The Public Security Bureau was still running around working on cases. The Ye Jian case had made no progress since it occurred, and the Liu Bei who appeared later had been chased for several days before he escaped again. Fortunately, they had previously arrested the ministry-level wanted criminal Li Feng, so Director Zhang could still save face.
However, it wasn’t over. Today another homicide case had emerged.
The situation took many twists and turns.
More than ten years ago in San Jiang Kou, there was a small gang known as the “San Jiang Four Scoundrels,” “Mei Lin Yang Xie”—a pun on “syphilis, gonorrhea, impotence, premature ejaculation.” Among “Mei Lin Yang Xie,” the fourth member, Xie Shaobing, had fatally stabbed someone in a brawl back in the day. While fleeing, he was reportedly haunted by vengeful spirits and was hit by a tractor while jaywalking. Normally, a tractor’s speed could only kill elderly people, but that tractor was overloaded and when it toppled over, a truckload of yellow sand buried him alive on the spot.
Of the remaining three thugs, the eldest, Mei Dong, later went to Macau. No one knew which big boss he followed, but within just a few years he suddenly made it big, contracting several gambling halls. Through his henchmen on the mainland, he lured people to gamble in Macau and took a cut. The business was reportedly very large. A few years ago when he returned to San Jiang Kou for a class reunion, he gave every classmate an Apple phone, and this became major local news.
The second brother, Lin Kai, and the third brother, Yang Wei, remained in San Jiang Kou. At first, they worked in “performance art”—they would organize younger gang members to cause disturbances at construction sites, then pose as peacemakers saying “why bother” and “everyone take a step back and see the vast sky” to settle matters and collect protection fees for keeping the construction sites safe. Most construction companies, when encountering local hooligans, would choose to pay some money to resolve matters peacefully. Later they encountered a well-connected major construction company that didn’t buy into their act at all. Once they even provoked Zhou Rong’s construction site, and the two were captured by Zhou Rong’s men, severely beaten, and forced to kneel at the construction site for an entire night. After that encounter, the two could no longer hold their heads up in front of their underlings. Thinking that extorting construction sites wasn’t a long-term plan, they simply changed careers. The two actively responded to the call for financial innovation and entered the loan shark business.
Lending money was easy, but collecting was difficult. Some of those who dared to borrow from loan sharks never planned to repay. So to survive in this business, you had to be tough. Lin Kai and Yang Wei’s greatest asset was their dead fourth brother. The fourth brother had killed someone back in the day, which was well known in San Jiang Kou’s small underworld. So when Lin Kai and Yang Wei collected debts, they would always say: “Do you know my brother killed someone? Believe it or not, I’ll stab you to death with one knife?” This technique of verbally stabbing people to death was used to perfection. With such an underworld foundation, they didn’t worry about going hungry.
After the eldest brother Mei Dong made it big in Macau, he naturally thought to look after his younger brothers Lin Kai and Yang Wei. Mei Dong ran gambling halls and made loans in Macau, while Lin Kai and Yang Wei helped him identify business owners around San Jiang Kou to gamble in Macau and were also responsible for debt collection. Many small business owners with heavy gambling addictions couldn’t resist the temptation and followed them to Macau. The lucky ones might win some money, but ultimately nine out of ten gamblers lose. Combined with the scheme of borrowing money to turn things around, many people borrowed from Mei Dong in Macau, and after returning to the country were pressured for debts by Lin Kai and Yang Wei. In the end, they could only sell their family assets. There were even several private business owners whose factories, built up through years of hard work, were simply handed over to others.
Half a year ago, Boss Fang, the owner of a medium-sized factory, couldn’t resist the temptation. Behind his family’s back, he went to Mei Dong’s establishment in Macau to gamble. In a moment of hot-headedness, he maxed out his credit cards and wrote an IOU for five million yuan. After returning to the country, for the first two months, Lin Kai and Yang Wei continued to treat Boss Fang like brothers. Boss Fang said he was strapped for cash, and they didn’t press him, saying he just needed to repay within a few months. Half a year passed, and the five million debt had grown to six million. Boss Fang still couldn’t repay the money, and Lin Kai and Yang Wei stopped being nice. Every day they sent underlings to guard his factory and home. Wherever Boss Fang went, they followed him closely. When his family learned he had gambled away so much money, there was an uproar at home, and the factory was in such chaos it couldn’t operate.
