Film and Television: My Cheat Code is AI

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The interrogation room was small, with fluorescent lights shining directly overhead, making the gray-white tiles on the walls gleam coldly. Two cameras were mounted in the corner, their red indicator lights flashing on and off. Gao Jun sat on an iron chair, his wrists and ankles handcuffed to rings on the chair legs, limiting his range of motion to no more than twenty centimeters. He was still wearing his gold-rimmed glasses, the lenses reflecting the shadows of the fluorescent lights.

The door opened, and Zhang Yang walked in, wearing a police uniform and holding a folder. He sat down opposite Gao Jun, placed the folder on the table, and did not open it.

Gao Jun looked up at Zhang Yang, his eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses narrowing slightly. "I didn't expect a mere policeman to be so skilled."

Zhang Yang smiled, not the smile of a victor, just a slight smile. "Mr. Gao, you're not right. My techniques were specifically learned for you; I studied them for a whole week."

"A week?"

"Yes." Zhang Yang leaned back in his chair. "President Gao's encryption method isn't too complicated, it just takes a bit more time."

Gao Jun stared at him for a few seconds, then lowered his head and shook it. "I don't understand," he said. "How did you notice me?"

"General Manager Gao is highly skilled and daring." Zhang Yang's tone was very calm. "He made so many counterfeit bills, recruited soldiers everywhere, and even killed Luo Liang. It's hard for us not to know about him after he went to such lengths."

Gao Jun leaned back in his chair, the metal back creaking softly. He looked up at the ceiling, his Adam's apple bobbing, then slowly lowered his head. "I never wanted to deal with RMB; the risks were too high." His fingers unconsciously curled on the table. "The system here in China is so rigid and inflexible, it's pointless. I only wanted to come back after I couldn't make it abroad, but I never expected to end up being caught by you cops."

He gave a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, a smile that seemed like a bitter one, but wasn't quite. "It's all about timing and fate."

Zhang Yang looked at Gao Jun. The interrogation room light made half of Gao Jun's face appear pale, while the other half was hidden in the shadow of his glasses. Zhang Yang stood up, walked to Gao Jun, and stood still.

"Mr. Gao, you always say that things are better abroad than in China, but that's because you're a criminal, a fake capitalist. You have money, so of course they think you're good. They don't care whether your money came from legitimate sources; they only care whether you have money in your pocket. But it's different in China. Your money was obtained through shady means; it's the people's hard-earned money, and we will definitely investigate. You also manufacture counterfeit currency to disrupt our market economy and interfere with our financial order."

Gao Jun didn't say anything.

Zhang Yang bent down, placed his hands on the edge of the table, and looked Gao Junping in the eye. "By the way, Mr. Gao, there's something else I forgot to tell you. I've also brought back the money you had in those three banks overseas. Exactly 1.26 billion US dollars. All the money you've earned over the years is here."

Gao Jun was stunned.

His expression wasn't anger, nor terror; he was completely frozen. It was as if a string in his brain had snapped, the image frozen on the last frame, and then he jerked forward, the chains of the iron chair snapping to their tightest point, the handcuffs clanging against the metal rings with a sharp metallic sound. "Zhang Yang!" his voice cracked, "You fucking bastard, you'll die a horrible death! You cut off my livelihood, ruined my escape route, and took my money!" He gasped for breath, his chest heaving, his gold-rimmed glasses askew, but he didn't bother to adjust them. "Don't blame your family, don't you understand?!"

"Mr. Gao," Zhang Yang said, looking at him in a low voice, "this isn't a gangster's den, it's a place governed by law. We won't keep a single penny of your money."

The iron door to the interrogation room opened and closed again. When Zhang Yang came out, Yang Zhen was leaning against the wall of the corridor, holding an enamel mug in his hand. When he saw Zhang Yang come out, he put the mug on the windowsill.

"You little rascal, I thought you went back to the headquarters to help out these past few days, but I didn't expect you to get involved in such a big thing."

Zhang Yang scratched the back of his head and smiled. This smile was different from the one in the interrogation room; it carried a hint of embarrassment. "Brother Yang, you know about the confidentiality principle, right?"

After the counterfeit currency case was brought to a close, Qin Liguo went to the ministry early the next morning with the floppy disk Zhang Yang had given him. It contained Gao Jun's three overseas bank account numbers, passwords, and all the transfer records of the 1.26 billion US dollars. Zhang Yang didn't ask how the ministry handled it. What needed to be handed over had been handed over, and the rest was no longer his concern.

