“Director, Xiao Mi’s tip-off—Zhou Rong personally took people to Jade Square.” At the Public Security Bureau, Wang Ruijun received the intelligence and came running to report to Zhang Yi’ang.

“When did this happen?”

“Just now. Xiao Mi also said Zhou Rong loaded four bags of money in the car.”

“What bags?”

“Travel bags!”

Zhang Yi’ang stood up abruptly. Zhou Rong taking so much money out at this time—the only explanation was that the criminals had contacted him, extorting with the USB drive. He was going to deliver the ransom. If the USB drive fell back into his hands, even if the police caught the criminals, they still couldn’t do anything to Zhou Rong.

He made a snap decision, immediately organizing dozens of veteran detectives with rich investigative experience, personally leading the team out. Before leaving, the meddlesome Li Qian popped up again wanting to follow the operation. At this most critical juncture, Zhang Yi’ang flatly refused, telling her to hurry and check surveillance, keeping eyes on Zhou Rong’s every move without error. Li Qian wanted to refuse, but seeing Zhang Yi’ang reveal an unprecedentedly serious demeanor, intimidated by his bearing, knowing this matter was no joke, she immediately accepted the task and rushed to the information center to assist with the work.

The situation was urgent. The police didn’t have time to arrange an arrest plan beforehand. Zhang Yi’ang and several key team members hastily discussed in the car how to set up an ambush at Jade Square, how to respond to various situations, etc. Everyone was in high spirits—as long as Zhou Rong dared to make the exchange today, they would definitely take down everyone on the spot!

At this moment, Zhou Rong sitting in the car was also very nervous. He was in a commercial vehicle, surrounded front and back by bodyguards, with four bags of cash at his feet, each containing two million five hundred thousand yuan. The commercial vehicle drove to Jade Square and stopped in a spot by the roadside with a relatively open view, waiting for further instructions from the criminals.

Before long, Zhang Debing sent information. He saw that car salesman called Du Cong come downstairs. Du Cong was walking and talking on the phone—it looked like the other party was making their move. After a while, Zhang Debing saw a young man in worker’s uniform. This person walked around looking left and right, shifty-eyed, loitering downstairs for a while before walking into the building. This person’s figure didn’t look like those two robbers—unclear if he was an accomplice or an unrelated passerby. After another five minutes, Zhang Debing saw the young man come downstairs, now holding a black plastic bag in his hand, the bag looking quite heavy inside.

Zhou Rong in the commercial vehicle felt very anxious. The USB drive concerned his life. He repeatedly checked his phone. The time had already exceeded the agreed quarter hour, yet the criminals still hadn’t called. Each time he dialed the criminals’ number, it showed as turned off.

“Brother Rong, I think the other party is testing us.” Hu Jianren beside him guessed.

Zhou Rong nodded and instructed driver Xiao Mi: “Drive slowly around the square.”

The commercial vehicle drove around the square at a leisurely pace for two circuits. Zhou Rong still didn’t receive a call.

At this time, a subordinate looking at the rearview mirror said: “Brother Rong, there’s a small sedan that was behind us just now, now it’s in front of us. I think it’s following us.”

Zhou Rong looked in that direction. Dozens of meters ahead of them was a very inconspicuous old beat-up car. He nodded imperceptibly and directed Xiao Mi: “Circle the square once more.”

Xiao Mi complied, circling once more, returning to the starting point. Zhou Rong looked up and saw that little beat-up car appear at their side-rear again. He narrowed his eyes slightly: “Turn around, drive next to it.”

The commercial vehicle turned around and drove to the side of the small car, stopping right next to it. At this time, the small car also stopped, not moving.

Both sides stopped in place for a moment. Then the small car opened its door, and a figure stepped out.

“Boss Zhou, you’ve been well, I trust.” A lazy voice reached into the commercial vehicle.

Zhou Rong looked carefully and saw the person getting out was actually Zhu Yifei. He was immediately greatly disappointed, opened the car door and asked: “How come you’re here?”

Zhu Yifei sneered coldly: “You’ve already taken us around the square three times, and you’re still asking how come I’m here?”

Zhou Rong realized the other party was tracking him and was immediately displeased: “Why are you following me?”

“Boss Zhou, about that bronze bell deal, how do you think it should be handled?”

Zhou Rong said impatiently: “Can we discuss this matter later?”

Hu Jianren also explained from the side: “Boss Zhu, we told you about this—we’re not doing this deal recently.”

Zhou Rong was too lazy to waste more time with the other party and directly closed the car door. Zhu Yifei reached out and grabbed it with one hand, coldly sizing him up: “Boss Zhou, this is too dishonest of you.”

