Chapter 172

"Luo Wenzhou." Zhang Chunjiu all of a sudden sighed gently.

"Find Luo Wenzhou, have him take some people over there himself."

"Call the Criminal Investigation Team's Luo Wenzhou to the meeting."

"Tell Luo Wenzhou to get into my office!"

"Where's Luo Wenzhou? What, sleeping in the duty room again? Still sleeping at this hour? What does he do with all that sleep?!"

When old Director Zhang had been at his post, he hadn't been as easy-going in his treatment of his juniors as Director Lu, constantly ordering the young people under his command around by their full names. Luo Wenzhou had been ordered around the most by him. This name had come out of Zhang Chunjiu's mouth countless times, sometimes calling for him to get to work, sometimes calling for him to come receive a scolding.

Luo Wenzhou had never expected that a day would come when old Director Zhang would call his name under these circumstances.

The police had guns, and so did the criminals. Neither side was willing to lay them down first. They pointed at each other, for a time deadlocked where they were.

Zhang Chunjiu turned his head to look at the person disguised as Zhang Chunling. His posture, his figure, his attire, his position at the center of a crowd, were enough to make the disguise convincing. Unless someone who knew him well got a close look, it would be hard to see any flaw…and if the police could get a close look, then it must mean that the dust had already settled, and his big brother had left safely long ago.

"You do have some skill, to be able to chase us here." Zhang Chunjiu turned to Luo Wenzhou. "Secretly rescuing Zhou Huaijin, shadowing Donglai—it seems that was all you."

Luo Wenzhou didn't respond to this nonsense. Ignoring both sides' guns, he walked a few steps straight forward. "Director Zhang, I'd like to ask you for guidance on a certain matter."

Zhang Chunjiu looked at him without turning a hair.

"Three years ago, during his annual vacation, for the sake of protecting a citizen, Lao Yang was killed by an escaped criminal while crossing an underpass.—Lao Yang had a bad knee. He left the sidewalk for no reason to walk through the underpass. I reported this suspicious point many times, and every time it was suppressed by you. Can you explain this to me?"

"What is there to explain? He didn't go out to buy groceries that day. He'd received inside information and gone to track down a suspicious individual. With the groceries as a screen, he followed him all the way to the underpass," Zhang Chunjiu said blandly. "He didn't catch up to him. He met an escaped criminal who had been waiting there."

"An eyewitness said that someone's dog suddenly went crazy and haplessly enraged the criminal," Luo Wenzhou said grimly. "In fact, the sequence of cause and effect is reversed. The dog felt the criminal's ill-intent first, then started to bark, because he'd already been planning to attack a passerby or flee to attract Lao Yang."

Yang Zhengfeng, an old timer soon to retire, who hadn't dared to take the steps two at time going down into the underpass, with his gout and bone spurs—what kind of heroics had he been indulging in? He'd thought that he was still a strapping young fellow who could snatch away a naked blade bare-handed; randomly menacing a passerby was enough to make him materialize. It was too easy to calculate, not worth mentioning.

"But at death's door, Lao Yang didn't mention the person he had been pursuing. He told Tao Ran a seemingly meaningless radio frequency—" At this point, Luo Wenzhou's words suddenly stopped, because he had seen Zhang Chunjiu smile.

Luo Wenzhou stared for a moment, then suddenly realized something. As though speaking to himself, he quietly said, "Actually, he didn't leave those words behind for Tao Ran. Did he leave them for you? With one last breath left, he didn't mention the escaped suspicious individual because he thought that person would certainly be caught… He must have had a partner. The security cameras didn't film that person because the two of them weren't acting together. One was chasing, the other had gone around ahead to cut him off. This sort of coordination that doesn't need verbal communication only works between old partners—that person was you!"

"At the very beginning, someone anonymously sent him some things, fingerprints and a DNA comparison, and a stack of photographs. The fingerprints and DNA both belonged to a wanted criminal, and the photographs showed where the fingerprints had been collected. Yang Zhengfeng didn't report it."

"Because this made him think of Gu Zhao?"

"No, because the person who'd sent him the stuff was not only a killer, he was a 'dead person.'"

"Fan Siyuan," Luo Wenzhou said quietly.

Zhang Chunjiu laughed scornfully. "I don't know what kind of potion Fan Siyuan fed him that made him choose to conceal this business and secretly investigate it himself. The Reciter's submissions to that program were Fan Siyuan hinting to him which cases had something unusual about them. In fact, he had an ulterior motive—he was also protecting that nut job. He didn't tell me about him until just before his death. Fan Siyuan is a nut job. He killed six people, was wanted by the police, and jumped into the ocean. I cherished his talents and sent someone to rescue him. I didn't expect that I would be rescuing a wretch who bites the hand that feeds him."

"You didn't personally contact Fan Siyuan."

"My big brother and I didn't see people directly, including Zheng Kaifeng's sort. For ordinary contact with customers and for running errands, we used the people close to us, people we trusted."

