74: then

Fortunately, Zhao Mingting didn't intend to keep making things difficult for the young man. He merely teased him casually before continuing with his long-winded story.

"So I killed him." There were a few tears in Zhao Mingting's eyes. "Using my mother's family's influence and the Zhao Family's bodyguards, I tricked my father into believing I had kidnapped Zhao Minghong and his mistress. In his desperation, he rushed alone to the place I had set up. I told him that as long as he handed over his portion of power and committed suicide right there, I would let his precious son and lover live."

"He did as I asked." Zhao Mingting's voice grew lower and slowly faded into silence.

The interrogation room was quiet for a while; still, no one interrupted him.

Zhao Mingting suddenly let out a long sigh. "There's nothing to be sad about. He and I weren't really father and son to begin with, so where would the affection come from?"

He looked up and continued his narration.

"Only, I didn't expect that he had already handed over a large part of the hidden networks to that illegitimate son of his. What I got was only a third. Originally, it didn't matter. As long as my father was dead, with Zhao Minghong's brains, those two-thirds of the hidden networks would only be enough for him to keep his life. However, I didn't expect that after he grew up several years later, he would actually use that part of the hidden networks to compete with my son for the position of successor."

Zhao Mingting cursed, "A real unkillable cockroach."

After cursing, he realized he seemed to have gone a bit off-topic, so he cleared his throat and continued to confess matters related to the case as if nothing had happened.

"The point isn't him. It's that the fact I drove my father to his death was discovered by a mysterious power. I couldn't let the cause of my father's death be made public, otherwise everything I had would be ruined. At that time, I had just had a son; I couldn't leave him behind and go to prison myself. I swore to protect and love my child for the rest of my life."

Officer Liu and the others realized that this point in time was likely when the children were swapped. Everyone unconsciously sat up a bit straighter.

"So I agreed to do one thing for them: swap the Yan Family's Third Young Master, who hadn't been born yet but whose gender was already known."

"I was jealous of the Yan Family. I resented their strength and status, which far surpassed our own family's, and I hated their appearance of harmony and unity. Coupled with the fact that that power held leverage over me, I agreed."

"Of course, there was an even more important reason. Their plan was to swap the child first and have him grow up in the worst possible environment. Once he reached high school, they would have my granddaughter, Zhao Zijing, approach him without leaving a trace, deliberately giving him warmth he had never experienced before to make him fall in love with her. Then, once the child reached adulthood, they would expose the truth, letting these two displaced children fight to the death like most real and fake young masters, thereby throwing the Yan Family into internal chaos. At the same time, I could propose a marriage alliance with this true young master and marry my granddaughter to him."

"By leveraging the Zhao Family's power, blood ties, and the Yan Family's guilt, I could support this true young master in taking the position of the Yan Family's head. However, a child raised in a nest of thugs would certainly lack the strength to control the Yan Family. I could then use his love and trust for my granddaughter to sideline him and seize complete control over the power of the number one family in City A."

"Although this plan was time-consuming, the success rate wasn't low. Once successful, my Zhao Family would leap to become the number one family in City A, even stronger than the original Yan Family. According to the division of labor between me and that power, they would find the replacement child and handle the entire process, while I would provide them with information related to the Yan Family and handle the cleanup. The people they sent were all from elsewhere, so cleaning up was very easy and left no traces at all."

"It was truly a great temptation. Naturally, I wouldn't refuse. The Yan Family is self-righteously aloof, constantly shouting about freedom. If we followed the normal path, we wouldn't be able to form a marriage alliance with them at all."

Zhao Mingting's tone became disdainful. He had never understood how a freakish family like the Yan Family, who didn't do marriage alliances and didn't care about social status when marrying, could exist in the elite circles.

"Next, we successfully completed the task. Come to think of it, we spent several months preparing for it. After it succeeded, the plan was to wait for that child—oh, that's Yan Qinghe—to grow up." Only then did Zhao Mingting remember that Yan Qinghe had a name.

"But ten years ago, that power found me again and asked me to clean up after a kidnapping case for them. I didn't expect them to target the Yan Family again."

"Having done it once, I was very familiar with it the second time. Once again, I provided them with information. They pretended to kidnap Yan Zhuohua, but in reality, they were after Yan Jinming. The plan was very successful; it was still handled by clean outsiders. While the Yan Family was in turmoil and internal chaos after losing their head and had no time to look for the true culprit behind the kidnapping, I cleaned up the traces for them again."

"Fortunately, the newly appointed Uncle, aside from marrying and having children early, was far inferior to his brother in every other way. So he put all his effort into supporting the Yan Family and didn't have the energy to investigate this kidnapping thoroughly."

"I thought things were mostly settled and I just had to wait for Yan Qinghe to grow up." Zhao Mingting looked somewhat agitated. "But less than two years later, an accident occurred."

"Was it Qin Yue's car accident?" Officer Liu finally spoke. "The case I interrogated you about several times before?"

Zhao Mingting nodded.

"Yes. A few of the moles I left behind told me that Qin Yue seemed to have discovered Yan Qinghe wasn't her child, and she went to the hospital for a DNA test. That woman was indeed sensitive enough, and her actions were very careful. If the person I sent to tail her hadn't been a veteran, they wouldn't have noticed her abnormality."

"So, you arranged a car accident to silence her?"

Zhao Mingting's lips twitched a couple of times, and only after a long while did he make a sound again.

"I had no choice. If she found out and made a scene, my whole plan would be in shambles. I didn't want to kill her, but she moved too fast and gave me no time to prepare. So, I could only do it on the day she got the DNA results. That thug Ning Wei had disappeared to who-knows-where again. I arranged for someone to sneak into her house to scare her out, then faked an accidental car crash."

"When she rushed out, she was still clutching that test report, which my people picked up." Zhao Mingting suddenly became somewhat incoherent. "She was very much like my mother. She... she wanted to see her own child. I had no choice, I didn't want to kill her..."

"Zhao Mingting!" Officer Liu barked at him.

Zhao Mingting froze.

After a good while, he returned to his expressionless state and continued his confession.

"Because this happened so suddenly, it was mainly my people who did it, with that power only providing assistance. So the traces were a bit more obvious. We could fool the greedy Ning Wei, and fool the low-level traffic police and officers, but it still became the breakthrough point for Yan Zhuohua to target me. What happened later was Yan Qinghe returning to the Yan Family five years ago."

Officer Liu asked him, "Why did he return early?"

Zhao Mingting wasn't sure either. "I don't know. It was arranged by that power. Sun Qian is one of theirs. She appeared suddenly, and by the time I knew about it, it was almost common knowledge. Because of that, before Zijing could even meet Yan Qinghe, my plan was completely interrupted."