Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

This report took Lu Zheng and Zhao Rui a whole week to complete, going through several revisions before finally becoming a document of more than forty pages.

Its core recommendations include: establishing a supplier blacklist system and banning corporate entities with prior violent crime records from the industry; promoting transparency in bidding information and implementing a full-process record-keeping and lifelong accountability system for bid evaluation; setting up police liaison points in key construction sites, with local police stations and site safety officers establishing a direct communication mechanism; strengthening the management and registration of the floating population in the construction industry, improving the real-name employment system, and plugging loopholes that allow criminal gangs to infiltrate construction sites using the identities of floating workers.

Jiang Ruolan signed the report and instructed the office to formally submit it to the Municipal Housing and Construction Bureau, the Municipal Market Supervision Bureau, and the Municipal Public Resources Trading Center in the name of the Municipal Bureau, while also sending copies to the Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Municipal Anti-Organized Crime Office.

She specifically added one person to the list of those copied to—the successor of Executive Vice Mayor Gu Changhe, the newly appointed Vice Mayor in charge of urban construction.

She wanted to know how the new deputy mayor would react after seeing the report.

On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, Yi'an experienced its last snowfall of the winter.

Jiang Ruolan stood by the office window, watching the snowflakes fall one by one onto the sycamore branches, but her mind was on something else entirely.

Shen Wangshan died, Gu Changhe died, and Xu Yaozong and Nie Shichang were imprisoned. However, during their interrogations, they all pointed to a more fundamental question: Why has the construction and building materials industry in Yi'an become a breeding ground for organized crime time and time again?

Shen Wangshan rose to power through violence, while Xu Yaozong rose to power through a combination of capital and violence. The two men were twenty years apart and used different methods, but they targeted the same thing—sand, cement, and steel bars, the most basic materials for urban construction.

Because this industry has large cash flow, low barriers to entry, many transaction links, and blurred regulatory boundaries, it is a natural breeding ground for rent-seeking and violent monopolies.

As long as these loopholes in the system remain, there will be another Xu Yaozong.

This time, it's not just her pursuing a case alone; it's about whether the entire system can learn from these two consecutive serious illnesses...

The snow fell for a day and a night on the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, covering Yi'an in a vast expanse of white.

When Jiang Ruolan arrived at the office early in the morning, there was a thick layer of snow on the windowsill. She reached out and brushed it off, and the ice crystals melted into water in her palm, which was so cold it hurt her.

The calendar on the table turned to a new page—mid-February. The atmosphere of the Spring Festival had not completely dissipated, and the occasional sound of firecrackers could still be heard on the street, but the work of the Municipal Bureau had returned to its normal rhythm.

The case files from the New Year's Eve special project were neatly stacked in the filing cabinet. Xu Yaozong and Nie Shichang's cases had been transferred to the procuratorate, and Lu Zheng's report on the analysis of loopholes in the construction industry had been delivered to the right people. Everything seemed to be progressing in an orderly manner.

But this calm did not last long.

On the afternoon of the nineteenth day of the first lunar month, Jiang Ruolan was reviewing the monthly security data reports submitted by various police stations in her office when her landline rang.

She answered the phone, and it was the voice of the police officer on duty at the command center, his tone carrying a barely perceptible tension:

"Director Jiang, the Chengdong Police Station just reported a case. A male corpse has been found in the abandoned textile factory in the old industrial area of ​​Chengdong."

The report came from two children who had gone in to collect scrap metal. They were so frightened that they ran out and called for an adult, who then called the police. Officers from the Chengdong Police Station have arrived and their preliminary assessment is homicide; the deceased had obvious signs of binding and burns on his body.

"Burns?"

Jiang Ruolan put down her pen.

"Yes, the officers at the police station said the deceased had multiple burn marks on his arms and chest, as if he had been burned with something. No murder weapon or identification item was found at the scene. Chief Fang is already on his way and asked me to report to you first."

Jiang Ruolan stood up, picked up her police cap, and said, "Notify Lu Zheng to go directly to the scene. Notify Lao Zheng to bring the full set of investigation equipment."

When she hung up the phone, she glanced out the window—the sky was overcast, the clouds hung low, and it looked like it was about to snow again.

She put on her coat, pulled up her collar, and quickly walked out of the office.

The old industrial area in the east of the city is a faded patch on the body of Nghe An.

In the 1970s and 80s, this place was the pride of Yian's industry. Textile factories, machinery factories, and chemical plants lined up in a row, with chimneys standing tall and the roar of machines echoing from morning till night.

Later, with the reform of state-owned enterprises, factories closed down one after another, workers were laid off or went to work elsewhere, and the area gradually became empty.

More than 20 years have passed, and the red brick walls of the factory are now covered with withered vines, the windows are broken, and the ground is overgrown with weeds and garbage.

During Shen Wangshan's era, Fengmao Group had its eye on this land, intending to demolish it and build commercial housing. However, due to land ownership disputes and pollution control issues, the project was shelved.

After Shen Wangshan's downfall, the ownership of this land became even more complicated. The bankruptcy liquidation of several state-owned enterprises was not yet completed, and developers dared not take over easily. As a result, it was completely abandoned and became a place for homeless people to stay and a "ghost town" for nearby children to explore.

The factory where the incident occurred was originally the finishing workshop of a textile factory. It was a long, single-story building with red brick walls that had been eroded by wind and rain over the years, leaving only the faint outline of the three characters "Safety Production" on the white-painted "Safety Production" slogan.

The workshop door is long gone; the opening looks like a gaping mouth, letting in a blast of cold wind.

A cordon was set up outside the gate, and several police officers from the Chengdong Police Station stood guard at the entrance with serious expressions.

A crowd of onlookers gathered around—mostly elderly people living in the nearby shantytown and homeless people scavenging in the abandoned factory area—standing far away in the snow, their necks hunched, their hands tucked into their sleeves, whispering amongst themselves.

Jiang Ruolan parked the car outside the cordon and got out.

Director Fang was already waiting at the door. This dark-faced man in his early forties looked particularly unwell today, his brows furrowed in a knot.

He came forward to greet us, reporting as he walked into the factory:

"Director Jiang, the deceased is male, aged between forty and fifty, dressed plainly, and had nothing on him that could identify him—no wallet, no cell phone, no ID card, not even keys. The cause of death is currently unknown, but there are obvious signs of abuse on the body. I've worked at the police station for over ten years and have seen many different kinds of murders, but this one..."

He didn't finish his sentence; he simply shook his head.

..............