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

The Luzhou Sanatorium is built halfway up a mountain in a quiet and secluded environment. It was raining outside, but the heating was on full blast inside.

Luo Jianping was watching TV in his hospital room.

The television was broadcasting news from Handong Province; the footage of Meng Huaichuan's arrival in office had just ended.

Meng Huaichuan's words, "Investigate the old historical accounts," struck Luo Jianping like a needle.

He looked at Meng Huaichuan's unsmiling face on the screen and felt a chill run down his spine.

He's been hiding in the sanatorium pretending to be sick lately.

When Liu Xinjian went in, he wasn't implicated; when Zhao Ruilong fell from power, he thought he had survived it all.

If he can weather this storm, he can take his wife and children abroad to live out his retirement in peace.

But after this news broadcast today, he suddenly felt that even the private room in the sanatorium was not safe.

Just then, the door to the ward was suddenly pushed open.

Luo Jianping was startled. His hand trembled, and the remote control fell onto the blanket with a thud, instantly muting the TV.

Lei Ming strode in, closed the door behind him, and flashed his badge: "Luo Jianping, Central Supervision Group."

Luo Jianping's face turned deathly pale instantly. He instinctively shrank back and clutched his chest, saying, "I...I'm not in good health; I have heart disease."

Xiao Lin peeked out from behind Lei Ming and said with a smile, "It's alright, we have an emergency doctor in the car, and there's plenty of nitroglycerin."

Luo Jianping, panting heavily, said, "My blood sugar is also high, so I can't be stimulated."

Xiao Lin waved the bag in her hand: "What a coincidence, we also prepared sugar-free soda crackers. Mr. Luo, is there anything else bothering you? Let's address it one by one?"

Luo Jianping opened his mouth, but was completely speechless.

Lei Ming pulled up a chair, sat down on the edge of the bed with an air of authority, and slapped a copy of the service list provided by Jiang Guoping onto the bedside table.

"Twenty-three years ago, at the expert review meeting for the Lingang project, there was a service list for thirty-two people. This line of notes below was handwritten by you." Lei Ming stared at him. "Does it look familiar?"

Luo Jianping glanced at the paper, and cold sweat immediately broke out on his forehead.

He swallowed hard and began to evade the question: "It's been too long, my brain isn't working well these days, I really can't remember."

Lei Ming nodded: "It's alright, we'll help you recall. Jiang Guoping from the National Development and Reform Commission has already confessed, as has Guan Zhiqian, the financial manager of the Zhao family. Even Zhao Ruilong spoke up in the detention center the night before last."

You have two choices: either you stay here and explain yourself, or we'll discharge you and take you back to Jingzhou to explain slowly. The interrogation chairs in Jingzhou aren't as soft as this Simmons mattress.

Luo Jianping stubbornly insisted, "Back then, I was just the deputy head of the conference affairs group. I did whatever the leaders told me to do. I was just a worker."

"Who is your boss?"

"Du Qishan, the director of the National Development and Reform Commission at the time." Luo Jianping shifted the blame to the deceased.

Lei Ming sneered: "Du Qishan told you to arrange thirty-two people, so why is only eighteen people listed on the expense report?"

Luo Jianping's face turned grim, and he stammered, "Some leaders... have special statuses, so it's inconvenient for them to be on the list."

"Which leaders?"

Luo Jianping shut his mouth, his eyes darting away.

Kobayashi opened his notebook, removing the pen cap as he spoke:

"Director Luo, you old hands who have been around in Handong all have one problem: you've already reached the main gate, but you have to stop at the threshold to show that you still have some backbone."

Actually, once we reveal the materials, you'll still have to pour them out like beans pouring from a bamboo tube. Saving time is better for everyone.

Feeling embarrassed by being humiliated by a young man, Luo Jianping glared at Xiao Lin and said, "Don't you know the rules?"

Kobayashi grinned: "The Central Supervision Group's temporary mouth double is a cure for all kinds of bad memories."