"During the course of the investigation, Lao Yang couldn't have avoided using his privileges to look into some old case files. It's no surprise you discovered that," Luo Wenzhou said. "But he was investigating a mole. How did you gain his trust?"

"You have it backwards." Zhang Chunjiu smiled strangely. "The question is, how did he gain my trust?"

Luo Wenzhou stared.

"If you want to attain a person's trust, the best thing to do isn't to desperately try to prove to him that you and he are on the same side. It's the reverse. You have to make him realize that you're on guard against him, entice him into racking his brains trying to win your trust," Zhang Chunjiu said. "I pretended that I was secretly investigating Gu Zhao's case, and investigating very cautiously, covering up my tracks as I investigated, so he only discovered a trace 'by chance.' I made him realize that I was not only investigating, but for some reason, he was the one I suspected. I patiently played a game of 'probing' and 'counter-probing' with him for half a year—finally, Yang Zhengfeng made me 'believe' that he wasn't the mole."

At this point, Zhang Chunjiu, looking at Luo Wenzhou, suddenly changed the subject. "Does it sound unfathomable? Hasn't Fei Du done that to you?"

Luo Wenzhou frowned.

"First he schemed to get close to you, then accidentally revealed his defenses, got you confused and disoriented, going all out running after him, racking your brain to prove yourself to him and win his trust. When you'd fully fallen into his trap, you still had to suffer all manner of hardships to win yourself the 'higher ground' and feel complacent—do you really think he's any good?" Zhang Chunjiu shook his head. "Luo Wenzhou, you're as full of yourself as your shifu was."

Luo Wenzhou sighed. "Director Zhang, in your position, don't take the trouble to worry about other people's business."

"Of course, two negatives make a positive." Zhang Chunjiu spread his hands towards him, displaying an expression of unclear meaning. "If a reprehensible person like me says he's no good, then that may just go to show that his moral character is all right. That's not for certain. See what you think. Perhaps he did grow unsullied out of the mud. The Fei family didn't start out doing any kind of honorable business, and later Fei Chengyu had his father-in-law assassinated for his money and only gradually entered a close relationship with us based on that business. That person—Fei Chengyu. He was so greedy he really was like a monster wearing a human skin. He was the one who started plotting against us. Thirteen years ago, he conspired with Fan Siyuan to infiltrate us bit by bit and use the police to cut away our other major customers one after another, to make us have to depend on him like stray dogs, becoming the knife in his hand."

Luo Wenzhou said, "So their first step was to use the suspicious points about Gu Zhao's case to lure Lao Yang into investigating a few dens where wanted criminals were hidden—whose dens were these?"

"Most of them had been built with Wei Zhanhong's money. Wei Zhanhong was young, wildly ambitious, really a little demented. His activities were too eye-catching. Fei Chengyu and Fan Siyuan planned to make the first cut with him." Zhang Chunjiu shook his head. "Although those two really did take everyone for idiots."

"You used Lao Yang to expose them instead," Luo Wenzhou said grimly. "And Fei Chengyu's car crash was your doing."

Zhang Chunjiu hooked the corners of his mouth, silently acknowledging the charge.

"But Fan Siyuan got away. You knew he wasn't finished yet, and you knew that the 'empire' you'd single-handedly built had been infected by him with a virus you couldn't eliminate. So you took precautionary measures. First, taking advantage of the mess in the Fei family after Fei Chengyu's car crash, you tricked Su Cheng into boarding your pirate ship, then deliberately tampered with the surveillance installations in the bureau—that way, even if you retired or were transferred, you could still get the information you wanted any time. And if it was exposed, Director Ceng would muddle his way into being your scapegoat, and Su Cheng and Fei Chengyu would become the 'masterminds behind the scenes.'"

Zhang Chunjiu neither nodded nor shook his head.

"And you purposefully brought up the 'Picture Album' again—that's right. It was Teacher Pan who named the Picture Album Project, but it was you who raised a project plan nearly identical to the 'Picture Album' from back then."

Zhang Chunjiu raised his eyebrows.

"Because during the first Picture Album Project, you used Fan Siyuan as a cover to kill someone yourself."

"Why would I want to do that?" Zhang Chunjiu said. "Was I only too anxious to have someone uncover me?"

"Because you knew better than Fan Siyuan why that unfortunate art teacher and lunatic had to die. You knew that even if that case was investigated from top to bottom, you still wouldn't be implicated in any way. A normal person would think that the real killer would have loved nothing better than to wipe this thing out of existence. They absolutely wouldn't voluntarily bring it up.—When Lao Yang died, it was likely Fan Siyuan would follow the traces and get his eye on you. You wanted to use this method to dispel his suspicions. When the investigation team reached you, you even used that bit of foreshadowing to incriminate Fan Siyuan and Teacher Pan together. Truly a stroke of genius."