Boss Fang’s family reported it to the police, but Boss Fang did indeed owe them money. Besides following him, cursing him, and humiliating him, Lin Kai’s men hadn’t really harmed him. The Public Security Department had strict regulations about police intervention in economic disputes, so the police station responded to calls several times but the matter came to nothing.
Three days ago, Lin Kai found Boss Fang again, slapped him several times, and warned him to quickly sell his house and factory to repay the debt. Who knew that by afternoon, Lin Kai’s phone couldn’t be reached. At first, no one took it seriously, but that evening was Yang Wei’s birthday party, and as his good brother, Lin Kai was absent—this was abnormal.
The next morning, Yang Wei brought people to Boss Fang’s home and asked him where Lin Kai had gone. Boss Fang didn’t know. Yang Wei thought it over and concluded that Boss Fang must have gotten someone to do something to Lin Kai. So he had his younger gang members tie up Boss Fang and forced him to drink a pot of urine to extract a confession. However, Boss Fang still refused to admit it, so Yang Wei had to temporarily give up.
Who knew that after Yang Wei left, Boss Fang, having suffered the tremendous humiliation of being forced to drink urine, decided to burn his bridges. He went to a print shop and made a large banner. Together with his family and nearly twenty factory workers, they carried the large banner and marched through the streets, saying the entire family was being persecuted by the mafia and that the police were the mafia’s protective umbrella.
This immediately caused a citywide uproar. Online rumors spread that the San Jiang Kou Public Security Bureau was a protective umbrella for the mafia. The government and police hurriedly dealt with the matter, arresting both Boss Fang and Yang Wei.
The San Jiang Kou Public Security Bureau was truly wronged in this matter. Not a single leader at the Public Security Bureau knew Yang Wei, yet they were collectively and inexplicably rumored to have acknowledged Yang Wei as their godson. The Discipline Inspection Commission said they would investigate the Public Security Bureau. Zhang Yi’ang was new, so of course he couldn’t be Yang Wei’s protective umbrella. In the end, external suspicion naturally fell on Qi Zhenxing. Qi Zhenxing was so angry that he had people drag Yang Wei in front of Boss Fang, slapped Yang Wei five or six times, and questioned Boss Fang: “Who’s the mafia’s protective umbrella?”
Boss Fang was immediately terrified by this display and quickly admitted that because Yang Wei had forced him to drink urine, he was so angry that he made the banner. The banner’s claim that the Public Security Bureau was a protective umbrella was purely meant to blow things up. He explained clearly at the police station, but when the police bureau issued a public explanation of the situation, no one believed it. Qi Zhenxing was required by the Discipline Inspection Commission to go to the superior city for questioning. Before leaving, he told Zhang Yi’ang and the Criminal Police Team that they must prosecute Yang Wei under the most serious charges possible, otherwise this reputation as a protective umbrella couldn’t be cleared.
On the other side, the Criminal Police Team interrogated Yang Wei intensively. He insisted that he forced Boss Fang to drink urine because Lin Kai had been disappeared by Boss Fang, but Boss Fang insisted he knew nothing about Lin Kai’s whereabouts.
The police worried that the gambling and debt collection had really resulted in a homicide, so they sent people to investigate Lin Kai’s movements that day. Through street surveillance, they discovered that Lin Kai was driving a large Land Rover and for some unknown reason later chased a small beat-up car all the way. Both cars drove to the eastern suburbs, where the roads weren’t built yet and there were no surveillance cameras. After that, they couldn’t trace either vehicle’s whereabouts. When they checked the license plate of the small beat-up car, the plate was real, but the car owner’s identity was fake—clearly a vehicle obtained through illegal channels. They could clearly see two men sitting in the front seats of the car, but the distance was too far to identify their faces.
