Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Jiang Ruolan took a photo out of the folder, placed it on the table, and pushed it over.

The photo shows a boy in a school uniform, about fifteen or sixteen years old, who bears a resemblance to Ren Pengfei in his features.

Ren Pengfei's expression changed, and his smile froze on his face.

"Your son, Ren Xiaoyu, is in Class 3, Grade 1 at Yi'an No. 1 Middle School," Jiang Ruolan said.

"I went to No. 1 Middle School this afternoon and talked to his homeroom teacher. His homeroom teacher said that Ren Xiaoyu is a good child, his grades are among the top three in the class, and he writes exceptionally well. Last week's journal entry was titled 'My Ideal.' Do you know what your son's ideal is?"

Ren Pengfei didn't speak, but his Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

"What he wrote was—'My dream is to become a policeman,'" Jiang Ruolan said, emphasizing each word.

"He wrote a lot, saying that he had admired people in police uniforms since he was a child, and that the police were the embodiment of justice, able to protect the weak and punish the bad guys. He also wrote a passage, which I copied down verbatim."

She pulled a slip of paper from her notebook and read:

"My dad says he works at a construction company and works very hard, leaving early and returning late every day. Sometimes I hear people talking badly about my dad behind his back, saying he's an accomplice of bad people."

I don't believe it. My dad is the best dad in the world; he wouldn't do anything bad.

There was a few seconds of silence in the interrogation room.

Ren Pengfei lowered his head, the veins on his forehead bulging, and his two handcuffed fists clenched tightly, his knuckles making a cracking sound.

"You fucking..." His voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible.

"What are you doing going to see my son?"

"I didn't look for him. I just went to the school to find out what was going on." Jiang Ruolan put the note away and looked at him.

"Ren Pengfei, your son doesn't know what you've done yet. But he will find out someday. How do you plan to make him face it?"

Is it better to let him know you pleaded guilty and accepted punishment like a man in court, or to make him unable to hold his head up in front of his classmates and live in the shadow of "the son of a murderer" for the rest of his life?

Ren Pengfei's breathing became heavy.

He closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and the iron chair creaked under the weight.

Jiang Ruolan didn't pressure him; she simply waited quietly.

The clock on the wall of the interrogation room ticked away, each tick like a nail driven into Ren Pengfei's heart.

About three minutes later, he opened his eyes again, and the arrogant and reckless look in his eyes had faded by more than half.

"Give me a cigarette," he said.

Smoking is not allowed in the interrogation room.

Ren Pengfei was silent for a moment, then said something that surprised Jiang Ruolan:

"Brother Shan—Shen Wangshan, did he run away?"

"Not yet. But we've already deployed controls throughout the city."

"He won't run away," Ren Pengfei said, his tone surprisingly certain.

"You don't understand Shen Wangshan. He's never run away in his entire life. Back in the shantytown in the east of the city, dozens of people from his rivals blocked both ends of the alley to kill him, but he didn't run away. He just grabbed two knives and charged out from the middle."

He's not the kind of person who would run away. He's definitely still in Yi'an, somewhere you can't find him, waiting to see how much you can uncover.

"When you get to the last step of your investigation and find there's one more person you can't touch, that person will come out."

Jiang Ruolan narrowed her eyes:

"Who are we unable to touch?"

"Gu Changhe." Ren Pengfei uttered these two words with a meaningful, cold smile.

"The relationship between Shen Wangshan and Gu Changhe cannot be explained by the few amounts of bribes and accepting bribes recorded in Qian Shouyi's ledger."

"I've followed Shen Wangshan for twenty years, and I can tell you something—it's not as simple as Shen Wangshan giving money to Gu Changhe, or Gu Changhe having a secret stake in Fengmao. These two are fundamentally connected."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know how Shen Wangshan started his business thirty years ago? The urban renewal project in the eastern part of the city. Who approved that project?" Ren Pengfei looked into Jiang Ruolan's eyes and said, enunciating each word clearly.

"At the time, Gu Changhe was a section chief in the Municipal Construction Commission, and that project was handled by him. The first demolition project that Shen Wangshan got was approved by Gu Changhe."

From that day on, these two were in the same boat. Thirty years have passed, and the entanglement of their interests runs far deeper than you can imagine. Behind every single thing Shen Wangshan did in Yi'an, there was Gu Changhe's shadow.

Gu Changhe didn't directly accept money from Shen Wangshan not because he was incorruptible, but because he knew that if he did, and Shen Wangshan fell from grace, he would fall with him. Therefore, he chose a more covert method—he wasn't accepting money, but power.

Jiang Ruolan's pupils contracted slightly. She quickly rearranged and reassembled all the clues in her mind.

Shen Wangshan's first project was approved by Gu Changhe; for thirty years, Gu Changhe has remained as stable as Mount Tai in the Yi'an officialdom, and every time Shen Wangshan encounters a crisis, he can always turn danger into safety through official channels.

Gu Changhe did not leave his name on Fengmao's internal accounts, but he had Shen Wangshan inject 20 million yuan of "legitimate investment" into his son's company using a shell company completely independent of Fengmao. Even Qian Shouyi was unaware of the details.

This is not a simple case of collusion between officials and businessmen. It is a symbiotic relationship of interests between two people over the past thirty years.

"Go on," Jiang Ruolan said calmly, but her fingers tightened around the pen.

In 2014, Yi'an was developing a new city, and the city wanted to build a new administrative center. At that time, three developers were bidding, one of which was a large company from the provincial capital, which was much stronger than Fengmao.

Unable to acquire the land, Shen Wangshan went to Gu Changhe. Gu Changhe was then the vice mayor in charge of urban construction.

He talked with Shen Wangshan for an afternoon. I don't know exactly what they talked about, but after that conversation, the bidding documents were changed—a condition of "local enterprises are given priority" was added.

This one clause alone squeezed out the company from the provincial capital, allowing Fengmao to acquire the land in the new city at a price 30% lower than the market price.

Is there any evidence for this?

"Yes," Ren Pengfei said.

"The original bidding documents are in the archives of the Housing and Construction Commission. Go and check the modification record of that bidding document. The modification date is March 17, 2014. The name of the deputy director of the Housing and Construction Commission at that time is signed in the modification column, but that deputy director is Gu Changhe's man, everyone knows that."

This detail was told to me personally by Shen Wangshan when he was drunk one time. He said that Gu Changhe's most remarkable quality was that he would never sign anything himself, but he could get the person signing to do so willingly.

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