Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Old Feng rubbed his hands together, his voice trembling:

"He...he used to work for Fengmao, and he used to come here often to sell scrap metal. After Fengmao went bankrupt, he stopped coming."

I heard he went to jail and was just released last month. I recognize his handwriting; he signed receipts for me before. His handwriting looked like chicken claws scratching, but there was one characteristic—when he wrote numbers, the last stroke always curved upwards, like a checkmark. The numbers on your slip of paper also had this habit.”

Jiang Ruolan took out the note from the evidence bag and read it again.

Indeed, the last digit of each line of numbers has a slightly upturned stroke, forming a small hook that is not quite standard but has a very distinctive personal style.

This is a habitual writing characteristic; as long as a sample of "Tie Tou's" handwriting is available, a comparison and identification can be performed.

"Old Feng, what's 'Iron Head's' real name? Where is he from?"

"I don't know his real name, everyone calls him Iron Head. I think his surname is Geng, and he lives in the east of the city, but I don't know exactly where."

He once told me when he was drunk that he used to work for Ren Pengfei, Shen Wangshan's right-hand man, and was specifically responsible for "handling things" on the construction site.

After Shen Wangshan fell from grace, he turned himself in to the police station and was sentenced to more than two years in prison. He had just been released not long ago. After his release, he came to see me once, saying he wanted to continue selling scrap metal and asked if I would buy it.

I told him I'd take the goods if he had them, and he said okay, he'd bring them in a few days. But he never came.

"When did he come to see you?"

"It was about a week ago, last weekend."

Old Feng thought for a moment, then added, "By the way, he didn't come alone that day. There was another man with him, whom I didn't recognize, and he didn't say his name. He just stood at the door and didn't come in."

That person looked rather fierce, and it seemed like he was missing a piece from his left ear.

Jiang Ruolan memorized all this information, stood up, and said to Lu Zheng:

"His surname is Geng, nicknamed Iron Head. He was just released from prison and came to Old Feng's place last weekend with an accomplice who was missing a piece of his left ear."

"Investigate; these two are now the prime suspects in this case."

……

Geng Qiang's real name was discovered that afternoon.

His name is Geng Changxi, 41 years old, from the east of Yi'an City. He has four prior convictions—two for intentional injury, one for illegal detention, and one for disturbing public order.

His criminal record began when he was eighteen, and he went to jail almost every few years. His longest sentence was for this recent one—for working as a thug for a loan sharking gang under Ren Pengfei, he cornered a debtor couple in their home for three days and three nights. The man had three ribs broken, and the woman was so frightened that she developed mental health issues.

During the investigation of Shen Wangshan's case, he hid in another city for several months. Later, accompanied by his lawyer, he returned to Yi'an and surrendered himself. Because of his surrender and the fact that he was not a core member of the gang, he was only sentenced to a little over two years. He was just released from prison on the 15th of last month.

The task force retrieved Geng Changxi's confession and repentance statement written in prison and compared it with the handwriting on the note at the scrap yard.

The technical department's assessment, though brief, was fatal: "The two are highly consistent in their writing habits, starting pressure, ending arc, and 'hook' stroke characteristics, with a probability of over 99% that they are identical."

The numbers on the note with the last stroke pointing upwards were written by Geng Changxi.

There was also a photo of Geng Changxi released from prison tucked into the inmate's file.

The man in the photo has short hair shaved close to his scalp, high cheekbones, small but fierce eyes, and a downturned mouth, as if he was born unable to smile.

Jiang Ruolan sent the photo to Lu Zheng, asking him to take it to Lao Feng for identification.

Old Feng nodded after just one glance—this was Tie Tou.

"Have you found out who the man who came with him, the one with the missing piece of his left ear, is?"

Jiang Ruolan asked.

Lu Zheng opened his notebook:

"Not yet. But while I was checking on Geng Changxi's fellow inmates and people he had recently been in contact with, I came across a few interesting names."

He walked to the whiteboard and wrote down several names, with brief information after each name: "Geng Changxi has been in prison for more than two years. Three of his cellmates are peripheral personnel in the Shen Wangshan case."

One of them was named Ma Biao, nicknamed "The Cripple." He used to be a freight driver for Fengmao Logistics. He was sentenced to three years in prison for his involvement in smuggling diesel fuel and was released two months earlier than Geng Changxi.

One of them was named Ding Youtian, nicknamed "Frog," who used to be Zhao Biao's henchman. He was sentenced to two and a half years for intentional injury and was released on the same day as Geng Changxi.

There was another one named Luo Manzi, whose real name was Luo Dayong. He used to work for Ren Pengfei and was sentenced to three years in prison for illegal detention and intentional injury. He was released at the end of last year.

None of these three men have had formal employment since their release from prison, and they are currently all in Yi'an.

Jiang Ruolan stared at the four names on the whiteboard and remained silent for a long time.

Geng Changxi, Ma Biao, Ding Youtian, and Luo Dayong—four former peripheral members of Shen Wangshan's gang—were released from prison around the same time. They had been in the same or adjacent cells in prison, knew each other, and shared common criminal records and interpersonal relationships.

After their release, none of them had proper jobs. Given the current employment situation and their age, skills, and criminal records, the legal means of making a living they could find were extremely limited.

The waste recycling industry has low barriers to entry, lax regulation, and mostly involves cash transactions. Most practitioners dislike dealing with the police, making it a gray area that these people are most familiar with.

After Shen Wangshan's case came to light, Song Baogen lived in hiding, working in the scrap metal recycling industry.

He didn't know how he came to cross paths with Geng Changxi—perhaps they sold scrap metal at the same scrap yard, or perhaps Geng Changxi learned of Song Baogen's whereabouts from other inmates in prison.

In short, after Geng Changxi was released from prison, he found him and then used a piece of paper with a string of numbers written on it, a car that drove to the scrap yard in the middle of the night, and a barrel of highly concentrated industrial caustic soda to erase the only surviving witness in the Shen Wangshan case from the world.

But why now? Shen Wangshan has been dead for half a year, Tang Yuanqing is dead, Ren Pengfei and Qian Shouyi are in prison, and the core criminal chain from back then has been completely severed.

Killing Song Baogen would no longer serve the purpose of silencing him—Song Baogen did not participate in the whistleblowing back then, and what he knew was clearly written by Liao Guangcheng in the mine log, which the special investigation team had already been aware of.

Killing him would only expose his own whereabouts, a fact that Geng Changxi couldn't possibly be unaware of. Unless Song Baogen's death wasn't to silence him, but for some other, more pressing reason.

"How's the search for this string of numbers going?"

Jiang Ruolan pointed to the photo on the note on the whiteboard.

Lu Zheng shook his head:

"Still investigating. The seventeen-digit number doesn't conform to the rules of an ID number, nor is it the opening bank code of any bank in Ngee Ann. The technical department is using various encryption algorithms and encoding rules for exhaustive matching, but it may take more time."

"The handwriting on the note is Geng Changxi's, but the content on the note was written by someone else—look how regular the strokes of these numbers are, completely different from the crooked handwriting of Geng Changxi's signature. It might be that accomplice with the missing left ear."

After Song Baogen's death, a note was stuffed into his pocket. What message was this note conveying? Who was it meant for? If it was merely a murder marker, there would be no need for such precise numbers. It's more like a receipt or a transaction slip.

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