In the room next to the interrogation chamber, Xu Dayuan had his arms folded.
Inside the interrogation room were Cao Wenyu and Liu Yufei, and a local clerk, though these were essentially just for show, since the mouse device developed by Mr. Qu took care of everything.
"I can tell you that Bai Qishan is confessing now, and doesn’t leave you with much ti. Not one of those three kids is yours or Bai Qishan’s, but you’ve still got all your maternity docunts intact. Where did you go during your maternity leave?
Did you go to Aerospace City for a secret mission? Or to Qindao for undercover investigation in makeup? I forgot to ntion just now that your youngest child has neuroblastoma. Anyone paying the slightest attention, even you or the nanny, could have noticed, yet neither of you did.
You know why your nanny seems so honest and professional, but isn’t too devoted to the kids? You think you’re Bai Qishan’s partner? The nanny was surveilling you, ready to silence you if you ever stepped out of line," Liu said.
"Now, think back. On May Day this year, you went to the storage room to clean up so broken glass. The nanny almost knocked you over in her hurry, right? She didn’t slip; she didn’t want you in the storeroom because there were surveillance caras inside, as well as firearms and various toxic substances. Do you want to see the photos?" Liu asked.
Cao Wenyu was nervously wringing her fingers together. Xu Dayuan noted her diocre psychological state during his interrogation, although at that ti, so detailed evidence was lacking.
"Did you search Cao Wenyu’s ho?"
Xu Dayuan nodded.
"Fang Mu’s team has arrived—over forty people, many of them seasoned veterans from the criminal police brigade. I had Tao Zhenshan lead the team to inspect the hos of those people, and they’ve made significant discoveries in just a few hours, sending back photos from each search.
Mr. Yang was also deployed by to join in, and He Chunyang even took people to Aerospace City. The support team from there hasn’t arrived yet, so we’re heading over to receive them and look for the original drafts of the sketches," Xu added.
Zhou Ning suddenly understood; things were moving quickly on this front.
"I was just wondering why, after Aerospace City sent a fax of a suspect’s likeness, there were no follow-up inquiries. Could it be that they’re as full of holes as Ganzhou?" Zhou Ning pondered aloud.
Xu Dayuan gave Zhou Ning a sidelong glance and patted his shoulder.
"Don’t worry. That won’t happen over there; it’s a special unit, after all. I suspect soone intentionally led your father to investigate these two individuals, utilizing the criminal police network to issue a coordination request, which is why there are no records there.
After all, back then, without cell phones or WeChat, communication wasn’t so convenient—it was all landlines, faxes, and pagers since no cop could afford mobile phones costing tens of thousands," Xu explained.
Zhou Ning nodded, understanding how seriously his father took the case despite the limited information, likely due to connections with his superiors.
Since his father’s death, all traces of him had been erased, with reports kept vague and any ordinary identification records destroyed here. Without higher-level involvent, none of this would have been possible.
"Have you found Sun Pengfei himself? Can the person be brought over for questioning? Though we lack solid evidence, we found Sun Pengfei’s fingerprints on the files in the small warehouse," Zhou Ning inquired.
"Oh, I see you’ve made so progress too. Whose fingerprints were found?" Xu asked.
"Zhu Jianguo’s, and a female police assistant from the criminal police team, Zhang Cuie, who was also a clerk but resigned in 2010. There are a lot of other fingerprints, and plenty on the latex gloves as well. I don’t know if any are my father’s. Since there were no fingerprint archives at the ti and his records are gone," Zhou Ning replied.
Xu Dayuan nodded and opened WeChat to show Zhou Ning a conversation.
"Fang Mu’s team has arrived, accompanied by people from the provincial office. Sun Pengfei is under control, reportedly very agitated. He wasn’t at the provincial supervision departnt, nor at ho. Located via mobile positioning, he was found at a bath and massage center; he should be delivered here before ten o’clock tonight," Xu said.
This news was perhaps the most heartening to Zhou Ning. Just as he was about to speak, he noticed Cao Wenyu in the interrogation room seed about to say sothing.
The two n quickly stopped and turned their attention toward the interrogation room.
"I t him in my sophomore year. He said if I followed him, I could spend money as I wished, live lavishly, and even offered fifty thousand to pay for my mother’s surgery, though she couldn’t be saved," Cao began.
Liu Yufei raised her hand, signaling Cao Wenyu to pause.
"Don’t refer to him as ’him’ in the third person. Just say the na directly. For soone capable of having you monitored around the clock, do you really think you need to hide anything? Whether it’s you or anyone else, to him, you’re all just talking tools that can be discarded at any mont. Understand?" Liu instructed.
Cao Wenyu nodded, tears falling as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and continued:
"Yes, it’s Bai Qishan. After I graduated, he asked to go with him to Ganzhou. Although it’s a poor place, he said he’d take care of . First, he wouldn’t give any status; second, he needed to train . If I ever crossed him, it wouldn’t just be a simple matter of leaving him—I would lose my life. He told to think it over.
