Official statement: Tongwei is dead! You chose Ruijin, didn't you?

At 11:00 a.m., at the Provincial Party Committee's Retired Cadres Compound.

The air conditioning in the study was on full blast, but Liang Wenjie's back was covered in a thin layer of sweat.

He held a half-smoked Cohiba cigar between his fingers, staring intently at the flight cancellation message on his phone screen, his face so gloomy it could drip water.

He's not stupid.

Although the notice issued by the General Office of the Provincial Party Committee stated that "all leading cadres and their relatives in the province should postpone leaving the province and cooperate with the special declaration of personal matters and family business activities in their current location," it was a formal and official document without naming anyone.

But this is too much of a coincidence.

Gao Xiaoqin was just taken in for questioning, and this morning the tax authorities conducted a "routine audit" of the account of his wife's shell company in Shanghai. Immediately afterwards, travel channels out of the province were tightened. This is hardly a routine declaration.

That was clearly a sniper bullet that flew right past my scalp!

Liang Wenjie has always considered himself far more refined than Zhao Ruilong, that nouveau riche who only knows how to throw money around and wears "My dad is Zhao Lichun" on his sleeve.

He deals with art, intellectual property rights, and high-end consulting.

In his social media posts, he is always portrayed as a Confucian businessman who appreciates tea, admires paintings, and collects limited-edition watches.

But now, this "Confucian businessman" is panicking.

"Are you crazy? Why do you have to go to the airport at this hour?"

His wife, Xu Man, rushed downstairs in her silk pajamas, snatched the car keys from his hand, and said, "The provincial party committee just gave a direct order, and now you're insisting on going to Shanghai. Aren't you just putting your butt in the line of fire with the supervisory team?"

"You don't know anything!"

Frustrated, Liang Wenjie ripped open the collar of his expensive linen shirt. "Once the tax authorities in Shanghai come in and examine the original working papers, our true colors will be revealed! I have to go and get those signatures and stamps back on those fake reports!"

"Fix it? How? Going there now would be like walking into a trap!"

Xu Man lowered her voice, trembling slightly, her gaze involuntarily drifting to the half-person-high German-made safe in the corner of the study. "I told you long ago, you can't accept anything Gao Xiaoqin gives you! A Patek Philippe worth over four million yuan, why would she give it to you with a smile? Now look what's happened, the safe doesn't contain a watch, it contains a time bomb!"

"It's just a watch! I have an invoice and a gift agreement. I paid for it under the 'Art Collection Exchange' agreement!" Liang Wenjie insisted.

"How many days has Gao Xiaoqin been in there? If she had confessed everything, why hasn't the supervisory team come to search her? They're just waiting! Waiting for you to feel guilty, waiting for you to open that safe yourself!" Xu Man said anxiously.

"Do you still think Sha Ruijin is in charge? Our family at least has a business relationship with him, so it doesn't matter what Gao Xiaoqin says. Now the supervisory team is in charge!! Do you still think it's like before?!"

Xu Man's voice was trembling with tears.

These words were like a bucket of ice water poured over Liang Wenjie's head, instantly chilling him to the bone.

He stood frozen in place, his gaze fixed on the heavy, dark gray safe.

The fear of the unknown can drive a person crazy. Should he open it now? What if there are surveillance cameras outside? What if the family is being secretly watched? His act of reaching for the watch box would be an admission of "destroying evidence"!

"Don't touch it... Absolutely not..."

Liang Wenjie slumped in the leather boss's chair, veins throbbing on his forehead.

On the tree-lined path outside the villa, an engineering vehicle painted with "Emergency Repair of Communication Lines" is parked quietly under the shade of the trees.

Inside the train carriage, Xiao Lin from the supervisory team's petition group was holding a box of fast food, chewing on braised pork while staring at the monitor screen.

On the screen, the thermal imager clearly showed two figures pacing back and forth in the study.

"Brother Lin, Young Master Liang has been pacing around the study three times already, why hasn't he opened the safe yet?"

The young investigator next to him took a slurp of noodles, looking somewhat impatient.

"What's the rush? Team Leader Zhou said that to catch this kind of clever fish, you have to hang the bait on the surface of the water so that it can see the bait but can't catch it, scaring it into circling the hook."

Kobayashi swallowed the food in his mouth, chuckled, and said, "The more he hesitates to open the safe, the more he'll need to find outside help. Just watch, he's about to make that call."

……

2 PM, Provincial Party Committee Meeting Room No. 1.

Lu Chengzhou sat in the main seat, flipping through the "Special Investigation Plan for Spouses and Children of Deputy Director-General and Above Cadres in the Province Engaging in Business and Running Enterprises" presented by Tian Guofu.