The Public Security Bureau sent police to search the eastern suburbs, but after searching for more than a day, they found neither of the two vehicles nor any other clues about Lin Kai.
Until today, there were many municipal projects under construction in that area of San Jiang Kou’s eastern suburbs. This morning, a construction supervisor urgently needed to urinate near the construction site and walked to an uninhabited vacant lot to relieve himself. He came to a small mound and urinated on it. The urine splashed up from the soil and flowed down in a small stream, with some flocculent material resembling blood stains mixed in. The man looked down and got a fright, thinking he had prostatitis. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the soil was mixed with blood stains and even bits of flesh.
Out of innate human curiosity and imagination, he looked at this mound with obvious signs of recently disturbed soil and thought perhaps there was a dismemberment case beneath his feet. So he used his foot to scrape away some soil. Beneath the soil, a corpse didn’t appear as he expected—there were some blood stains but no more bits of flesh. He breathed a sigh of relief and was just about to turn and leave when he suddenly noticed a cement post inserted in the flat ground two or three meters from the mound with the warning “buried cable below, do not excavate.” Because this warning post was the responsibility of their construction unit, and they hadn’t passed through here at all, he walked over to examine the cement post and immediately discovered there was something else under the soil.
Several hours later, criminal police and forensic examiners dug up a corpse crushed beyond recognition beneath this cement post. After identification, it was indeed Lin Kai.
Now the greatest suspicion fell on Boss Fang. Lin Kai had violently demanded payment from him, so he hired assassins to kill him—the motive was completely reasonable. Yang Wei and the others had gone to Boss Fang precisely because they suspected Lin Kai was dead, and sure enough, Lin Kai was indeed dead.
“Lin Kai beat you that morning, so you hired someone to do him in and had him buried in a vacant lot in the eastern suburbs. Do you admit it or not?” In the interrogation room, the interrogation team member questioned him sternly.
Boss Fang wore a bitter expression and desperately explained that he didn’t know Lin Kai was dead. He had been an honest person all his life. Aside from gambling, visiting prostitutes, tax evasion, illegal marching, and falsely accusing the government and police, he had never done anything illegal or criminal. The murder charge was a tremendous injustice.
After continuous interrogation through the night, Boss Fang refused to admit to murdering Lin Kai.
Just when Zhang Yi’ang was at his wit’s end, the police discovered a major clue.
Zhang Yi’ang followed Li Qian to the monitoring room. Wang Ruijun, Song Xing, and others were all there. Li Qian pulled up the surveillance footage and told Zhang Yi’ang that the faces of the two people in the small car that Lin Kai was chasing in the previously captured surveillance couldn’t be seen clearly. So the electronic technical staff reverse-traced the surveillance along the route. After working through the night, they finally discovered the small car had been to a gas station. Officers immediately went to the gas station to retrieve the surveillance and saw that the two men had gotten out of the car and entered the convenience store to buy things.
Both men had beards on their faces, wore glasses, and had long hair covering their foreheads. The criminal police judged that these two had disguised their faces, so they suspected they were people with criminal records. Through recent briefing materials from superior public security organs, they quickly discovered that some characteristics of these two men extremely matched those of two criminals from several jewelry store robbery cases that had occurred in succession in Hang City and Ning City several months ago—that is, the two people that Zheng Yongbing had previously testified sold stolen goods to him.
Seeing this result, numerous criminal police were both shocked and delighted.
The shock was that after Zheng Yongbing testified about these two last time, the criminal police believed they were committing crimes while on the move and had surely left San Jiang Kou long ago. Unexpectedly, these two were still here up until a few days ago. For some unknown reason, they had a dispute with Lin Kai, ultimately killed him, and stole his car.
The delight was that since these two had stayed in San Jiang Kou for so long, they might still be hiding somewhere now. If they could capture these two again, major case suspects that police from several big cities working together hadn’t caught would be captured by San Jiang Kou—another great achievement!
Zhang Yi’ang immediately called together the Criminal Police Team’s backbone to discuss how to arrest these two.
