Nominal: Hou Liangping blocking the door? He was slapped away!

The Provincial Party Committee Auditorium.

The expanded meeting of provincial-level and above cadres in Handong Province started promptly at 9:00 AM.

The last time a meeting of this caliber was held was during Zhao Lichun's tenure, for a performance review and mobilization meeting. Back then, when Old Zhao sat on the stage, everyone below had to be mindful of his expression even when flipping through their notebooks.

Now, Old Zhao is living in the detention room, suffering from the cold.

More than a thousand people came to the auditorium today. The first six rows were occupied by the top leaders of various cities and prefectures and the heads of provincial departments and bureaus. The back rows were occupied by deputy leaders and attendees. Folding chairs were temporarily added to both sides of the aisle.

No one spoke.

Sha Ruijin sat in the center of the dais. He wore a dark blue Zhongshan suit with a Party emblem pinned to his chest. In front of him was a white porcelain teacup, and next to it was a stack of speech drafts.

He turned to the first page and looked up to scan the audience.

"Comrades—"

The first word he uttered was spoken with a slightly raised tone, carrying a relaxed, conversational quality.

"I haven't been in Handong for long, and to be honest, I've been a little apprehensive. Handong is a major economic province, ranking fifth in the country in GDP. Its fiscal revenue, industrial output, and total import and export volume are all impressive. Being able to work here is a sign of the organization's trust in me, and even more so, a heavy responsibility."

Some people in the audience started nodding.

"After Zhao Lichun's incident, Handong went through a very difficult period. But I looked at the economic data for the past few months, and all the indicators have risen instead of falling. What does this show? It shows that our cadre team in Handong has a good foundation and is highly capable."

Applause broke out. It started sparsely, but quickly grew into a continuous burst.

Liu Changchun sat in the second seat on the left side of the stage, his hands resting on his knees, motionless. He would never have come to this meeting if Sha Ruijin hadn't personally waited outside his office to invite him.

Sha Ruijin continued reading.

The meeting lasted fifteen minutes on economic development, ten minutes on projects to improve people's livelihoods, and another ten minutes on building a strong cadre of officials. Each segment was bland and uninspiring, and every sentence was meticulously crafted.

A standard inaugural speech by a new official.

Some people in the audience started secretly checking their watches.

He Xia sat on the far right of the stage, her right hand resting on her thigh, her fingertips unconsciously tracing circles on the hem of her skirt. Shen Zhong sat at the very end of the far right of the stage, his military cap resting on the table in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest, his head tilted back slightly.

When Sha Ruijin finished speaking at the forty-second minute, he turned to the last page of his speech.

He closed the manuscript and pushed it aside.

That concludes the speech.

The air below the stage tensed subtly.

The speaker finished his speech but didn't stand up. This meant there was more to say—and it wasn't in the prepared script.

The most dangerous part of officialdom is never reading from a script.

"Some things we can discuss behind closed doors, but there are some things I'd like to talk about with my comrades."

Sha Ruijin picked up his teacup, took a sip, put it down, and used the lid to scrape off the tea leaves.

Upon hearing this, everyone in the room tacitly closed their laptops and looked at Sha Ruijin.

"Since the Zhao Lichun case, there has been a saying in society that Handong is in chaos. I would like to ask everyone here, is Handong actually in chaos?"

No one responded.

"It's a mess," Sha Ruijin said, stating the answer himself. "Not just a mess, it's an absurd mess."

He tapped his fingers lightly twice on the table.

"Several things happened recently, as I'm sure everyone here is aware of. Fighter jets intercepted a civilian airliner over Jingzhou, armored vehicles rammed through the gates of a provincial state-owned enterprise, and fully armed special forces stormed into the provincial party committee's residential compound in the middle of the night to arrest people—"

With each item mentioned, someone in the audience would shrink their neck into their collar.

"These things are unimaginable in any country governed by the rule of law."

Sha Ruijin's gaze suddenly shifted ninety degrees from directly in front of him.

He lunged straight at the man in military uniform with his eyes closed on the far right of the podium.

"I understand that extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. Fighting corruption requires an iron fist, and the organization's stance on this has never been ambiguous."

pause.

