As soon as Yan Xie stepped out of the interrogation room, the police officers waiting outside immediately acted according to the arrangement.
"Deputy Chief Yan," the trainee police officer from the Technical Investigation Division looked nervous as he caught up with him, "Our director Huang compared the radius of Chi Rui's and Wang Le's activities. The overlap of the two men's movements was found to be in the vicinity of the Song Xin Qiao, where the three suspected tooling factories are located, and this is their specific geographic information."
Yan Xie took a look at the list, and it was really a diagram of the names, locations and internal structures of the three factories.
"Song Xin Qiao," Yan Xie repeated thoughtfully, "-Okay, thank your Director Huang for me."
Then he shoved the list to the detective, jabbed his index finger on the paper, and ordered: " Disperse the police squad to each of these three locations, they must turn off the sirens when they're ten kilometers away from the destination and wait for further orders. Go now. "
The detective immediately left.
Yan Xie straightened his collar, fixed his Bluetooth headset, and took a deep breath. At this time someone knocked at the door twice, then came Ma Xiang's voice: "Brother Yan! Are you in there? Deputy Chief Qin asked us to bring Diao Yong over to you!"
"It's starting, Lao Gao," Yan Xie whispered into the headset.
In the interrogation room, Gao Panqing made an OK sign.
Ding Jiawang couldn't see the scene outside the single-way glass window so he was baffled.
With a click of the doorknob, Ma Xiang and several policemen escorted Diao Yong inside only to see Yan Xie's back to them, he didn't even bother to turn back his head.
He was shouting at the single-way glass window in the interrogation room: " Make the one surnamed Ding tell us everything, and who else is with him besides Diao Yong? Chi Rui? Write down who Chi Rui is! And what's the name of the driver on the surveillance camera footage who was driving with gloves on and who Ding Jiawang said was an in-house electrician at the chemical factory?"
Diao Yong: "?!"
Diao Yong was caught off guard by hearing his accomplice's name.
"Brother Yan," Ma Xiang cautiously said: "Deputy Chief Qin asked us to bring him in. Here he is"
"He's called Wang Le, right, okay. I'll immediately have someone go to the electric power distribution department of the chemical factory to investigate that grandson called Wang Le."
Yan Xie looked back at Diao Yong and answered Ma Xiang impatiently, "What did you bring him here for? Ding Jiawang has started to talk! Give him a few more minutes and he'll tell us all about his bedwetting incident when he was eight years old!"
"....!" Diao Yong looked towards Ding Jiawang inside the interrogation room, his face suddenly changed dramatically.
"Hey Yan-Ge," Ma Xiang said with a cheeky smile, "Isn't it also a worry for Deputy Chief Qin? The person surnamed Ding confessed, but what if he didn't give a clean account? More people - more power ha."
Yan Xie didn't joke with him: "Just do what Lao Qin tells you to do. Don't you know the rules of our criminal investigation branch? A proactive cooperation with the police investigation in exchange for a reduced sentence is a one time chance, it's not for everyone involved in the case. Otherwise do you think the prosecutor's office is run by my family?"
"Take him back! There's nothing for him to do here. Take him back and lock him up until he's transferred to the prosecutor's office!"
Ma Xiang ran out of ideas. He sighed, turned around and said, "Alright, let's go back, brothers."
"-No!" Diao Yong shouted in a rush, "Wait, wait!"
"...What trick are you playing?" Ding Jiawang glared at the middle-aged policeman in front of him, who claimed to be surnamed Gao.
Gao Panqing listened to the noise coming from his headset as if unaffected by it, with a poker face.
"So your accomplices include Chi Rui, who is an illegal gun maker, Wang Le - an electrician at the chemical factory, and then there are other drug makers besides you, right? Where is your hideout in the Wuhai Industrial Zone?"
Ding Jiawang said fiercely: "I don't know any drug-makers! I don't know what hideout you're talking about! Are you going to look for my daughter?"
