Blood washes away dishonor.—The Count of Monte-Cristo
Half a month later—
Lang Qiao wrote down the date January sixth in the work journal, absent-mindedly examined it for incorrectly written characters, then changed the incorrectly written year—during the first quarter of each year, it was easy to write the previous year without paying attention. By the time you'd managed to accept this year's Gregorian calendar date, you had to once again start getting used to the next year.
A colleague next to her poked her and quietly said, "Xiao Qiao, do you think the Spring Festival's been suspended this year? Ah, and I'd wanted to go back to my hometown."
"What's the point?" Lang Qiao said without even raising her head. "It's for the best if you don't have vacation, saves you having to bleed out your wallet for all your distant relatives' brats. And anyway…"
Before she could finish, the office door opened.
Everyone went quiet at once. In the corner, Xiao Haiyang's back straightened too stiff; he seemed to become one with the white wall behind him. Lang Qiao gave a start and instantly closed her mouth.
Luo Wenzhou and Tao Ran walked in one after the other.
There was a rarely seen gravity on Luo Wenzhou's face. He put the stack of materials in his hands on Lang Qiao's desk and motioned for her to hand them out, then spoke very formalistically.
"In order to attain illegal goals, Wei Zhanhong used the Beehive and other high-end consumption locations to harbor wanted criminals and illegally forged a great quantity of identity information. He is suspected of multiple murders, illegal business transactions, possession of firearms, organizing and leading an underground association, and other criminal charges. A series of related suspects have now been formally placed under arrest. After further investigation, this case will be submitted to the procuratorate for trial." Luo Wenzhou paused, his gaze passing over everyone's faces. It stopped on Xiao Haiyang for a moment. Then he said, "One of the suspects, Lu Guosheng, also one of the chief culprits in the National Road 327 case, confessed to the crimes of framing, fabricating a charge against, and murdering the criminal policeman Gu Zhao in order to escape punishment."
Xiao Haiyang exhaled a long breath, tasting blood in his mouth.
"There is finally a new lead in this unsettled case. Therefore, the bureau has determined to formally reopen the investigation into the fire at The Louvre that took place fourteen years ago. Our Criminal Investigation Team will take the lead, with the full cooperation of our colleagues in other departments. I've requested the records for the old case over the last few days, but as you can all see, we presently only hold this thin stack of information. We may have to investigate afresh for more."
A quiet buzz of discussion started up in the office. Investigating an old case, retrying an old case, were two things that caused the most headaches. It was like returning half-cooked rice to the pot—time had passed, and it didn't taste right.
"I know," Luo Wenzhou said, knocking on the table to indicate for everyone to be quiet, "that over a decade has passed. The material evidence has long been destroyed. The person involved and the witnesses have all died or left. It will be difficult to investigate. In the future you may have to spend a long time traveling, and perhaps it will be dangerous. If it doesn't go well, we'll spend this Spring Festival in the duty room. It's the dead of winter, the days are short and cold, everyone wants to bundle up and watch skits online. Ordinarily no one is willing to drink the northwest wind and go to work—in this respect, as an 'Emperor of Sleep' who has suffered from laziness disease for many years, I'm rather qualified to speak for everyone."
Luo Wenzhou was rather good at giving himself up. He dared to stick a square meter of gold over his own face, and he was also happy to make fun of himself. With a sentence he'd cheered everyone up, but he himself didn't smile. "The person involved has been dead many years. No one knows who Gu Zhao is if you mention him. He doesn't have any direct relatives surviving him, and no one will come block the City Bureau's gates waiting for us to give him justice. Investigating this case, there's no pressure, no impetus. When we've exerted our efforts and finished investigating, there may be no reward apart from some overtime pay for working during the holidays. No one is as indifferent to reputation as the dead. For a person already buried in the earth, whether his position is criminal or martyr shouldn't impact the quality of his sleep—"
Luo Wenzhou's gaze swept heavily through the brightly sunlit office. "But, everyone, The Louvre burned, and Gu Zhao died, but we still have to live here. What kind of place do we live in? If right and wrong are mixed and no one cares, if black and white get turned upside down and no one helps, would you enjoy sleeping through the holiday?
"Tao Ran, report. Get ready to start work!"
Everyone returned silently to their posts. For a time, the only sound in the office was of pages being flipped.