"Don't disgust me. The outcome wasn't at all ideal," Zhang Chunjiu said rather carelessly. "That mad dog Fan Siyuan saw through it and realized that it was me—I don't know why. I think it may have been because I didn't come from Yan Security Uni like them?"

For a long time, Luo Wenzhou couldn't say anything.

"Director Zhang." He lowered his head slightly and went on with great difficulty. "On the day we…we saw off Lao Yang, you personally came to order each of us to put on our uniforms properly, personally led us to take part in the funeral. What were you thinking then?"

There was a moment where a subtle change came over Zhang Chunjiu's expression. His lips, as thin as a line, curled, and his jaw tensed.

"Lao Yang was your friend for twenty years, the type that would entrust his wife and child to you, a friendship of life and death. He hadn't wronged you in any way. Officer Gu came to the City Bureau in the same year as you and took you as a big brother. The two of them trusted you at the most dangerous times, asked you to watch their backs. When you stabbed each of them in the back, did you feel happy? Did you make fun of their stupidity?"

Zhang Chunjiu was silent for a long time, then forced a smile. "…Are you saying that to prick my conscience?"

Pointing at the fat man hiding behind him, Luo Wenzhou said, "Zhang Chunling is your brother, so Lao Yang and Officer Gu weren't your brothers anymore?"

For some reason, when he heard the name "Zhang Chunling," the faint wavering in Zhang Chunjiu's face vanished. He was like a river turning cold again after a moment of warmth, his human feelings like a spring breeze blowing across the surface, temporarily thawing the thick layers of ice under his skin. But soon, a more ruthless chill swept over everything, once more solidifying his heart into iron and stone.

"Captain Luo!"

Without any warning, Zhang Chunjiu got out the hand stuck into the pocket of his jacket and shot a gun right at Luo Wenzhou.

Sadly, while Luo Wenzhou's speech had been uncommonly heartfelt and sincere, he hadn't relaxed his vigilance. As soon as Zhang Chunjiu's shoulder moved, he was on the alert. At the same time, a fully-armed special police officer next to him pushed him aside, and the bullet hit a bulletproof shield. Luo Wenzhou quickly rolled away.

The peace talks had come to an end. Zhang Chunjiu fired at him three times. "What are you standing there for, hurry up…"

He suddenly stopped, staring blankly, because the people who had come to rescue him, looking cool with their sub-machine guns hanging around their necks, all raised their hands.

Zhang Chunjiu instantly understood something and looked swiftly towards Luo Wenzhou.

Luo Wenzhou patted dirt off of himself. "I know this is the former location of Heng'an Orphanage."

Zhang Chunjiu's expression suddenly altered.

"Sorry, Director Zhang. I've found some things you didn't want people to know, so I got here a step ahead and have been waiting here for you," Luo Wenzhou said quietly. "Director Zhang, all these years you've spent venting the pain you experienced onto others, has it helped?

"You clearly knew that Zheng Kaifeng and Zhou Yahou were birds of a feather, and you still wallowed in the mire with him." Luo Wenzhou turned a deaf ear on him. "Do you have nightmares? Do you dream of the monsters that hurt you when you were little? Have you been afraid all these years, feeling that you couldn't surmount them, that you couldn't face them, and so you had to become like them…"

"Shut up!"

"You knew that Zhang Chunling couldn't control himself. He even went to Su Hui, like Zhou Yahou, like those heavy-jowled, pot-bellied assholes. It's written down in Su Xiaolan's diary. A girl who had just started elementary school—

"Who did Zhang Chunling take her for? The little Su Hui, who was the same age back then at Heng'an Orphanage?"

Zhang Chunjiu blank stare split open. "You understand shit!"

Luo Wenzhou's gaze met Zhang Chunjiu's in midair. He saw that the man's eyes were bloodshot, like a trapped beast forced into a dead end. Zhang Chunjiu suddenly laughed quietly and slowly pressed down on his own chest. "You understand shit.—Luo Wenzhou, Young Master Luo… Have you ever been beaten? Have you ever been hungry? Do you know what it means to be afraid all the time?"

As he spoke, he slowly pulled his hand out of his inside pocket. The muzzles of seven or eight policemen's guns locked on him at the same moment—Zhang Chunjiu was holding a small detonator!

"You don't know anything, so don't stand there talking about it." One word at a time, Zhang Chunjiu said, "I'll tell you a secret…"

Just then, a phone call came through to Luo Wenzhou's earpiece.

Luo Wenzhou had no attention to spare, but he heard desperate panting from the other end, and Tao Ran struggling to spit out two characters in a wretchedly hoarse voice—

"Fei, Fei Du…"

"Fei Du is a good child." Zhang Chunjiu lowered his voice strangely, his words coinciding with Tao Ran saying "Fei Du" over the earpiece. Luo Wenzhou's pupils contracted.

Without warning, Zhang Chunjiu pressed down on the detonator.