I was terrified of poverty. My father died early, and my mother only had surgery because Bai Qishan paid for it. My four older sisters were more or less sold into marriage, and we had long since lost our ho and land. Going back to relatives who wished to avoid like the plague, I didn’t hesitate. Money and a job outweighed recognition for .
So I went with him. I never attended my senior internship; instead, he took to a rural-looking courtyard in the outskirts of Pingjin City, Luxi Province. It appeared to be just a farmhouse, but underground it had many rooms and tunnels—so intricate you could get lost without a guide."
I didn’t know the exact location, the teachers in the classes all wore masks, so I could only tell their gender and approximate age by their voices. I couldn’t see their faces. Over a span of seven or eight months, I was trained there.
I knew there were others taking classes with , but I never saw them. Only when they were being punished could I hear their screams, blood-curdling ones that made your hair stand on end. I was beaten once, and I lost count of the tis I went without food. The training covered everything.
From dressing and makeup to manners and conversation, to using a miniature cara, driving, diving, climbing, and even firearms, I knew then that there was no turning back. You might not believe , but to this day, I still don’t know who I’m working for. But it doesn’t matter, I’ve enjoyed a life without worry for food or clothes."
"Say sothing useful. During the ti you took maternity leave, what did you do, and how much do you know about Bai Qishan’s affairs? Rember, the more you share, the better for you. The sa old saying, I’m not from Ganzhou. If we could co here to investigate, that represents sothing, you should be very clear about that."
Cao Wenyu nodded.
"I know it was just a matter of ti. I had access to very limited information. I dare not think about earning any rit. During the three maternity leaves you ntioned, I indeed wasn’t in Ganzhou. In 2007, I went to Pingjin City in Luxi Province, hanging around upscale establishnts with two n. As for what they did, I don’t know; I was just a cover.
In 2009, I stayed a few days in the capital of Longyou Province, disguised as a college student, distributing resus everywhere. I road around for three or four days, then went to Aerospace City, where I was issued an ID card. My na was Chu Limin, purportedly a graduate from the computer science departnt of Hexi College.
In Aerospace City, three of us acted together. I guess I was still cover for soone. We stayed there for a month, in a triple room, but the other two were guys. The departnts they applied to, I have no idea, but I visited every recruitnt unit in Aerospace City.
As for 2011, I spent three months on Qindao, keeping a close watch on a room, making detailed records, and taking quite a few photos. I have a strong mory of this person, a really handso guy; occasionally, soone would stay with him.
Moreover, this person also wore a police uniform, so I think he must have been low-ranking, but he lived in a very large house, up in the mountains, with Qin University just below. After watching for three months, we pulled out without any handover.
The person involved in that surveillance is here in Ganzhou too. I’ve seen him in the archives. Don’t ask why the surveillance; I only execute orders, without the right to ask why."
As soon as she said this, not just Liu Yufei, but even Xu Dayuan and Zhou Ning were taken aback.
"Was that surveillance for you? In 2011, you had just been transferred to Qindao from Qidong, and Mr. Zhao and Mr. He lived with you for a while, right?"
Zhou Ning nodded.
"Yes, they lived with for a month when I just moved there. But why were they watching at that ti?"
Xu Dayuan frowned and remained silent, still staring at Cao Wenyu.
Liu Yufei then asked:
"Based on your understanding of Bai Qishan, do you think he can control many people in Ganzhou? I an, people with the sa status as you."
Cao Wenyu shook her head.
"I don’t know. I was one placed in the open, but the identities of others, I have no idea. However, his thods are formidable, masterfully utilizing money, power, and sex. Although he never touched , he often used as a gift for others’ enjoynt."
"Given to whom?"
Cao Wenyu fell silent, and Liu Yufei handed her a pen and paper. This expression clearly showed that she knew the na of the person, and that it was the kind that couldn’t be spoken aloud.
"If you can’t say it, write it down."
Cao Wenyu wrote rapidly across a page, from nas to workplaces, to titles—listing eleven individuals from various functional departnts of Ganzhou—before stopping.
"There are another six I don’t recognize, so of which hold significant official positions. The jackets and shirts they wear are very distinctive, the lack of brand labels being the biggest label of all."
Liu Yufei flipped through the questionnaire, found the first page of content, then closed it.
"One last question, the files in the archive room, did you destroy them randomly or were you ordered to?"
Cao Wenyu fell silent, the silence on this question causing so confusion among the others, especially since she had been so forthcoming before, laying out information smoothly once she heard Bai Qishan had been captured and so details had been disclosed, providing valuable evidence without needing close questioning.
As for the docunts in the archive room, they were selectively destroyed, and the choice of which docunts to destroy was definitely not within her control.
Could it be that the order wasn’t issued by Bai Qishan?
"Continue!"
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