Chapter 98

Chapter 98

"What did you say? The person who poisoned Zhou Heting was actually his wife?"

Chu Hengyi was completely baffled, hardly believing what he heard, and couldn't help but confirm: "Are you sure? Why would his wife do such a thing?"

The informant shook his head; he also didn't know why Mrs. Zhou would do this. But according to the information he had found, it was indeed Mrs. Zhou who had someone secretly make a concentrated version of the antihypertensive drugs, replacing Zhou Heting's original medication.

Hearing this, Chu Hengyi nodded unconsciously: "That makes sense. Besides Mrs. Zhou, who else in the Zhou family could have access to Zhou Heting's daily medication?"

Including the previously suspected Old Master Zhou, it's unlikely anyone else had the means.

Zhou Heting and his wife had been married since they were young. Even if Mrs. Zhou was reckless and incompetent, she had been through ups and downs with Zhou Heting for twenty to thirty years. Zhou Heting's trust and lack of defense towards Mrs. Zhou were unparalleled by anyone else.

However, Zhou Heting probably never expected that he would ultimately fall victim to his own wife.

"And that's not all!" The informant suddenly grinned, his face full of pride: "I also found out another piece of news. Do you want to know?"

Chu Hengyi and Ye Mingzhao exchanged glances, and Chu Hengyi urged: "Speak up, don't keep us in suspense."

The informant chuckled: "Do you remember how Chu Qingyi died?"

At these words, Chu Hengyi and Ye Mingzhao immediately reacted: "Could it be related to Mrs. Zhou?"

"Exactly!" The informant pulled out a photo from a pile of documents on the table and pushed it in front of Ye Mingzhao and Chu Hengyi: "Mrs. Zhou obtained the highly concentrated form of antihypertensive drugs and the cyanide that killed Chu Qingyi from this man."

A highly concentrated form of antihypertensive drugs?

Ye Mingzhao and Chu Hengyi were quietly shocked. Mrs. Zhou really didn't want Zhou Heting to survive!

After nearly thirty years of marriage, what kind of deep-seated hatred could drive her to this?

Chu Hengyi picked up the photo on the table. It showed the middle-aged man with an unremarkable appearance, the type who would disappear in a crowd. He looked to be in his early forties, of average height, with a bookish appearance, wearing black-rimmed glasses, which made him appear even more rigid.

Ye Mingzhao leaned over to look: "Who is this man?"

"His name is Zhang Qi. He was originally a pharmacist at a pharmaceutical company under the Zhou family business. After the Ye family business acquired the Zhou family business, they integrated and restructured the assets of the Zhou family business. Zhang Qi resigned at that time. Since pharmacists are considered entry-level employees, and employee turnover was always high, no one noticed when he resigned."

Even fewer would notice that this seemingly ordinary, meek man was actually a confidant of Zhou Heting.

"Actually, he wasn't exactly a confidant, as he never entered Zhou Heting's inner circle and didn't know what Zhou Heting's plans were. He always followed orders and carried out tasks for payment."

After leaving the pharmaceutical company under the Zhou family business, Zhang Qi, with Zhou Heting's support, opened his own private pharmacy clinic, always ready to follow Zhou Heting's orders. The potassium chloride that killed Chu Qingyi was handed over to Mrs. Zhou by him.

Since Zhou Yueze was imprisoned, Mrs. Zhou was consumed with thoughts of avenging her son. Ye Mingzhao was scheming and ruthless, and Chu Hengyi had the backing of the Ye family. Neither was someone Mrs. Zhou could afford to provoke, so she turned her revenge towards Chu Qingyi.

Before the Zhou family's downfall, Mrs. Zhou was just a housewife, never involved in the business of the Zhou family business, and naturally had no connections to buy poison. But she vaguely knew that Zhou Heting had always controlled a hidden force that did his dirty work. So during that time, Mrs. Zhou kept pestering Zhou Heting, asking him to find a way to avenge their son.

To placate Mrs. Zhou and fearing that Chu Qingyi might talk too much and affect his plans, Zhou Heting handed over some of his outer circle of associates to Mrs. Zhou, and Zhang Qi was one of them.

