“Director, Xiao Fei has indeed disappeared.” Li Qian came to Zhang Yi’ang’s office to report to him.

Xiao Fei and Li Feng had been cellmates for three years. Once his identity was checked, it came right up. The Sanjiangkou police immediately contacted the local police station where he was from. The police station said Xiao Fei had disappeared half a year ago. Generally, released prisoners have to report regularly to their local police station for the first two years, registering their recent situation. Even if someone goes to another city, they still need to communicate with the police station by phone. Half a year ago, the local police station couldn’t contact Xiao Fei, and his phone couldn’t get through either. They went to Xiao Fei’s home, and his parents said they hadn’t been able to contact their son for a long time and were very worried that something had happened. Later, after contacting some friends in a roundabout way, the friends said Xiao Fei had gone to Zhejiang Province to work. At first, he would still contact his friends, but then it seemed like he suddenly evaporated from the face of the earth. For the past half year, no one had been able to contact him.

Zhang Yi’ang pondered for a moment. The greatest possibility was that, as Li Feng had said, Xiao Fei had been silenced by the employer who had hired an assassin to kill Lu Zheng. With Xiao Fei’s lead cut off, the clues to Lu Zheng’s case were completely severed. To this day, Lu Zheng’s life or death remained unknown, there were no clues at all. To investigate the truth of this case, there was simply no place to start.

For now, they could only put Lu Zheng’s matter aside and wait for the informant who claimed to be gathering evidence in the anonymous letter to appear. The current priority was still to pursue Ye Jian’s case.

Li Qian then took out a document and handed it to Zhang Yi’ang. It was precisely the information about the “Brother Zheng” that Zhou Qi had mentioned.

“Zheng Yongbing, forty-six years old. At seventeen, he went in for three years for theft. At twenty-three, he was sentenced to five years for illegal tomb raiding and destruction of cultural relics. After being released, he hasn’t committed any crimes in these years. He currently runs a jewelry store and lives in a single-floor luxury apartment on the sixteenth floor of Building Two of Sanjiang Manor, which is a relatively high-end residential area in Sanjiangkou. As for family, he divorced many years ago, and the child went to his wife. Through informants, Captain Wang learned that besides his jewelry store business, he also privately purchases stolen goods and traffics in cultural relics, though these are all small deals.”

“Is it true that he said Zhou Rong came to him to buy something?”

“That’s uncertain, but a few days ago, someone saw Zhou Rong’s secretary Hu Jianren go to his jewelry store.”

Zhang Yi’ang narrowed his eyes and thought for a while, then asked her to call Song Xing over.

Before long, Song Xing came to the office. Zhang Yi’ang had Li Qian first explain Zheng Yongbing’s situation, then instructed Song Xing to investigate Zheng Yongbing’s background and check whether he had any relationship with Zhou Rong.

Song Xing agreed and left the office. Li Qian eagerly requested, “Director, let me go along to investigate too!”

“No,” Zhang Yi’ang shook his head without even thinking, “Investigating repeatedly released criminals like Zheng Yongbing inevitably involves dealing with underworld people. If we happen to encounter certain criminals among them, dangerous situations could very likely arise during operations. After all, you’re a female detective—”

“What’s wrong with being a female detective?”

Zhang Yi’ang paused, afraid of being labeled with feminism, and tactfully changed his words: “For example, some of the places involved are extremely unsuitable for female comrades to enter.”

Li Qian still wanted to argue, but Zhang Yi’ang comforted her again: “Don’t worry, I have a most important task to assign to you here.”

Li Qian’s heart warmed. Finally, she could be assigned some decent work! Even her form of address changed to a respectful term: “Please instruct me!”

Zhang Yi’ang solemnly explained to her: “When investigating someone’s background, it often involves many people around them. Some people we know about, some people we know nothing about. Some seemingly insignificant people, if we overlook them, often cause big trouble. Generally speaking, the most important information is always found in insignificant people and insignificant matters. We need to use this as a breakthrough point. So the investigation process is like marching to war—we need an efficient and reliable intelligence department to promptly and accurately grasp key information. The intelligence department is the eyes of our entire detective team. Without eyes, things absolutely won’t work. Are you willing to serve as the eyes of the entire criminal police team?”