Zhou Rong nervously looked around, afraid the criminals observing in secret would discover him making contact with others, think he had set up an ambush, and cancel the USB drive exchange. He hastily said: “Let’s talk about this later, okay? I’m very busy today, no time.”

“You’re so busy yet have the mood to circle around,” Zhu Yifei didn’t let go of the car door. Suddenly noticing Zhou Rong’s panicked expression, he frowned and asked, “What are you looking at?”

“Noth… nothing.”

At this time, Huo Zheng, who had been watching their surroundings from the side, saw someone a hundred meters away pretending to casually walk in this direction. He immediately realized something was wrong.

“There are police.” He pulled Zhu Yifei back into the car with one hand, then sat in the driver’s seat himself. Pressing down on the accelerator with one foot, he directly rammed open Zhou Rong’s commercial vehicle, shot onto the road, made a sharp turn, and sped away.

At the same moment, throughout the square in all directions, multiple civilian vehicles—drivers pulled out police lights and placed them on top of their cars, floored the accelerators, collectively pursuing and intercepting Zhu Yifei’s car.

Huo Zheng’s car was full of desperados—people who if caught would face either death penalty or over ten years. At this moment of life and death, driving to escape, they held nothing back. Regardless of traffic lights or pedestrians, they roared straight through. They quickly broke through the encirclement the police had arranged around the square.

Zhu Yifei sat in the car, his face like ice. Originally he had wanted to be polite before resorting to force with Zhou Rong, giving him one last chance. Who knew Zhou Rong deliberately led him in circles while actually having already found the police to deal with him, wanting to put him to death. This debt would not end until death!

In an office building next to Jade Square, Zhang Yi’ang stood at a window on one of the floors, watching in real-time everything happening in the square.

After Huo Zheng’s car shot out like a rocket, Zhang Yi’ang immediately ordered the police cars to stop pursuit, because the downtown environment was complex—forced arrest could very likely cause major civilian casualties. The police watched helplessly as the car rushed out of the encirclement. He immediately had the Public Security Bureau information center staff keep eyes on the vehicle’s direction through street surveillance, while arranging police forces to intercept from the perimeter, then conduct the arrest in a safe suburban area.

At the same time, he notified Song Xing to search Zhou Rong.

Song Xing brought two police cars of people to surround Zhou Rong’s group, driving everyone out of the car for mandatory inspection. No USB drive was found at the scene, but large amounts of cash were discovered in the car. Zhou Rong glibly explained he was a businessman—having this cash in his car didn’t require explanation to the police. As for the vehicle that just fled, he didn’t know them—they had voluntarily stopped to ask directions.

Although the police all knew Zhou Rong was lying, without evidence they were helpless. Song Xing could only call Director Zhang for his opinion on whether to bring Zhou Rong back for questioning. Zhang Yi’ang considered that without finding the USB drive, bringing him back would serve no purpose. Moreover, the police arresting San Jiang Kou’s wealthiest man would require a whole pile of explanations later. So he had him release the person directly, all police forces to regroup and focus entirely on catching the car full of fleeing criminals.

Not long after, the arrest operation was declared a failure. Plainclothes officers participating in the interception ahead sent back news—they received a citizen’s police report that a car had fallen into a river, with multiple people in the car leaving the scene before the plunge. According to citizen descriptions, the car that fell into the river was precisely the vehicle driven by the criminals. This location had no surveillance around it, and the environment was complex. After the criminals escaped, setting up controls again to catch them would not be easy. As for Zhou Rong, the police not only failed to get the USB drive but had completely alerted the enemy.

Zhang Yi’ang returned to his office at the unit, considering what to do next. At this time, Li Qian brought a piece of intelligence.

“Director, just now when you were catching Zhou Rong at Jade Square, Zhang Debing wasn’t in the car, right?”

Zhang Yi’ang recalled the situation Song Xing had reported to him—in the car were only Zhou Rong, Hu Jianren, and several other subordinates. Zhang Debing was not there.

Li Qian said triumphantly: “I tracked Zhang Debing’s phone location and found he was near a residential building not far from the square. I checked the location data and discovered Zhang Debing had been staying around that area from this morning until now. There must be something wrong there. Later I also checked last night’s surveillance and finally figured out where the USB drive is.”

“Where is it?” Zhang Yi’ang asked urgently.

Li Qian’s lips curved up as she made a condition: “I want to go verify it myself.”

“No.” Zhang Yi’ang refused immediately.

“Then I can’t say.”

“I order you to say.”

“I refuse.”

Zhang Yi’ang looked at her for a few seconds, anxiously scratching his head: “Just tell me first. If it’s true, I’ll bring you along when investigating.”

