One and a half months earlier.

Provincial Public Security Deputy Director Gao Dong sat in his chair, holding a cigarette in his left hand and raising a photocopy of a complaint letter in his right hand, repeatedly reading the brief half page of text on it.

Before long, Office Director Wu knocked twice on the door and walked in. Gao Dong immediately stood up and asked impatiently, “How did it go?”

Director Wu handed him a document envelope and said:

“No fingerprints or other identifying substances were detected on the complaint letter. It seems the complainant has very high vigilance. If we want to investigate the complainant’s identity, we’d have to arrange for criminal police to go directly to the courier company. After all, this is a document sent to the Public Security Department—presumably the delivery person who received it would have paid attention to the sender.”

Gao Dong stood in place, pondering for a few seconds, then sat back down, extinguished his cigarette butt, and opened the document envelope. Inside were two sets of materials in total: one was the original complaint letter wrapped in a transparent plastic bag, and the other was several pages of physical evidence examination reports.

Gao Dong glanced at the examination report a few times and asked, “The people at the physical evidence center also saw what was written in this letter, right?”

“I found one of our own people, and I was right there the entire time watching the results come out.”

“Even our own people need to be careful…” Gao Dong sighed softly.

“After all, they just do technical work and aren’t related to the matters involved. Director Gao, should we arrange for criminal police to investigate the sender?”

“No need,” Gao Dong placed the original complaint letter in his drawer and fed the examination documents into the paper shredder, pressing the switch to express his attitude. “Regardless of whether what’s written in the letter is true or false, we must first protect the complainant and cannot let them mistakenly think we want to investigate them. Since the complainant doesn’t wish to reveal their identity for now, I also respect their personal choice.”

“Then what do you mean to do?”

“The letter accuses Zhou Weidong. Why did the complainant send the letter to me instead of to the Discipline Inspection Commission? Of course, they said in the letter that they don’t yet have substantive evidence—that’s point one. I think the second point is that they know Zhou Weidong and I have conflicts, which isn’t exactly a secret. I came up through criminal investigation, while he’s from the political work line. Before I came to the Provincial Department, our careers never intersected. In the three years since I arrived at the Provincial Department, relying on his seniority and position as Executive Deputy Director, he’s opposed me in many areas—anyone with eyes can see it.”

Director Wu said, “But you control criminal investigation, and you’re the youngest among the deputy directors.” Youth was a form of political capital that couldn’t be bought with any amount of money—this was precisely his advantage.

Gao Dong closed his eyes for a moment and said indifferently, “In another year or year and a half, our Director will either be promoted to the Ministry of Public Security or go into government. When it comes to selecting the next director, if the Ministry doesn’t have special arrangements and the province makes internal recommendations, it will basically be Zhou Weidong. You know the relationship between him and me—if he becomes Director, my days won’t be easy.”

Director Wu’s eyes lit up as he pondered: “The complainant understands your relationship with Zhou Weidong, so they sent the letter to you. They know you dare to move against him!”

Gao Dong smiled and said, “Guess when Zhou Weidong started having problems with me? Before I came to the Provincial Department, I ran the Criminal Investigation Bureau. After being transferred to Deputy Director, I could still have some say in Criminal Investigation. Once, the Criminal Investigation Bureau chief came to me and said they’d cracked a case. A businessman named Zhou Rong came to them, claiming to be Zhou Weidong’s nephew, wanting to get someone released. The case was already classified, so releasing anyone was impossible, but he hoped to get the charges reduced. I looked at the case file and saw it was a wealthy second-generation gang rape of an underage girl. I directly told Criminal Investigation to prosecute to the fullest extent. After that incident, Zhou Weidong’s attitude toward me changed. Of course, I investigated him afterward, but he’s watertight in how he conducts himself—he truly appears to have a completely clean record.”

Director Wu nodded. Zhou Weidong had always had some rumors surrounding him, but if there were real evidence, the Central Inspection Group would have arrested him years ago.

Gao Dong continued, “But this complaint letter is different. The complainant says Zhou Rong is Zhou Weidong’s white glove. Supposedly Zhou Rong operates in both the underworld and legitimate world, and he’s even got blood on his hands. Deputy Director Lu Zheng, who handled criminal investigation in San Jiang Kou, disappeared half a year ago, and to this day there are no leads. The complainant says Lu Zheng was investigating Zhou Rong at the time, and Zhou Rong killed Lu Zheng to silence him. However, regarding this matter, the complainant says they don’t have direct evidence either, though they have some leads.” Gao Dong’s eyes turned cold as he said icily, “Once such a major criminal case is confirmed, no rank will escape punishment!”

