The police department was still working tirelessly on the cases. There had been no progress in the Ye Jian case so far, and the recently emerged Liu Bei had been pursued for several days before he managed to escape. Fortunately, they had previously captured the high-profile criminal Li Feng, so Director Zhang could still save face.
But it wasn’t over yet—another homicide case was added today.
The situation had taken many twists and turns.
Over a decade ago, there was a small gang in Three Rivers Estuary known as the "Three Rivers Four Scoundrels"—Mei, Lin, Yang, and Xie. The nickname was a crude pun on "syphilis, gonorrhea, impotence, and premature ejaculation." The fourth member, Xie Shaobing, had stabbed someone to death in a brawl and fled. It was said that during his escape, he encountered a vengeful ghost and was hit by a tractor while crossing the road. Normally, a tractor’s speed could only kill an elderly person, but this one was overloaded. When it overturned, the entire load of sand buried him alive.
The remaining three thugs went their separate ways. The leader, Mei Dong, later went to Macau and, under the wing of some big shot, suddenly struck it rich within a few years. He leased several gambling halls and used henchmen from the mainland to lure people to Macau for gambling, skimming profits along the way. Rumor had it his business was enormous. A few years ago, he returned to Three Rivers Estuary for a class reunion and gifted every classmate an iPhone, which became big local news.
The second, Lin Kai, and the third, Yang Wei, stayed in Three Rivers Estuary. Initially, they engaged in what they called "performance art." They organized their lackeys to cause trouble at construction sites, then pretended to mediate, saying things like, "Why fight?" or "Let’s all take a step back for harmony," to "resolve" the conflicts and extort protection fees. Most construction companies, when faced with local ruffians, would rather pay to avoid trouble. But eventually, they ran into a well-connected construction company that refused to play along. Once, they even provoked Zhou Rong’s construction site. The two were captured by Zhou Rong’s men, beaten severely, and forced to kneel on the site all night. After that humiliation, they lost face in front of their underlings and realized that extorting construction sites wasn’t sustainable. So, they pivoted, enthusiastically embracing the call for "financial innovation" by starting a loan-sharking business.
Lending money was easy; collecting it was hard. Some who borrowed from loan sharks never intended to repay, so surviving in this line of work required toughness. Lin Kai and Yang Wei’s biggest asset was their dead fourth member. The fact that he had killed someone was well-known in the small underworld of Three Rivers Estuary. So, when collecting debts, they’d often say, "My brother killed someone—you know that, right? Believe me, I’ll stab you to death." This verbal threat of murder was wielded masterfully. With such a fearsome reputation, they never had to worry about making a living.
After Mei Dong made his fortune in Macau, he naturally thought of helping out his two younger brothers, Lin Kai and Yang Wei. Mei Dong ran gambling halls and loan operations in Macau, while Lin Kai and Yang Wei scouted local business owners around Three Rivers Estuary to gamble in Macau and handled debt collection. Many small business owners with a gambling addiction couldn’t resist the temptation and followed them to Macau. A lucky few might win some money, but the house always wins in the end. Trapped in the cycle of borrowing to recoup losses, many ended up taking loans from Mei Dong in Macau. Once back home, they were hounded by Lin Kai and Yang Wei for repayment, forced to sell off assets. Some even lost their hard-earned factories, handing them over to the loan sharks.Six months ago, Boss Fang, the owner of a moderately sized factory, succumbed to temptation and secretly went to Mei Dong's casino in Macau to gamble. In a moment of recklessness, he maxed out his credit cards and even signed an IOU for five million yuan. After returning to the mainland, for the first two months, Lin Kai and Yang Wei continued to act like brothers to Boss Fang. When Boss Fang said he was short on cash, they didn’t pressure him, just told him to repay within a few months. Half a year later, the five million debt had ballooned to six million, and Boss Fang still couldn’t pay. Lin Kai and Yang Wei stopped pretending to be friendly, sending their underlings to guard his factory and home every day, following him wherever he went. When his family found out he had gambled away such a huge sum, chaos erupted at home, and the factory became too disrupted to operate.
Boss Fang’s family reported the matter to the police, but since he did owe them money, and Lin Kai’s men had only followed, insulted, and humiliated him without causing physical harm, the police couldn’t intervene much due to strict regulations against involving themselves in financial disputes. The local station sent officers a few times, but nothing came of it.
Three days ago, Lin Kai confronted Boss Fang again, slapped him several times, and warned him to sell his house and factory to repay the debt. Unexpectedly, Lin Kai’s phone became unreachable that afternoon. At first, no one thought much of it, but when Lin Kai failed to show up at Yang Wei’s birthday party that evening—despite being close friends—it was clear something was wrong.
Early the next morning, Yang Wei took his men to Boss Fang’s house, demanding to know Lin Kai’s whereabouts. Boss Fang claimed ignorance. Yang Wei, convinced Boss Fang had arranged for Lin Kai’s disappearance, ordered his men to tie Boss Fang up and force him to drink a pot of urine as torture. Yet Boss Fang still refused to confess, forcing Yang Wei to back off for the time being.
