Restarting life by going to the countryside to support medical work

Chapter 658 A Myriad of Tasks
After sending his wife to school, Li Yancheng went to the police station.

After getting out of the car in front of the office building, he greeted the police officers from the bureau along the way. He went up to the second floor and had just reached the office door when Xiao Yang came out of the secretary's office next door.

"Sir, Political Commissar Wan from the brigade just called. Please call him back when it's convenient for you."

Li Yancheng paused slightly as he took the office key out of his pocket, then turned to look at Xiao Yang and asked.

"Didn't Political Commissar Wan say what it was about?"

"It's about the murder case that happened at Shishan Steel Plant yesterday. Political Commissar Wan said that the Shishan Branch Criminal Police Team has made a new discovery, and he wants to give you a verbal report over the phone first."

"Okay, I understand." Li Yancheng nodded, raised his hand, used his key to open the office door, and went inside.

Xiao Yang followed closely behind into the office, made him a cup of tea, and then left, closing the door behind him.

After taking off his coat and hanging it on the hook behind the door, Li Yancheng sat down at his desk. He first glanced at the documents that Xiao Yang had already prepared that needed his signature. Seeing that there were no particularly urgent documents, he put them aside and picked up the phone to make a call.

Instead of calling Political Commissar Wan back, he first called Director Dai's office at headquarters.

The headquarters is holding a leadership meeting today, and Director Dai, as a member of the headquarters leadership team, is required to attend.

At today's meeting, Director Dai will definitely talk about some things related to the joint operation. Li Yancheng made this call to give the leader a brief report on some of the problems discovered on the first day of the operation, so that the leader will have something to say at the headquarters meeting.

Ten minutes later, after giving a brief report to Director Dai, he called the office of Political Commissar Wan Changyou of the General Team.

"Hey"

"Political Commissar, it's me, Li Yancheng."

"Hello, Director Li!"

"Well, what's the current status of the Shishan Steel Plant case?" Li Yancheng asked directly.

“Director Li, after you called me last night and mentioned the suspicious details about the footprints, I contacted Captain Cao of the Shishan Branch. He also realized that the bloody footprints and handprints found behind the pile of debris under the stairs were probably left by the criminals to divert attention.”

However, based on this false clue, he thought of a possibility: the criminal must have hidden himself when Hu Jianguo chased after him, which is why he was not discovered.

All four households on the first floor had people at home at the time, and they were all elderly. It was impossible for the criminal to hide in someone else's house. The only possible hiding place was the two shared kitchens.

So Captain Cao led his men to conduct a thorough investigation. They found that there were two shared kitchens on the first floor, and the one shared by the two households on the west side would be locked when they weren't cooking.

Although the two households on the east side also locked their kitchen doors, the padlocks were only hung on and not locked. There were no signs of prying on the padlock of the kitchen on the west side, so Captain Cao and his team focused their investigation on the kitchen on the east side.

Ultimately, they found a trace of blood on the door frame inside the kitchen door, a relatively complete fingerprint on the faucet (it was the right index finger), a trace of blood in the gap between the fingerprint, and blood on the drain opening under the sink.

After testing, the bloodstains found on the door frame, faucet, and sewer drain all belonged to the same blood type, B, which was the same as the blood type of the deceased, Tong Guangyao. Captain Cao and his team speculated that the murderer must have washed his hands there.

Meanwhile, the laboratory results came out last night, and the reason why the deceased Tong Guangyao did not make a sound when he was stabbed was found.

The reason he didn't make a sound was because he had already fallen into a coma and had been poisoned by a drug commonly known as a "drowsy drug." It was initially judged that he had inhaled it without his knowledge, and the person who poisoned him had timed the onset of the drug very well, just as he entered the building.

This was also confirmed by the security guard at the steel mill's residential compound. The guard who saw Tong Guangyao yesterday at noon recalled that when he saw Section Chief Tong at the gate, he felt that Tong's condition was somewhat abnormal. He asked Section Chief Tong if he was sick, and Tong said that he had worked a night shift without sleep and had also covered someone else's shift for the entire morning, making him very dizzy. Hearing this, the guard didn't think much of it.

So that’s it!
Li Yancheng on the other end of the phone raised his eyebrows. He had found it strange when he heard about the case yesterday. Under what circumstances could someone be stabbed more than a dozen times without making a sound?

