“This car is a bit too high-class—even at a red light you have to coordinate with the handbrake.” Fang Chao frowned and complained.

At the traffic light, Fang Chao tensed his right leg and pressed the brake pedal all the way to the bottom, then pulled up the handbrake with his right hand before finally bringing the car to a stop. He wore a wig on his head, a pair of large black-framed glasses perched on his nose bridge, and had a circle of fake beard stuck around his chin. Compared to his appearance from a while ago, he had transformed into a different person once again.

Liu Zhi, sitting in the passenger seat beside him, had changed even more thoroughly—he had become a woman. Originally thin and lanky, he was now dressed in a one-piece dress with black stockings. Combined with his heavily made-up face and long wavy wig, if he didn’t speak, he would definitely make most men’s imaginations run wild. He detested this disguise of his, grabbing at the wig and letting out a crude male voice very unsuited to his appearance: “Damn it, for this piece of junk car that’s practically ready for the scrapyard, that bastard still charged us twenty-five thousand. He really fleeced us to our grandmother’s house!”

Fang Chao sighed, helpless: “There’s no way around it. Supply and demand determine the price. In recent years, the Public Security has been cracking down too fiercely on black market cars. Now it’s very difficult to buy black market cars with complete documentation without going through proper procedures. The car itself is only worth five thousand—the other twenty thousand is all for the documentation. This money must be spent. Otherwise, if the police trace our car in the future and investigate further, won’t they discover we bought it? Remember, you must begin with the end in mind. Our ultimate goal in coming to San Jiang Kou is to rob a major corrupt official. We can’t skimp on money that should be spent on preliminary preparation work.”

Liu Zhi sighed dejectedly: “Now we can only hope to recoup our investment by robbing a major corrupt official. Last time we took all that gold, plus the jewelry from previous times that we hadn’t sold yet—the gold we stripped off alone was worth over a million. In the end, that bastard buyer only gave us eighty thousand total, and said stolen goods are hard to launder now. What laundering does gold need? Just melt it down and that’s it. Sooner or later we’ll take care of that bastard!”

Fang Chao curled his lips in a calm smile: “Stay steady. Do you know what Chairman Mao’s most philosophical saying was?”

“What was it? They’re all pretty philosophical.” Liu Zhi scratched his wig, not knowing what nonsense Fang Chao was preparing to spout now.

“One should take a long-term view of things. What this saying means is that the money they’re swindling from us will come running back doubled before long.”

Liu Zhi asked, puzzled: “Why will it come running back doubled?”

“After we rob the corrupt official, we’ll still need to find that person to exchange the things besides cash for money. After we get that person’s money, we’ll take care of him and snatch the things back. This way, we get the money and the things are still in our hands—doesn’t that double the value? It’s equivalent to robbing the corrupt official twice!”

Liu Zhi thought about it for a moment and instantly felt this idea was wonderfully ingenious. He said happily: “Then we’ll find the next buyer, do the same thing—first use the things to exchange money with someone, then after getting the money we’ll take care of them and snatch the things back. That’s equivalent to doubling again—robbing the corrupt official four times!”

Fang Chao frowned slightly, glanced at him, and nodded: “Your mathematics is excellent. No wonder you can’t find proper work.”

At this moment, the green light came on. Fang Chao released the handbrake and pressed the gas pedal all the way down. The car made a roar like a sports car, yet started up slowly like a tractor, moving forward. They drove along the road for several kilometers, turned a few corners, and finally arrived at a small hotel in the eastern part of San Jiang Kou city.

They parked in the parking lot behind the hotel. Fang Chao told Liu Zhi to stay in the car first while he walked into the hotel alone and came to the front desk to check in.

Nowadays, hotels large and small all require identity card registration and are networked with the Public Security. Those illegal small inns that didn’t require registration have long been difficult to find after continuous years of inspections and crackdowns. Fang Chao had prepared for this early. His bag contained over ten identity cards, all with other people’s names, and all genuine identity cards. These were purchased at high prices through specialized underground channels. For this final battle in San Jiang Kou, he had invested heavily.

For safety’s sake, they needed to change hotels every two or three days, using different identity cards each time. So he told Liu Zhi to stay outside while he went alone to book the room. This way, checking in only required registering one person, and they could conserve the identity cards.

After getting the room card, Fang Chao returned to the car and had Liu Zhi check in first. Seeing that it was still early, he prepared to go alone to the area around the municipal government to look around.

His target was corrupt officials, and moreover they had to be major corrupt officials. But how to determine who was a major corrupt official—this was a thorny problem.

Those officials who in the past had been so corrupt that they were famous even among common people had already been arrested by the Disciplinary Commission during inspections and investigations in recent years. It was survival of the fittest—naturally, those who remained were all extremely low-key corrupt officials who revealed nothing.

Fang Chao emphasized methodology in his work, first screening targets theoretically.

Since they were major corrupt officials, their rank couldn’t be low. Those clerks sitting at service windows, though they had considerable psychological advantages in the marriage market and held their noses higher than the sky when going on blind dates, in Fang Chao’s view these small fry couldn’t make the grade. Secondly, they had to have worked for some years in positions with real power. Otherwise, even if they were corrupt officials, with limited time they couldn’t have embezzled much money. Finally, they had to pick someone over forty years old. Only older corrupt officials would be foolish enough to hide their ill-gotten gains at home.

He wandered around the Administrative Service Center where the municipal government was located for quite a while without any results. Although he had theoretical support, in practical operation he still had to rely on his ordinary mortal eyes to look. For the time being, he had no way to discern which among those people coming and going were major corrupt officials. After pondering for a while, he decided to learn from the Disciplinary Commission’s investigative spirit—first go check some materials and get clear about the life histories and backgrounds of San Jiang Kou’s main leaders.

What kind of character was this leader the two of them had investigated?