Director Wu pondered and said, “The complainant also said in the letter that if you’re willing to investigate Zhou Rong, you should parachute a deputy director from the Provincial Department into San Jiang Kou to fill Lu Zheng’s position. They’ll make direct contact with us after seeing your attitude and cooperate with our investigation.”

Gao Dong nodded, “Lu Zheng has been missing to this day. Counting it up, the criminal investigation deputy director position in San Jiang Kou has been vacant for over half a year—it’s time to fill it. According to convention, positions in small places like this are decided locally, but this time we must arrange our own capable general to go in!”

“Zhou Weidong will probably fight for this position too.”

“I control criminal investigation—I have the final say on this candidate.” Gao Dong pondered for a moment, then looked up. “Now the key question is, who do we send?”

“We need someone with strong capabilities and absolute reliability to go over.” Actually, Director Wu already had a candidate in mind. Seeing the leader cast an inquiring look, he immediately played his hand: “Zhang Yi’ang!”

“Zhang Yi’ang?” Gao Dong’s mouth hung half-open as he looked at the other man in surprise. “Are you saying he has strong capabilities?”

“He… don’t his capabilities qualify as strong?” Director Wu saw the leader’s obviously disapproving expression and could only laugh awkwardly on the side.

In Director Wu’s impression, Zhang Yi’ang had extremely strong capabilities. Two years ago, when his car was scratched in the residential complex, he reported it to the police station, but after half a month there was no news. He told Zhang Yi’ang, and the very next day, Zhang Yi’ang had caught the person who scratched the car. Later, his relative was running a restaurant in a neighboring city and was being extorted by local thugs. He consulted Zhang Yi’ang about how to generally handle such matters, and unexpectedly within a few days, the thug came to the shop with gifts to apologize.

With capabilities like that, how could he not be strong?

Gao Dong snorted and shook his head, “What capabilities can that kid Zhang Yi’ang have? He basically solves cases by guessing!”

“Um…” For the sake of those two favors, Director Wu continued struggling to speak on Zhang Yi’ang’s behalf. “But for handling this case, I think reliability is more important than capability. I heard Zhang Yi’ang has been following you since graduating from school. His background is the purest. Even if others have stronger capabilities than him, after all, when investigating Zhou Weidong, what if someone wants to engage in political opportunism and play both sides…”

Gao Dong reclined in his chair and couldn’t help recalling some past events. The last case he solved in his criminal police career before becoming Deputy Director indeed involved encountering a traitor. If he wanted someone he could completely trust, apart from Zhang Yi’ang, he really couldn’t find a second candidate.

Director Wu continued his persuasion: “Actually, his capabilities don’t matter. The complainant said that as long as we express our attitude, they’ll get evidence and hand it to us. What’s important is the position in San Jiang Kou—it must be held by our most reliable person.”

Gao Dong thought about it—this was indeed the truth.

Seeing the leader’s attitude had shifted, Director Wu pressed on: “Zhang Yi’ang has always been in your shadow without much opportunity to display his individual abilities. This time, let him take charge independently and try. Who knows, once he’s placed locally, he might release his potential and solve a few major cases that bring honor!”

Gao Dong pondered for a long while and sighed deeply, “I just hope before I retire, I can see him solve one major case.”

Regarding his sudden assignment to San Jiang Kou as deputy director in charge of criminal investigation, Zhang Yi’ang was filled with gratitude.

After all, working at the Provincial Department, everywhere he looked were leaders above him. Only by going down to the local level would he have his own authority. Moreover, Director Gao valued him so highly, entrusting him with such an earth-shattering plan to investigate Zhou Rong and thereby implicate Zhou Weidong. He had even spent an entire afternoon teaching him how to carry out the work and how to handle local personnel conflicts.

Director Wu had also conveyed Director Gao’s earnest expectations for him—that his local assignment was not only to investigate Zhou Weidong but also to give him an opportunity, hoping to see him solve several major cases. Of course, only the latter half of Director Gao’s statement was conveyed. Zhang Yi’ang almost swore to heaven on the spot that he would definitely achieve earth-shattering results in San Jiang Kou and would never disappoint his leader!

