorten the route considerably; its swift current could carry a simple inflatable raft to the river at the foot of the mountain in half an hour.

From there, he could reach town.

According to Zhou, he'd arrived at Dayu Mountain around six on August 25 to meet Xiaohu.

The young man claimed to have evidence proving Zhou had killed his father the previous year. He wanted money.

Zhou said he didn't know what that supposed evidence was.

But after a year of being hounded, he'd decided to meet and settle their misunderstanding.

Instead, he found Xiaohu bound in the grass.

He said he'd tried to help. Xiaohu mistook him for the attacker; Zhou also feared an ambush by the real killer. He hurried down the mountain.

He took the underground route to town.

He knew it well. A year earlier, after accidentally causing Guobing's death at the same spot, he'd used it to leave.

He reached town at about six thirty.

He immediately called three men to watch football and play mahjong with him at the grocery store.

That would be his alibi.

The day after Xiaohu's death, we identified Zhou from the WeChat messages. Relying on his prepared alibi, he denied visiting the scene.

He hadn't known someone had filmed him there at six.

Faced with that footage, he had to disown his own alibi.

Otherwise, the police would ask how he'd traveled from mountain to town in thirty minutes.

He couldn't explain without revealing the underground route.

And revealing it would destroy his alibi in Guobing's case.

He'd also hoped the person recording might help prove he hadn't killed Xiaohu. Perhaps, even without an alibi, he could escape conviction.

That calculation failed.

The second video made us more suspicious, not less.

He began to believe the sender wasn't helping the police solve the case at all.

Someone was trying to frame him.

He had a motive.

The first recording put him at the scene.

The second showed physical contact, accompanied by words and actions suggesting an intention to kill.

He realized a court might well convict him of Xiaohu's murder.

That was why he kept asking whether our evidence was enough.

He needed another way out.

Then the third video arrived.

The 6:40 time stamp finally gave him one.

He had to bring back the alibi he'd previously repudiated.

If he could establish that he'd been at the store from six thirty onward, he couldn't be the man in black at six forty.

But using that alibi meant answering the same question.

How had he traveled forty kilometers in half an hour?

He had to reveal the underground shortcut.

Otherwise, the police would reject the witness statements as inconsistent with the physical facts.

In doing so, he'd chosen to dismantle his alibi in the earlier case.

He had to choose between Xiaohu's death and Guobing's.

A murder conviction over Xiaohu might mean death or life imprisonment.

An accidental-killing conviction over Guobing might mean only a few years.

He chose the latter.

Only then did I fully understand his question during the third interview.

“Manslaughter would get a lighter sentence, wouldn't it?”

He hadn't been talking about Xiaohu.

He'd meant Guobing, who'd died a year earlier.

12

Zhou then described how he'd accidentally caused Guobing's death.

Guobing was an ordinary farmer on Dayu Mountain who made his living gathering medicinal herbs.

Transport was difficult. Gatherers had to carry their harvest over the mountains to sell it in town.

A round trip took at least a day.

Zhou, from the same village, came up with an arrangement.

He built a wooden hut on the mountain as a temporary storehouse, bought herbs below market price, and transported them to town himself.

That was where his secret underground route came in.

A simple inflatable raft let him move large quantities of herbs quickly.

The gatherers earned a little less per load, but saved more than half their time.

They could use that time to collect more.

Most were happy to sell to Zhou.

Guobing was one of them.

At first, the arrangement worked well.

Later, Zhou ran up gambling debts and began delaying payment to the gatherers.

At about six on August 25, 2017, Guobing went to collect what he was owed.

The men argued near the mountain storehouse.

During the dispute, Guobing fell down a slope and died at the scene.

To avoid suspicion, Zhou immediately took the underground route to town.

He arrived at about half past six.

He made sure plenty of townspeople saw him, giving him witnesses to his whereabouts.

When the police identified him as a key suspect, he lied.

He said he'd caught Guobing stealing herbs earlier that day, and they'd quarreled. After Guobing fled with the stolen goods, he didn't know where he'd gone.

The forensic findings placed Guobing's death at six.

Zhou had been seen in town, more than forty kilometers away, at six thirty.

After extensive checks, the police concluded he hadn't had time to commit the crime.

He escaped.

Once he'd given accounts of both cases, we took him out to identify the locations.

In a narrow, well-hidden ravine, we found the underground river leading to the foot of the mountain.

Several officers tested the route repeatedly.

They confirmed that the river journey and onward trip into town could be made in about thirty minutes.

Together with the three witnesses' unchanged accounts, this led us to judge that Zhou's alibi in Xiaohu's case might be genuine.

Might.

The geography made it possible; it didn't completely rule out the possibility that the witnesses were lying for him.

Ultimately, we couldn't establish that Zhou had killed Xiaohu.

But his alibi in Guobing's case no longer held.

And he'd admitted causing Guobing's death accidentally.

We later referred that case to the procuratorate, which brought it to court.

Zhou received two years' imprisonment for manslaughter.

The court also required him to apologize publicly, in court, to Guobing and to society for falsely accusing him of theft.

All of that came later.