Period drama: Old Cao's carefree life

Chapter 124 I don't care who's behind him
In the afternoon, Cao Weida leaned back in his chair, propped his feet up on his desk, and pondered the details of last night's operation.

The footprint left behind not only diverted Ono Oda and his group's attention to a non-existent target, but also cleared them of suspicion, achieving two goals at once.

However, looking back now, he seems to think that he didn't do well enough.

Would it have been better to pack up and take away the bodies of these two people at the time, thus confirming that the mysterious person was behind it?
"Tsk, the plan is still not meticulous enough. It seems that in the future, if I want to make any plans, I should plan more in detail."

dong dong dong~~
"Enter."

The office door opened a crack, and a head poked in, flashing a fawning smile: "Captain, did I disturb you?"

"Don't worry, come in."

The newcomer was Gui Dafu, a member of Sang Liuji's team. Now that Sang Liuji had "sacrificed himself heroically for the common prosperity of Central Asia," Cao Weida had completely seized control of the police force.

Of course, it wasn't that he didn't want to compete for the right to speak before. With Ono Oda and Director Xu Hancheng as his backers, Sang Liuji simply didn't have the resources to compete with him.

However, at that time, he still hoped to take advantage of Sang Liuji and make him do his best to take the blame for preparing supplies, so he naturally let Sang Liuji continue to run rampant.

The door was opened a little wider, and Gui Dafu walked in with a piece of paper, which he handed over respectfully.

"A significant increase, what does that mean?"

Gui Da said with a fawning smile, "Captain, please don't misunderstand. This is all the brothers' way of showing their love and respect for you. It's a little little, please don't mind."

"The items are downstairs; someone will deliver them to your residence shortly."

These days, gift-giving is so blatant that there's no room for subtlety.

This is clearly because they see Cao Weida in power, and the patrolmen below are afraid that Cao Weida will settle scores with them later, so they are trying to curry favor with him.

Cao Weida looked at him with amusement, without saying a word. Gui Dafu felt a little uneasy under his gaze and tentatively asked, "Captain, shall I go now?"

"No need, return everything on here to them intact."

Gui Dafu's face turned pale, as if he had lost all hope. What did the captain mean by this? Was he really planning to settle scores later?
So how do you plan to deal with them?

Given Cao Weida's relationship with the bureau chief, even if he asked to fire them all, the bureau chief would most likely not refuse.
Although their monthly salary as patrol officers isn't high, they occasionally receive some "tribute," which is enough to make ends meet. Most of them are the breadwinners of their families, and if they lost this job, well...
"Captain, we"

He was about to beg for mercy when Cao Weida waved his hand to interrupt him: "Don't worry, I'm not a petty person, and I don't intend to settle scores with you later. Let the brothers calm down."

This was the first time in his life that he had ever held a position of real power, including his previous one. But even if he hadn't seen pork, he had at least seen pigs run.

Managing a jurisdiction can be simple in some ways, but it can also be quite complex in others.

He managed a total of twenty-odd patrol officers, overseeing the security of several main streets and nearly fifty alleys.

This area has several thousand households, with a permanent population of nearly 40,000.

He was already severely short-staffed, and he was counting on his subordinates to help him with the work.

If he fires all these people, who will he hire to do his work?
We can't expect him to do everything himself, can we?

Putting aside whether he's busy enough, if he really does that, will he still have any time to slack off?

New trick?

Come on, managing streets isn't something you can decide on a whim. It involves many aspects, and without a familiar transition period, it's all for nothing.

Therefore, his first step after taking power was to control these patrol officers.

He didn't care how these patrolmen had previously outwardly obeyed him but inwardly defied him. As long as they were willing to listen to him in the future, Cao Weida was still willing to keep them around, which would save him a lot of trouble.

His method to get these people to obey was simple and absolutely efficient: just give them enough money!

Nobody's stupid. They'll do as much as they're paid. If you're paid a paltry wage, do you expect others to work their lives for you?
Coincidentally, Cao Wei Da looked down on those paltry sums and even less on the occasional bribes from the patrolmen below.

Sang Liuji is a cunning and wicked person, or rather, apart from a few patrol chiefs, most of the remaining patrol chiefs are the same.

When Sang Liuji was the patrol chief, he had accumulated power over the years and liked to gamble whenever he had free time. He was also greedy and liked to eat alone.

Therefore, he was unwilling to share the money he received with his brothers.

This resulted in the patrol officers below living a miserable life, and they could only try to find ways to make extra money for themselves.

