Director Gao’s influence in the criminal investigation system exceeded Zhang Yi’ang’s imagination. That afternoon, the criminal investigation teams from the superior city of Ning and the provincial capital Hang each dispatched nearly a hundred detectives to San Jiang Kou. The heads of both cities’ criminal investigation teams personally called him, warmly addressing him as brother, expressing that apprehending two terrorists and robbers was their duty. After their subordinates arrived in San Jiang Kou, they would follow his every instruction. Even all travel expenses and accommodation arrangements would be borne by their own units—he didn’t need to go through San Jiang Kou’s unit procedures.
He assembled the two teams of fresh troops in the unit’s large conference room and briefed them that these two men were the masterminds behind the terrorist bombing and opportunistic robbery. Since surveillance hadn’t clearly captured their faces, he sent everyone the surveillance videos that had captured them, having everyone memorize their body types and walking characteristics. After quickly mobilizing them, he deployed these personnel to various key positions throughout San Jiang Kou.
After the mobilization meeting ended and everyone dispersed to their assignments, police officers from other departments of the Public Security Bureau saw that Deputy Director Zhang had such tremendous influence—he’d actually managed to transfer criminal investigation teams from both the superior city and the provincial capital. They thought that even Qi Zhenxing couldn’t mobilize so many people from superior departments. They were utterly dumbstruck.
At this moment, Director Zhao from the office came over and stopped Zhang Yi’ang: “Director Zhang, which unit are these police officers from?”
“The criminal investigation teams from Ning City and Hang City.”
“Criminal investigation teams…” Director Zhao was also quite alarmed. “What case are you investigating?”
“A major case!” This morning, after hearing from Director Gao that Qi Zhenxing had complained to Zhou Weidong, Zhang Yi’ang had extended his resentment to Director Zhao as well.
“What major case?” Director Zhao didn’t detect the impatience in his expression.
“A major case from the province—confidential.”
Director Zhao said with dissatisfaction: “Director Zhang, you suddenly borrowed so many people without going through the proper procedures with the unit. How will so many people be accommodated? The case-handling expenses for so many people—”
“The other units will handle it themselves.”
“This…” Director Zhao paused, then said quietly, “Director Zhang, I have a suggestion. For such a major matter, even if their units handle the inter-jurisdictional case issues themselves, I think you should still discuss it with Director Qi. Director Qi is the bureau chief—not communicating with him about such a major matter will affect the unit’s unity.”
“Unit unity?” Zhang Yi’ang laughed coldly. “At least I don’t go around making false accusations.”
Director Zhao’s heart tightened as he asked: “Director Zhang, what do you mean by that?”
“Someone from our unit reported to the province that I used torture to extract confessions,” Zhang Yi’ang raised his voice. “Director Zhao, tell me—isn’t this fabrication?”
“This…” Director Zhao’s face reddened. He never expected Zhang would learn about this.
Hearing this, members of the criminal police team in the distance immediately surged over. They’d been following Director Zhang day and night on cases recently, developing strong camaraderie. They all came to defend their leader: “How could Director Zhang possibly use torture? Director Zhang just arrived—who would say such nonsense! Just watch me tear their mouth apart!”
“You…” Seeing these rough men take this stance, Director Zhao forcibly swallowed the words “trying to rebel” and changed his tune: “This talk must be fabrication. I’ll investigate it thoroughly.” After speaking, he turned and scurried away dejectedly.
Zhang Yi’ang stood in place, frowning. Today’s soft confrontation had completely torn their relations apart.
Director Zhao would definitely complain to Qi Zhenxing when he returned, and Qi Zhenxing would find opportunities to give him trouble in the future. The best defense was to become strong enough himself. If he could quickly solve all these cases, his credentials and prestige would be sufficient to resist any scheming. The key to all this was catching those two robbers!
After nightfall, Song Xing and two officers, all in plain clothes, arrived at a small inn. The inn was run by a middle-aged couple—the couple plus one of their parents made four people total, with no other staff.
