Sun Zhewen said in a deep voice,"Watch your mouth. Whatever grudges you have, say them clearly. If it can be talked out, then talk it out. If it can't, then take it to court. But if you want to use illegal means, then I'll have no choice but to invite him to come have some tea at my place."
"Heh, you think fifty thousand yuan is enough to brush us off?" Brother Zhang widened his eyes, looking fierce. "We've lost money here for a whole week. That's tens of thousands—no, hundreds of thousands—already, right?"
"Brother Zhang, you losing money doesn't mean our teahouse won it from you," Ailin tried to explain.
"Who knows if those people were yours?" Brother Zhang refused to let it go. "All of us lost. Who's to say you didn't cheat?"
"Brother Zhang, you can't talk like that," Ailin raised her voice slightly. "We don't even know those people. Then can't I also say you all colluded together to extort us?"
Sun Zhewen caught a flicker of panic flash across the man's face. That made him even more certain that something was off. Pretending it had nothing to do with him, he sat back down on the sofa and casually picked up his phone to play with it.
"You little bitch, you'd better take responsibility for what you're saying!" Brother Zhang flew into a rage and roared. "We came here to play and lost money for a whole week. Is that kind of coincidence even possible? No matter how bad my luck is, it wouldn't be that bad for an entire week!"
At that moment, Li Qian walked in with several people and said directly, "Chief."
The four men immediately panicked, their eyes darting around.
Sun Zhewen slightly lifted his head and gestured for Li Qian to handle it. Li Qian turned around and said, "You guys, take out your ID cards."
They immediately started shouting, "What, you don't want to pay and now you won't even let us leave? Why should we show you our ID cards?"
"Because we're police," Li Qian said firmly. "You have an obligation to cooperate with the public security authorities."
"We didn't bring them. Who carries ID cards when going out?" one of them argued shamelessly.
"Alright then," Li Qian said without backing down. "You'll come back to the police station with us first. We'll talk after your identities are confirmed."
"On what grounds are you taking us to the police station? We didn't break the law!" Brother Zhang was still forcing himself to sound tough.
Sun Zhewen stood up and said,"There are plenty of reasons. Gambling, provoking trouble, extortion. Are those enough? Let's go."
Seeing things go south, one of them turned around and tried to run. He never expected Li Qian to grab his arm directly and fling him to the ground with a clean move. Li Qian swiftly cuffed him. The other three also wanted to run, but seeing their leader already down, they obediently stopped and didn't dare move an inch.
At the police station, the atmosphere in the interrogation room was tense and oppressive. Under the pressure, the three men who were brought in quickly cracked.
"The three of us were hired by them to put on an act. We don't know them," one of them spoke first, his voice trembling slightly.
As soon as Sun Zhewen heard this, he immediately asked sharply,"Them? You're saying it's not just him alone?"His gaze turned razor-sharp as he stared at the speaker.
"Yes. There are three more of them, staying at Yingchun Hotel," the man answered with his head lowered, not daring to meet Sun Zhewen's eyes.
"Yingchun Hotel?" Sun Zhewen frowned. "Where is that?"
"It's right next to the station," another man quickly added. "Just a small guesthouse."
"Heh. No wonder I've never heard of that hotel," Sun Zhewen said coldly. "What do those three look like?"He picked up a pen as he spoke, ready to write.
The three of them hurriedly described them one after another:
"The one you caught is called Zhang San. Another is called Liu Heizi—big and burly, with a black birthmark on his face. One is Wang Mazi, his face is full of pockmarks, really obvious. The last one is Chen Si, tall and skinny. The ones playing cards in the teahouse were just those four."
Li Qian had been listening carefully the whole time. He stood up and said,"Chief, I'll take people over right now and invite those three to come have some tea."
Sun Zhewen nodded. "Move fast. Watch your safety."
Li Qian immediately left with his team.
Sun Zhewen then turned and went to another interrogation room. Zhang San was sitting there, his eyes evasive.
Sun Zhewen walked up to him and said coldly,"They've already confessed. You should talk too. Your extortion trick isn't clever at all—full of holes. Yet you still dared to keep doing it. You must have some experience, huh?"
Zhang San kept his lips tightly shut, not saying a word.
Sun Zhewen continued,"You staying silent doesn't mean you can't talk. If you cooperate and confess properly, there's still a chance for leniency. But if we dig everything out ourselves, your days won't be easy."
Zhang San remained unmoved, choosing silence.
Sun Zhewen's patience gradually wore thin. He raised his voice:"Zhang San, let me tell you—resisting means harsher punishment, confessing means leniency. Do you really think that if you don't speak, we won't be able to investigate? Everything you did in the teahouse is already under our control."
Zhang San's body trembled slightly, but he still clenched his teeth.
Seeing this, Sun Zhewen said angrily,"If Zhang San still won't talk, interrogate him properly. Don't let him sleep."
"Yes!" the officers beside him answered in unison.
Time ticked by second after second. Zhang San suffered greatly in the interrogation room.
Meanwhile, Sun Zhewen paced back and forth in his office, thinking over the entire case from beginning to end.
After a while, an officer came in to report,"Chief, Zhang San still won't talk."
Sun Zhewen stopped and said,"Continue the interrogation. Increase the psychological pressure."
Not long after, Li Qian also returned with his people. Sun Zhewen said,"Lock them up separately. Interrogate them one by one."
Several more hours passed. In the end, Zhang San finally couldn't hold on anymore. Weakly, he said,"I'll talk… I'll talk."
Sun Zhewen immediately entered the interrogation room and sat across from him."If you'd done this earlier, wouldn't things have been easier? Go on."
Zhang San lowered his head and began to confess:"Someone ordered us to do this. He gave us money and told us to go cause trouble at the teahouse, to force Ailin to transfer the teahouse to him."
"Who was it?" Sun Zhewen pressed.
"A man named Zhao Qiang," Zhang San said hurriedly. "His teahouse business wasn't doing well. Seeing that Ailin's teahouse was booming, he came up with this idea—to make it impossible for her business to continue, then buy it over at a low price."
At this point, Zhang San no longer dared to hide anything, pouring everything out like beans from a bamboo tube.
"Go into detail," Sun Zhewen said, his gaze sharp as fire.
Zhang San continued,"Zhao Qiang came to us and said that as long as we followed his plan, he'd give us a large sum of money after it was done. We were short on cash, so we lost our heads and agreed."
Sun Zhewen frowned deeply and asked,"Then how were those gambling setups in the teahouse arranged?"
...
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"Game of Thrones: Dragon Prince"
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(End Chapter)