Night had fallen, and the hustle and bustle of Three Rivers Estuary People's Hospital had quieted down. The inpatient building was silent, except for one floor that remained unsettled.
The corridor on this floor was crowded with police officers at its far end. Occasionally, nurses and family members would come forward to remind them, "Hey, hey, officer, no smoking here." "It's fine, I'm blowing it out the window." "If you closed the window and stuck your head outside to smoke, I wouldn't mind. But with the window open, the smoke just drifts back in." "Got it, got it. I'll go to the stairs then."
The elevator bell rang, and Zhang Yi'ang appeared at the door in plain clothes. Wang Ruijun and the others quickly gathered around him, but seeing his grim expression, no one dared to speak first.
Zhang Yi'ang took a deep breath, trying to control his emotions. "How are they?"
Wang Ruijun steeled himself to answer, "The property manager had multiple organs punctured and is still in the ICU. Fortunately, the doctor just said he’s temporarily out of critical condition. Zheng Yongbing was stabbed in the waist. He’s got some padding, so only part of his organs were injured—no life-threatening danger. He’s resting in his room now. Li Qian only had a cut on her knee, just a superficial wound. It’s been bandaged, and she’s fine. She’ll stay in the next room overnight and get checked again tomorrow."
Zhang Yi'ang nodded, scanning the crowd of detectives before asking, "Where’s that bastard Song Xing?"
"Uh..." Wang Ruijun hesitated before replying, "He’s been running around all night chasing the suspect. He’s pretty exhausted."
"He has the nerve to say he’s tired?"
"No, no, he didn’t say he was tired. I just thought he looked worn out." Wang Ruijun tried to plead for him. "Chief, please let it go this time. It was supposed to be a routine undercover investigation. No one expected things to turn out like this."
"Routine undercover investigation? The guy in charge of the investigation walks away unscathed, while everyone else ends up in the hospital. Is that how a cop should operate?"
"Uh... No, definitely not."
Zhang Yi'ang exhaled sharply and changed the subject. "Any leads on the suspect?"
Wang Ruijun flushed as he explained, "When Song Xing ran up the stairs to help, the suspect took the elevator down while he was climbing. Song Xing told Xiao Gao to intercept, but Xiao Gao never ran into the suspect. Later, we checked the surveillance footage and saw the suspect didn’t head for the main gate—he slipped out through the back entrance. We urgently reviewed the street cameras and saw him flee into an alley. That area’s a maze with no surveillance, so he got away for now. We’ve got over a hundred officers combing the neighborhood door to door."
Zhang Yi'ang snorted. "Tell me, isn’t Song Xing an idiot? Running up sixteen flights of stairs!"
"The elevator was stuck on the sixteenth floor. He heard Li Qian was in trouble on his phone and didn’t have time to wait for the elevator to come down, so he ran up. If he’d waited, those three upstairs might’ve been in even greater danger." Wang Ruijun did his best to defend him.
"Running the stairs wasn’t the problem. But even in an emergency, couldn’t he have pressed the elevator button first before taking the stairs? By the time his legs carried him up sixteen floors, the suspect had already escaped in the elevator. If he’d pressed the button to bring the elevator down, the suspect wouldn’t have had a chance to use it—he might’ve been caught by now."So that's how it was! The surrounding detectives nodded in agreement, praising the leader's method as decisive, composed, and methodical. Song Xing, who had foolishly charged up the stairs without thinking, had ultimately allowed the criminal to escape. If only he had pressed the elevator button before running up, the elevator would have descended, and the criminal wouldn’t have gotten away. The outcome would have been entirely different.
For a long time after that, Song Xing became synonymous with thoughtlessness in the unit.
Zhang Yi'ang snorted and asked, "Have we identified the suspect yet?"
"Not yet. The surveillance footage doesn’t show his face clearly. We questioned Zheng Yongbing, but he refused to talk. Then he pretended to pass out, and the nurse came and kicked us all out, saying the patient was severely injured and needed complete rest."
"Rest my ass! Who the hell does the nurse think she is? Why don’t you just marry one!" Zhang Yi'ang roared. At a time like this, they were still worrying about Zheng Yongbing’s condition—was he their father or something? He barked an order: "Which room? Take me in!"
Wang Ruijun hesitated for a moment, then remembered his salary came from the police department, not the hospital. Since the boss had spoken, he didn’t dare argue. He instructed his subordinates to keep the nurses away, pushed open the door on the right, and led the boss inside.
