Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Finally, Shen Wangshan personally made the decision—to pour sulfuric acid.

The people who threw the sulfuric acid were two outsiders arranged by Ren Pengfei. One was called "Heizi" and the other "Xiaodao". After the deed was done, each of them took 50,000 yuan and ran away. They have not returned to Yi'an to this day.

Zhao Biao said he didn't know where the two people were now, but he remembered that when Ren Pengfei arranged this, it was in a private room on the third floor of the Golden Coast Club. Besides Ren Pengfei, Qian Shouyi and Zhou Wenxuan were also present.

He mentioned Li Changhe. The truck driver was taken to an empty warehouse in the Fengmao Logistics Park, where Zhao Biao personally led a group to "talk" with him.

Zhao Biao asked him to register the car under Fengmao Logistics, but Li Changhe refused, saying that he had bought the car with a loan and that registering it under Fengmao would cost him two thousand yuan a month in management fees, and he wouldn't earn more than two thousand yuan a month.

After an hour of unsuccessful negotiations, Zhao Biao had his men pin him to the ground and break his shinbones one by one.

After the smashing, Shen Wangshan called to ask how things went. Zhao Biao said it was done, and Shen Wangshan only said one thing—"Don't leave any loose ends."

He mentioned Zhang Dayou's warehouse fire.

The fire wasn't caused by aging wiring; it was caused by two of Ren Pengfei's henchmen breaking into the building materials market in the middle of the night, pouring gasoline in Zhang Dayou's warehouse, setting it on fire, and then running away.

However, because of a light rain at the time, the fire did not spread and only burned three warehouses. Afterwards, Shen Wangshan scolded Ren Pengfei, saying that he had not done things cleanly enough and had left potential problems.

He mentioned the person who "disappeared" in the Fengmao Logistics warehouse three years ago.

The man's name was Xu Guangfa, a warehouse manager at Fengmao Logistics. He accidentally discovered that Fengmao Logistics was using its warehouse as a transit point for smuggled diesel, so he secretly kept records, intending to report it.

Before the whistleblower letter could be sent out, it was intercepted by Qian Shouyi's men. Ren Pengfei personally led a group to tie up Xu Guangfa and take him to the basement of Fengmao Logistics, where they beat him for three days and three nights, interrogating him about whether he had any accomplices.

In the end, Xu Guangfa died in the basement. His body was put in an iron barrel, filled with cement, and thrown into a deep pit in an abandoned quarry north of Yi'an City.

Jiang Ruolan's pen flew across the notebook as she made notes.

She maintained a professional composure throughout, but the pressure she applied to her writing increased, leaving deep furrows on the paper with the tip of her pen.

When Zhao Biao mentioned that Xu Guangfa's body was filled with cement and sunk into a deep pit, her pen paused, poking a small hole in the paper.

"Where is that quarry?" she asked.

"North of the city, along the old national highway into the mountains, about a 20-minute drive, there's an abandoned quarry. The deep pit is at the very back, its opening overgrown with weeds, so you can't see it from the outside," Zhao Biao said.

"After Xu Guangfa died, Brother Shan made all of us who knew about this story give the same answer—that Xu Guangfa stole goods from the warehouse and ran away, reported himself missing, and that was the end of it."

Xu Guangfa is from out of town and has no relatives in Yi'an. He only has an elderly mother in their hometown in Sichuan, and no one has come to inquire about her well-being over the years.

"Does anyone else know about this?"

"Besides me and Brother Shan, Ren Pengfei, Qian Shouyi, and Zhou Wenxuan all know. It was Ren Pengfei and his two henchmen who made the move, one named Da Liu and the other named A Gui."

Last year, Da Liu gambled away a mountain of debt in Macau and was hacked to death by debt collectors; Ah Gui is still in Yi An, working as a foreman on Ren Pengfei's construction site.

Jiang Ruolan wrote down all these names.

Her notebook was already more than half full, each page densely covered with writing, connected by various arrows and symbols.

This network is becoming clearer and clearer at a visible speed—Shen Wangshan is at the very center, with Qian Shouyi, Zhou Wenxuan, and Ren Pengfei as the three core members, then Zhao Biao and A Gui as the executives, and on the outermost layer are Fang Xuewen, Qin Chuan, and Liu Changgui, who provide protection within the system.

Gu Changhe, suspended above the net, was like a giant umbrella, shielding all the darkness from his shadow.

"One last question." Jiang Ruolan closed her notebook, looking into Zhao Biao's eyes.

"Is there any direct exchange of benefits between Shen Wangshan and Gu Changhe? Have you witnessed it firsthand, or handled it personally?"

Zhao Biao was silent for a moment, seemingly recalling something. After about half a minute, he spoke:

"I have never handled any money directly. All the dealings between Brother Shan and Gu Changhe were handled by Qian Shouyi and Zhou Wenxuan. They never let us roughnecks touch it."

But I witnessed something firsthand—last Mid-Autumn Festival, Brother Shan treated Gu Changhe to dinner at Golden Coast. After dinner, Brother Shan asked me to drive Gu Changhe home.

When I dropped him off downstairs, before getting out of the car, Gu Changhe took a file folder from his briefcase and handed it to me, saying, "Please give this document to Chairman Shen."

When I took it, I touched it. It wasn't documents inside; it was money. Brand new banknotes, the feel of stacks of ten thousand. I couldn't be mistaken.

"Did you later give that file folder to Shen Wangshan?"

"It's been handed over. Brother Shan opened it in front of me, glanced at it, smiled, and put it in the safe. I glanced at it; there were probably a dozen or so stacks inside."

Jiang Ruolan's pupils contracted slightly. The reversal—Gu Changhe giving money to Shen Wangshan, not the other way around—fundamentally changed the nature of the entire affair.

If Shen Wangshan gave money to Gu Changhe, it would be a businessman bribing an official, a one-way transfer of benefits.

However, if Gu Changhe were to give money to Shen Wangshan in return, it would mean that their relationship was not a simple collusion between officials and businessmen, but a deeper symbiotic relationship of interests—Gu Changhe might have a hidden stake in Fengmao Group, and that money was his dividend.

"Why didn't you tell anyone this detail before?"

Zhao Biao gave a wry smile:

"Would anyone believe me if I told them? Gu Changhe is the executive vice mayor. Who would believe that he would give money to a private business owner? Besides, I didn't want to cause trouble for myself at that time."

"Why are you willing to talk about it now?"

Zhao Biao looked at Jiang Ruolan, his eyes holding something indescribable:

"Because Brother Shan wants to kill me. He gave me my life, and now he wants it back. I don't owe him anything anymore. If he won't let me live, I won't let him have an easy time either."

At 3 p.m., all the procedures for the unlawful detention were completed.

The people sent by the provincial department to receive Zhao Biao have arrived in Yi'an, and Zhou Pei is personally leading the team.

Two special police officers from the provincial criminal investigation team pushed a wheelchair into the ward, moved Zhao Biao from the bed to the wheelchair, covered him with a blanket, and pushed him out.

Just before leaving, Zhao Biao suddenly turned around, looked at Jiang Ruolan, and moved his lips as if he wanted to say something.

"What's wrong?"

"Director Jiang," Zhao Biao's voice was very soft, so soft that only Jiang Ruolan could hear it.

"Brother Shan is a man who never uses just one method. The fact that he had Ma Laoliu stab me shows that he's panicked. But a panicked person is more dangerous—he's like a wild beast cornered right now, capable of anything. You...you be careful."

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