However, after Yang Wei left, Boss Fang, humiliated beyond endurance, decided to go all out. He went to a print shop, made a large banner, and mobilized nearly twenty people—his family and factory workers—to march in the streets, accusing his family of being persecuted by the mafia and claiming the police were their protectors.
The protest quickly became a scandal. Rumors spread online that the Three Rivers Estuary Public Security Bureau was shielding the mafia. The government and police rushed to handle the situation, arresting both Boss Fang and Yang Wei.
The Three Rivers Estuary Public Security Bureau was truly wronged in this matter—none of its leaders even knew Yang Wei, yet they were collectively accused of being his godfathers. The disciplinary committee announced an investigation into the bureau. Zhang Yi'ang, being new, couldn’t possibly be Yang Wei’s protector, so public suspicion naturally fell on Qi Zhenxing. Furious, Qi Zhenxing had Yang Wei dragged before Boss Fang and slapped him five or six times, demanding, "Who exactly is this mafia protector you’re talking about?"
Terrified by the scene, Boss Fang quickly admitted that he had made the banner out of anger after Yang Wei forced him to drink urine, and that accusing the police of being protectors was just an attempt to escalate the situation. Though he clarified this at the station, the public refused to believe the police’s official statement. Qi Zhenxing was summoned by the disciplinary committee for questioning in the higher-level city. Before leaving, he instructed Zhang Yi'ang and the criminal investigation team to charge Yang Wei with the most severe crimes possible—otherwise, the "protector" label would stick.
Meanwhile, the criminal investigation team interrogated Yang Wei aggressively. He insisted that he had forced Boss Fang to drink urine because Lin Kai had disappeared at Boss Fang’s hands. But Boss Fang maintained he knew nothing about Lin Kai’s whereabouts.The police were concerned that the gambling debt collection might actually lead to a homicide, so they sent officers to investigate Lin Kai's whereabouts that day. Through street surveillance footage, they discovered Lin Kai driving a large Range Rover, chasing a small, rundown car for unknown reasons. Both vehicles eventually headed to the eastern suburbs, where the roads were under construction and lacked surveillance cameras. After that, the trail of the two vehicles was lost. Upon checking the license plate of the small car, it turned out to be genuine, but the owner's identity was fake—clearly obtained through illegal means. The footage showed two men sitting in the front seats, but the distance was too great to identify their faces.
The police dispatched officers to search the eastern suburbs, but after more than a day of searching, neither the vehicles nor any other clues about Lin Kai were found.
Then, today, as many municipal projects were underway in the eastern suburbs of Three Rivers Estuary, a construction supervisor, feeling the urge to urinate in the morning, went to an empty, secluded spot near the worksite. He approached a small mound and relieved himself on it. The urine splashed off the soil, forming a tiny stream that carried with it what appeared to be bloodstains and flecks of flesh. Startled, he initially thought he might have prostatitis, but upon closer inspection, he realized the soil was mixed with blood and even bits of flesh.
Driven by human curiosity and imagination, he noticed the mound showed signs of recent disturbance. A chilling thought crossed his mind—could there be a dismembered body buried beneath? He lightly scraped the soil with his foot, but instead of uncovering a corpse as he feared, he found only some bloodstains and no further traces of flesh. Relieved, he was about to leave when he spotted a concrete marker a few meters away that read, "Cable below, do not dig." Since his construction unit was responsible for such markers and hadn’t placed any in that area, he went over to inspect it and immediately noticed something buried beneath the soil.
Hours later, the criminal police and medical examiner unearthed a horrifically mangled body from beneath the marker. It was identified as Lin Kai.
This placed Boss Fang under the heaviest suspicion. Lin Kai had violently demanded repayment from him, so it stood to reason that Boss Fang might have hired someone to kill him. Yang Wei and others had suspected Lin Kai was dead, which was why they had confronted Boss Fang—and now Lin Kai’s death was confirmed.
"Lin Kai assaulted you that morning, so you had him killed and buried in that empty lot in the eastern suburbs. Do you admit it?" In the interrogation room, the investigators pressed Boss Fang sternly.
Boss Fang, looking miserable, vehemently denied any knowledge of Lin Kai’s death. He insisted he had always been a law-abiding person—aside from gambling, soliciting prostitutes, tax evasion, participating in illegal protests, and falsely accusing the government and police—he had never committed any crimes, let alone murder. This was a grave injustice, he claimed.
After an entire night of interrogation, Boss Fang still refused to admit to killing Lin Kai.
Just as Zhang Yi'ang was at a loss, the police uncovered a major lead.