"Comrade Guofu, the plan is very detailed, but in its implementation, we must avoid going through the motions."

Lu Chengzhou put the document back, his voice steady yet carrying an undeniable authority. "Focus on investigating five categories: engineering construction, land transfer, financial leverage, cultural and artistic funds, and high-end consulting services. These five categories are the hardest hit areas for the transfer of benefits, and also the channels for some people to launder money through 'refined bribery'."

Seated to the side, Governor Liu Ruian immediately chimed in, adopting an extremely upright posture: "The provincial government has already issued instructions to simultaneously clean up the list of third-party service providers for government procurement and investment attraction throughout the province. Any company involving actual control by relatives of leading cadres, or those that are merely nominally affiliated but actually receiving shares, must be disclosed within three days. Those found to be operating after the deadline will not only be considered violations of regulations, but also violations of discipline and law!"

Li Dakang, sitting in the second row, twitched slightly when he heard the words "relatives of cadres engaging in business".

Although Ouyang Jing had already divorced him and was in detention, Li Dakang was still firmly burdened with the blame.

Lu Chengzhou's gaze seemingly casually swept across the entire room, finally landing on Li Dakang: "Comrade Dakang, Jingzhou is the provincial capital, with a large economy, many projects, and many people watching it. This special investigation will be piloted in Jingzhou, so you should take the lead."

Dozens of eyes in the audience immediately turned to Li Dakang.

In the past, Li Dakang would have offered a few words of explanation, emphasizing that he had severed ties with Ouyang Jing.

But since experiencing the "dashcam incident" and several rounds of heavy criticism from the new secretary, Li Dakang's political acumen has become several times sharper.

Without the slightest hesitation, he straightened his back, met Lu Chengzhou's gaze, and spoke in a loud voice:

"Please rest assured, Secretary Lu and the Provincial Party Committee! The first thing I will do after the meeting is to proactively submit a supplementary report to the Discipline Inspection Commission and the supervisory team regarding my personal asset declaration and all related projects that Ouyang Jing was involved in during her tenure at Jingzhou Bank! I will not cover up my mistakes, and Jingzhou will not protect anyone! Whoever's hands are not clean will be put on the iron bench!"

This statement was so powerful that even Tian Guofu couldn't help but glance at him a few more times.

Li Dakang has a really strong will to survive; he cuts things up faster than a scalpel.

Lu Chengzhou nodded, a satisfied look on his face: "Good, that's the attitude we need. You have to be strong yourself to succeed. If our provincial party committee stands tall, those shady characters below won't be able to hide."

After the meeting, Li Dakang strode to his car.

The train doors closed, and the carriage fell into a deathly silence.

Driver Xiao Jin gripped the steering wheel tightly, barely daring to breathe, afraid that his breathing might be out of sync with his boss, who was currently in a "politically sensitive period."

A full minute passed before Li Dakang's tense face relaxed slightly, and he sighed, "Xiao Jin, drive. Also... in the future, you can report on dispatching work normally in the car, but don't act like a wooden doll. This is a special car, not an escort vehicle."

Xiao Jin breathed a sigh of relief, quickly started the car, and muttered under his breath, "Secretary, I was just worried that the dashcam would... record something it shouldn't have recorded again."

"you……"

Li Dakang was speechless, pointing at him before finally letting out a self-deprecating bitter laugh. "You little rascal, now you've learned to make political jokes with me. Remember this: as long as we do the right thing, we're not afraid of even the King of Hell's Book of Life and Death, let alone a broken recorder!"

……

Night falls. Jingzhou Detention Center, interrogation room.

Zhou Zhengming and Xiaolin sat behind the table.

They didn't bring any case files today; there was only a steaming cup of tea and a copy of the "Tax Inspection On-site Record" that had just been faxed from Shanghai on the table.

Gao Xiaoqin, dressed in a gray prison uniform, was brought in.

After being detained for several days, she had become thinner, but the shrewdness and ruthlessness in her eyes had not faded; on the contrary, they had become even sharper because she saw the hope of revenge.

"Mr. Gao, please have a seat."

Zhou Zhengming pushed the fax forward a bit. "That 'gift' you sent to Young Master Liang is doing quite well. They just knocked on the door in Shanghai. Liang Wenjie was home today and almost wore through the carpet in his study."

Gao Xiaoqin glanced at the contents of the fax and couldn't help but let out a soft laugh, which sounded slightly jarring in the empty interrogation room.

"Team Leader Zhou, you're really testing Liang Wenjie. I know him too well. He has the desire and the guts to steal, but he doesn't have the thuggishness of Zhao Ruilong, who'd flip the table. The more afraid he is, the less he'll dare touch that watch box in the safe."

"Oh? So what do you think he'll do next?" Kobayashi asked curiously.