Lei Ming coughed, suppressing a laugh, and tapped the bedside table: "Luo Jianping, don't expect those people in Beijing to protect you. Wang Zonghui has already been detained, and Bai Wangshan is in dire straits. You're taking the fall for them, while they're living the high life in Beijing, and you're stuck in this sanatorium, not even daring to eat a piece of candy. What's the point?"

These words completely shattered Luo Jianping's psychological defenses.

He slumped against the cushions like a deflated balloon and said in a low voice, "That night, Bai Wangshan arrived, Wang Zonghui arrived, Liang Qunfeng didn't show up, but he sent his secretary to attend the meeting. Chen Yanshi was also there; he attended as a veteran model worker and veteran procuratorial cadre, saying he represented the opinions of the grassroots masses and workers. Zhao Ruilong arranged a closed-door meeting in the small hall."

"What are you talking about?"

"Discussing the nature of the Lingang project."

Luo Jianping said, "They said that the Lingang project cannot be reviewed as a regular urban renewal project; it must be elevated to the level of a 'comprehensive financial innovation pilot program.' Only by using this framework can foreign exchange quotas, overseas procurement, and policy-based loans be processed through special channels and bypass normal supervision."

Lei Ming asked, "Who proposed this framework?"

"Wang Zonghui proposed the framework, Bai Wangshan agreed, and the Zhao family was responsible for its implementation."

What role does Chen Yanshi play in it?

Luo Jianping hesitated for a moment, his expression turning strange: "When Elder Chen spoke, he said that the redevelopment of Lingang must take into account the resettlement of workers, and we must not let the people suffer losses."

Kobayashi frowned: "That sounds reasonable, quite upright."

Luo Jianping gave a wry smile: "What he said was correct, but the problem lies in what followed. After he finished talking about the workers' resettlement, he changed the subject and said that his daughter, Chen Yang, could participate in the overseas consulting services for the Lingang project, saying that young people should have opportunities for practical experience."

Lei Ming snorted coldly: "Using the workers as an opening statement and his daughter's interests as the final point. Old Chen is doing just that, 'wearing the government's shoes, walking his own path, and even getting a model worker award along the way.'"

Luo Jianping lowered his head, not daring to respond.

In Handong, disguising private interests as public good is practically a basic skill for those old foxes.

"After the meeting in the small hall, were any meeting materials left behind?" Lei Ming pressed for the most crucial piece of physical evidence.

Luo Jianping gritted his teeth: "There was a preliminary revised draft after the discussion in the small hall. Du Qishan took away and destroyed all the originals at the time. But I was careful back then and secretly made a copy of the most crucial page."

"Where?"

"In the safe at the nursing home."

Xiao Lin chuckled: "Do the cadres in Handong have some kind of obsession with safes? Gao Xiaoqin hid her watch box in a safe, Zhao Ruilong hid his contracts in a safe, and you hid your photocopies in a safe too. Can't you just put them somewhere normal?"

Luo Jianping glared at him and said irritably, "If this were a normal place, I would have been inside operating a sewing machine long ago!"

This time, Xiaolin had nothing to say but could only give a thumbs up.

Half an hour later, the sanatorium staff opened the hidden safe in the room.

A slightly yellowed revised manuscript was taken out and handed to Lei Ming.

A handwritten suggestion was prominently displayed on the paper: "It is recommended that the redevelopment of Lingang Old City be included in the comprehensive financial innovation pilot program, allowing overseas equipment procurement, consulting services, and industrial funds to proceed simultaneously."

There was no signature at the bottom.

But Lei Ming immediately recognized that the paper had Wang Zonghui's unique annotation symbols on the edge, and even the upper right corner had the presentation number used by Bai Wangshan's secretary back then.

In officialdom, the traces of document circulation are more deadly than signatures.

Lei Ming carefully put the page into the evidence bag, knowing full well that his trip to Lüzhou had not been in vain.