After Song Xing left Director Zhang’s office, he went to find Li Qian. As soon as they met, Li Qian’s anger flared up.
Ever since the incident with Liu Bei several days ago, Li Qian hadn’t been to any crime scenes. She wanted to go, but everyone in the entire criminal investigation unit seemed to have isolated her—not a single person would take her along. She repeatedly asked people for information, and finally someone let it slip that it was Song Xing’s order—he had forbidden anyone from bringing her.
She was just about to go find Song Xing when, who would have thought, he delivered himself to her door. Upon meeting him, she questioned him irritably, “Brother Xing, recently the team hasn’t let me go on any cases. I heard you were the one who gave that order. Is that true?”
Song Xing was startled, then immediately admitted frankly, “Yes, of course I said it. How could it have been the director?”
“I didn’t say it was the director.”
Song Xing coughed heavily several times and said seriously, “Zheng Yongbing told us afterward that it was precisely because you pretended to be a property management worker and exposed a flaw that Liu Bei saw through it. That’s why he seriously injured two people and almost stabbed you. Your experience is too shallow now. Taking you out not only doesn’t help but causes trouble. Don’t be anxious—stay at the office and properly increase your theoretical knowledge. After a few years, then think about going to crime scenes.”
“I have to wait several more years!” Li Qian’s eyes widened.
“Of course. But there’s an important task for you now.”
“What is it?”
“The director wants you to monitor all of Zhou Rong’s and Lu Yibo’s movements through surveillance footage every day.”
“Checking surveillance again!” Li Qian cried out directly.
“This work isn’t simple at all—it especially tests comprehensive abilities.” Having spent a long time with Director Zhang, Song Xing had naturally learned some of these talking points.
“Not simple at all? Hmph!” Li Qian gritted her teeth. Seeing his expression, it was clear he looked down on her.
In the entire criminal investigation unit, except for the logistics department, everyone was busy. She was the only one who either checked materials or reviewed surveillance footage all day, and she also had to help team members receive and send packages and order takeout for those working late. She’d really had enough! Even if I see them starve to death in this lifetime, I don’t want to order takeout for these bastards anymore! Li Qian was burning with fury and called him by name directly, “Song Xing, are you really investigating Zhou Rong or not?”
Hearing Zhou Rong’s name, Song Xing vigilantly looked around and said in a low voice, “Of course we want to catch him.”
“Then why haven’t you arrested him all these years? He’s in San Jiang Kou every day, right under your noses, and he’s not even hiding. Don’t tell me it’s because there’s no evidence. When you arrest other people, why don’t you say there’s no evidence? When you catch thieves, do you arrest first and interrogate, or find evidence first? Take this Ye Jian case—he was also at that banquet that night. Besides sending people to ask him a few questions, have you seriously investigated him? Have you summoned him? And when Director Lu disappeared before, you kept saying you suspected Zhou Rong—did you arrest him for interrogation? Have you taken bribes from Zhou Rong and are just pretending to investigate while never actually investigating?”
“How could that be…” Song Xing smiled and shook his head repeatedly. Suddenly he froze, looking at Li Qian’s aggressive expression, and his whole body shivered. That’s right—they said they wanted to catch Zhou Rong, so why had they never touched him all these years? And now they were being suspected of taking Zhou Rong’s dirty money. This question… could it have come from Li Qian’s uncle at the Ministry of Public Security?
Questions involving political stance must be handled carefully!
Song Xing thought for a moment and immediately said, “Go wait in the small conference room first. I’ll get Brother Jun, and we’ll explain it to you properly.” After saying this, he turned and ran.
Li Qian went to the small conference room fuming. After waiting a full quarter hour, just when she thought Song Xing had disappeared entirely and was about to leave, she saw Wang Ruijun and Song Xing whispering as they walked over. As soon as they saw her, both men closed their mouths and sat down properly across from her.
“Xiao Qian,” Wang Ruijun put on a beaming smile and nodded at her solemnly. “The question you just raised with Captain Song was excellent!”
Song Xing also nodded emphatically, indicating that this question was indeed excellent.
“Frankly speaking, we also very much want to arrest Zhou Rong. Captain Song and I are one hundred ten percent firmly convinced that Director Lu’s disappearance is related to Zhou Rong. But, alas…” He sighed heavily, as if he’d attended acting classes, stomped the floor three times with his foot, and painfully beat his chest. “You know, Zhou Rong is just too cunning!”
Song Xing picked up the thread, “Right. We have no evidence proving Zhou Rong is involved in the case. There are rumors he was involved in organized crime in his early years, but those are just rumors. We haven’t received any reports from the public, and we have no evidence whatsoever. Plus he’s a big boss—he definitely wouldn’t personally participate in specific criminal activities. Honestly, over all these years, if we had evidence, even a little bit of evidence, we would have arrested him long ago. We wouldn’t still be completely helpless against him now!”
