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

"Check Jingxinyuan." After sending the three words, Qin Yu's reply popped up—received.

Chen Ping put his phone back in his pocket and dialed Ma Donglin's encrypted line.

"We can't force it."

Ma Donglin's lighter clicked.

"What do you mean?"

"Zhang Jingru has been operating in the political and legal system for thirty years. Any search warrant, if processed through normal procedures, will reach his ears within three hours. Under the guise of inspecting illegal environmental constructions, take two people for a walk around the Jingxinyuan area. Don't go inside; first, familiarize yourself with the terrain and entrances/exits."

"An illegal construction for environmental protection?" Ma Donglin took a puff of his cigarette and coughed halfway through.

"A private garden, unregistered under anyone's name, covering at least two or three acres, located in the suburbs. Do you think it has the legal permits for land use development?"

Ma Donglin didn't ask a second question.

After hanging up the phone, Chen Ping sent Zheng Xian another message: "The gardener at Jingxin Garden, surnamed Tao, has lived in the garden for at least twenty years. Please help me check his household registration, ID number, and his kinship with Zhang Jingru. The sooner the better."

Zheng Xian's reply arrived at 6 PM.

"Tao Guiliang, 69 years old, is a distant nephew of Zhang Jingru's mother. His household registration is in Linchuan County, Zhang Jingru's hometown, but social security payment records show that he has not left the provincial capital in the past 23 years."

A 69-year-old man lived in a non-existent garden for 23 years, pruning flowers and branches for a retired deputy provincial-level official.

This is a gravedigger.

What they were protecting was Zhang Jingru's lifeline.

At 9 p.m. that evening, Ma Donglin's survey report arrived. Jingxin Garden was located on the southern slope of Tangli Mountain in the suburbs, surrounded by bamboo forests on three sides, with only a dirt road leading to the provincial highway. The surrounding wall was made of blue bricks, two and a half meters high, with shards of glass embedded in the top. Inside the garden was a two-story Hui-style building and a separate bungalow with smoke billowing from its chimney. There was no surveillance or security guard post in the entire garden.

They're incredibly low-key.

The next morning, Chen Ping drove up Tangli Mountain.

He walked alone along the dirt road to the iron gate of Jingxin Garden. The gate was unlocked, ajar, and the rusty hinges were crooked to one side.

The sound of scissors snipping came from the yard.

Chen Ping pushed open the door. The gravel path was lined with Podocarpus macrophyllus trees, all neatly trimmed. A hunched old man squatted by the flowerbed, holding a pair of gardening shears, pruning a black pine tree.

Hearing footsteps, the old man looked up, his face full of wrinkles and his eyes cloudy.

"Who should I look for?"

Chen Ping casually put his hands in his pockets and stood on the gravel road.

"I was just passing by and saw how nicely this garden is done, so I came in to take a look. Are you the gardener here?"

The old man lowered his head again and snipped the scissors.

"I'm not a gardener, I just look after my relatives' yard."

Chen Ping squatted down and reached out to touch the needles of the black pine.

"This pine tree must have been growing for a long time, right? Its branches are so tightly closed; it must have been growing for at least fifteen years."

The old man paused for a moment, tilted his head, and glanced at Chen Pingfang.

"You understand this?"

"I don't really understand. Back in my rural hometown, my neighbors planted a few, but none of them were as good as yours."

Hearing this, the old man lowered his guard a little and muttered something.

"Everything in this garden was chosen by Old Zhang himself. He decided where each tree was planted, where the stones were placed, he decided everything. He even wouldn't let me move the books in the study."

Chen Ping's heart skipped a beat, but he didn't show it on his face.

"There are rules about how to arrange things in a study?"

"That set of Zizhi Tongjian, thread-bound, covered an entire wall. Every spring I had to take it out to air it out, and after that I had to put it back in its original order one by one. I carried more than eighty books in and out, and my back almost broke. If I put one wrong book in, I would get scolded."

The old man shook his head, and the scissors snipped twice more.

"Old Zhang is a man who can be careless about everything, but the order in which the books are arranged cannot be messed up at all."

order.

Chen Ping pondered the word "order" in his heart.

The Zizhi Tongjian comprises 294 volumes, arranged chronologically in a fixed order. If someone doesn't arrange them chronologically but instead uses their own rules, they are certainly not reading the book; they are using it to hide things.

Chen Ping chatted with the old man for another ten minutes or so, asking about the flowers and plants in the garden, until the sun began to set before he got up to say goodbye.

After exiting the iron gate, Chen Ping dialed Liu Mingyuan's number.

"The evidence is most likely in the study in Jingxinyuan. We need a legitimate reason to enter; we can't use a search warrant."

Liu Mingyuan remained silent for three seconds.

"I'll let Secretary Zhao Deshan know. You wait for news."

Forty minutes later, Liu Mingyuan called back.

"The Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection has already made arrangements. Under the guise of a fire safety inspection, the suburban street office will take the lead, with the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and your personnel accompanying them. It will be carried out at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."

At 9:00 a.m. the following morning, two vans bearing license plates from the subdistrict office parked at the entrance of Jingxinyuan.

Street officials knocked on the door, holding up their work badges. When Lao Tao opened the door, he was taken aback for a moment, muttering, "What's the fire department doing?" but he didn't stop them.

Chen Pingfang followed at the back of the group, wearing an ordinary dark blue jacket with a temporary inspection team badge pinned to his chest.

The study is on the west side of the second floor. Pushing open the door, a musty smell of old paper wafts out.

The entire wall of bookshelves, from floor to ceiling, was densely packed with thread-bound copies of the *Zizhi Tongjian* (Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government) with blue cloth covers. Each volume's spine was inscribed with a volume number in calligraphy.

Chen Ping's gaze swept from the top left corner to the bottom right corner, taking ten seconds.

He glanced at it; Volume One wasn't at the beginning. Volume Seventy-Four was at the very front, followed by Volume One Hundred and Ninety-Two, and then Volume Two Hundred and Sixty-Six.

This order is neither based on history nor on stroke order.

Chen Ping took out his phone and pulled up the text record of the audio. Yan Qinghua mentioned three numbers in the recording: July 4th, safe deposit box number 192, and an offshore account starting with 266.

74. 192. 266.

He walked to the bookshelf and pulled out volume seventy-four.

Hidden between the front and back covers of the thread-bound book, in the spine, is a thin, translucent sheet of paper. The paper contains microprints, the text so small it's almost invisible to the naked eye, but it's clear it's a handwritten table, neatly listing names, amounts, dates, and purposes.

Chen Ping then pulled out volumes 192 and 266, and found the same miniature paper in the same location.

When the three pieces of paper are put together, they form a vast network spanning twenty years, clearly recording all the transfers of benefits, personnel relationships, and the destination of funds.

Chen Ping tucked the three pieces of paper into the transparent evidence bag and stuffed it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

"Fall back."

After Chen Ping finished speaking, he turned around and walked downstairs, but he had only gone down a few steps.

Just then, the iron gate in the courtyard was suddenly pushed open with a loud bang.

Chen Ping stopped in his tracks.

An old man stood at the door, leaning on a black cane. Qian Bo followed behind him.

The old man looked very imposing, with his lips pursed and his expression serious.

Chen Pingfang knew that this person was Zhang Jingru.

Zhang Jingru tapped his cane on the ground for a moment, then raised his head. His gaze swept across the courtyard and finally landed on Chen Pingfang.

He began by saying, "Director Chen, the tea in my garden is quite good. Would you like to have a cup before you leave?"