Tao Ran waited for everyone to finish digesting the limited information, then spoke: "The Louvre, also called The Right Bank of the Seine, was a large-scale entertainment center, a collaborative project between domestic and foreign investors. The majority shareholder came from abroad and is difficult to investigate. The domestic shareholder, however, was a company called Shitong Investments, written off long ago. It had no business at the time and was basically a dummy corporation. By coincidence, the legal representative of this company that no longer exists just happened to be the Wei Clan's so-called 'consultant'—the person we arrested at the Longyun Center. Up to now, however, Wei Zhanhong has refused to acknowledge that The Louvre was once his property.
"In the fire at The Louvre, twenty-six people in all lost their lives, and there were scores of wounded. The damage was tremendous. One eyewitness escaped and accused Gu Zhao of losing control and mistakenly killing the supervisor, becoming the chief culprit behind the fire. This witness was the informer who had received orders to take Gu Zhao into The Louvre that night. His codename was Old Cinder. His real name is Yin Chao. Male, Han ethnicity, fifty-six years old this year, born locally. After the fire at the The Louvre, he broke off contact with us and left Yan City many years ago.
"Apart from Old Cinder, there were six other witnesses in all. Three were professional informers, and the other three were those professing to be businessmen Gu Zhao had extorted money from.—Without exception, all of them have vanished off the face of the earth. I searched the intranet. Some of them died, and some went out of the country."
Luo Wenzhou said, "Old Cinder was born locally?"
"Yeah," Tao Ran said, "in one of the county towns under the city's administration. He's from South Bend Town in South Bend County."
"I've already invited over some of Gu Zhao's former colleagues from the City Bureau. Prepare to question them as they arrive. Apart from that, Tao Ran, get in touch with the South Bend police station and find out whether Old Cinder still has any relatives in the area. If he's still living, he must be found. That's critical.—Also, don't put all your hopes on one person. We have to try to find the ones who left the country as soon as possible."
The whole Criminal Investigation Team reacted very quickly, beginning to act separately at once.
Xiao Haiyang said, "Captain Luo, I'll go to South Bend to investigate this Old Cinder."
Luo Wenzhou looked at him and found that there were faintly discernible veins standing up on his neck. If he hadn't been wearing a human skin, he would have been showing his fangs, ready to rip Old Cinder to shreds.
"No," Luo Wenzhou said expressionlessly, "let Tao Ran go. Your communication effectiveness is too low."
Tao Ran understandingly picked up his phone at once and contacted the South Bend police station.
"Captain Luo," Xiao Haiyang said urgently, "I…"
Luo Wenzhou raised a hand to interrupt him and went into his office dragging Xiao Haiyang by the collar. He quietly asked, "Have you found out who pushed the business of the Yufen Middle School students running away to the City Bureau?"
Xiao Haiyang forced himself to focus. "Yes… I went to talk to the person in charge. The one who sent the report was a civil policeman who'd started working not long ago. He didn't have any answers. I investigated his background and didn't find anything wrong."
Luo Wenzhou nodded. "I see."
"Captain Luo," Xiao Haiyang said, "let me…"
"Call over Lang Qiao and investigate another very important matter for me," Luo Wenzhou interrupted him. Almost inaudibly, he said into his ear, "Go check through the last few years of maintenance records for the security cameras. See which of our leaders approved the repairs, which organization performed them, who the repairmen were, and who was in charge."
Xiao Haiyang froze.
"In your Uncle Gu's case, who was behind framing him and which of his informers sold him out aren't the crucial questions. Do you understand?" Luo Wenzhou said a word at a time. "Hurry up."
Xiao Haiyang clenched his teeth, quickly nodded, then turned and left.
Tao Ran was just getting ready to say goodbye to Luo Wenzhou and go to South Bend when he ran into someone familiarly walking into the office.
Tao Ran stared. "Fei Du? What are you doing here today?"
"My academic advisor came to cooperate with the investigation." Fei Du looked him up and down, grabbing a warm drink from the coffee machine and passing it on to him. "Tao Ran-ge, it's only been a few days since I saw you. How come you're looking so weary? That won't do."
Before Tao Ran could speak, he heard a very elaborate dry cough come out of Luo Wenzhou's never closed office. Someone seemed to be a little unsatisfied with President Fei's sequence of paying respects.
Tao Ran: "…"
These days were the peak time for booking tickets to go home for the Spring Festival. Tao Ran had just politely declined Chang Ning's invitation to help him book tickets so they could go back to their hometown together. Not only was he physically weary, he was mentally weary, as well. He really couldn't stand looking at the two of them. He waved a hand feebly. "Get away and stop showing off in front of me. I'm doing fine."
Despite meeting with a rebuff, Fei Du didn't find it at all uncongenial. He smile and strolled into Luo Wenzhou's office.
Luo Wenzhou's ears had been pricked up long ago, but he was playing the big-tailed wolf. Hearing footsteps approach, he didn't raise his head, seeming very busy.