He had even suspected that the section chief surnamed Tong was the kind of person who couldn't feel pain. It turned out that he wasn't without pain, but had been anesthetized.

We've already obtained the fingerprints and discovered the anesthetic lead; we can investigate further along this line.

"Political Commissar, what are Lao Cao's plans for the Shishan Branch next?"

"Investigate that 'date rape drug' and use it to find the person."

"Okay, let me know as soon as there's any news."

"Yes"

"By the way, Political Commissar, has the forensic team figured out how Tong Guangyao managed to inhale the drug?"

"They suspect that the cigarettes Tong Guangyao smoked were the problem."

"That cigarette he just bought after get off work?"

"No, the cigarettes he just bought haven't been opened yet. It's probably the ones he had in his pocket that were tampered with, or someone gave him a cigarette on his way home."

Does Tong Guangyao smoke a lot?

"It's said that there aren't many, and a pack of cigarettes usually lasts three or four days."

In this case, the victim was not addicted to cigarettes. Since the murderer was able to calculate the timing so precisely, it's unlikely that the drug was put into the cigarette on the victim beforehand, because that would be too unpredictable. It's more likely that the victim was given the cigarette intentionally.

When was it sent?

Was the deceased at work or on their way home?

"Have the lab do a more thorough job to see if they can determine exactly how much the deceased inhaled, and then deduce when it happened."

"Okay, I'll have the lab take another look."

"Well, that's it for now."

After saying that, Li Yancheng hung up the phone.

With the case at this stage, he believed that the comrades of the Shishan Branch Criminal Police Team would definitely be able to solve the case smoothly, especially with the assistance of the headquarters.

After hanging up the phone, he reached for the documents that needed his signature, but his gaze inadvertently fell on the newspaper on the table.

It was a copy of the Beijing Daily, and on the top page, the headline in bold black ink read: "Twenty kinds of staple and non-staple foods to be supplied in rations during the Spring Festival."

This year's Spring Festival falls on February 5th, and we have indeed entered the pre-holiday supply period.

So he reached out and took the newspaper, intending to see how the city was supplying supplies for the Spring Festival this year.

First, let's talk about meat and eggs, which everyone is concerned about. Fish is one jin (500g) per person, supplied from January 16th to the end of the month. Eggs are three jin (1.5kg) per household, including the one jin (500g) originally scheduled for January, meaning an extra two jin (1kg) for the Spring Festival, supplied for the entire month of January. Chickens are one per household, each weighing over two jin (1kg), supplied at the same time as fish.

Beef is only supplied to Hui people, three jin per person, and pork is three jin per household, and the supply lasts for the entire month of January. You can tell from the supply of these two types of meat that it is much better than in previous years. Last year, during the Spring Festival, each household was only given one and a half jin, but this year it has doubled.

White sugar: three catties per household, or one catty if single; vermicelli: two liang per person; tofu: two and a half catties per person; scallions: two catties per household. The supply of these items will end on February 4th, which is the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month.

These items, specially supplied for the Spring Festival, must be purchased with a voucher or coupon within a specified time; otherwise, even if you have a coupon, it will be invalid after the deadline.

Next is cooking oil, one jin per person, including four liang of peanut oil, one liang of sesame oil, and half a jin of rapeseed oil. This is much better than before, when it was distributed to each household.

Each person receives one ounce of sesame paste, six catties of glutinous rice within a fixed quota, three catties of high-gluten flour within a fixed quota, one catty of soybeans, broad beans, and glutinous rice per person, six ounces of peanuts per person, and half a catty of sunflower seeds per person.

Finally, there's tobacco and alcohol. Both of these are indispensable during holidays, but they also require ration coupons to purchase.

Cigarettes and alcohol are also graded. Qianmen cigarettes are classified as Grade A, while the cheaper Zhan Dou cigarettes are classified as Grade B. The cigarette coupons for the two types of cigarettes are also different. The same applies to alcohol. Moutai, Wuliangye, Fenjiu, Xifeng and other brands are considered high-quality alcohol, while alcohol brewed by small local wineries is considered ordinary alcohol.

Although things are much better now compared to previous years, overall there is still a shortage of supplies. These essential supplies that are closely related to people's lives can only be regulated through quantitative measures to ensure that every household can have a decent Spring Festival.