Their most frequent and desperate attempts were to extort money from street vendors, but these vendors already struggled to make ends meet and had little money to spare, ultimately managing to scrape together only a pittance. Previously, Sang Liuji didn't care about their lives or how much they earned, but with Cao Weida in power, changes were inevitable.

He paused for a moment, then said to Gui Dafu, "We've been colleagues for so long. Although we're not in the same team, we know each other. You should know what kind of person I am."

Gui Da bowed and nodded. His cowardice was a thing of the past. No one in the police station would dare to tease Cao Weida about it now.

However, they had heard of Cao Weida's reputation in the areas he had previously governed; it was widely praised.

"After we leave, have the guys tell all the big-name businessmen and restaurant owners in the area, no matter who's behind them, that they all need to come to the police station before the end of the workday this afternoon so we can all get to know each other and avoid any misunderstandings if we bump into each other in the future."

In those days, most of the people who could make a living in Beiping were either traitors or related to traitors.

Because only they can get supplies!

Cao Wei Da felt no guilt whatsoever about extorting them.

Of course, there might be some righteous merchants, but Cao Wei Da didn't care. Whoever was in power managed those streets, and they would still have to pay their dues. It couldn't just stop when it came to him, could it?

There is no such reason!

He couldn't bring himself to swindle ordinary people, but these businessmen weren't worried about losing a few pennies.

Moreover, handing it over to the previous manager might have only resulted in a fixed fee, but handing it over to Cao Weida at least guarantees that they can conduct their business in peace after paying the fee, and they won't lose out!
These words carried a threat, and Gui Dafu listened with trepidation, unable to help but whisper a reminder: "Captain, some of these merchants have connections behind them. Are you sure it's all of them?"

Cao Wei leaned back arrogantly and said, "I don't care who's behind him. I have Ono-sama standing behind me! No matter how powerful the person behind him is, can he be more powerful than Ono-sama?"

Gui Da chuckled awkwardly. Well, since the captain has already said that, what else can he say?
Anyway, he did give the reminders he needed to, so in the end, it can't be blamed on him.

After sending Gui Da away, Cao Weida, having nothing else to do, lay down for a nap. He had been working hard every night and still had to go out to complete his performance targets. Although he was in excellent physical condition, he was still somewhat tired.

But things didn't go as planned. Before he could even doze off for long, Duomen knocked on the door and came in.

"Uncle, you've been quite busy these past few days, running around outside every day."

Since the two were already so familiar with each other, Duomen naturally wouldn't stand on ceremony with him. He plopped down and sighed:

"We're still busy with the previous cases. Just today, another kneeling corpse appeared. We've investigated all the leads, but we still haven't found any key clues."

"If this continues, the next victim could appear at any time."

During this period, people died frequently in Beiping. No one cared much about the deaths of one or two people, as everyone was too busy taking care of themselves to be genuinely interested in solving cases.

Patrol officers as dedicated as Duomen are extremely rare.

However, precisely because few patrol officers focus on solving cases, it becomes extremely difficult to investigate once a case occurs, as very few people are willing to cooperate, especially when the case occurs in someone else's jurisdiction.

For example, the attitude of Sang Liuji and Xiao Zhou at the time of the incident where someone cried and made a scene in front of the police station was quite telling.

"Another death?" Cao Weida frowned. "And this time it was a woman?"

Duomen shook his head. "No, this time it was a thirteen or fourteen-year-old child. I found that the two deceased had something in common: their families were both relatively well-off."

"Master Duo, with your investigative abilities, no case, big or small, can escape your keen eye. The current lack of crucial clues is just a temporary difficulty, and it certainly won't stump you." After offering this reassuring remark, he added, "Could I take a look at the case summary?"

"What are you talking about? Here, I carry it with me at all times." Duomen handed him the file under his arm. "I haven't slept well these past few days because of this case. Don't flatter me. No case, big or small, can escape my eyes. I wish I really had eyes."

"Master Duo, you're just too modest," Cao Weida replied with a smile, then opened the case file and asked, "Master Duo, do you have any suspects now?"

"Not yet. We haven't found the killer's motive or any pattern. The only thing we have is a prostration posture, and I'm trying to figure out what that posture means."

Cao Weida nodded, then his eyes suddenly narrowed. With his top-notch criminal investigation skills, he keenly noticed a suspicious point.

However, without seeing the scene in person, he dared not draw any conclusions.

He stood up and asked, "Master Duo, was the scene disturbed?"

"No, the scene is relatively well preserved. I already had Xiao Wang and Xiao Pan watch over it. I came back to get something, and when I heard you were here, I came to ask you about Sang Liuji."

"Okay, let's go to the scene now, and we can talk on the way."

(End of this chapter)