Gao Panqing: "Brother Yan, did you hear that? He just explained that the drug manufacturing site is in the Wuhai Industrial Zone..."
Outside the interrogation room.
"Wuhai Industrial Zone?" Yan Xie repeated loudly into the microphone, "- Wuhai District is big, tell Ding Jiawang to be thorough, we need the exact location. What is it?"
Diao Yong looked at Ding Jiawang in disbelief, he was at a loss for words.
"Song Xin Qiao packaging processing mold factory over there, right, okay, I'll have someone go check it out."
Yan Xie gestured to the officer on the side, and his men immediately understood and rushed out pretending to be in a hurry. "Hey right Lao Gao, tell Ding Jiawang: as long as the hostage is successfully rescued, with his level of involvement in this criminal gang the court will sentence him to a few years, and police will try their best to help him. Ah, okay, I won't tell you more for now. They brought Diao Yong to me, which is really nerve-racking."
Yan Xie turned around once again, he was visibly angry, as if he could not wait to kick Diao Yong out.
"What is this Diao Yong still doing here! I'm telling you, he's just a security guard, he doesn't know shit! Tell him to get his ass back in there and get ready to go to jail!"
Ma Xiang and a few others pushed Diao Yong out. Diao Yong was extremely frightened so he blurted out: "Wait, police comrades, wait!", while tugging desperately on the door frame.
Did Ding Jiawang indeed tell them everything? How much did he tell them? Is the part about the reduced sentence true? Did the police really find out everything, or were they acting to get my confession?
In a short moment, countless thoughts went through Diao Yong's mind, but in reality he could only grip the door frame without letting go while trying his best to stretch his neck in the direction of the interrogation room.
--What he didn't know was that all of his reactions were seen by Yan Xie, and even the smallest psychological changes could not be hidden.
Everyone could see that his line of defense was in jeopardy.
All that was needed was the last push, and the entire line would crumble.
"Have the one surnamed Ding carefully explain all the details related to Hu Weisheng, how he met him, the specifics about drug trafficking channels, what other channels there're besides "Sanchunhua". Oh yeah, especially about that new blue pack of drugs, make Ding Jiawang focus on that!
As if muffled thunder hit Diao Yong's ears, he was stunned.
Then, the scene in the interrogation room made him fall into an ice cave in the early summer--
Gao Panqing took out a clear plastic ziplock bag from the evidence box and threw it in front of Ding Jiawang, inside the bag was that glittering blue drug powder.
The police even got their hands on it! They really do know everything!
"...This is copper hydroxide, right?" Ding Jiawang was wary.
Gao Panqing smiled slightly.
"I say! I said! Let me talk!" Outside the interrogation room, Diao Yong howled, and the sweat that rolled his face down made his expression look terrible: "That guy Ding does not know anything, old Hu had the best relationship with me! Police comrades, let me talk!"
Everyone could finally breathe out in relief.
Ma Xiang's relieved expression could hardly be concealed. Fortunately, he reacted quickly and immediately hid his face in the wet palm of his hand.
"...What else do you want to say?" Yan Xie turned around, frowned and stared at Diao Yong, coldly saying: "You're just a security guard, you still want to compete with Ding Jiawang? How much do you know?"
Diao Yong's whole body was going limp, he didn't even pay attention while he was helped to behind the table by a few policemen, and handcuffed to the armrest of the seat.
"Ding.. surnamed Ding is not honest, you should not believe him, never give him a reduced sentence." Diao Yong was afraid that his explanation was too slow, shaking he hurriedly added, "There are three factories in Song Xin Qiao. You won't be able to find the one you're searching for. He's just trying to stall the police! I'm telling you, they're in the area of Song Xin Qiao near Dong Yuan Road, at the back door of the container warehouse of Jiaxing Hardware Mould Factory, that's it!
Yan Xie's constricted pupils flickered with cold light, they were deadly pinned on Diao Yong's frightened face.
Not a sound could be heard in the small room except for Diao Yong's heavy breathing, even the air was frozen.
