Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Fang Zhiqing's parents divorced after her death. Her father moved to another province, and her mother lived alone in the old house. The photo of her daughter when she graduated from university is still on the coffee table in the living room.

Su Nian's roommate, Zhou Xiaoyu, has been on leave for half a month. The counselor said that she locks herself in the dormitory every day and does not go out. The class teacher contacted the school's psychological counseling center to arrange counseling for her.

And then there's Zhu Minghai, who once had the chance to stop it all.

If he had refused Zhou Haipeng's request three years ago, if he had called the police after seeing Fang Zhiqing walk into his shop alive but not walk out alive, Su Nian would probably still be sitting in a classroom at Yi'an Normal College today, doing his final review for the final exams.

But life doesn't offer "what ifs," and everyone has to pay the price for their choices.

She closed the case report and looked out the window.

The sun was shining on the streets of Yi'an, and the plane trees along the street had sprouted new leaves, which were green and swayed gently in the breeze.

This city has experienced too much this year—Shen Wangshan's underworld empire, Gu Changhe's network of protectors, the skeletons buried under the stone slabs in the back mountain of Qingshipu, the polluted water that the people of Shiqiao have been drinking for more than ten years, and the two girls whose lives were taken by a morbid possessiveness.

Every event is like a scar, etched on the body of the city and in the hearts of everyone who lives in it.

Some scars heal slowly over time, becoming a faint mark; others, however, continue to ache, reminding people of what once happened.

Jiang Ruolan stood up and picked up her police cap.

She was going to Su Nian's house.

When Su Nian's parents came to the Municipal Public Security Bureau to identify the body, she promised them that she would catch the murderer herself.

Now that the murderer has been apprehended, she is going to fulfill her promise.

As she reached the door, she suddenly stopped and turned to look at Lu Zheng:

"By the way, there's something I've been wanting to ask you. Do you remember when Shen Wangshan had just fallen from power about six months ago, I had you do a city-wide review of old cases? What were the criteria for that review back then?"

Lu Zheng was taken aback, not understanding why she suddenly asked this question.

"I remember. We screened all the cases involving organized crime, those that were not filed, those that were filed but not investigated, and those that were investigated but not concluded. In total, we found more than 300 backlog cases."

"Of the more than 300 cold cases, how many have we solved?"

"By now, we should have broken through two hundred. The remaining hundred or so cases are either severely damaged by evidence loss or the victims and witnesses cannot be found, making progress very difficult."

Jiang Ruolan straightened her police hat and opened the door.

The sunlight in the corridor was just right, making the floor tiles glow with a warm light.

She stood in the sunlight, glanced back at Lu Zheng, and there was something in her eyes that hadn't changed since the first day she arrived in Yi'an:

"For every unsolved case, a detailed investigation report must be prepared, explaining why it couldn't be solved, which link went wrong, and who should be held responsible."

These reports are the city's medical records. One day, someone will use these records to finish the rest.

After saying that, she turned and walked into the sunlight in the corridor, her leather shoes making a crisp and firm sound on the tiles.

The sound echoed in the quiet stairwell, like a drum that never stops beating.

Jiang Ruolan stayed in Yi'an until the second winter, when she welcomed her second Spring Festival in this position.

She spent last year's Spring Festival in the provincial capital, or more precisely, in the meeting room of the special task force of the provincial department. The first-instance judgment of the Shen Wangshan case had just been issued, and the work of organizing the appeal materials followed closely behind. On New Year's Eve, she and Zhou Pei each held a bowl of instant noodles, clinked paper cups together amidst the mountain of case files, and that was how they celebrated the New Year.

This year, Zhou Pei called her a week in advance, saying that she had to go back to the provincial capital no matter what, because the leaders of the department wanted to hear her report on the work of the Yi'an Municipal Bureau throughout the year, and also invited her home for a meal of dumplings.

She verbally agreed, but then she buried herself in a pile of new case files until the afternoon of the 28th of the twelfth lunar month, when Lu Zheng knocked on her office door and placed a plane ticket on her desk.

"Director Jiang, this is your plane ticket to the provincial capital tomorrow afternoon. Chief Zhou specifically asked me to keep an eye on you, saying that you always stay until the last minute every year, and this year we can't let you drive back—last month you drove back to the provincial capital for a meeting and rear-ended a truck on the highway, have you forgotten?"

Lu Zheng spoke with a straight face, but he couldn't suppress the smile at the corners of his mouth.

The rear-end collision wasn't serious; only the bumper was cracked. But Jiang Ruolan's first reaction after getting out of the driver's seat wasn't to check the car. Instead, she took the case files she was carrying from the passenger seat to check if they were scattered. The truck driver looked on in bewilderment.

This incident circulated in the Yi'an City Public Security Bureau for several days, becoming a topic of conversation among the police officers—"Our bureau chief can give up his life, but he cannot lose the case files."

Jiang Ruolan glanced at him and put the plane ticket into the drawer:

"Alright, I'm flying this time. You and Zhao Rui keep an eye on the house. I've approved the patrol schedule for the Spring Festival period; three more checkpoints have been added in key areas. Pay special attention to the demolition area in the east of the city. Also, after Su Nian's case is closed, what about her parents—"

"Someone has already been arranged to go and check it out."

Lu Zheng picked up the conversation, "Yesterday, Zhao Rui brought two bags of rice and a barrel of oil and played two games of chess with Su Nian's father."

The old man is in much better condition than a few months ago. He said he wants to go to Yunnan after the New Year to relax. Su Nian's roommate, Zhou Xiaoyu, also came back from her holiday and helped clean the yard at Su's house.

Jiang Ruolan was silent for a moment, then nodded.

The Su Nian case took less than a month from the time it was filed until all the suspects were apprehended, but the damage the case inflicted on the two families will take them the rest of their lives to process.

She knew that some wounds would leave scars no matter how they were stitched up, and the police's job was to bring the people who created the scars to justice; the rest of the healing could only be left to time.

The following afternoon, she boarded a flight to the provincial capital.

As the plane passed through the clouds, she leaned against the window and looked down. The outline of the city of Nghe An gradually shrank in the winter mist, eventually becoming an inconspicuous piece of a puzzle on the gray earth.

She has been in Yi'an for almost two years, and the changes in the city are visible compared to when she first arrived—a new batch of streetlights has been installed, and the unfinished buildings left over from the Shen Wangshan era in the east of the city have finally started to be renovated.

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