After breaking up with my boyfriend, I made a fortune and rose rapidly in my career.

Chen Ping pushed open the door to the interrogation room.

The iron gate scraped against the rails with a dull thud, and the white light from the fluorescent tube shone down. Wu Shaoming sat in the iron chair, handcuffs fastened to the armrests, his back ramrod straight. Hearing the door open, he lifted the back of his head from the chair and tilted it slightly.

"Director Chen, I've been waiting for you for a long time."

Chen Ping didn't reply. He walked around to the other side, pulled out a chair, and sat down. His gaze swept over the blank transcript on the table, and finally he placed his hands on the table with his fingers interlaced.

The interrogation room door was locked from the outside. Through a one-way mirror, Qin Yu and Zheng Xian stood side-by-side, neither uttering a sound.

Wu Shaoming tilted his head, and the iron chain rattled as it slammed against the handrail.

"You've come, which means you want to know who the old musician is."

Chen Ping's ten fingers remained motionless.

"Your conditions."

Wu Shaoming leaned forward, and the iron chains tightened.

"My mother, Wu Xiulan, is 67 years old and has end-stage renal disease. She has been staying in the nephrology department of Guangling City First People's Hospital for eight months. Last week, she finally received a matching kidney... but it was intercepted."

He paused for a moment, then licked his chapped lips with his tongue.

"You can't find the person who took the kidney, and I can't find them either. I just want you to get that kidney back for my mother. If she lives, I'll say it. If she dies, I'll rot along with the name of the old musician."

Chen Pingfang remained silent. He immediately understood the underlying meaning of Wu Shaoming's words. This was both using his mother's life as a bargaining chip to play the family card and testing the limits of Chen Pingfang's power to see how many resources he could mobilize. More importantly, it was a delaying tactic; as long as the condition was difficult enough, his superiors would have time to make other preparations.

A secretary who had worked for Yan Qinghua for over a decade sat in the interrogation room all day, leaving no room for error, and delivered such a meticulously crafted speech on her very first opening.

This line of speech was clearly taught to him in advance; it was the last card Wu Shaoming had rehearsed before boarding the fishing boat.

Chen Ping loosened his interlaced fingers and placed his palm flat on the table.

"What's the name of your mother's attending physician?"

Wu Shaoming patted his shoulder.

"...What?"

"I'm asking you, what's your mother's attending physician's last name, first name, and which department?"

Wu Shaoming opened his mouth and touched the roof of his mouth with the tip of his tongue.

"Li...Li Guoqiang. Nephrology Department."

When was the last time you visited her in the hospital?

These words struck Wu Shaoming, causing his Adam's apple to bob. He clenched his hands on the armrests, but did not reply.

Chen Ping took out his phone from his pocket, placed it on the table, dialed a number in front of Wu Shaoming, and pressed speakerphone.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The third sound, answered.

"Director Chen?" On the other end of the phone, Lin Zhijie, director of the Provincial Health Commission, had a hoarse voice, as if he had just woken up.

"Director Lin, I'm sorry to bother you. There's something I need your help with."

Chen Pingfang spoke in a very calm tone.

"The Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology is promoting the connection of serious illness relief for employees of industrial enterprises. There is a family member of a former Guangling Municipal Government employee, Wu Xiulan, 67 years old, who is currently in the Nephrology Department of Guangling No. 1 Hospital and is undergoing dialysis for uremia. Could you please help me check her current treatment progress and kidney matching status?"

Lin Zhijie was stunned for less than two seconds.

"Please wait a moment, I'll have the medical administration department handle it."

The interrogation room fell silent. The ballasts of the fluorescent light tubes emitted a faint humming sound, bouncing back and forth between the four concrete walls.

Wu Shaoming stared at the hands-free phone on the table, his back slumping deeper and deeper into the chair.

three minutes.

Lin Zhijie's voice came through the receiver again.

"Director Chen, we've found it. The patient is Wu Xiulan, registered in the Nephrology Department of Guangling No. 1 Hospital, with attending physician Li Guoqiang. At the end of last month, she completed kidney matching through the China Marrow Donor Program, with a perfect match at all four loci. The surgery is scheduled for next Tuesday. The kidney has been received and stored by the Organ Transplant Center of Guangling No. 1 Hospital. The process is normal, with no abnormal changes."

Every word on the phone struck Wu Shaoming's eardrums.

"So, the kidney wasn't taken away?"

Chen Ping added a comment.

"No. I can retrieve all the signed documents for the successful matching, organ reception, and surgery scheduling. Everything is normal."

"Okay. Thank you, Director Lin."

Chen Ping hung up the phone, put it back in his pocket, and placed his hands back on the table.

He didn't look at Wu Shaoming.

No need to look.

The sounds emanating from the iron chair said it all: the handcuff chains trembled in the armrests, making a fine, continuous, and unstoppable tinkling sound.

Wu Shaoming's breathing became erratic. His chest heaved rapidly, and he swallowed repeatedly. His face turned from ashen to ashen, and his lips were pressed together, distorted by pressure.

Chen Ping waited ten seconds before speaking.

"Your upline told you that your mother's kidney had been stolen. You believed it."

Wu Shaoming did not move.

"He gave you a set of stories to use as leverage in the interrogation room to buy time. And you did just that."

The chains vibrated a little less, but didn't stop.

"You served as Yan Qinghua's secretary for over a decade, handling donations, pulling strings, and dealing with shady dealings for him. When Yan Qinghua fell from grace, you escaped investigation because someone wiped away all traces of you, arranged for your resignation, and made you disappear. You thought they were protecting you."

Chen Pingfang's voice didn't rise even half a decibel.

"He even lied to you about your mother's illness. You still think he's protecting you?"

Wu Shaoming's chin twitched.

He lowered his head, his two handcuffed hands gripping the handrails tightly, his knuckles digging into the gaps of the iron rings, his bones creaking.

Chen Ping sat opposite him, motionless.

The only sounds in the interrogation room were the hum of the fluorescent lights and the intermittent clanging of the chains.

A full forty seconds passed.

Wu Shaoming raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot, and the muscles under his eyes twitched twice.

"I killed Fang Zhiyuan."

Chen Ping did not answer.

"My way into the detention center was arranged by higher-ups. The guard on duty was changed that day, and there was an eleven-minute gap in the surveillance footage. I strangled Fang Zhiyuan with a bed sheet. His fingers tore my left forearm to shreds."

Wu Shaoming turned his left arm over and rolled up the sleeve. Four deep red scratches, scabbed over, lay crookedly across the skin on the inside of his forearm.

"I accept all of these."

His Adam's apple bobbed one last time.

"The old musician... is not a person. It's a code name."

Chen Ping straightened his back slightly, about one centimeter, from the chair.

"You can't afford to mess with someone who uses this code name."

Wu Shaoming's voice was hoarse.

"But he left a clue outside. Many years ago, Yan Qinghua sent a batch of old equipment to Huazhong Microelectronics. It was nominally a donation of obsolete production lines. There was something hidden inside that batch of equipment."

His lips twitched a few times, and the chains finally stopped trembling.

"Go check that equipment. The answer to who the old musician's real owner is is in there."

Chen Ping's palm was flat on the table, not a single one of his five fingers moved. The white light from the fluorescent tube shone down from above, casting his and Wu Shaoming's shadows on the cement floor, one long and one short, motionless.