It was a double room, but since Zheng Yongbing was under special police custody, there were no other patients sharing the space.
Zheng Yongbing lay on the bed near the door, seemingly asleep, showing no reaction to the two men entering.
Zhang Yi'ang studied him for a moment, then walked to the bedside and spotted a machine. Without a word, he reached out and turned off the power.
A few seconds later, a weak voice from the bed couldn’t hold back: "Don’t… don’t turn off my oxygen machine."
"Oh, so you are awake!" Zhang Yi'ang sneered, turning back to interrogate him. "Tell me, who stabbed you this afternoon?"
"I… I don’t know. I don’t recognize him."
"You don’t recognize him, yet he came to your place to eat?"
"He was… just a customer from the shop. Sometimes he’d drink with me, so we got acquainted. I called him Da Liu. That’s… that’s all I know. Um… the oxygen machine… can you turn it back on?" Zheng Yongbing weakly reached out before retracting his hand.
"Turn it on my foot! I don’t have time for your nonsense. If you don’t come clean, forget the oxygen machine—we won’t even give you antibiotics. If that blade had tetanus, see how long you last!" Zhang Yi'ang threatened outright.
Zheng Yongbing swallowed hard. That afternoon, his kidney had been grazed by the blade, and the pain had sent him into shock—he’d really thought he was going to die. Later, the doctor told him he was lucky his fat layer was thick; the knife had only scratched the surface of his kidney, and a month of rest at home would suffice. But hospitalized patients always fear the worst, worrying about complications. Now, faced with this threat, he panicked.
After a moment’s thought, he realized Da Liu had nearly killed him. Now that he was in police custody, he’d have to talk sooner or later—better sooner than later. Zheng Yongbing gave up resisting and confessed, "It was Liu Bei."
"I’m talking about the damn case, and you’re bringing up Romance of the Three Kingdoms ?!" Zhang Yi'ang bellowed, raising a fist as if to crush the IV bag.
Wang Ruijun gently tugged at his superior’s sleeve and whispered, "Chief, there really is someone named Liu Bei."Zheng Yongbing looked at him with an earnest expression: "Yeah, his name really is Liu Bei, and he's a wanted criminal."
Zhang Yi'ang frowned.
Wang Ruijun explained, "That guy's real name is Liu Bei. He's been a troublemaker since childhood, in and out of detention centers several times. Later, he learned tomb raiding from someone and switched professions, looting tombs across several provinces and trafficking national-level cultural relics. He ended up on the Ministry of Public Security's wanted list. A few years ago, he returned to Three Rivers Estuary and was reported, got caught. Officers from another jurisdiction came to take him away, but he faked illness on the way, killed a police officer, and escaped. He's never been caught and is still on the Ministry's high-priority wanted list."
A fugitive who kills a police officer is guaranteed the death penalty if caught. No wonder Liu Bei had struck first that afternoon, willing to add another murder to his record just to escape.
Zhang Yi'ang nodded and continued coldly staring at Zheng Yongbing: "So you were harboring a fugitive this time?"
"I... I didn't want to. He suddenly showed up at my place. He's a desperate man—how could I refuse?" Zheng Yongbing looked utterly wronged.
Ignoring him, Zhang Yi'ang turned to Wang Ruijun: "What's the penalty for harboring criminals again?"
"Up to three years imprisonment, detention, or surveillance. For severe cases, three to ten years."
Zhang Yi'ang sneered, "Would harboring someone like Liu Bei, who killed police officers, count as severe?"
Wang Ruijun played along: "Absolutely severe."
"Your file says you're 46. Ten years would make you 56 when you get out—not too bad, right? You'll be eligible for retirement in a few years anyway."
Despite his severe injuries, Zheng Yongbing suddenly sat up as if revived: "Sir, I don't want to go to prison. I was young and stupid before, but now I'd rather die than go back to jail."
Wang Ruijun explained, "If the authorities believe you were threatened by Da Liu—whether directly or indirectly—into letting him stay for meals and not reporting him, then you'd only get surveillance. That means no jail time, just periodic check-ins at the station. But the authorities would have to believe you were coerced."
Zhang Yi'ang nodded. "We are the authorities."
Zheng Yongbing stared at them in terror before hurriedly declaring a few seconds later, "Sir, ask me anything. Whatever I know, I'll tell you everything. I... I really was threatened by him."
