Guide to Rising to Power as a Wife in Beijing's Elite Circle

Yongzhou, old city, at the entrance of the alley where the Li family lives.

It was a little past three in the afternoon. The winter sun was thin and pale, sparingly shining on the potholed cement road, but unable to penetrate the depths of that narrow, damp alley piled with debris and rotting vegetable leaves.

The air was filled with a complex odor, a mixture of coal smoke, sewage, and a faint smell of rust.

Two ordinary-looking gray vans with out-of-town license plates quietly parked in the temporary parking space diagonally opposite the alley entrance.

The car door opened, and instead of reporters carrying long lenses and looking excited, several men wearing dark jackets or down jackets, carrying professional-looking backpacks, and with calm, even overly composed, expressions stepped out.

The leader was a middle-aged man in his forties, wearing black-rimmed glasses, with a refined appearance but sharp eyes. His name was He Zhen, a senior head of the investigative news department of Shen Rongchuan's media group, and one of Shen Rongchuan's most trusted pens and lenses.

He received an encrypted phone call from Shen Rongchuan, with clear and urgent instructions: get to this address in Yongzhou as quickly as possible and record everything that might happen, especially any violence or unusual behavior directed at the remains of an elderly woman surnamed Li and her grandson.

The core of the instruction is: "Aim at the perpetrators, use the fastest shutter speed and the clearest focus, and capture their faces, their movements, and their license plates in the frame without missing a single detail. Use the camera to fight for a moment of justice for the victims."

He Zhen understood what this temporary fairness meant.

In the face of power and violence, law and procedure can sometimes be slow to respond or even absent.

But the camera won't.

Public opinion is a double-edged sword. Sometimes it is blind and sometimes forgetful, but in the moment it focuses, the enormous pressure and moral judgment it generates are enough to make many hands hiding in the shadows temporarily withdraw, buying time for true justice to breathe, or... at least making the perpetrators pay the price of being exposed.

They didn't drive a police car with flashing lights, they didn't shout, and they even communicated with each other using gestures and eye contact.

He Zhen made a gesture, leaving two people near the alley entrance to pretend to debug equipment and observe the environment, but in reality to monitor possible interfering vehicles or personnel.

He himself, along with three of his most capable cameramen and recorders, quickly and silently slipped into the alley.

The further in you go, the dimmer the light becomes, and the stronger the smell of rust seems to grow. Faintly, you can hear suppressed sobs, muffled thumping sounds, and a man's deep reprimands.

"Hurry up! Don't dawdle!"

"Old woman, let go! Are you looking for death?!"

"Hold her down! Carry the baby away!"

He Zhen's eyes sharpened, and he gestured to the cameraman behind him to turn on the camera and follow closely. He quickened his pace and went around the last corner of the pile of debris.

The scene before them made even these well-informed investigative journalists feel a sudden chill.

At the end of the narrow alley, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side, the dilapidated wooden door of the Li family's house stood open.

In the open space by the entrance, several men dressed in matching dark blue overalls, wearing masks and disposable plastic gloves, were surrounding a small, thin figure curled up on the ground.

That was Old Mrs. Li.

Her gray hair was disheveled, and blood was gushing from a wound on her forehead, obscuring half of her aged and desperate face. Her faded old cotton-padded jacket was torn askew, revealing a thin sweater underneath.

But her withered, twig-like arms were tightly embracing a similarly small body wrapped in an old blanket with an astonishing, almost spasmodic strength.

That was her grandson, whom she had just lost. His face was pale and bluish-white, and his lips were purplish-black. He had obviously been dead for several hours. His small body was stiff and cold.

The old woman's arms held her last and only memory and warmth in this world, even though that warmth was rapidly fading away.

The people surrounding her were trying to pry her arms open and snatch the body from her arms.

The actions were brutal and merciless.

He Zhen's gaze quickly swept over the group of men in overalls.

Their work clothes had no company markings, only an inconspicuous sticker on their chest that looked like some kind of internal code.

Their movements weren't as flamboyant and chaotic as those of street thugs; instead, they possessed an unsettling sense of professionalism and efficiency.

Crack your knuckles, press your joints, try to use clever force to deflect the force... it's more like a trained method of control.

Aside from their masks, their eyes were calm to the point of numbness, lacking the ferocity or excitement often seen in perpetrators, only displaying a cold indifference as if they were carrying out a mission.

What made He Zhen's heart sink even more was that there were two people standing next to him wearing white coats, masks, and gloves.

They were carrying standard silver forensic examination kits, which had no markings on them.

One of them was holding a tablet computer with the screen lit up, seemingly looking at some data or charts.

They didn't participate in the scuffle; they just stood indifferently a short distance away, their gazes occasionally sweeping over the body in the old woman's arms and then over the watch on their wrists, as if estimating the time or waiting for the work to be completed.

This was not an ordinary robbery of a corpse, nor was it bullying by thugs.

This was a premeditated, professionally disguised act of violent looting.

The objective was clear: to move the child's body as quickly as possible, then legally and compliantly place it in the crematorium, turning it into ashes, so that there would be no way to verify the death.

Those in overalls are likely bodyguards or special agents handling specific matters, while the two in white coats are very likely infiltrators within the forensic system, responsible for verifying identities and completing subsequent compliance procedures.

The unspoken rules of officialdom and certain special fields are sometimes colder, more efficient, and more despairing than those of the underworld.

Because it disguises itself as a system, procedure, or even science, while engaging in the most despicable acts.

Ordinary people, faced with this kind of professional treatment that feels like a dimensional reduction attack, often don't even have the awareness or direction to resist before being crushed to pieces.

"Film! All angles! Close-up! Face! Movement! Tools! Box!" He Zhen gave the order in a very low but extremely clear voice, and raised the miniature high-definition camera hidden under his collar.

He didn't rush over to stop them immediately, because that might alert them or even put his own people in danger.

His task was to record, to use the camera as a weapon to solidify all of this.

The shutter sound was deliberately kept to a minimum in the quiet alley, but the subtle clicking of high-speed continuous shooting and the red light of the camera still caught the other party's attention.

A man in overalls who was trying to pry open the old woman's arm suddenly looked up, his eyes sweeping towards He Zhen and his group like those of a hawk.

When he saw the group of people who suddenly appeared, clearly carrying professional filming equipment, his eyes narrowed sharply and then flashed with a fierce look.

"Someone's there!" he hissed.