Zhang Yi'ang followed Li Qian to the surveillance room, where Wang Ruijun, Song Xing, and others were already gathered. Li Qian pulled up the surveillance footage and explained to Zhang Yi'ang that while the faces of the two men in the small car Lin Kai had chased were unclear, electronic technicians had worked overnight to backtrack the vehicle’s route using surveillance cameras. They finally discovered the car had stopped at a gas station. Officers immediately rushed to the station and retrieved footage showing the two men getting out of the car and entering the convenience store to buy something.Both men had beards, wore glasses, and had long hair covering their foreheads. The detectives deduced that their faces were disguised, leading them to suspect the two had criminal records. By cross-referencing recent bulletins from higher authorities, they quickly discovered that some of their features closely matched those of two criminals involved in a series of jewelry store robberies in Hangzhou and Ningbo several months prior—the same two men Zheng Yongbing had previously confessed to buying stolen goods from.
Seeing this result, the detectives were both shocked and thrilled.
Shocked because after Zheng Yongbing’s confession, the detectives had assumed the two were transient criminals who must have long left Three Rivers Estuary. Yet, to their surprise, the pair had remained until just a few days ago. For some unknown reason, they had clashed with Lin Kai, ultimately killing him and stealing his car.
Thrilled because if these two had stayed in Three Rivers Estuary for so long, they might still be hiding somewhere nearby. If the local police could capture them—individuals even major city police forces had failed to apprehend—it would be another significant achievement!
Zhang Yi'ang immediately gathered key detectives to strategize the arrest.
The two had been caught on surveillance, but their faces were heavily disguised, making it impossible with current technology to identify them. Without knowing their true identities, finding them would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Fortunately, there was still the car. Neither their beat-up vehicle nor Lin Kai’s car had been found near the scene. The top priority now was locating those two cars.
Once the plan was set, Zhang Yi'ang turned his attention to Yang Wei, who was in custody. He pulled Wang Ruijun aside and asked, “How do we handle Yang Wei’s case?”
“That’s up to the higher-ups. Both the government leaders and Chief Qi want him charged with the most severe offenses. He’s the one who made Boss Fang drink urine, which escalated into a protest. If he isn’t severely punished, the accusation of the police being a ‘protective umbrella for organized crime’ will stick.”
Zhang Yi'ang frowned slightly and remarked casually, “Everyone makes mistakes. Isn’t it too harsh to condemn someone completely for one misstep?”
“Well…” Wang Ruijun hesitated, looking at his superior. Zhang’s tone clearly suggested he wanted to protect Yang Wei. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be an issue, but given how explosive the situation had become, both the government and police leadership were practically hoping Yang Wei would get the death penalty. How could they possibly shield him?
Zhang Yi'ang studied him for a moment before deciding to be direct. “Can we pull some strings to give him a break?”
“Uh… that might be difficult.” Wang Ruijun lowered his voice hesitantly. “Chief, does he have connections higher up?”
“You know Mei Dong, right?”
“Mei Dong is Yang Wei’s sworn brother.”
“Mei Dong runs gambling dens in Macau, luring and deceiving mainland clients into gambling. He was already on the provincial wanted list last year.”
Wang Ruijun, familiar with major local criminals in Three Rivers Estuary, nodded. “We’ve also received notices from the provincial department and tried to arrest him. But Mei Dong has been hiding in Macau and hasn’t returned to Three Rivers Estuary.”
“Mei Dong, Lin Kai, and Yang Wei are all sworn brothers. Now that Lin Kai is dead, according to their underworld code, Mei Dong will likely return for the funeral.”
Wang Ruijun shook his head skeptically. “Mei Dong knows he’s wanted. I doubt he’d dare come back.”
“Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t. But this time, we have Yang Wei in custody.” Zhang Yi'ang’s eyes turned cold. “Let’s use Yang Wei to lure Mei Dong back!”"Lure him back?" Wang Ruijun pondered the idea.
"Mei Dong is a major wanted criminal. Not just in our Three Rivers Estuary, but he has operations across the country and connections with overseas forces. Many domestic businessmen also have intricate ties with him. The provincial department is eager to catch him. If we can lure him back, the value would be enormous! Just detaining Yang Wei would be such a waste, wouldn't it?" Zhang Yi'ang cleverly blinked his eyes.
Wang Ruijun thought for a moment, then slowly nodded, his gaze toward the bureau chief brightening noticeably.
If they managed to capture Mei Dong, though he might not be as high-profile as the Ministry of Public Security's most wanted criminal Li Feng, it would still be an extraordinary achievement within the provincial public security system. What good would just detaining Yang Wei do? This was the kind of high-level strategy only the bureau chief could devise. Even though the last operation—raiding the clubhouse and confronting the mayor—had ended inconclusively, the thinking behind it had been a century ahead of ordinary detectives. Now, with this new plan to use Yang Wei as bait to lure Mei Dong back to the country, this was what they called true investigative vision!
Wang Ruijun thumped his chest in commitment: "This mission is challenging, but I'll make sure to succeed!"
"Excellent!" Zhang Yi'ang reached out and gave Wang Ruijun's shoulder a firm squeeze. Instantly, Wang Ruijun's face beamed with the same pride he'd felt as a child being honored at a school sports day, and he couldn't help humming, "Five-starred Red Flag fluttering in the wind, how loud and clear the song of victory rings."
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