Official excuse: I've put you on patrol in Handong, and the whole province is in a panic.

4:15 a.m.

Su Zhe was woken up from his bed by a phone call.

The call was made by Xu Ming's secretary, and it consisted of just one sentence: "Team Leader Su, Team Leader Xu wants you to come over immediately."

His tone was extremely urgent.

Su Zhe quickly got out of bed, finished washing up in three minutes, dressed in five minutes, and rushed to Xu Ming's temporary office on the second floor of the inspection team's residence.

Pushing open the door, Xu Ming was sitting on the sofa, his reading glasses askew on his forehead, his face ashen.

On the coffee table was an urgent briefing, stamped with the red seal of the General Office of the Handong Provincial Party Committee.

See for yourself.

Xu Ming pushed the briefing over.

Su Zhe picked it up and scanned it quickly.

The content is short, but the amount of information is alarming—Ding Yizhen, the vice mayor of Jingzhou City and secretary of the Guangming District Committee, is suspected of accepting huge bribes. Due to a leak of information during the coordination of the arrest by relevant departments, the person involved has already left the country by flight in the early hours of this morning, and the preliminary judgment is that the destination is the United States.

Their current whereabouts are unknown.

Su Zhe put down the briefing and remained silent.

Xu Ming suddenly stood up from the sofa and paced around the room with his hands behind his back.

"See that? A deputy mayor at the ministerial level, just ran away like that! We barely got off the plane, and he was already on another one! That's Handong for you! The waters run deep! Unbelievable... truly unbelievable!"

Su Zhe looked at Xu Ming and asked, "Team leader, should we get involved in this too?"

Xu Ming frowned and said, "Intervene, of course we must intervene! The inspection team is here to discover and investigate problems! As the leader of the special anti-corruption task force, you must dare to take action at critical moments! The problems are so obvious now, how can we not investigate? I just looked at Ding Yizhen's information; he's in charge of urban construction, mineral resources, and real estate development!"

These are all key areas where corruption is rampant! How many interests are involved at all levels? If we investigate just one person, we can uncover a whole string of people in Handong! Now that he's escaped, who leaked the information and tipped him off? This is very important!

Su Zhe sighed inwardly.

Who tipped them off?

Qi Tongwei!

But I can't touch him now.

Sun Lao sent him to Handong, indeed to break the deadlock.

But that doesn't mean he should flip the table the moment he arrives.

What role does Qi Tongwei play?

The provincial public security bureau chief, a core member of the Handa clique, Gao Yuliang's most capable protégé, and an important assistant to former provincial party secretary Zhao Lichun.

Tracing back from Qi Tongwei, one can uncover Gao Yuliang; and from Gao Yuliang, one can trace back to Zhao Lichun, the former provincial party secretary who has retired but still wields considerable influence.

This chain is interconnected; if any link breaks, the chain will break.

Trying to take action against Qi Tongwei now would be no different from stirring up a hornet's nest.

The arrangements made for Zhao Lichun by the higher authorities have not yet been completed, and the investigation into Gao Yuliang is even more out of the question.

As for whether there are any problems with Saruijin?

Is there a problem with Li Dakang?

It's all a mess.

If we start investigating Qi Tongwei now, we'll definitely be able to take him down.

But after taking it over, Handong was thrown into chaos.

A single hair can affect the whole situation; one wrong step can lead to complete failure.

Masters strategize for the overall situation, not for the gains or losses of a single piece or piece.

Qi Tongwei's fish will have to be kept in the water for now, let him keep thrashing around, and then we'll scoop them all up when the net is in place.

Su Zhe thought of this.

He nodded.

"Team leader, I'll take some men to investigate this!"

Xu Ming snorted, "Investigate! Investigate thoroughly, inside and out! A deputy mayor at the level of a department director just ran away like that, and it happened during our inspection! If we don't handle this kind of scandal, what about our reputation? Will we still implement Elder Sun's instructions? This is outrageous!"