He and Wang Ruijun simultaneously sighed heavily and slapped their thighs.
Wang Ruijun continued, “He’s now San Jiang Kou’s richest man, a People’s Congress representative, involved in all kinds of industries, with good relationships with the government. And supposedly—I heard his relationship with a vice department-level official is extraordinary. Director Lu used to investigate Zhou Rong, but he never directly moved against him either. For someone like him who has sufficient social standing in the locality, we can’t directly summon him for investigation without solid evidence. Even if we summoned him, someone like him definitely wouldn’t voluntarily confess—it would just alert him instead.”
Li Qian said with dissatisfaction, “But we can’t just continue like this, with me only checking his surveillance footage at the office. If this could solve cases, then why bother investigating at all?”
Wang Ruijun quite agreed and nodded repeatedly. “What you’re saying makes a lot of sense. Do you have any suggestions?”
“We can’t just wait passively. We need to take the initiative. We need to find opportunities to get close to him so we can obtain evidence of his crimes. By the way, have you considered planting an undercover agent in Zhou Rong’s organization?”
Wang Ruijun and Song Xing exchanged glances. Both were thinking that the undercover suggestion was naively absurd, but they couldn’t directly call her stupid—what if this question came from the comrade at the Ministry of Public Security? So Wang Ruijun could only patiently explain to her, “Investigations aren’t like filming movies. San Jiang Kou is a small place. None of the criminal police here have worked undercover. Think about it—without three to five years, how could an undercover agent gain Zhou Rong’s trust? In our actual casework, we only have informants, not undercover agents.”
“Do you have informants on Zhou Rong?”
“Yes, but they’re not very useful.” Wang Ruijun thought for a moment and said frankly, “A few days ago when the director interrogated Zheng Yongbing, he introduced one of his subordinates as an informant to earn merit—a guy named Xiao Mi who’s Zhou Rong’s driver. We talked to him. He purely just drives for Zhou Rong and isn’t part of the inner circle. Zhou Rong’s side has three key figures—Lang Bowen, who’s basically Zhou Rong’s business partner; Hu Jianren, who’s Zhou Rong’s secretary; and Zhang Debing, who’s the general manager of his company’s security department. Rumors about Zhou Rong’s involvement in organized crime all relate to Zhang Debing’s area. Zhou Rong himself doesn’t associate with the various underworld characters, and Zhang Debing also keeps a very low profile—we have nothing on him. Xiao Mi is from Zhou Rong’s company’s logistics department. He usually only drives and has no direct contact with Lang Bowen, Hu Jianren, or Zhang Debing. What he knows is just hearsay from the other low-level guys he hangs out with—saying things like Zhou Rong is very lustful and always brings different women home. We can’t just run to his house and arrest him on prostitution charges, can we? They also say there’s a hidden safe installed in the wall of his study that Zhou Rong never lets anyone see. Everyone guesses there must be very valuable things inside. Also—”
“You’re saying Zhou Rong has a hidden safe in his study?”
“Yes.”
“Could it contain his company’s internal account books or other things that could incriminate him?”
“We don’t know. Supposedly Zhou Rong doesn’t even let his housekeeper or maids into his study. Xiao Mi just heard others talking about it—at most he’s only been in Zhou Rong’s villa’s living room.”
“Could we find a way to conduct a surprise search of Zhou Rong’s home and see what’s really in the safe?”
Wang Ruijun sighed. “Search warrants are the hardest to get approved. We’d need solid evidence of Zhou Rong’s involvement in a case before we could get approval to search his home. But his relationships with government departments are extremely complex. Even if we really caught him in something and got approval to search, he would probably receive advance warning and hide the evidence. If we conducted a search and found nothing, how would we handle that?”
Li Qian fell silent. What Wang Ruijun said made sense too. Through road surveillance, she monitored Zhou Rong’s movements every day and had never discovered anything abnormal. Zhou Rong acted extremely cautiously—to date, no clues of illegal or criminal activity directly involved him. It was really too difficult to investigate him. The hidden safe Wang Ruijun mentioned was a major clue. How could they uncover the secrets inside the safe?
This female driver was about five feet five inches tall with a slender figure. Her face showed she was clearly a young woman in her early twenties—a delicate palm-sized face, a pert nose, thin lips, wearing light makeup. Her entire face was all natural without any chemical fillers, like a fresh graduate who had just started working, while also carrying a hint of heroic spirit. Zhou Rong took one look—this female driver had class.