Zhang Yi'ang scoffed, pulled up a chair, and began questioning patiently: "He's escaped now. Tell me, where did he go?"
Zheng Yongbing tried his best to look sincere. "Sir, I really don't know exactly where he'd go. If I could find him, he wouldn't have just stabbed me this afternoon."
Zhang Yi'ang nodded—that made some sense—and asked, "Why did he come to Three Rivers Estuary?"
"He said Boss Zhou from Rongcheng Group wanted to buy a set of Chime Bells from him. He didn't have any himself but was acting as a middleman. If the deal went through, he'd supposedly get a few hundred thousand as commission."
"Boss Zhou from Rongcheng Group—Zhou Rong?" Zhang Yi'ang immediately grew alert. "You're sure it was Zhou Rong who wanted to buy... Chime Bells?"
Zheng Yongbing answered honestly, "Well... that's what he told me. But a Manager Hu from Rongcheng Group also approached me, asking if I had any leads on buying Chime Bells. Of course, I didn't."
"Are these Chime Bells that valuable?""It's unearthed cultural relics, usually worth tens of millions to start with."
Zhang Yi'ang gasped, "That expensive!"
Wang Ruijun explained from the side, "The trade of unearthed cultural relics is strictly prohibited by the state."
Zhang Yi'ang thought for a moment. He'd never handled a cultural relics case before and figured it was normal for wealthy people to buy such items. Even if discovered by the police, the usual outcome would just be confiscation of the relics for the state—someone like Zhou Rong wouldn't be jailed. He then asked Zheng Yongbing, "Have you had any dealings with Rongcheng Group?"
"Not exactly," Zheng Yongbing pondered briefly before speaking in one breath. "That Manager Hu from Rongcheng Group once bought a fake calligraphy piece from me for five hundred yuan and asked me to claim it was worth five hundred thousand. A few days later, he returned it to me and told me to say I'd refunded him the five hundred thousand. I figured Boss Zhou probably wanted to buy calligraphy, and Manager Hu was taking advantage of his boss's ignorance to embezzle money."
"Is that all?"
"Yeah, that's all."
Zhang Yi'ang sneered, "But according to our intelligence, there's more to your story than that."
"Wh-what else?" Zheng Yongbing looked at him nervously, his expression fully noted by Zhang Yi'ang.
"Do you want to earn merit, or should I? Let me be straight with you—we've already traced that matter back to you. Did you really think today's visit was a coincidence? We're not here for Liu Bei, but for you. So, tell me, what really happened?"
Wang Ruijun was initially confused but caught on within seconds—the chief was bluffing to fish for more of his criminal history.
Zheng Yongbing lowered his head in silence for a while, then glanced at Zhang Yi'ang and Wang Ruijun. After an internal struggle, he sighed and said, "I did suspect those two had issues, but I took a chance... that's why I accepted their goods."
Zhang Yi'ang said calmly, "Tell me the whole story."
"About half a month ago, two men in their mid-twenties somehow found me and came asking if I wanted to buy some items. They gave me a bag of gold jewelry and some gems. I estimated their value at around 1.5 to 2 million, and I paid them 800,000, which they accepted. Sir, I really did suspect those items might have been stolen, but I thought maybe they were rich kids selling off family heirlooms to splurge. That's the gamble I took. If I'd known they were illegal, I would've reported them to the authorities immediately!"
"And then?"
"Then... they took the money and left. I sold some of the items, but most are still at my place. If... if the police want to recover them, I... I'll cooperate." He forced out the words with visible reluctance.
Zhang Yi'ang immediately realized the items Zhou Qi bought from Zheng Yongbing must be from this batch—something to investigate tomorrow. He pressed on, "What else?"Zheng Yongbing thought that revealing this major shipment in exchange for safety this time was already a huge loss. If he were to confess all the years of handling stolen goods, he would truly be ruined. He couldn’t possibly say any more. With an iron resolve, he cried out, "Officer, that’s really all there is to it. Other than keeping Liu Bei at my place this time, I’ve long since retired from crime. Everything in my shop is legal business—nothing illegal or criminal. This time, Liu Bei really came to me on his own. He’s a murderer, and I was afraid of him, so I had no choice but to take him in. It’s the absolute truth—you have to believe me!" Zheng Yongbing spoke with tears in his eyes, practically swearing on his life to prove his innocence. Seeing him like this, Zhang Yi'ang realized he wouldn’t get any more major confessions and had no choice but to let it go.
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