Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

The night outside the window in Yi'an was quiet and deep, with the occasional car horn honking from the distant streets, which quickly dissipated in the night wind.

The city is waking up from a 30-year-long nightmare, and she knows there is still a long road ahead after waking up.

Rebuilding the destroyed rule of law, restoring the people's confidence in justice, and cleaning up the remaining toxins within the system—these are not things that can be accomplished overnight.

But at least, the hardest step has been taken.

The next morning, Jiang Ruolan was reviewing Ren Pengfei's interrogation transcript in her office when her phone suddenly rang.

The caller ID showed an unfamiliar number, with the location indicating it was from Ngee Ann. She answered, and a hoarse, aged voice came from the other end.

"Is this Director Jiang?"

"It's me. And you are?"

"My surname is Liu, and I'm a retired teacher from the north of the city. I... I don't know if I should make this call."

The old man's voice trembled slightly, as if he had struggled with his emotions for a long time before dialing the number.

"I taught in Yi'an for forty years, and after retiring, I lived in the teachers' building in the north of the city."

A few days ago I saw on the news that you arrested Shen Wangshan and Gu Changhe. I... I have some things that I've kept hidden for over ten years, and I've never dared to take them out.

Jiang Ruolan sat up straight:

"What is it?"

"More than ten years ago, I had a student who worked as an accountant at Fengmao Group."

In 2012, he suddenly resigned. Before leaving, he came to me and gave me a file folder, saying that it contained some accounts and documents that he had secretly copied from Fengmao.

He said if Fengmao ever went bankrupt, I should hand these things over to a trustworthy police officer. He said these things could prove that Fengmao had falsified documents in several government projects and implicated several city leaders.

The old man's voice grew increasingly agitated.

"Later, my student disappeared and never contacted me again. I kept that file folder hidden in a floorboard under my bed and never dared to tell anyone."

For years, I've had nightmares every night, afraid someone would come and steal that file folder, and also afraid that handing it over would harm my students.

Jiang Ruolan's grip on the phone tightened slightly.

"Teacher Liu, are you home? I'm coming right now."

After hanging up the phone, she took Lu Zheng and two criminal investigation technicians and drove straight to the teachers' building in the north of the city.

Teacher Liu lives on the third floor. He is a thin old man in his seventies with a full head of white hair and wears a pair of reading glasses with lenses as thick as the bottom of a bottle.

He welcomed Jiang Ruolan and her group into the room, pulled out a dusty old leather suitcase from under the bed in the bedroom, opened the suitcase, and took out a kraft paper file bag tightly wrapped in a plastic bag from a hidden compartment.

"This is it." He handed the file folder to Jiang Ruolan, his hands trembling violently.

"I've waited for this day for over a decade."

Jiang Ruolan took the file folder, tore open the plastic bag, and pulled out the documents inside. The papers were yellowed and brittle, but the contents were still clearly legible.

The first document is an accounting voucher for a fraudulent construction payment from Fengmao Group in 2011, amounting to 30 million yuan. The recipient was a shell company registered in the provincial capital, and the actual controller of this shell company—whose name is circled in red on the document—is Gu Changhe.

The second document contains the tender price for the Yian New Town Administrative Center project and the quotation from Fengmao Group.

Comparing the two documents side by side, it is clear that there is less than 0.5 percent difference between Fengmao Group's bid and the reserve price in the tender, which is an almost impossible "coincidence" in the bidding of large-scale projects.

In the upper right corner of the tender document, someone had scribbled a date and a name in pencil—the date was five days before the tender document was published, and the name was "Old Gu".

The third document is a handwritten meeting summary, recording the content of an internal meeting of the Fengmao Group in 2011.

There is a passage in the minutes that has been repeatedly crossed out but is still faintly discernible: "Mayor Gu said that there is no need to worry about the second phase of the new city project. He has already asked the planning bureau to prepare the control plan adjustment plan. Once the document is issued, it will be ours."

Jiang Ruolan flipped through the yellowed papers one by one, her fingers pressing harder and harder.

These documents were obtained at the cost of the missing accountant's life—risking discovery by Shen Wangshan, he secretly copied the most crucial criminal evidence of the Fengmao Group, handed it to his most trusted teacher, and then disappeared into the darkness of Yi'an.

He may have been silenced, or he may be hiding in some remote corner, living in anonymity, and has not dared to show his face for more than a decade.

But his evidence was finally handed over to the police thirteen years after he disappeared.

She raised her head, looked at Teacher Liu, and said solemnly:

"Thank you, Professor Liu. These materials are very important and will greatly help us in making a decision."

"Then...then my student..." Teacher Liu's voice trembled.

Is he still alive?

Jiang Ruolan was silent for a few seconds, then said:

"We checked the historical employment records of Fengmao Group, and indeed, an accountant suddenly left the company in 2012."

His name is Meng Zhaoyang. We had noticed his disappearance before, but hadn't found any clear leads. The materials you provided might help us find his whereabouts.

Teacher Liu took off her reading glasses and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

He didn't ask any further questions, but simply nodded.

After leaving the teachers' building, Jiang Ruolan stood under an old banyan tree downstairs and dialed Zhou Pei's number.

"Zhou Pei, I have obtained new evidence."

A retired teacher had kept a file folder hidden for thirteen years. Inside were original documents proving that Fengmao Group had falsified data in government projects, all pointing to Gu Changhe and Shen Wangshan.

In addition, the accountant who made copies of this evidence back then was named Meng Zhaoyang, who has been missing since 2012.

His disappearance is almost identical to Xu Guangfa's—both vanished suddenly after obtaining substantial and crucial evidence of Feng Mao's crimes. I suspect he has also been murdered.

Zhou Pei was silent for a moment on the other end of the phone, then said:

"Scan and send me the materials, and I'll immediately organize people to find Meng Zhaoyang's whereabouts."

Furthermore, with these materials and the data on the hard drive, there's no chance of overturning Gu Changhe's case. The next step is to get him to confess to the issues that haven't yet surfaced.

"Okay." Jiang Ruolan hung up the phone and glanced back at the old teachers' building.

From the third-floor window, Teacher Liu was still standing there, waving at the police car below.

His figure looked particularly small in the window frame, but Jiang Ruolan felt that the old man who had kept his secret for thirteen years could finally get a good night's sleep.

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