Gangster heir? Please call me a legitimate entrepreneur.

"Bang!"

The heavy solid wood door to the city bureau chief's office was kicked open roughly and then slammed shut.

Li Jianguo leaned against the door panel.

The old man was breathing heavily, his chest heaving violently.

His once-neat police uniform now had several unsightly creases, and his tie was askew at the base of his neck.

The draft in the corridor was kept out of the door.

The radiators inside were burning brightly, making a gurgling sound like boiling water. The stuffy air was filled with the lingering smell of cooking oil that never dissipated, which wafted straight into my nostrils.

Li Jianguo felt his calves spinning, as if all his strength had been drained.

He stumbled forward two steps.

He plopped down into the peeling black swivel chair, the bearings of which creaked and groaned.

His head is still buzzing.

The phone that Lei Hu handed him in the corridor by the side door of the auditorium just now was like a blunt object, smashing his skull open.

The call came from the Provincial Public Security Department's Economic Crime Investigation Bureau.

Found it.

The 30 million overseas funds that Su Ye's original father's shell company flowed into the Golden Triangle.

They weren't buying heroin at all, nor did it end up in any drug lord's pocket!

The money was laundered through six offshore accounts and eventually ended up in an anonymous charitable trust in Los Angeles.

And the sole beneficiary of that fund.

She is the widow of Lao Liu, a drug enforcement hero from Longhai City who sacrificed his life ten years ago while on an undercover mission in the Golden Triangle, and whose wife was forced to flee overseas to avoid retaliation!

Old Liu, that's a soldier personally trained by Li Jianguo!

This phone call was like a slap in the face, completely destroying any remaining accusations Li Jianguo had against Su Ye.

This guy didn't launder money across borders.

He actually took money from the underworld to support the orphans and widows of martyrs for the entire municipal bureau!

"Clatter".

The office doorknob was turned from the outside.

Captain Gu shrank back and slipped in.

The white gauze around his head was still seeping yellow iodine stains, and he was holding a rolled-up red velvet object in his hands.

Captain Gu locked the door behind him and also put on the bolt.

"Bureau Chief..."

He swallowed hard and placed the thing in his hand on the large desk.

It opened with a "whoosh".

The red background with gold lettering and the reflective velvet surface made Li Jianguo's eyes sting.

The top line is in large Song typeface.

"Police-business cooperation: a vanguard in the fight against organized crime."

There are two more lines of smaller text below.

"Thanks to Director Li Jianguo for his patient guidance, which led Sihai Group to turn over a new leaf."

The inscription is jointly presented by the General Office of the Municipal Party Committee and Sihai Holdings Group.

Captain Gu sniffed, pointed to the tassel on the banner, and his voice trembled.

"Secretary Wang from the Municipal Party Committee just handed it to me at the entrance of the auditorium. He said Mayor Chen specifically instructed that it must be hung in the most conspicuous place in your room."

Li Jianguo stared intently at the banner.

The golden lettering looked like red-hot steel needles, pricking his retina.

The muscles in his cheeks twitched uncontrollably, and his eyes and temples twitched together.

The old man didn't speak, his hand trembling as he reached for his police uniform pocket.

He took out the flattened box of Hongmei cigarettes.

I pulled one out and bit it between my yellowed teeth.

It took four or five strokes of the lighter's gears to barely produce a tiny blue flame.

A bluish-gray smoke drifted between the two.

The pungent smell of tar slightly masked the stuffiness in the room.

"Old Gu."

Li Jianguo exhaled a long smoke ring, his voice hoarse like sandpaper.

Do you believe it?

Captain Gu pulled up a folding chair and sat down carefully.

The chair legs scraped against the terrazzo floor, making a harsh screeching sound.

"Believe what, Chief?"

"Does a thug who made his fortune by collecting protection money know how to set up an overseas charitable trust?"

Li Jianguo tapped his finger, which was holding a cigarette, in mid-air.

"Do you really believe that a thug who didn't even finish junior high school could lead a bunch of thugs armed with machetes to fix Grandma Zhang's roof in the shantytown in the east of the city?"

Captain Gu touched the gauze on his head, which pulled at his wound, causing him to gasp in pain.

"I...I definitely don't believe that. That kid Su Ye is cunning."

He pursed his lips, his eyes revealing his frustration.

"He's a wolf in sheep's clothing. Chief, you're saying these guys can go out without knives or sticks now?"

Captain Gu counted on his fingers.

"Lei Hu carries a DV camera around all day, and he'll record a video and call the police at the slightest provocation."

"That woman named Lin Dai knows the laws better than anyone in our legal department. She's always sending lawyer's letters to sue people."

"And then there's that express delivery service, they deliver goods down to the minute, and the drivers don't even dare to run a red light on the road."

The more Captain Gu talked, the more surreal it seemed. He grabbed a large gulp of cold boiled water from the table.

"This isn't gangster stuff, this is practically a contest for the 'Top Ten Outstanding Young Entrepreneurs in Longhai City'!"

Li Jianguo leaned back in his chair.

His gaze fell on the bright red banner on the desk.

Rough fingertips traced the armrests of the leather chair.

His mind began to rapidly replay everything that had happened in the past six months.

Like watching a movie, it plays frame by frame.

On the first day Su Ye took over Sihai Group, he directly filed a formal complaint against Bai Laogui, a veteran who had been involved in prostitution, gambling, and drugs, and sent him to jail.

