Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

The actual controller of this overseas account, after an overnight investigation by the provincial economic crime investigation department, was a company engaged in cross-border gambling and telecommunications fraud in Southeast Asia. One of the company's behind-the-scenes shareholders was Ren Pengfei's former partner, who has already been brought to justice in the Shen Wangshan case.

This shows that Xu Yaozong's ambitions extend beyond building materials—he is preparing to combine Nie Shichang's capital in the provincial capital with the remaining overseas network of Shen Wangshan's former subordinates to expand his "business" overseas.

When Jiang Ruolan placed the transaction record in front of Xu Yaozong, his expression finally changed.

It wasn't fear, nor was it a confession; it was a cold laugh—the kind of disdainful laugh that comes after your cards have been exposed.

He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and began to speak in the tone of a businessman negotiating:

"Director Jiang, building materials are just pocket change. You think arresting me means you've solved the case? Let me tell you, even without me, Xu Yaozong, the building materials market in Yi'an will have someone else. You can arrest me, but can you arrest everyone who wants to make money?"

As long as construction continues in this city, as long as workers on the construction sites continue to sweat, and as long as those developers continue to find ways to cut costs, my position will always be occupied. I'm not Shen Wangshan; I'm different from him—he relied on his sword, I relied on my brain. But we have one thing in common: we both underestimated your stubbornness.

"Are you done talking?"

Jiang Ruolan's expression remained unchanged. She simply opened the interrogation record, picked up a pen, and said, "Once you're done, start with that phone call at 4:52 PM on New Year's Eve. Explain clearly who gave the order, who carried it out, and who cleaned up the mess."

That same afternoon, Luo Bing confessed to all the cases he had been involved in in the interrogation room next door.

His confession largely matched Cui Changhe's, but with an extra crucial detail—Luo Bing personally carried out the murder of Ma Guoqing at the construction site in the north of the city, while the other two people were Xu Yaozong's cousin and his fellow villager, both of whom Xu Yaozong had brought from other places.

This corroborates the eyewitness testimony of "three strangers".

Luo Bing also confessed to the process of killing Yu Xiaomei and Zhao Baoshan—he and Cai Yongchang killed Yu Xiaomei together, while he killed Zhao Baoshan alone.

A fierce fight did indeed take place in Zhao Baoshan's pickup truck; Luo Bing still has a scar on his arm from a shard of glass.

At the end of the interrogation, Luo Bing asked a question, his tone carrying the kind of blind loyalty and bewilderment typical of low-level thugs:

"Zhao Baoshan is from my hometown, and I don't want to kill him. But Boss Xu said he must die. You police officers should understand, right? It's only natural for subordinates to carry out orders from superiors. I don't want to kill him, but I have no choice."

The police officers interrogating him did not answer this question.

On the last page of the interrogation record, the recorder wrote this sentence verbatim.

On the morning of the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, the Provincial Public Security Department held a press conference in Yi'an to report on the progress of the investigation into the series of murders committed on New Year's Eve.

On behalf of the Provincial Criminal Investigation Corps, Zhou Pei introduced the basic facts of the case—the main suspects, including the criminal organization leader Xu Yaozong, the mastermind Nie Shichang, the violent execution team leader Luo Bing, the information network leader Cai Yongchang, and the peripheral support personnel Cui Changhe, were all brought to justice. All three murder cases involved were solved, and the monopoly organization in the building materials industry behind them was uprooted.

At the end of the press conference, Zhou Pei specifically mentioned the following:

"During the investigation of this case, the victim Zhao Baoshan's last stand provided the task force with a crucial breakthrough. When he was attacked, he fought desperately, breaking the charger inside the car and clutching the fragments in his palm. This subconscious action allowed the task force to quickly pinpoint the connection between his death and the previous three murders. His death cannot negate what he did in his life—he participated in the crimes, he was guilty, but in the last moment of his life, he chose to resist rather than submit. This resistance itself is the most powerful testimony against the crimes."

Jiang Ruolan did not attend the press conference.

She sat alone in her office, with the first draft of the case report for the New Year's Eve project laid out in front of her.

At the end of the report, the task force conducted a preliminary analysis of the entire criminal organization's operating model. Although the Xu Yaozong gang and the Shen Wangshan gang were not comparable in scale and historical depth, they shared a common core characteristic in their organizational model: they were both malignant tumors parasitizing the urban construction system, relying on violence to monopolize the supply of building materials, relying on information networks to collect intelligence, and relying on protective umbrellas to shield criminal activities, ultimately obtaining huge profits through illegal monopolies.

It took Shen Wangshan thirty years to weave this network to cover the entire city, while Xu Yaozong only took half a year—because he inherited a ready-made network of relationships, learned from Shen Wangshan's failures, and adopted a more covert and "legal" shell.

If it weren't for the three murders on New Year's Eve that exposed their violent nature, this gang might have remained lurking in the building materials market for many years, slowly dragging the entire Yi An construction industry back into the quagmire of monopoly and corruption, like boiling a frog in water.

At the end of her report, she wrote the following: "The New Year's Eve case once again confirms a judgment: the root of organized crime lies not in the moral depravity of a few individuals, but in the long-standing regulatory vacuum and rent-seeking opportunities in certain industries."

Following the Shen Wangshan case, Yi'an's anti-gang crime efforts should shift from targeting individual cases to systemic governance—filling regulatory loopholes in the building materials industry, standardizing bidding procedures, establishing a supplier blacklist system, and promoting transparency in industry information.

Only by exposing the breeding ground for crime can we truly prevent the emergence of another "Shen Wangshan" or "Xu Yaozong."

As the last period was struck, snow began to fall again outside the window.

The snow in Yi'an always comes very casually. Sometimes it falls for several days in a row, and sometimes it just drifts for a short while and melts into water before it even hits the ground.

Jiang Ruolan closed her laptop, picked up the teacup on the table, and walked to the window.

The snow on the streets had been swept to the sidewalks, revealing the gray paving stones on the sidewalks. The breakfast stalls on the street corners were still steaming, and the red lanterns for the New Year looked particularly bright in the snow.

Her phone vibrated; it was a message from Lu Zheng.

There were no words, only a photograph—Ma Guoqing's son, Ma Xiaodong, the boy who waited alone at home all night on New Year's Eve for his father, went to the Municipal Public Security Bureau today, accompanied by relatives, to claim his father's belongings.

In the photo, he is wearing a faded school uniform and is receiving a transparent evidence bag from the police officer. Inside the bag are Ma Guoqing's wallet, cell phone, and a keychain with a worn-out motorcycle model hanging from it.

His eyes were red, but he didn't cry. He stood very straight and took the evidence bag with a steady hand.

In the background of the photo, you can see half of Lu Zheng's face. He is standing to the side with his mouth slightly open, as if he is saying something, but in the end he doesn't say anything.

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