"He would send someone to 'scout ahead' and 'settle things down'."

Gao Xiaoqin leaned back in her chair, her eyes slightly narrowed. "He doesn't dare to go directly to the provincial leaders because everyone is on edge right now. He'll find three middlemen who actually do the dirty work."

Zhou Zhengming picked up his teacup and gently blew on it: "Which three?"

"First, the actual financial operator of the Shanghai consulting firm—he had to confirm whether the original documents had been confiscated; second, Liang Wentao's deputy secretary-general of the 'Cultural Exchange Foundation,' who was the mastermind behind laundering illicit funds into 'charitable donations'; third…"

Gao Xiaoqin paused, a hint of mockery flashing in her eyes: "The former deputy director of the Provincial Department of Culture, and concurrently the director of the Provincial Art Appraisal Committee, Zhang Daqian's 'closed disciple,' what was his name again... Oh, right, Wu Tiejun."

Xiaolin's fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed down the three names.

"This Deputy Director Wu is Liang Wentao's cash cow."

Gao Xiaoqin sneered, "The industrial assembly line paintings that Zhao Ruilong bought back overseas for three million RMB, as long as they are sent to Deputy Director Wu and stamped with the seal of the evaluation committee, they can be valued at eighty million RMB with a stroke of his pen! Then they can be donated to Liang Wentao's foundation, a one-stop service for tax deduction, cashing out, and money laundering, so clean that even the Discipline Inspection Commission can't figure it out."

"Words are not enough."

Zhou Zhengming looked at her and said, "Wu Tiejun is a cunning old fox. Without solid evidence of specific projects, he dares to talk to you for three days and three nights about the artistic value of a project, quoting classical texts."

"The evidence is in the serial number."

Gao Xiaoqin raised her head, meeting Zhou Zhengming's gaze, and recited a string of numbers, word by word, "HD-2017-041, HD-2018-096, HD-2019-112. These three appraisal reports were specifically laundered by Zhao Ruilong for the Liang family to obtain the Jingzhou Moon Lake project land, amounting to 230 million yuan. Wu Tiejun, to protect himself, habitually kept a copy of the original appraisal report in his private studio."

Xiaolin gasped.

This woman's brain isn't filled with brain matter, it's like a high-precision portable hard drive!

Zhou Zhengming gave Xiao Lin a wink, and Xiao Lin immediately grabbed the notes, picked up the phone, and rushed out of the interrogation room.

Only Zhou Zhengming and Gao Xiaoqin remained in the room.

Gao Xiaoqin stared at the tightly closed iron gate, remaining silent for a long time before suddenly speaking, "Team Leader Zhou... has Qi Tongwei's funeral been completed?"

Zhou Zhengming looked at her, put down his teacup, and said calmly, "It's all done. His cousin has buried him."

Gao Xiaoqin's shoulders trembled slightly. She lowered her head, let out a long breath, her eyes reddening, but she held back her tears.

After a long silence, she finally whispered two words: "Thank you."

"You're welcome, it's just following procedure."

Zhou Zhengming said calmly, "The more thoroughly you expose the Liang family's secrets, the more peacefully Qi Tongwei can be buried underground."

……

In the early hours of the morning, the light in Lu Chengzhou's office was still on in the provincial party committee compound.

Zhou Zhengming, holding the newly compiled action plan, gently pushed open the door and went inside.

"Secretary Lu, we've hit a landmine on the periphery."

Zhou Zhengming handed over a document stamped with a top-secret seal. "Following the clues provided by Gao Xiaoqin, we secretly checked the archives of the Provincial Art Appraisal Committee, and it matched those three numbers perfectly. The false valuation of 230 million yuan ultimately resulted in all the funds flowing back to the offshore account controlled by the Liang Wentao Foundation."

Lu Chengzhou took the document and flipped through it page by page, his gaze lingering for a moment on the names "Wu Tiejun" and "Liang Wentao".

"The fish has swallowed most of the bait; it's time to reel it in." Lu Chengzhou closed the file, took off his reading glasses, and rubbed his temples.

"Should we take action against the Liang brothers?" Zhou Zhengming asked.

"No rush."

Lu Chengzhou shook his head: "Tonight, have the supervisory team and the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection work together to secretly take away that deputy secretary-general and Wu Tiejun, who deals with art appraisals! I want the Liang brothers to wake up tomorrow morning to find that all their obedient dogs have disappeared overnight."

"I heard the sound of sharpening knives, but I couldn't see the butcher."

Zhou Zhengming laughed, a laugh that sent chills down one's spine. "This kind of torture is more effective than handcuffing."

"Go and do it."

Lu Chengzhou waved his hand, "It's tough on everyone. The sky in Handong should be bright and clear by now."