".... "A full ten seconds passed, Yan Xie slowly raised his hand and gestured a command to Ma Xiang.
Ma Xiang ran out of the room and said on the walkie-talkie in the corridor: "Hello, command center, notify the leading team to change the course, the hostages are in Jiaxing hardware mold processing factory at the back door of container warehouse at the intersection of Song Xin Qiao and Dongyuan road! We'll start with the investigation team. SWAT team will follow ...."
·
"Old Gao, take Ding Jiawang back." Yan Xie said slowly, raised his hand to turn off the microphone, and pulled out a chair to sit opposite Diao Yong.
Diao Yong completely lost the arrogance and toughness that he had in the hospital, tears and snot came down, he looked wretched as if he was a dog in the family: "I'm willing to cooperate, I'll tell you everything. That Ding isn't worthy of reducing his sentence, I am the one who is taking care of my aging parents and children, and I'm willing to become a new man..."
Yan Xie asked, "So you're saying that Hu Weisheng had the best relationship with you?"
Diao Yong nodded frantically.
"Why?"
"Old Hu said that he didn't know what was going on in Ding's brain. He was expected to research the drug but he was't reliable at all . It's just that both of us love drinking and when we drank too much, we chatted with each other….."
"So you were really trying to replicate the new type of drug?" Yan Xie interrupted him.
Diao Yong broke down, sniffing and admitting painfully, "Yes, but it was Ding Jiawang's idea. He wanted to make money and didn't have the skills to do it, so who can he blame if he gets caught?"
Yan Xie played with his phone and opened WeChat to type a few words, as if he wanted to send out a certain message, but after a moment's hesitation, he deleted it.
"Ding Jiawang just explained that that new type of drug can be absorbed through skin contact, and it's addictive even in tiny doses." Yan Xie looked up and asked, "Is that true?"
Diao Yong nodded his head vigorously again, "Yes yes yes..."
"How do you know?"
"Huh?"
"How do you know it works, have you sold it?"
Diao Yong wanted to slap his thigh, his hand moved, and the metal chain clattered: "Well, that was not possible. Old Hu only had that one packet. What would we study after selling it? But Ding Jiawang's analysis of the sample said it should be true, and Lao Hu told us that when while he had worked for his boss he saw them shipping this kind of Blue powder out of the country to the Southeast Asian side - it's said that many people abroad take it watered down and put it on their arms and stomachs to absorb it…"
Yan Xie's voice was a little bit out of control: "This drug is already widespread outside the country?"
"It's also not possible to say that it's overflowing" Diao Yong said hesitantly, "Old Hu said that it was sold at an exorbitant price, and only the rich could afford to buy it."
Yan Xie forced himself to calm down, realizing a certain problem that had been overlooked earlier.
Hu Weisheng had just been released from prison not long ago, and the bag of drugs should have been in his hands before his second or even his first time in prison. In other words, the so-called "new drugs" in fact had been circulating in the market for several years, but the "export" was not the same as the "domestic sales", so it went temporarily unnoticed by the police."
But, if Hu Weisheng has been hiding the bag of drugs for several years, why didn't the "big boss" take any actions? Let's assume they didn't notice it, but why did the two guys suddenly jump out and try to grab it as soon as the drug was found on the rooftop?
Although Yan Xie was very reluctant to admit it, he knew that there were only two possible ways to explain this:
First, there are eyes on the inside. Before he went to the roof, he called Qin Chuan to ask for reinforcements. Qin Chuan must put the action on record to the city bureau and the command center, and then someone inside tipped off to the outside.
Second, Jiang Ting could be their spy.
That night when the lights came down and the chilly wind on the rooftop greeted them...the battle between life and death, the bullets that grazed their feet... countless fragments swirled like a whirlpool, and they settled in front of Yan Xie's eyes, forming a lingering picture.
That was the scene he saw at that moment when he followed Jiang Ting into the corridor after climbing back to the rooftop from the sixth floor.
--Who was that man? Yan Xie thought.