Fei Du familiarly picked up his cup, his fingers gently tracing the rim, then stopping on the place where there was a trace of liquid. Looking at Luo Wenzhou with a smile that wasn't quite a smile, he tasted some of the tea under Luo Wenzhou's gaze and pronounced, "It's been steeped too long."
Luo Wenzhou: "…"
He needed an Incantation of the Golden Hoop to keep down a demon!
Captain Luo changed his sitting position a little unnaturally and, pretending to be in deadly earnest, said, "What is it?"
"I found a trace of that person you asked me to look for." Fei Du glanced out of the corner of his eye at the office behind him, from which they were entirely unshielded, then pulled out a folder stuck under his arm.
There were a few screenshots in the folder that must have come from the aerial footage taken of the ecological park the day they'd caught Lu Guosheng.
They were of a middle-aged man of unremarkable appearance. His height was unimpressive, he had a crewcut, his eyes were long and narrow, and he was a little dark. Both his clothes and his features attracted absolutely no attention mixed among the crowd of villagers doing heavy labor. "You can show the photographs to Lu Guosheng and see whether this is A13."
Luo Wenzhou hastily forsook his base "ego," equipping the industrious and hardworking "superego," entering into a truly earnest mode.
Fei Du went around his desk, using his back to block the gazes coming in through the wide-open door.
"I went to that natural village to ask around. The people who were on the scene that day told me that there was a village family that was just renovating their house. This person claimed to be a new delivery person from the building materials market. He came with a truck full of roof tiles and made himself at home," Fei Du said. "Under the pretext of going to play mahjong with some villagers near the gas station, he mixed in with them and kept an eye on the 'sheepdog's' movements. The security installation at the 'sheepdog's' door had been hacked, and there was a listening device under the windowsill. If we'd been a step too slow then, he could have eliminated the 'sheepdog' right away."
Luo Wenzhou frowned. "He was keeping an eye on the sheepdog and could have prevented against him taking desperate action and blowing up the ecological park, but I don't think he could have guaranteed that Lu Guosheng wouldn't die. Everyone living in that ecological park was a wanted criminal. Each of them had killed more than once. A long-range order could have had them dispose of Lu Guosheng."
Fei Du didn't speak, looking at him with a smile at the corners of his mouth. Luo Wenzhou stared, then immediately came around. "You mean that they also had someone inside the ecological park!"
Fei Du said, "I think it was the person Lu Guosheng had the most contact with. What do you think?"
Luo Wenzhou stood up at once. "Bring One-Eye in for questioning."
Luo Wenzhou left energetically. A moment later, he turned his head and remembered something, returning to the office. He took Fei Du's arm. "Wait."
They were facing at least two forces. One batch was Wei Zhanhong's crowd, and the other batch was hiding in the midst of things, possessing unknown powers. They seemed to want to excavate old cases, to settle scores with those people; their goals seemed to be identical to those of the police.
But Luo Wenzhou couldn't help tying together the major cases he'd gone through over the last year—in the case of the Su family abducting and selling female children, who, after all, had revealed Su Xiaolan's method and "personal signature" to Su Luozhan, enticing her into copying them? In Zhou Junmao's case, who had revealed to Dong Xiaoqing the true reason behind the responsible driver Dong Qian causing the collision? Then there was the mysterious 'go ask shatov' in the case of Feng Bin's murder…and The Reciter, secretly forecasting murders on that reading program.
When you thought about it, each case seemed to contain a trace of the mysterious force, and that trace was shrouded in unspeakable gloom and blood.
They had twice switched the security camera records at the Longyun Center; while completely fooling Wei Zhanhong, they had also showed that they'd already noticed Fei Du's little maneuvers.
Fei Du turned his head. "Yes?"
"You wait for me here," Luo Wenzhou said properly. "Starting now, it's not permitted to act alone. No matter where you're going, no matter what you're going to do, you have to let me know."
Fei Du thought about it, then drew close to his ear.
Just as Luo Wenzhou was thinking that he had something pressing to say to him in private and was preparing to listen with open ears, he felt a touch on his face—Fei Du had used this ambiguous position to kiss his cheek.
Luo Wenzhou: "…"
If he didn't have the circumstances, this person could create the circumstances to take advantage of him!
Fei Du watched Luo Wenzhou charge out, the words "just you wait" on his face. His smile hadn't faded yet when his phone suddenly vibrated. Someone had sent him a text message: "You said that if I wanted to make some people pay, I could call this number."
Fei Du's brow moved—Wang Xiao?