To apprehend these two robbers, the police had issued cooperation notices this afternoon to all accommodation and entertainment establishments citywide, including surveillance photos of the two criminals’ body types.
The innkeeper’s wife noticed that two men who checked in this morning had body types somewhat similar to the photos in the notice. Moreover, only one of them had registered for the room, and they’d entered at different times—their behavior was quite suspicious. After discussing with her husband, she secretly notified the district police station, which immediately reported to the criminal police brigade.
“They checked in separately?”
Song Xing and his two colleagues stood behind the front desk, watching the surveillance footage from the computer the shop owners had pulled up.
“Yes, at first only this person with a suitcase came to register. Later my wife saw another person follow him in.”
Song Xing grabbed the mouse and froze the frame. This small inn’s surveillance was quite crude with very poor image quality. Even so, based on the two men who had passed through, especially the features of the suitcase the first person carried matching Li Qian’s description, there was no doubt—it was them.
All three couldn’t help but feel excited. These were the targets all of San Jiang Kou’s police were hunting! Especially Song Xing—last time catching Liu Bei had earned him the nickname “Silly Song Xing.” This time he had to redeem himself! However, he knew these two were skilled and armed. With just the three of them attempting the arrest carried great risk. After calm consideration, he called headquarters to arrange for heavy forces to completely surround the inn before catching them like fish in a barrel.
Just then, the owner said quietly: “He’s coming down.”
Song Xing looked up toward the stairway. Fang Chao was walking toward the door. Their eyes met. Song Xing and the others immediately lowered their heads, pretending to be tax officials: “This tax payment is clearly wrong. We’ve verified this invoice is fake. For fake invoices, we have to impose double penalties.”
Fang Chao looked away and walked to the door, taking out his phone and saying: “Okay, okay, I forgot to bring it. Wait a moment.” With that, he turned back and went upstairs.
After the man went back up the stairs, Song Xing’s eyes flashed. Based on an old detective’s professional judgment, the other party had likely become suspicious. He immediately instructed the two in a low voice to prepare for arrest at any moment.
Fang Chao went upstairs and rushed back to the room. Before Liu Zhi could speak, he said: “The police are here.”
“What!”
“There are three plainclothes officers downstairs questioning the front desk. When I passed by just now, they deliberately pretended to be tax bureau auditors. Hmph, such a tiny inn actually alarming the tax bureau to come audit at night—what is this, a Fortune 500 company!”
“Brother Chao, what do we do?”
Fang Chao clenched his teeth and gently pulled back a corner of the curtain to observe outside. Below was pitch black—he didn’t know if police were lying in ambush in corners and crevices.
For now, they could only take a risky gamble!
Song Xing kept his eyes fixed on the stairway while asking the owner detailed questions about the inn’s layout and surrounding environment. His subordinate officers had already contacted headquarters. Within ten minutes, Director Zhang would personally lead over a hundred officers rushing here. As long as they got through these ten minutes safely, the two robbers would have nowhere to escape.
But just then, they suddenly heard a crisp crash—several panes of glass fell to the ground behind the inn.
Song Xing instantly jumped up: “The criminals are jumping out the window!” He immediately had the two officers run to the small alley behind the inn to guard while he pulled out his gun and rushed upstairs. He ran in one breath to the third floor room where the criminals were located and swiped the room key card. The door opened. Just as he was about to push in, he found it had a chain lock inside.
“Don’t run—police!” Song Xing first shouted to intimidate them, then backed up several steps and flew a kick at the door. The small inn’s door quality was extremely poor. His forceful kick directly kicked out the screws in the wall, and the entire door crashed down.
Rushing into the room, Song Xing saw no one inside. The window glass had been smashed by a wooden chair and was empty. He quickly ran to the window and looked down. This was the third floor, about seven or eight meters from the ground. Jumping down would require considerable courage. The two officers below were standing guard. Seeing Song Xing at the window, they both shook their heads to indicate they hadn’t seen the criminals come down.