The office was unusually quiet. Ji Jie was writing a case report at the workstation opposite her, the pen nib scratching across the paper. Zhang Yang turned his chair halfway around to face her.

"Sister Ji, this case of yours is quite interesting."

Ji Jie looked up and adjusted her glasses. "It's quite funny, a silly security guard running into two clowns." She put down her pen, picked up her enamel mug, took a sip of water, and began to tell her story.

The incident began when the district education commission received a donation of 400,000 yuan in cash from a Taiwanese compatriot. The cash was all new and sealed in the bank's original kraft paper seal. It was lost just two days after it was delivered.

The story of how the money was stolen is almost like a joke. A section chief in the office opened the safe to retrieve some documents, put the key on his desk, and went to the restroom without locking the door. The whole thing took less than ten minutes.

The security guard was patrolling the hallway when he walked to the office door. He peeked inside; no one was there, but there was a safe key on the table. He stood there for a moment, then went inside.

The security guard wasn't a repeat offender; his movements were clumsy, and his hands trembled as he opened the safe. He paused for a moment when he saw the stacks of cash inside, then took all the money out, stuffed it into a woven bag, closed the safe, and started walking out with the bag. He didn't run towards the outside, knowing there was a security guard at the door, and carrying such a large bag would be too conspicuous. He chose to go up to the roof.

The top floor was an abandoned attic, usually deserted. He climbed the fire escape ladder to the ceiling access panel and stuffed the woven bag into the ventilation duct of the elevator machine room. The location was directly above the elevator shaft, hidden in the maintenance mezzanine above the elevator, completely invisible unless someone climbed to the top of the elevator.

When the section chief returned from the restroom, the door was open, the key was still on the table, but the safe was open and the money was gone. He froze for two seconds, his first instinct being to rush out and chase after it. The corridor was empty, the elevator's floor indicator light was flashing, and going down from the fourth floor, he had already reached the second floor.

The section chief frantically pressed the elevator buttons, shouting something. The elevator had already gone down, and he turned and ran towards the stairwell. The finance officer, who had taken the elevator from the third floor to the fourth, found the office door wide open and the safe empty. He saw the section chief shouting and running downstairs, realized something was wrong, and quickly closed the elevator doors to give chase. The elevator reached the first floor, and the section chief, panting, appeared in the doorway. He had run down the stairs and was blocking the elevator entrance. The two men pointed at each other, almost simultaneously shouting, "You stole the money! Don't run!"

When the sixth team received the report, Ji Jie and Chang Baole arrived at the scene. The section chief and the finance officer were still arguing at the elevator entrance. One said the other party's behavior was suspicious, while the other said the other party was crying wolf. Both of them were red-faced and neither was willing to give in.

Ji Jie checked the surveillance footage. The footage only showed the section chief going out, the security guard going in, and the section chief returning to find the money missing and then rushing out. There was no trace of the finance department. When she went to find the security guard, he was standing at the gate, very calm, and said that he was on duty and patrolling.

There was no footage of the security guard carrying the bag out in the surveillance video, because he didn't even use the main entrance.

Ji Jie went back and reviewed the surveillance footage again, noticing a detail: in the two hours following the incident, the security guard went upstairs four times, each time empty-handed, and came down empty-handed. The frequency of his visits far exceeded the number of times required for normal patrols, and he was confirming this.

Chang Baole led his men to the top floor, pried open the inspection port in the ceiling, climbed to the elevator machine room, and shone a flashlight into the ventilation duct. The woven bag was still there, and the 400,000 yuan was intact. The suspect was caught red-handed. When the security guard was arrested, he was still being stubborn, saying that he was on patrol and not looking for money. But when Chang Baole brought the woven bag to him, he lowered his head and didn't say anything more.

After Ji Jie finished speaking, she put down the enamel mug. Zhang Yang sat down in the chair, his mind already replaying the scenes in her mind as she recounted the story: the expression on the section chief's face when he came back from the restroom and looked at the empty safe; the scene of the finance officer and the section chief pointing at each other at the elevator entrance; and the sight of Chang Baole standing on the top of the elevator car, shining a flashlight upwards, with his bulging woven bag stuck at the bend in the pipe.

"These two," Zhang Yang shook his head, "are really a bunch of clowns."