Who was the gunman besides the killer, the one whose face he could not see.. the one who rushed downstairs with Jiang Ting?
"Hu Weisheng didn't mention anything to you about his former boss?" Yan Xie narrowed his eyes and said faintly.
Diao Yong fearfully shook his head: "No, Old Hu rarely mentioned it - perhaps since he was guilty of stealing, he didn't dare to even mention his boss's name."
"He didn't say the name, but didn't he say anything else? To be able to develop a new type of drug, this person should not be an idle character."
"...It's hard to say, Old Hu sometimes drank too much and his brain to mouth filter just stopped working, so who knew if old Hu was just bragging. " Diao Yong hesitated for a moment, then added: "But he often said that the boss was not an ordinary person, he was very young, and he never showed up," he said. "Not many people have seen him except his own henchmen - he sounded just like a drug lord from a movie."
He was one of those directly involved in drug trafficking, and when he said the word "drug lord", he shivered, as if it was only then that he finally realized the horror of this road of no return.
Yan Xie sized him up coldly, his face as heavy as water, and the waves were so uneven that Diao Yong couldn't see the slightest hint of emotion.
"Officer..." mumbled Diao Yong.
"This new drug is so powerful, did Hu Weisheng or Ding Jiawang ever tell you what the main ingredient or chemical formula was?"
Judging from Diao Yong's facial expression, the answer was definitely no - which wasn't surprising, with Diao Yong's level of education, he wouldn't be able to remember even if Ding Jiawang had said it.
Yan Xie stood up and motioned for the detective to come forward: "It seems that's all you know."
"No, wait!" Diao Yong immediately got anxious, the handcuffs were clattering, "Although I don't know what the chemical formula of the composition is, I know what it used to be called ! I can tell you everything I know!"
Drugs generally have many nicknames when they are traded. For example, diacetylmorphine is also known as white powder, soft baby, No. 4, and methamphetamine is also known as ice and shabu. Many of them are named according to the appearance characteristics of the drug. According to this principle, the new drug in Hu Weisheng's hand should be called "Blue Boy", or "Hell's Ghost"in circulation. Or something like that, just like in the U.S. heroin was used to be called "top killer."
Sure enough, Diao Yong said in a hurry, "When the powder was being shipped out of the country from the southwest, it was called 'blue gold', meaning more expensive than gold. But old Hu said it wasn't called that at first, when it had just come out people called it "Ting Yun!"
Yan Xie suddenly froze.
".... " Yan Xie stood there motionless, for a long time, his dark eyes stared at Diao Yong and he asked: "What did you call it?"
"Stop the clouds." Diao Yong was afraid he couldn't hear it, so he slowed down while shivering, "It is said that this thing burns like a cloud of smoke. As for the "stop", it is because it stops ."
--
Meanwhile, the Uhai industrial zone, the processing factory.
"Turn around."
"Go forward."
"What are you looking at, go!"
The gun at the back of his head made Chu Ci stumble slightly, then he stood up straight and continued to walk forward.
Judging by the machine tools and equipment that should've been a private workshop related to processing molds, but the machines had not been used for a long time and were already covered in a thin layer of dust. The inescapable buzzing inside the factory indicated that the air purification system had been switched on to its maximum, but the faint smell of ammonia in the air still couldn't be removed, that was due to the large number of reductive amination reactions carried out during the synthesis of methamphetamine.
Chu Ci was led out of the plant to the empty ground with the gun.
It was already evening, and the afterglow dyed the roof of the opposite building golden red, stinging his eyes slightly.
Two kidnappers stood a short distance away, one with a fierce face and a gauze on his forehead - he recognized the man with the gauze as the one whom he made leave bloodstains in the bushes, while the other one standing next to him, bespectacled man, was supposed to be the drug-making technician.
"There's a way out of heaven, and there's a way out of hell." Chi Rui smoked a cigarette and sneered, "Top student, if you have anything else to say at the end, please tell the brothers."