Song Xing was puzzled. The room was locked from inside, indicating the criminals were in the room. But they hadn’t jumped down—so where could they have gone?
Unless they were still inside!
Just as he figured this out, two figures burst from the bathroom. Each grabbed a quilt, jumped up, and tackled Song Xing to the ground. While covering Song Xing, they used an ashtray to strike him hard. Song Xing’s gun hand was pressed down through the quilt. In the chaos, he fired one shot. The bullet penetrated the quilt. This quilt was made of inferior old cotton—thick and hard. The bullet only pierced the quilt without hitting them, and the gunshot was muffled by the quilt. The two pressed down on his hand even harder and wrested the gun away.
One against two, being wrapped tightly in the quilt and beaten viciously, Song Xing’s strength was soon exhausted and he couldn’t struggle.
The two wrapped Song Xing in both quilts and rolled him up, quickly tying him with rope, packaging him into a mummy. They lifted this “mummy” and shoved it out the window.
The two officers downstairs had been standing guard, watching the empty third-floor window. They thought that even if jumping from this height didn’t kill you, you’d be injured. Suddenly seeing a human-shaped bundle wrapped in quilts appear at the window, they instantly realized the criminal was somewhat clever—using quilts as padding to jump down.
A few seconds later, the quilt struck the ground heavily. The two rushed over, pulled out their guns and shouted for them not to move. To prevent the criminal from resisting, they first beat the person inside through the quilt, then quickly unwrapped it to see Song Xing, completely dazed from the fall.
“Why… why are you hitting me?” Song Xing had tough bones—such a fall with the quilt cushioning wouldn’t kill him, though his whole body ached and he couldn’t move for the moment. Lying on the ground, he raised his hand tremulously and pointed up: “Still upstairs—go quickly!”
Time was urgent. The two officers had no time to apologize and turned to rush back into the inn.
Just as the two officers ran off, Song Xing lay there breathing heavily. Suddenly he saw an enormous suitcase appear at the window above him. The next second, the suitcase fell freely straight toward his head.
“Ahhh!” Song Xing opened his mouth to cry out, but found his body numb from the fall and unable to move. At this life-or-death moment, he mustered all his strength to roll aside twice. With a bang, a large suitcase crashed beside his head, nearly crushing his skull.
The next second, the two robbers each held a bedsheet fashioned into a parachute and jumped one after another from the window, landing on the quilts on the ground, completely unharmed. Fang Chao picked up the large suitcase from the ground, and the two took off running.
“Stop, don’t run!”
Song Xing tried to block them, just propping up half his body when Fang Chao kicked him over. The pain made him cry out.
Although the whole process was quite noisy, behind the inn was just a small alley. A few people from nearby came out to watch, but seeing the two criminals running toward them, they turned back into their houses—none dared to try to stop them.
Several minutes later, Zhang Yi’ang and police reinforcements arriving from all directions reached the scene.
Song Xing had first been beaten senseless by the criminals, thrown from the third floor, beaten again by his two subordinate officers, and kicked over by Fang Chao. He was truly blessed with good fortune to still be able to force his body to stand and rush over to report the criminals’ situation to his leader.
“Director, those two dragged a large suitcase and ran eastward.”
Hearing they’d escaped, Zhang Yi’ang couldn’t help but rage: “Didn’t I just tell you three not to act rashly and wait for the main force to arrive for the capture? Why did you act on your own!”
Wang Ruijun on the side curled his lips and pointed at Song Xing, shaking his head: “Old Song, at crucial moments you can’t always want to eat the whole cake yourself and hog all the credit. And the result? You let them escape.”
“I… the situation was urgent just now. The criminals realized we were police and were preparing to flee. We had no choice but to act first.”
“The criminals realized?” Wang Ruijun snorted. “Did you tell them you were police?”
“No.”
Wang Ruijun raised his eyebrows: “Then there you go. Your face doesn’t have ‘police’ written on it. You’re a veteran detective but you still messed up—was your disguise really that bad? Greedy for glory and reckless—that shouldn’t happen!”