Li Qian smiled, took out her phone, picked out a photo captured by surveillance. The time was last night, the lighting was dim and the image quite blurry, vaguely showing a man holding a suitcase.

“Who’s this person?”

“His name is Du Cong, a salesman at a 4S store under Zhou Rong’s company.” Li Qian had met him once, which is why she recognized him after repeatedly watching the video. “I checked and found a police report involving him the night before last. I contacted the police station officers who responded at the time. What happened was—he secretly drove Zhou Rong’s car the night before last to earn money pulling jobs for a wedding company. As a result, the car crashed on the road. The 4S store reported him to the police on grounds of stealing vehicles from the store. The negotiated result was that he had to raise six hundred thousand in compensation within one month. It was precisely because he crashed the car that Hu Jianren took away many security guards from Zhou Rong’s villa to negotiate with him, causing the villa to be vulnerable, which allowed Fang Chao and Liu Zhi to sneak in.”

“Then why do you say the USB drive is in his hands?”

“The suitcase he’s holding—I think it looks very much like the suitcase stolen from Zhou Rong’s home.”

Zhang Yi’ang stared at the photo for a while and shook his head: “The image is so blurry, you can tell from this?”

“I… I feel it is.”

“Feel!” Zhang Yi’ang dismissively shook his head.

“Then why has Zhang Debing been guarding nearby?”

“How do you know Zhang Debing’s target is watching him rather than providing support for Zhou Rong at Jade Square?”

“I…” Li Qian was stumped by the question.

“If as you say, the USB drive is in this kid’s hands and Zhang Debing has already targeted him, why not directly bring people up to snatch back the USB drive?”

“This…” Li Qian still couldn’t answer.

“He’s a car salesman—what relationship could he have with Fang Chao and Liu Zhi? How could the USB drive fall into his hands? If he were Fang Chao and Liu Zhi’s accomplice, then why didn’t those two move into his home instead of risking staying at a hotel where they were nearly caught by us?”

Li Qian had no words to respond.

“So this salesman has nothing to do with Zhou Rong’s matter at all. Stop meddling randomly. Right now we’re all busy catching people.” Zhang Yi’ang dismissed this newcomer Li Qian’s judgment with disdain, impatiently shooing her out.

Li Qian had exhausted her efforts checking surveillance to discover this exclusive intelligence, only to have the leader so easily dismiss it. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. She directly went out, got on her electric scooter, and left.

After a while, Zhang Yi’ang suddenly thought—with Li Qian’s personality, could she have gone to investigate alone? He quickly called her phone. Who knew no one answered. He ran out to ask people. An officer had seen Li Qian ride off. Zhang Yi’ang was greatly anxious and could only get in a civilian vehicle to chase after her.

After Zhou Rong returned to the villa, he was restless.

“Brother Rong, about today’s matter—I think the police weren’t coming for Zhu Yifei, they were coming for us.” Hu Jianren analyzed.

Zhou Rong nodded: “The police definitely know about what happened at the villa and also know I lost something.”

“We have a mole inside.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“Before we went to Jade Square this morning, we didn’t tell anyone. These subordinates in the car have been by our side the whole time, with no opportunity to send messages out. There’s only one possible person—driver Xiao Mi.”

Zhou Rong pondered: “But now we’ve already been targeted by the police. We can’t casually deal with Xiao Mi.”

“Xiao Mi, the police—these aren’t problems. As long as the USB drive doesn’t get out, they can’t touch us. I’m just worried,” Hu Jianren deeply furrowed his brow, “I’m afraid when the police rushed over, those two robbers were also secretly watching. If they saw this scene, will they think we joined forces with the police to set a trap to catch them?”

Zhou Rong looked at his private phone. Up until now he still hadn’t received another call from the criminals. His heart grew even more anxious. If the other party was pressed too hard and directly made the USB drive public, the consequences would be unimaginable. More importantly, now that the police had their eyes on them, redeeming the USB drive would be even more difficult.

He picked up his phone and dialed Zhang Debing, asking about the situation on his end. Zhang Debing said Du Cong had later returned home alone in a huff. Zhou Rong thought he probably saw the police come find them and got angry thinking they had set up a trap together. Zhang Debing also said just now he saw that girl called Li Qian also enter the building, with a strange man beside her—possibly one of the two criminals.

After hanging up, Zhou Rong lay back on the sofa to think for a moment, then suddenly sat up straight, saying coldly: “Since the criminals also don’t trust this transaction anymore, then we might as well go all the way—take direct action!”

Hu Jianren nodded. Now this was the only option. Fight a quick battle and quick decision before the police got the USB drive. There was definitely risk, but they could only go all out. The two immediately notified Zhang Debing, having him gather several of the most reliable subordinates and go upstairs to catch the people.