The first time Mrs. Zhou contacted Zhang Qi, she asked him to prepare a lethal poison that could cause sudden death but appear accidental. Zhang Qi, following Mrs. Zhou's instructions, gave her a dose of potassium chloride. After obtaining the poison, Mrs. Zhou had another peripheral member deliver it to a deliveryman, who then poisoned the food, leading to Chu Qingyi's death.

If nothing had gone wrong, Chu Qingyi's cause of death would have been sudden cardiac arrest, a seemingly normal cause of death among the modern generation of young people who often stay up late. But what Mrs. Zhou didn't expect was that before his death, Chu Qingyi had arranged to meet Zhou Yueze. By a twist of fate, he ended up dying during a confrontation with Zhou Yueze, and the whole incident was captured by tabloid photographers following Zhou Yueze.

The tabloid photographers, seeking attention, called the police and immediately uploaded the video online, making Chu Qingyi's death widely known and nearly implicating Zhou Yueze. Fortunately, the police arrived in time, performed an autopsy on Chu Qingyi's body, discovered the true cause of death, and exonerated Zhou Yueze.

Ye Mingzhao suddenly remembered that when Chu Qingyi first died, everyone thought Chu Qingyi had been killed by Zhou Yueze. Only Mrs. Zhou kept insisting that Zhou Yueze was innocent and urged the police to find the real culprit to exonerate him.

At the time, he didn't find it strange, thinking Mrs. Zhou was just being her usual domineering self. But now it seems, Mrs. Zhou was clearly the thief shouting "stop thief."

Of course, she believed that Zhou Yueze was not the murderer of Chu Qingyi, because the real culprit was herself.

Madam Zhou glanced at Ye Mingzhao expressionlessly and said nothing.

After the deed was done, Madam Zhou gave the peripheral person who contacted the deliveryman a sum of money, and the person fled abroad immediately. As for Zhou Yueze, who was involved in Chu Qingyi's death case, he was acquitted due to insufficient evidence.

As for Zhang Qi, who provided the poison, since he had never been in contact with the deliveryman or Chu Qingyi from the beginning to the end, no one knew of his existence, so he continued to work as a pharmacist without any trouble.

The second time Madam Zhou contacted Zhang Qi was to have him tamper with the blood pressure medication.

Hearing this, Chu Hengyi couldn't help but ask, "Did Zhang Qi know that the blood pressure medication he prepared was for Zhou Heting?"

Dagger shook his head, "He probably didn't know. According to Zhang Qi's confession, when Madam Zhou approached him, she only mentioned that the old master Zhou also had high blood pressure. Zhang Qi likely thought that the blood pressure medication Madam Zhou asked him to prepare was for the old master Zhou."

The gossip about the old master Zhou leading a group of the Zhou family to fight for the family fortune against Zhou Heting had spread like wildfire in Xinhai City, and Zhang Qi had also heard about it. Given Zhou Heting's usual modus operandi, it was indeed possible that he would arrange for the old master Zhou to have an "accidental" stroke to eliminate future troubles.

"If Zhang Qi had known that the blood pressure medication was for Zhou Heting, he might not have dared to do it," Dagger sighed.

Given Zhou Heting's cunning and manipulative skills, anyone who worked for him in private matters was under his long-term control. Even though Zhou Heting's prestige and power had significantly declined under the continuous attacks from the Ye family, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse. People like Zhang Qi probably would never dare to betray Zhou Heting, fearing his retaliation.

After all, the lesson from Chu Qingyi's death was still fresh in their minds, and the poison that killed Chu Qingyi was prepared by Zhang Qi himself. He was also afraid that if he betrayed Zhou Heting, he might one day end up like Chu Qingyi.

"After receiving the clues from my boss, I started investigating the people the Zhou family had recently been in contact with. Everyone else was fine, having had no contact with outsiders, but Madam Zhou was the most peculiar."