“I—” Song Xing was already dizzy and momentarily speechless.
“Alright, alright,” Zhang Yi’ang impatiently interrupted, first having others quickly chase after them, then turning back to ask Song Xing, “Where are your two team members?”
“They went to chase the criminals.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I’m sitting down to catch my breath first, waiting for you all—”
“At a crucial moment, everyone else is fighting desperately, but you—you’re sitting down alone to catch your breath? Being a detective seems pretty easy for you, Song Xing!” Zhang Yi’ang glared at him fiercely.
People around also joined in criticizing him. Last time catching Liu Bei, he didn’t press the elevator button, causing Liu Bei to escape. This time, hundreds of people told him to wait for the main force, but he insisted on going it alone to arrest them and claim the glory. Result? The criminals escaped. His subordinates went to chase them, but him? He sat on the ground to rest. Even a police dog would know to chase the criminals—you’re worse than a dog.
Song Xing was dizzy and disoriented. He’d nearly died just now, but all his injuries were internal—not a drop of blood on him. How could people believe him? He struggled to organize his words to explain. Everyone finally understood he’d charged into the room and been attacked by the criminals, then wrapped in quilts and thrown down. So they analyzed the reasons—in the end, it was still “Silly Song Xing.” Knowing police were guarding downstairs, when he charged into the room, instead of immediately searching for the criminals, he ran to the window and stared foolishly for ages. That’s why he was attacked from behind. A gun-carrying veteran detective who didn’t injure the criminals at all, had his police gun taken, and was thrown from a building—even sending Li Qian to make the arrest wouldn’t have turned out this badly.
Facing everyone’s accusations, Song Xing was full of grievance. He gritted his teeth: “I’ll go chase them now. I’ll definitely bring these two back!” But after running just a few steps, the pain in his legs hit, and he involuntarily fell to the ground. Yet at this moment, not a single person went to help him up. Other detectives even sneered, “Captain Song is using the sympathy tactic in front of the director now.”
After half an hour, Song Xing’s two officers and other detectives successively returned to the inn, dragging back a large suitcase.
“Director, the criminals ran too fast and disappeared in no time. Other teams are still conducting dragnet searches. We found this suitcase the criminals abandoned beside a trash bin.”
The suitcase was very heavy. Everyone laid it down and opened the lid. Instantly, everyone present froze in place. Looking more carefully, some immediately recognized: “Isn’t this Liu Bei’s corpse? They killed Liu Bei!”
After the two escaped, the police arranged substantial forces to conduct dragnet searches centered on the escape direction. Meanwhile, multiple checkpoints were established on all roads out of San Jiang Kou. Tonight, every vehicle leaving San Jiang Kou would be searched—naturally, the area around the station was no exception.
Several hours passed. Though the two hadn’t been caught yet, their identities had been determined.
Previously, the two criminals’ identities had remained unclear mainly because their counter-surveillance abilities were superb. In several activities, they’d left no directional clues. The two had no criminal records, so naturally they couldn’t be found when comparing against released prisoners’ identities. But this time was an inn—the room was full of their fingerprints everywhere. After forensic police collected them and compared them with the citizen identity information database on the computer, the truth immediately came to light.
The leader of the two criminals was called Fang Chao, from somewhere in Jiangsu, twenty-eight years old this year, unemployed. After graduating high school, he’d attended a diploma mill university abroad. The other, Liu Zhi, was Fang Chao’s fellow townsman, one year younger. They’d played together since childhood. Liu Zhi had served as a scout. After returning from military service, he never held a proper job again. Later, meeting Fang Chao who had returned from abroad, probably neither wanted to work honestly, so from that time on they partnered in crime together.