Clean house.

Next, they shut down the violent debt collection department and set up some kind of live-streaming channel to help farmers.

They had a group of tattooed men selling tangerines in front of the camera.

Winning people's hearts and minds and turning around public opinion.

Then, they acquired the unfinished building in the east of the city, refused to demolish it, and offered high compensation.

He even spearheaded a nomination for the provincial Luban Prize.

Establish a positive corporate image and cultivate relationships with municipal leaders.

Finally, taking advantage of the city bureau's crackdown on organized crime, they used a clever tactic of diverting the blame eastward, using several excavators and a damage assessment report worth ten million yuan to send the young master Zhao from Beijing to the detention center.

Incidentally, they also took down the most arrogant local group, Hongyuan Group.

Using someone else to do your dirty work, monopolizing the market.

What's even more amazing is...

He even timed it perfectly, paying 50 million in taxes to the national treasury.

The police raid on the accounts was turned into a model of police-business cooperation!

"call--"

Li Jianguo stubbed out the remaining half of his cigarette into the glass ashtray filled with ashes.

He didn't even flinch when a spark burned his fingertip.

"Brilliant, absolutely brilliant."

Li Jianguo suddenly let out a nervous laugh, the sound of which was chilling in the empty office.

Captain Gu felt uneasy from the laughter.

He shifted his position, and the chair leg creaked again.

"Chief, don't scare me. No matter how clever Su Ye is, we still have our trump cards, don't we?"

Captain Gu lowered his voice and leaned forward.

"We've planted people in there. Isn't Gao Qiang still scouting their engineering department? And Chen Suan's become CFO, hasn't he?"

"And then there's Shen Qinghan, a top talent in the provincial department. Now he's always following Su Ye around as his secretary. How can he not slip up eventually?"

Hearing these three names.

Li Jianguo's facial muscles froze.

He reached out and rubbed his face, rubbing off a layer of dry, grime.

"You don't know anything!"

The old man slammed his hand on the table, causing ripples to spread across the water in the teacup.

"You think Su Ye kept them alive because he hadn't discovered their identities?"

Li Jianguo stared with his bloodshot old eyes, his gaze filled with clarity and lingering fear.

"Gao Qiang has been in jail for three months, received a nomination for the Luban Prize, and is about to be promoted to vice president! His stock options and dividends are more than your salary for ten years!"

"Chen went in to check the accounts and found out he had helped them legally evade over ten million yuan in taxes. He received a Porsche Panamera as a bonus and started calling me from the bathroom every day, crying and saying he was afraid he wouldn't be able to control himself and wanted to quit his job to work for him!"

Li Jianguo's voice grew louder and louder as he spoke.

My chest feels tight and painful.

"This kid is using our people to work for him for free! He's using a calculated scheme, a sugar-coated bullet to corrupt our undercover agents!"

Captain Gu's mouth was open, and sweat seeping from the edge of the gauze slid into his eyes, but he forgot to wipe it away.

This conclusion is terrifying.

If Su Ye really saw through the police's plan long ago, but deliberately made good use of these undercover agents.

That person's cunning is truly unfathomable.

"Chief, what... what do we do?"

Captain Gu swallowed hard.

"We can't just watch him hang this banner in our city bureau lobby, can we? If word gets out, our brothers won't be able to hold their heads up when they're patrolling the streets."

Li Jianguo remained silent.

He stood up and walked to the window.

Outside the window, the night view of Longhai City is bustling and dazzling, with neon lights flashing.

The city's biggest cancer has now transformed into a model taxpayer sitting on the mayor's seat.

This is all so perfect.

It's so perfect that you can't find even a single crack.

But it was precisely because it was so perfect that it further confirmed Li Jianguo's suspicions.

"He's playing a much bigger game than he thinks."

Li Jianguo had his hands behind his back, his knuckles cracking as he clenched them.

"He's not trying to whitewash his image to become a good person."

"He wants to use the guise of legality to openly and legitimately take over all the gray areas and infrastructure projects in Longhai City."

"Using the law as a weapon and rules as a shield, they've turned our police force into their free henchmen for eliminating dissent!"

Li Jianguo suddenly turned around.

In those cloudy eyes, a sharp glint, like that of an eagle, rekindled.

He strode back to his desk, rolled up the large red banner, and stuffed it into the trash can under the desk.

"We absolutely cannot be fooled by his superficial gestures."

The old man picked up the red secure phone on the table.

My finger hovered over the dial pad for two seconds before I made up my mind.

"Since he's playing cat and mouse, let's play along to the end."

He turned to look at Captain Gu, his tone icy.

"Notify the liaison officer."

"Wake up Zhang Tiezhu."

Captain Gu was stunned for a moment, then quickly stood up, his mind racing before he remembered this person.

"Zhang Tiezhu? The one with the code name 007?"

Captain Gu scratched the gauze. "Isn't he cleaning toilets at Sihai Group? What kind of core secrets could he possibly find out?"

Li Jianguo sneered.

"Su Ye has promoted Chen Suan and Gao Qiang, I don't believe he can keep an out of a marginal person who washes toilets."

He held the microphone to his ear, listening to the dial tone coming from it.

"Tell Zhang Tiezhu to stop the silence."

"If he can't uncover the most crucial secrets of the Sihai Group, he'll spend the rest of his life washing chamber pots in the men's restroom."