Some families facing genuine hardship will sell the special Spring Festival supplies vouchers they receive from their work unit or neighborhood office to buy things their families urgently need.

Therefore, the ghost market is always bustling with activity before every festival.

Thinking of the ghost market, Li Yancheng couldn't help but think of his old classmate Zhu Yongyang.

In September, at his urging, his old classmate, the well-known "Master Zhu" in the underworld, had already begun a complete transformation. In fact, even earlier, Zhu Yongyang had already planned to gradually arrange for his brothers to withdraw from those ghost markets.

If this guy really listens and doesn't do anything two-faced, then he can get through this big operation smoothly. But if he plays those two-faced tricks, then he definitely won't escape.

Would Zhu Yongyang resort to such petty tricks?
Of course not. He can still distinguish right from wrong. As soon as the joint operation started yesterday, he was extremely grateful that he had obeyed. At the same time, he was especially grateful that he had only dealt with supplies and had not gotten involved in those messy things.

For example, the ghost market he controlled had been established several years ago. In recent years, he has been busy dealing in large-scale goods and has stopped ordering his men to seize other people's territory, which has saved him a lot of fighting.

This joint operation was primarily aimed at maintaining public order and eliminating small, organized gangs that had already grown in size and were causing all sorts of trouble.

Although Lao Zhu had many subordinates, and they were organized in a way, their relationship with him was more of a collaboration. It was as if he owned the ghost market, and those people were the stall owners who paid him rent on time.

Therefore, even if those people are arrested, the blame cannot be traced back to them. There is no clear regulation on whether or not the ghost market should exist.

The crackdown has always targeted those who peddle invoices, while the bartering practices of ordinary people are largely ignored.

Li Yancheng put the newspaper aside, reached for the document that needed his review and signature, and began to examine it carefully.

"Jingle Bell……"

Just then, the phone on the desk rang.

"Hello, this is Li Yancheng."

"Boss, Director Jiang from the Finance Department has something to report to you."

The call was from Xiao Yang, the secretary.

Upon hearing that Director Jiang of the Finance Department was going to report to him, Li Yancheng raised an eyebrow.

The finance department is usually overseen by the executive deputy director, but his situation is special. He also serves as the head of the criminal investigation team. Criminal investigation is the most important task in the Public Security Bureau, so he simply doesn't have the energy to oversee other departments. He can only assist Director Dai in handling some of the bureau's daily affairs.

Now, Director Jiang wants to report to him...

He doesn't recall any urgent financial matters. Can't he even wait half a day? Director Dai will be back this afternoon.

But since we're here, let's meet him and hear what Director Jiang has to say.

"Have him come over."

"Good leadership."

Soon, Director Jiang from the Finance Department came over, and Xiao Yang followed closely behind, poured him a glass of water, and then left.

"Old Jiang, what's the matter that's so urgent? The director was in a meeting at headquarters this morning and came this afternoon."

Li Yancheng picked up a cigarette from the table, took one out, and tossed it to Director Jiang.

"Director Li, this matter... I really can't say whether it's urgent or not," Director Jiang said, frowning as he lit a cigarette.

"Oh?"

Upon hearing this, Li Yancheng was stunned. What was going on?
"Tell me, what exactly happened?"

"I heard, just heard, Director Li, that the city is going to cut part of our bureau's budget this year."

!!!

Director Jiang's words made Li Yancheng's eyes widen instantly.

What the hell?

"Who told you that? The amount of funding for this year was already decided at a city meeting last month, so how could it be cut again?"

"Director Li, I heard it from Deputy Director Song of the Municipal Finance Bureau. He told me that the city seems to have made a last-minute decision to launch some large project this year. The higher-ups will allocate some funds, and the city will have to raise the rest itself. But the city doesn't have that much money, so..."

It's not just our bureau; apparently, every unit is going to cut some staff, though the amounts vary. I think it's better to do this sooner rather than later.

Li Yancheng understood what Director Jiang meant by "the sooner the better."

The monthly government funding is already tight, and all units are in the same boat. If it is cut again, many units will probably not even be able to afford to fill up their cars with gas.

Their police station has many cars and motorcycles, and these need to be refueled to run. If they don't have money, they can't buy fuel, and without fuel, the vehicles can't run. They can't expect their frontline officers to ride bicycles when they go out to handle cases, can they?

(End of this chapter)