Chu Ci's glasses had been lost somewhere, and his lab coat was stained with dust and blood, some of it belonged to the kidnappers, some of it was his own. The cracked ribs and the tremendous physical exertion caused by the fever made it difficult for him to stand, but he stood up as straight as he could, enduring the burning pain, he took a deep breath.
"...You guys don't have to do this, you can't be sentenced to death for kidnapping, things haven't reached the point of no return." Chu Ci dryly swallowed his saliva, his gaze was at the level of the eyes of the two kidnappers across the street, and he said huskily, "As long as I'm alive, even if the police comes to your doorsteps, you won't get a death penalty. It's twenty years at most, and you'll be out in ten years with a reduced sentence. But if I'm killed, and Jianning City demands for the case to be solved, the police will go up to heaven or down to the king of hell to track you down. Why bother doing it? Just think about it yourselves."
Chi Rui snorted nasally, then started laughing, "Sure enough, he's a highly talented student, he knows how to talk, hahaha-"
Chu Ci slightly raised his head.
"But don't get me wrong." Suddenly Chi Rui's laughter stopped and he gritted his teeth fiercely, " We 're involved in such a big case , why should we stay in Jianning? Do you think it's more convenient to take a big living person like you along, or a handful of your ashes?!"
The drug technician next to him opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but could not.
Chi Rui took a last hard puff of his cigarette, threw the butt of the cigarette to the ground, raised his foot and crushed it, and winked to Wang Le from afar.
"Do it!"
"....!" Chu Ci's pupils pressed into a thin line, only to feel that the muzzle of the gun at the back of his head was about to force him to kneel.
--That was the position of execution!
The fear of life and death didn't make his brain blank, instead in a short time of less than one hundredth of a second, Chu Ci's brain was functioning to its fullest, never even this fast or this clear before.
"Poof". One knee was forced to land on the ground, and the sound of the safety bolt clicking behind his head was heard.
"...Fentanyl," Chu Ci suddenly trembled.
Wang Le's finger on the trigger froze.
"That packet of drugs can be absorbed addictively through the skin without the need for factory materials, indicating that its main ingredient is a new fentanyl compound. It is possible that swapping the methyl group on the nitrogen atom in the morphine piperidine ring for something else can make fentanyl much less lethal and increase the addictiveness. As for the imitations synthesized by engineer Ding, he always failed because he was missing several steps in his experiments so he didn't manage to remove the toxicity of the fentanyl compound itself, thus he was unable to achieve the effect of Hu Weisheng's bag of drugs. "
One second, two seconds, ten seconds passed.
The gunshots did not come.
Wang Le's index finger was still pressed on the trigger, looking at his two accomplices inquiringly.
The drug making technician's eyes lit up, he put his hand on Chi Rui, and waved to Wang Le to put the gun away.
"What are you doing?" Chi Rui said angrily, "Haven't we already discussed this?"
The technician ignored him: "Gifted student, then according to your idea, what should be done?"
A life and death crisis.
Chu Ci opened his eyes and felt a slight chill at the temples. He was soaked in a cold sweat.
"If you give me some samples, let me do a systematic conformation search using stereoisomers, and then study the ligand receptor interaction with a possible active conformation, maybe I can synthesize exactly the same thing." Chu Ci raised his head, and although his voice was extremely hoarse, he sounded neither humble nor arrogant: "It just takes a little equipment and time."
The technician seemed to consider his words for a moment and nodded at Wang Le.
"Don't you listen to this kid's nonsense!" Chi Rui got angry, "What Lao Ding couldn't do, a kid half his age could do it? That's it? I don't believe it!"
The technician said impatiently, "No matter what you say, we have to try."
"He's just stalling for time for the cops to come after him! Believe it or not but Diao Yong is in the hands of the police. Maybe he'll tell them everything. If we don't do something, the police cars will wrap us as dumplings!"
Chi Rui shook the technician's hand off, pressed the gauze on his forehead, and roared angrily, "Stop whining and do it! Kill him!"