“I’m willing! Specifically, what do you want me to do?”

“Use the computer to thoroughly investigate the other party’s information.”

“Why is it investigating information again?” Li Qian almost cried out.

Seeing her very dissatisfied expression, Zhang Yi’ang earnestly added a sentence: “You must remember, criminal police have many positions, and each position is equally important and can equally display your abilities.”

Zhang Yi’ang solemnly nodded at her, his expression seeming to return to that of Liu Shaoqi addressing the night soil worker, “You collect night soil to serve the people. I serve as Chairman of the State also to serve the people. We both serve the people, just with different divisions of labor.” Therefore, you should properly investigate information, let the male police officers fight desperately outside, and I’ll sit here commanding from headquarters. Isn’t this division of labor quite good?

Song Xing’s work efficiency was very high. Through the public security data system, informant intelligence, and retrieving surveillance footage near Zheng Yongbing’s residence and store, he quickly grasped Zheng Yongbing’s basic information.

Hu Jianren, the board secretary of Rongcheng Group, had recently gone to Zheng Yongbing’s jewelry store at least twice, staying more than an hour each time. The first time he left, he took something that looked like a scroll painting from the store. The second time, he brought this item back to the store. According to the information they had, Hu Jianren was Zhou Rong’s trusted aide, so it seemed the news that Zhou Rong was looking to buy something from Zheng Yongbing wasn’t fabricated out of thin air.

But even if Zhou Rong had bought something from Zheng Yongbing, that didn’t prove anything. If you buy something on Taobao, you can’t say you have business dealings with Alibaba, right?

Zhou Rong was a genuine big boss, while Zheng Yongbing was at most an ordinary wealthy person. The two weren’t even on the same level.

Early intelligence showed that Zhou Rong was lustful and changed girlfriends very actively. Perhaps Zhou Rong had met a new lover and just sent Hu Jianren to Zheng Yongbing’s jewelry store to buy some gift to give to a beautiful woman.

However, when Song Xing was reviewing the road surveillance footage near Zheng Yongbing’s residence, he discovered something suspicious. He brought the surveillance footage to Zhang Yi’ang for review.

In the surveillance footage, Zheng Yongbing came out of a fruit supermarket on the roadside. When he reached the residential area entrance, he suddenly stopped, turned around and looked left and right for several seconds before walking into the residential area. After entering the residential area gate, he looked around outside for a few more seconds before continuing forward.

“He’s very vigilant, as if afraid someone is following him.” After watching the surveillance, Zhang Yi’ang immediately reached this judgment. Before their criminal police surrounded suspects, they would first follow and investigate. He had seen this kind of expression on suspects countless times.

“We had people review other surveillance footage and didn’t find anyone following him,” Song Xing said.

“But looking at his manner, he seems to be afraid of something.”

Song Xing was startled and suddenly became alert: “Could it be that he killed Captain Ye?”

Zhang Yi’ang’s eyes widened. After a long while, he coughed: “Your train of thought is very lively.”

Song Xing quickly lowered his head.

Zhang Yi’ang tilted his head back and sorted through his thoughts. They were investigating Ye Jian’s murder and found the VIP card, then traced it to the spa and massage parlor. The madam Zhou Qi revealed that Zheng Yongbing claimed to have dealings with Zhou Rong. Originally, Zhang Yi’ang just wanted Song Xing to briefly investigate Zheng Yongbing’s background. He hadn’t expected to investigate Zhou Rong from someone of Zheng Yongbing’s caliber, and he was even more unrelated to Ye Jian. But now, seeing this video footage, Zhang Yi’ang also became puzzled. Did Zheng Yongbing really have secrets? After a long silence, he came up with a plan. Since Zheng Yongbing seemed afraid of being followed, why not go along with it—the police would follow him and see what was really going on.