In the blink of an eye, he had been in his San Jiang Kou post for over a week, and the personnel relationships in this place were far more complex than he had anticipated.

First were the other leaders in the bureau. Although they seemed polite enough on the surface, in actual contact, they clearly treated him like a contagious disease patient, collectively isolating him and keeping him at arm’s length. Second, within the criminal investigation line itself, Criminal Investigation Brigade Captain Ye Jian had taken sick leave starting the day after Zhang Yi’ang’s arrival and hadn’t been seen since. Reportedly, according to internal recommendations, Ye Jian would have taken over as deputy director, but then Zhang Yi’ang suddenly parachuted in—like a punch right to Ye Jian’s heart. Like a constipation patient about to find relief who suddenly suffered a hemorrhoid rupture and collapsed in pain—you could imagine his feelings! There were also rumors that Ye Jian and Zhou Rong had a very close private relationship, which was probably another reason. The other criminal police, while not openly opposing him, naturally kept their distance after observing the other leaders’ attitudes.

In any unit, hierarchy and taking sides were unavoidable. As a newcomer, he could do nothing about this.

Encountering difficulties from the start, he didn’t dare seek help from his leader. After much agonizing thought, he finally came up with a strategy. Through inquiries, he learned that the Criminal Police Brigade wasn’t monolithic internally either. Deputy Brigade Captain Wang Ruijun had always had conflicts with Ye Jian, and Squadron Leader Song Xing was Wang Ruijun’s good friend, so he thought to win these two over.

Winning over Wang Ruijun was simple. He and Ye Jian didn’t get along, and the new leader also didn’t get along with Ye Jian. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the enemy’s leader is an even better friend. As long as he handled his relationship with the new leader well, before long the new leader would naturally find a way to transfer Ye Jian away and promote him to brigade captain.

In comparison, Song Xing was more troublesome. He was a skilled case-solver in the police force, a backbone of the operation, but apart from work, he was somewhat rigid in his dealings with people. So even though he’d been a police officer three years before Wang Ruijun and had received more commendations, he remained stuck in the squadron leader position without advancement.

For dealing with operational backbones like Song Xing, Zhang Yi’ang naturally had his methods. Operational backbones all admired leaders with strong case-solving abilities. Zhang Yi’ang was the disciple personally trained by Director Gao. Director Gao was a legendary detective of the past, an idol to criminal police throughout the province. He had individually received a first-class merit citation from the Ministry of Public Security without any injury or disability, two team first-class merit citations, and countless other awards. He was the only major leader in the Provincial Department who came up through the criminal police line. As the disciple of a legendary detective, he presumably wasn’t an ordinary person either. Leveraging Director Gao’s reputation, he also temporarily brought Song Xing under his wing.

Everything is difficult at the beginning. At least he’d pulled in two people, but these two couldn’t really be called confidants. To get the entire criminal police line in San Jiang Kou to follow his commands, there were only two methods. The first was to rely on time to build seniority—Zhang Yi’ang didn’t have that patience. The second was to quickly solve a major case and establish authority through demonstrated capability. In this regard, Zhang Yi’ang was unaccountably filled with confidence.

Besides internal personnel issues in the unit, there was also a complimentary difficult problem placed before him.

This morning, as soon as he arrived at his office, he saw intern criminal police officer Li Qian carrying a huge stack of materials and placing them on his desk, then waiting respectfully to the side.

Li Qian—she was that difficult problem!

Honestly speaking, Li Qian was quite attractive. Female police officers with such fair skin and beauty were rare, and all the male colleagues couldn’t help but look at her a few extra times. But only Zhang Yi’ang knew she was a troublesome big shot.

On the eve of his assignment to San Jiang Kou, Director Gao specifically invited him to dinner. At the end, Director Gao amiably discussed with him: there’s a female comrade who just graduated from the police academy who will go to San Jiang Kou together with you—what do you think? Zhang Yi’ang immediately understood this person must be someone with connections and stated that while he didn’t expect female criminal police to achieve any results, an extra helper would be good.