"Anyone below the level of director-general can take action on their own. Anyone above the level of director-general, you report to me. Regardless of who's involved, there's only one rule with me: there's no upper limit!"

"Yes, team leader!"

Su Zhe stood up, gave a curt reply with a single word, and turned to leave the office.

Although Su Zhe was determined not to touch such a central figure for the time being.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t do anything.

Making an example of someone to warn others, and immediately putting everyone in Handong on their toes—that's perfectly acceptable.

Su Zhe already had a plan in mind.

"Team Leader Xu," Su Zhe put down the briefing, "Leave this to me, I'll investigate immediately."

Su Zhe then stood up, turned around, and left the office.

Back in his room, he took out his notebook and quickly listed three directions for investigation:

First, retrieve the communication records of the five attendees.

Second, investigate all abnormal communication data in the area during the meeting.

Third, we will analyze the entire process of Ding Yizhen's departure from the country.

After finishing writing, I closed the notebook.

He knew very well that this investigation was destined to yield no substantial results.

But every step of the process must be taken.

This is both to give Xu Ming an explanation and to show those in Handong who have something to hide – the inspection team is investigating, and the central government is paying attention.

Are you panicking or not?!

6:30.

Su Zhe dialed Yang Hong's number.

"Team Leader Su? So early..." Yang Hong's voice was clearly sleepy.

"Notify the comrades in Groups 1 and 2 to meet at the conference room at the base at 7:00 AM. There's urgent work!"

The person on the other end of the phone immediately perked up.

"Yes, sir, received!"

......

The meeting was brief.

After informing him about Ding Yizhen's situation, he began assigning an investigation task.

It was exactly 8:00 AM.

Su Zhe, accompanied by a team of two, headed straight for the data centers of the three major telecommunications operators in Jingzhou City.

In such investigations involving communication records, operators have no right to refuse, nor dare to refuse, based on the verification letter from the Discipline Inspection Commission's Special Governance Working Group.

Su Zhe showed his credentials and letter, and the heads of the three operators had almost the same reaction—first, they stared at the stamp for a long time, and then they quickly arranged for people to start the system and fully cooperated.

The first step was to retrieve the communication records of all mobile phone numbers registered under the names of the five people who attended the meeting that day—Gao Yuliang, Li Dakang, Qi Tongwei, Ji Changming, and Chen Hai—during the meeting period.

The results came out very quickly.

During the two-plus hours of the meeting, none of the five people's SIM cards had any outgoing or incoming calls recorded.

not a single one.

Su Zhe's expression remained unchanged after reading it.

Expected.

People who can sit in that position wouldn't be foolish enough to leak information using their own registered mobile phone number.

The second, and more crucial, step was to retrieve call data from all base stations within the area covered by the provincial party committee building on the night of the meeting and filter out any unusual communications during the meeting period.

This is a huge undertaking.

The technical teams from the three operators worked separately for nearly two hours, exporting dozens of pages of densely packed raw data.

Su Zhe instructed his team to filter through the numbers one by one, eliminating those belonging to on-duty personnel, security guards, and logistics staff whose identities could be verified, ultimately narrowing it down to one number—

Three.

During the meeting, only three unusual phone numbers made calls from within the provincial party committee building area.

Three phone cards.

Two of them are digital phone cards, and one is an analog phone card.

Su Zhe asked the technicians to check the two digital cards first.

Digital phone cards have a technical feature—the voice signal during a call is automatically stored by the operator's system in digital code for a period of time, and can be retrieved and played back in accordance with the law.

A dozen minutes later, the two recordings were retrieved.

First paragraph: "Honey, I have a meeting tonight, don't wait for me. Remember to heat up the baby's milk..."

Second paragraph: "Is this Mr. Zhang? My car is parked in the yard. Pick me up at the usual place at 7 a.m. tomorrow, yes, yes..."

Su Zhe's lips twitched slightly after hearing this.

One was letting his wife know he was safe, the other was arranging a driver for the next day.

He has absolutely no connection with Ding Yizhen.

exclude.

All that's left is that analog phone card.