Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Jiang Ruolan put down her pen, leaned back in her chair, and looked over Lu Zheng's shoulder, landing on the map of Yi'an City on the wall.

She marked the places on the map—east of the city, north of the city, Shiqiao, Qingshipu, Chenjiagou—countless times with a red pen. In some places, the ink had smudged, as if the map itself was bleeding.

She stared at the map in silence for a long while before speaking. Her voice was not loud, but every word was clear and forceful.

"Everything I wanted to say is written in the report. The only thing I didn't include is this sentence: The crackdown on organized crime in Yi'an was not won by our Public Security Bureau alone. It was the people who had been suppressed for more than ten years and dared not speak out who stood up one by one and spoke out one by one, which helped us bring these thirty-seven lives back to light."

Chen Yonggui dared to file a formal complaint even after being doused with sulfuric acid; Chen Desheng refused to sign a letter of forgiveness after his daughter was hit by a car; Meng Zhaoyang made copies of evidence and gave them to his teacher before he died; Qin Guihua's husband never gave up searching for her for seven years—these are the true heroes of this case. We just did what the police should do.

Lu Zheng straightened up, said nothing, and simply saluted her.

He had performed this salute countless times, but this time he did it particularly slowly, his fingertips trembling slightly as he lowered his hand from his brow.

He turned and walked out of the office, gently closing the door behind him.

A month later, on New Year's Eve, Jiang Ruolan spent the night in the duty room of the Yi'an City Public Security Bureau.

This is her second Lunar New Year's Eve in Yi'an.

The occasional sound of firecrackers could be heard outside the window. Firecrackers were banned in Yi'an city a few years ago, but some people still break the rules and secretly set off a few strings of firecrackers in the alleys of the old city. They crackled for a while and then stopped.

The television in the duty room was on, and a skit from the Spring Festival Gala was playing. Laughter emanated from the screen and echoed in the empty duty room.

Several police officers on duty sat around playing cards in the next office, their laughter louder than that on television.

She sat at the desk in the duty room, with an unfinished document spread out in front of her.

My phone beeped. It was a text message of blessing from Lu Zheng, followed by a photo—his family's dining table was full of dishes, and a little girl with pigtails was reaching for a Coke bottle on the table, her eyes squinting into slits as she smiled.

She replied with "Happy New Year," then put down her phone and continued reading the materials.

The landline on the table rang.

She answered the call. It was the duty officer at the city police command center. His voice was steady, but his speech was a few decibels faster than usual: "Director Jiang, we just received a report. A male body has been found in a workers' dormitory at a construction site on Binhe Road in the north of the city. The deceased was a worker on the site and was discovered by his roommate. Officers from the Chengbei Police Station have arrived at the scene and the preliminary assessment is homicide. We need criminal investigation support."

Jiang Ruolan glanced at the clock on the wall; it was 9:47 PM.

She closed the documents, stood up, and picked up her police uniform jacket hanging on the back of the chair.

"Notify the Criminal Investigation Division's duty team to arrive at the scene within twenty minutes. Notify forensic doctor Lao Zheng to come directly from his home. I'll be there right away."

She pushed open the door, and a cold wind blew in from the corridor, carrying the unique smell of gunpowder on New Year's Eve and the faint aroma of dumplings in the distance.

Several family members of police officers who were setting off fireworks in the courtyard saw her hurrying out and consciously made way for her.

She started the SUV parked in the yard. The engine roared in the cold air, and the headlights illuminated the asphalt road ahead, which was covered with fine snow.

Chengbei Binhe Road is a new area that Yi'an has focused on developing in the past two years, with a high-end residential and commercial complex planned along the river.

The construction site where the incident occurred was a residential building under construction. The main structure had been completed, but the exterior facade had not yet been finished. The gray concrete frame stood silently in the night, and the long arm of the tower crane swayed slightly in the cold wind.

The workers' dormitory is a row of temporary prefabricated houses next to the construction site. A cordon has been set up at the door of one of the houses, and red and blue police lights are flashing back and forth on the tin walls of the prefabricated house.

A dozen or so workers wearing cotton-padded coats crowded outside the cordon, some of them even wearing hard hats, clearly having just been called down from the construction site.

Their expressions varied—some looked bewildered, some whispered to each other, and some hunched over, smoking, the red glow of their cigarettes flickering in the darkness.

Jiang Ruolan parked the car outside the cordon and got out.

The head of the Chengbei Police Station, surnamed Fang, was a dark-skinned man in his early forties. When he saw her coming, he hurriedly came to greet her and reported as he walked: "Director Jiang, the deceased was named Ma Guoqing, 42 years old, and was the foreman of the steelworkers on the construction site."

His roommate went back to the dorm that night to get cigarettes and found him lying on the bed with the blanket covering his face. He called out twice but received no response. When he lifted the blanket, he found the man was already dead. Terrified, he ran out and called the police. My men arrived and secured the scene, preventing anyone from entering.

"Time of death?"

"The forensic doctor just arrived and the preliminary assessment is that it occurred between 6 and 7 p.m.

Jiang Ruolan lifted the cordon and entered the prefabricated house.

This dormitory is small, with four bunk beds, housing eight people.

The air in the room was stuffy and sultry, the radiators were burning brightly, and the air was filled with the smells of smoke, sweat, and a deeper, instinctively unsettling sweet and fishy odor.

Ma Guoqing's bed was the lower bunk by the window, and the blankets on the bed were haphazardly covering him.

Forensic pathologist Zheng was standing bent over by the bed, his gloved hands carefully lifting a corner of the blanket.

Jiang Ruolan walked to the bedside and saw the deceased's appearance clearly.

Ma Guoqing is a robust middle-aged man with dark, rough skin and calloused hands, clearly someone who has worked on construction sites for many years.

He lay on his back on the bed with his eyes half-open. There were obvious bruises and pinpoint bleeding on his face, and a deep purple ligature mark on his neck. The mark was wide and shallow with irregular edges, and it was not left by a rope or wire, but rather by some kind of rough strip.

The pillow was tilted to one side, and there was a small patch of dark red blood on the pillowcase, which was already half-dried.

Old Zheng straightened up, stretched his aching knees, and spoke in a calm tone as if he were reporting the results of a routine checkup:

"The preliminary cause of death is determined to be mechanical asphyxiation. The ligature mark on the neck is consistent with signs of asphyxiation. The ligature mark is about three to four centimeters wide and has a rough surface texture, suggesting it was made from a towel or similar fabric."

The strangulation was very forceful, leaving deep marks, causing almost instantaneous suffocation with little room for struggle. Facial bruising and pinpoint hemorrhages under the conjunctiva are typical signs of death by asphyxiation.

The time of death was approximately between 5:30 PM and 6:30 PM, with an error margin of no more than half an hour.

Apart from the ligature marks on the neck, no other obvious external injuries were found on the deceased's body.

There were no signs of blunt force trauma to the head, his fingernails were intact, and there were no signs of self-defense—meaning the assailant struck him suddenly when he was off guard, or he was attacked without warning. He either didn't know the assailant, or he knew them but wasn't prepared.

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