Director Gao was very pleased and went on to say that the girl had always wanted to be a criminal police officer, and he needed to find a way to quickly dissuade her from this idea and send her back. At the same time, this girl hadn’t experienced the real world, didn’t understand danger, and had an impulsive personality. He needed to watch her closely, not let her participate in frontline work, and absolutely couldn’t let anything happen to her! Zhang Yi’ang casually asked what would happen if something did occur. Director Gao immediately turned hostile and threatened: then bring your dog head back to the Public Security Department!

This threat scared Zhang Yi’ang out of his wits. Afterward, he asked Director Wu to inquire about this girl Li Qian’s background. Director Wu only knew her uncle was a high-ranking, powerful leader in the Ministry of Public Security, but didn’t know the specific situation.

Zhang Yi’ang was helpless. The precious daughter of a Ministry of Public Security big leader had descended to earth. He couldn’t let her participate in case work, yet had to let her have her fun, and also had to send her back quickly. This kind of political task with all these “must do this,” “must do that,” and “must also do this other thing” requirements was truly difficult for him.

He could only assign all the office work of reviewing materials to Li Qian. Who knew the young lady would be extremely efficient, completing tasks faster than he could assign them.

“Director Zhang, all of Zhou Rong’s historical materials are here.”

“So fast!” Zhang Yi’ang responded listlessly without even glancing at the materials.

Li Qian looked at him hopefully, “What task will you assign me next?”

“Uh…” Zhang Yi’ang thought to himself: given your high efficiency, why don’t you mop all the floors in the Public Security Bureau?

Seeing him remain silent for a long time, Li Qian actively suggested, “How about I go undercover in plain clothes, tail Zhou Rong, and conduct secret investigations?”

“Absolutely not!” Zhang Yi’ang blurted out.

“Why not? Other criminal police say this is how you all conduct targeted investigations of suspects.”

“This… we don’t have evidence. To investigate Zhou Rong, there’s still more foundational work to do.”

“Such as?”

Zhang Yi’ang straightened his chest, “Case work isn’t child’s play. It never relies on individual capability but on teamwork. Any excellent criminal police officer can’t rely on personal strength to take risks and act rashly—they must stand at the overall perspective and coordinate the strategy!”

“Director Gao said you’re exactly this kind of excellent criminal police officer.” Li Qian had heard Uncle Gao introduce this Director Zhang as a very excellent criminal police officer—following him, she could learn real skills. Since you so want to be a criminal police officer, following him means you’ve found the right person.

“Director Gao really said that!” Zhang Yi’ang was overjoyed. The leader’s assessment of people was indeed objective and accurate. He coughed once, stitched his mouth back together from where it had split to his earlobes in a smile, and continued, “San Jiang Kou is Zhou Rong’s territory. He’s the local power. We parachuted in here—if we want to deal with him, we absolutely cannot rush, lest we alert the enemy. We must first pull together a group of our own people within the criminal police force.”

“You’re saying Zhou Rong also has people inside the Public Security Bureau?”

Zhang Yi’ang snorted coldly, “Could a local power like this have no connections in the bureau? I don’t know about the others yet, but Criminal Investigation Brigade Captain Ye Jian reportedly has a very close relationship with Zhou Rong. Even the brigade captain is like this—you can imagine the difficulty of our work.” Speaking of this, he couldn’t help getting angry. “After the original Deputy Director Lu disappeared for over half a year, Ye Jian kept acting as deputy director. He thought he’d definitely get promoted, but who knew the Provincial Department would suddenly send me down. He must be furious with shame. The first day I arrived, he was still vigorous and lively, but starting the second day, he took sick leave—is this meant to show me disrespect? Counting it up, he’s already been on sick leave for over a week. He’d better not die on us!”

At that moment, Criminal Investigation Deputy Brigade Captain Wang Ruijun rushed into the office, calling out, “Director Zhang, Ye Jian is dead!”

Zhang Yi’ang froze for a moment, then slowly nodded, “Just as I expected!”

Wang Ruijun was amazed, “You could even predict this?”

“Tell me, what disease did he have?”

“No disease—he was stabbed to death.”

“I see.” Zhang Yi’ang swallowed. After all, he’d guessed the outcome—all roads lead to Rome. He glanced at Li Qian, who was looking up at him with a kind of magical gaze, then turned to Wang Ruijun and ordered, “Protect the scene. Before I arrive, no one is allowed to touch anything!”

Before dying, the deceased had written a few characters on a rock. Although somewhat sloppy, they could basically be recognized. Why write down this name? Does this name necessarily represent the killer?