Additionally, Zhang Yi’ang had people search out all the criminals’ belongings. Lin Kai’s SUV was found in the parking lot behind the inn. The GPS tracking had been removed long ago and the body repainted a different color—probably the criminals had found a small workshop to modify it after stealing the car. Liu Bei’s corpse was found in the abandoned suitcase at the scene. As for why Fang Chao and Liu Zhi would kill Liu Bei, everyone had various theories. Some guessed it was underworld grudges, some guessed it was impulse, and others guessed whether Ye Jian’s murder was also related—opinions varied. What disappointed him, however, was that Zhou Rong’s USB drive wasn’t found at the inn, indicating the two had taken it with them. Whether regarding Liu Bei’s corpse or the USB drive’s whereabouts, all these answers depended on capturing the two.
“It’s over. Everything’s over now. We’ve even become wanted criminals.”
In the thick of night, on a patch of grass by the river embankment, Fang Chao and Liu Zhi lay in disarray. Liu Zhi had a blade of grass in his mouth, limbs completely sprawled out, not caring if they’d be discovered. They’d escaped from police hands by the skin of their teeth, but it was useless. All their belongings left at the small inn were gone. The police had seen the corpse in the suitcase and would probably pin it on them too. The inn was full of their fingerprints and other biological information—the police discovering their identities was just a matter of time.
Fang Chao smoked one cigarette after another, gazing at the river surface, lost in thought.
“Brother Chao, in this situation, we’re dead either way. Let’s just randomly rob some people, take whatever we can get, get money and run to Vietnam, run to Myanmar. Ah, we can never go home again!”
“Stay calm!” Fang Chao took a deep drag and paused. “We’re not at that point yet.”
“Not at that point yet?” Liu Zhi curled his lips disdainfully. This was like a death row prisoner explaining to police one minute before execution: Officer, look, I have a mental illness certificate—I don’t need to be shot, right?
Fang Chao suddenly sat up and pulled out a USB drive from his jacket’s inner pocket: “This thing!” He put the USB drive back and anger flashed across his brow. “Do you know how the police found us today?”
Liu Zhi said viciously: “It must be that dog-headed inn owner who informed the police. Before we run, we should kill him first!”
“What good would killing him do? He doesn’t know us from Adam. The police must have given our information to various inns to inquire, which is how we were discovered.”
“Why would police be looking for us? Could it be… Zhou Rong reported us?”
“Obviously!”
“But we have his USB drive—he actually dared report us!”
Fang Chao sighed: “I miscalculated one step. Zhou Rong is San Jiang Kou’s richest man. The police work for him. The USB drive falling into police hands is the same as returning to his hands, so of course he dared report us! Knowing this, we should have just killed him that night.”
Liu Zhi pounded his fist on the grass: “We must get revenge!”
“You’re absolutely right—we must get revenge. We’ll first use the USB drive to demand ransom from Zhou Rong, but we won’t return it to him. Before we run, I’ll put the USB contents online with a pornographic movie title and let everyone download it. Let the USB contents be exposed online!”
No sooner said than done. Fang Chao found several SIM cards from his pocket, selected one, inserted it into his phone, and dialed the number Zhou Rong had left them. A moment later, Zhou Rong’s own voice came through: “Hello?”
“Boss Zhou?”
“Who is this?”
Fang Chao laughed coldly: “Boss Zhou, you’ve forgotten us so quickly? Don’t want the USB drive anymore?”
Zhou Rong immediately became alert: “Return the USB drive to me. How much do you want?”
“Ten million.”
“Ten million?”
“Fixed price. If you agree, accept it. If you don’t agree, we’ll upload it online. After hanging up, we’ll remove the SIM card and you won’t be able to contact us.” Fang Chao was full of confidence.
“I…” The other party’s tone gave Zhou Rong no room to haggle. After considering for several seconds, thinking that if he lost contact with them and the USB was made public, he’d have nowhere to hide. Ten million was no small figure, but ultimately an acceptable loss. He immediately agreed: “I accept ten million. How do we make the exchange? How can I guarantee the thing returns to my hands?”
“Prepare the money tomorrow. As for the exchange method, I’ll notify you.”
“Tomorrow? Such a large amount of cash can’t be withdrawn at a moment’s notice.”
“You’re a big boss. If you have no solution, then there’s nothing to discuss.” “I… I agree.”