These two had been captured on surveillance, but their faces were heavily disguised, and with current technology, their true identities still couldn’t be compared. Trying to catch people without knowing their identities was like finding a needle in a haystack. Fortunately, there was still the car. The two men’s small beat-up car and Lin Kai’s car hadn’t been found in the surrounding area. Now the most urgent matter was to find out where these two vehicles were.
After the arrangements were made, Zhang Yi’ang turned his attention to the detained Yang Wei. He called Wang Ruijun aside alone and asked him: “How are you planning to handle Yang Wei’s case?”
“We’re waiting for the superior’s decision. Both the government leadership and Director Qi’s intention is to prosecute him under the most serious charges possible. It was he who forced Boss Fang to drink urine, which ultimately led to the march. If he isn’t severely sentenced, the reputation as a mafia protective umbrella will be confirmed.”
Zhang Yi’ang frowned slightly and casually said: “People inevitably make mistakes. After making mistakes, it’s not good to beat them to death with one stick, is it?”
“Well…” Wang Ruijun looked at his superior with difficulty. Director Zhang’s meaning clearly wanted to protect Yang Wei. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but this time Yang Wei’s matter had blown up like this—the government and bureau leadership all wished Yang Wei could be sentenced to death. How could he be protected?
Zhang Yi’ang looked at him, thought about it, and spoke directly: “Can we work something out to show him leniency?”
“Uh… that won’t really work.” Wang Ruijun hesitantly asked in a low voice, “Director, does he have connections up above?”
“You know Mei Dong, right?”
“Mei Dong is Yang Wei’s sworn eldest brother.”
“Mei Dong contracts gambling establishments in Macau, recruiting and deceiving domestic customers to gamble there. Mei Dong was put on the provincial department’s wanted list last year.”
Wang Ruijun was clear about San Jiang Kou’s local major criminals and nodded to indicate: “We also received notice from the provincial department and want to catch him, but Mei Dong has been hiding in Macau and hasn’t returned to San Jiang Kou.”
“Mei Dong, Lin Kai, and Yang Wei are all sworn brothers. Now that Lin Kai is dead, according to their underworld rules, Mei Dong will very likely return to attend the funeral.”
Wang Ruijun shook his head skeptically: “Mei Dong knows he’s wanted. I think he probably won’t dare to come back.”
“Under normal circumstances he won’t come back, but this time Yang Wei is in our hands.” Zhang Yi’ang’s gaze turned cold. “Have Yang Wei trick Mei Dong into coming back!”
“Trick him back?” Wang Ruijun pondered this statement.
“Mei Dong is a major wanted criminal. Not only us in San Jiang Kou—he has business in other places throughout the country. Behind him are also implicated foreign forces, and many domestic business owners have intricate connections with him. The provincial department really wants to catch him. If we can trick him back, the value would be enormous! Just criminally detaining Yang Wei—wouldn’t that be too wasteful?” Zhang Yi’ang blinked shrewdly.
Wang Ruijun pondered for a moment, slowly nodded, and his eyes brightened as he looked at the director.
If Mei Dong were caught by them, although the value wouldn’t be as great as the Ministry of Public Security’s number one wanted criminal Li Feng, it would still be tremendous merit in the entire provincial public security system. What use was just criminally detaining Yang Wei? The director’s methods were truly superior. Although the last time surrounding the club to catch the mayor ended in nothing, that problem-solving approach was a full hundred years ahead of ordinary criminal police. Now using another strategy to trick Mei Dong back to the country through Yang Wei—this was what you call the big-picture view of solving cases!
Wang Ruijun slapped his chest in commitment: “This task is difficult, but I will definitely do it well!”
“Very good!” Zhang Yi’ang reached out his palm and squeezed Wang Ruijun’s shoulder. Wang Ruijun’s large face immediately beamed with the glory of being commended by the whole school at the school sports meet when he was a child. He couldn’t help but hum in his mouth: “The five-starred red flag flutters in the wind, how loud and clear the victory song sounds.”