"but--"

Sha Ruijin slammed his hand on the table. The teacup lid jolted.

"What exactly is the political and legal system doing?!"

The voice was a full octave higher than before, and the loudspeakers in the auditorium amplified the sentence to every corner. Before the buzzing echo had even dissipated, the second sentence came crashing down.

"Handong has a Public Security Bureau, a Procuratorate, a Court, and a Supervisory Commission! Such a massive political and legal force, supporting so many people and spending so much taxpayer money, yet they can't even catch Ding Yizhen, and have to resort to the military to clean up the mess?"

Gao Yuliang's back was pressed against the chair back, his fingers interlaced and resting on his abdomen. He didn't move, but the knuckles of his ten fingers were white.

Sha Ruijin's words were ostensibly a criticism of the incompetence of the political and legal system.

But anyone with even a modicum of political acumen in the room picked up on the underlying message—military intervention in local affairs was a taboo subject. Today they intercept planes and arrest corrupt officials, but what about tomorrow?

He is drawing lines.

Tian Guofu sat next to Gao Yuliang, slowly sipping water from his cup. The curve of his lips was well-controlled; it wasn't exactly a smile, but it certainly wasn't a lack of it.

What was the role of the Discipline Inspection Commission in the Ding Yizhen case? Don't ask, the answer is simply that they actively cooperated. As for why the military acted first—it wasn't due to the Discipline Inspection Commission's inaction, but rather the urgency of the situation.

Sha Ruijin did not mention the Discipline Inspection Commission at all.

Gao Yuliang saw all of this.

Tian Guofu turned and glanced at him, a beaming smile on his face. Gao Yuliang knew perfectly well what was hidden in that smile.

This is not a matter of objective criticism of the job.

This is artillery firing from the hilltop.

Sha Ruijin came from the west, and Tian Guofu had long since pledged his allegiance; now Sha was one of their own. As for Gao Yuliang, the Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, a veteran of Zhao Lichun's era, he was naturally a target for purge.

Is the political and legal system incompetent? The entire anti-corruption bureau's investigative force, from the provincial procuratorate to the municipal public security bureau, was completely blocked by Zhao Lichun's people. Ding Yizhen was able to escape because Zhao Lichun deliberately delayed things at the Standing Committee meeting!

The military intervened precisely because Zhao Lichun had seized control of the local areas!

How did this debt end up being attributed to the political and legal system?

Gao Yuliang sat up straight. Since Sha Ruijin didn't give him face, he wouldn't give Sha Ruijin face either.

"Comrade Ruijin, may I interject?"

Everyone in the auditorium turned their attention to this.

"The political and legal system did indeed expose many problems in the Zhao Lichun case, and as the secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, I bear an unshirkable responsibility for this."

His tone was calm and unhurried. "But everyone here knows the root of the problem. During Zhao Lichun's more than ten years in charge of Handong, he placed countless people in the political and legal system from top to bottom, and he undermined countless normal case-handling procedures—these are things that I, as the secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, cannot handle."

Sha Ruijin held his teacup without saying a word.

Gao Yuliang continued.

"The fact that Ding Yizhen almost escaped right under the nose of the Standing Committee doesn't stem from the political and legal system. It stems from the meeting table of the Standing Committee. Who delayed the meeting for forty minutes? Who repeatedly emphasized 'following procedures'? These facts are clearly written in the meeting minutes of the Discipline Inspection Commission."

Shifting the blame.

But the argument was well-founded and supported by evidence.

Zhao Lichun is already in detention; a dead man can't stand up and refute. The blame is being placed on him, and no one present dares to speak up for him.

Sha Ruijin put down his teacup and looked at Gao Yuliang.

"Comrade Yuliang is right."

Gao Yuliang breathed a sigh of relief.

"But reason is reason, and rules are rules."

Sha Ruijin stood up, placed his hands on the edge of the table, and leaned his upper body slightly forward.

"I'll only say one thing today, which is also the first rule I'm establishing since coming to Handong—"

"Handong is a Handong governed by the rule of law. No power will be allowed to override the local government."

"How can this be allowed?"