Madam Zhou had actually met with a community pharmacist who should have had no connection with the Zhou family twice within a month. Dagger also found out that half a month before Zhou Heting's stroke, Zhang Qi's pharmacy had received a large batch of blood pressure medication, but these medications were not found in the pharmacy's counter or warehouse; they had mysteriously disappeared. Subsequently, a large sum of money appeared in the pharmacist's account.

Dagger guessed that Zhang Qi had likely used this batch of blood pressure medication to create a concentrated version and handed it over to Madam Zhou. To verify his guess, Dagger directly approached Zhang Qi, posing as a trusted confidant of Zhou Heting, and used the clues he had already gathered to trick him.

Zhang Qi, though he had done many bad things, was surprisingly weak-minded. After learning about Zhou Heting's unexpected stroke, he had already guessed the whole truth and was already paranoid and panicking. When Dagger appeared posing as Zhou Heting's confidant, Zhang Qi thought he was there to silence him and immediately knelt down begging for mercy.

Dagger didn't have to put in much effort; Zhang Qi spilled everything like beans from a bamboo tube, including the fact that he had provided Madam Zhou with potassium chloride to kill Chu Qingyi.

"But why would Madam Zhou want to poison Zhou Heting?" Chu Hengyi still couldn't understand.

Dagger shrugged, "I don't know that, and Zhang Qi obviously didn't know either. Unless Madam Zhou is willing to tell us herself."

Chu Hengyi sneered, "How could that be possible!" Madam Zhou wasn't stupid; how could she admit to poisoning Zhou Heting?

"Not necessarily," Ye Mingzhao thoughtfully tapped on Zhang Qi's photo, "Perhaps we should meet Madam Zhou."

The Ye family and the Zhou family were like fire and water, and Ye Mingzhao and Chu Hengyi were the main culprits who had put Zhou Yueze in prison. Madam Zhou would be furious just thinking about these two people; how could she agree to meet them?

But Ye Mingzhao was the kind of person who would do whatever he set his mind to.

In the end, Madam Zhou reluctantly agreed to the meeting.

The meeting place was still chosen by Ye Mingzhao, a teahouse with excellent privacy measures.

Madam Zhou arrived an hour late for the scheduled time, by which time Ye Mingzhao and Chu Hengyi had already drunk half a pot of tea. The snacks and dried fruits that came with the tea had also been half consumed.

Seeing Madam Zhou dressed like a black widow, Chu Hengyi raised an eyebrow and smiled, "Zhou Heting isn't dead yet, are you already playing the role of a widow?"

Madam Zhou glared at Chu Hengyi and sat down opposite them, "Zhou Heting won't die."

"That's right," Ye Mingzhao smiled, "Given the current state of the Zhou family, it's more beneficial for you if Zhou Heting doesn't die."

Madam Zhou impatiently pursed her lips, "If you called me out just to chit-chat, I don't have time for that."

Chu Hengyi chuckled, "Don't be in such a hurry! We just met, it's polite to exchange a few pleasantries!"

As a gesture of politeness, Chu Hengyi had the teahouse staff bring a fresh pot of tea.

Madam Zhou gave a cold sneer, clearly seeing no need for small talk.

Given the situation, Ye Mingzhao decided to get straight to the point: "We’re just wondering—why did you swap out Zhou Heting’s blood pressure medication, which caused his stroke?"

Madam Zhou replied coldly, "You can’t just eat whatever you please, and you can’t just say whatever you want either. What makes you think it was me?"

Before she could finish speaking, Madam Zhou saw the stack of documents Chu Hengyi pushed in front of her. On top lay a neatly arranged photo of Zhang Qi and last month’s inventory list from his pharmacy. All her excuses died on her lips.

Ye Mingzhao folded his hands on the table, smiling warmly, "Don’t you think, as law-abiding citizens of Xinhai City, we ought to turn this evidence over to the police?"

Madam Zhou’s face fell, and she took a deep breath: "You wouldn’t do that. If you really wanted to turn these over to the police, you’d have done it already—you wouldn’t have called me."

Chu Hengyi smiled and said, "That depends on how you handle this."

Madam Zhou took a deep breath and fell silent for a long moment. Then, suddenly, she smiled, "You probably don’t know, but Zhou Heting has an illegitimate child."