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

The cabinet door popped open a crack.

Chen Ping didn't rush to open the door; he first glanced at both ends of the corridor. The private rooms on the second floor were nearly empty during lunchtime, with only one door ajar in the distance, from which the faint sounds of clinking glasses could be heard.

Open the cabinet door.

Inside was an ordinary kraft paper file folder, the seal unsealed. Chen Ping pinched the opening and shook it; a folded A4 sheet of paper slid out.

Printed text, four lines:

"The second potted plant under the north window of room 307, watering nozzle diameter. Execute immediately. Recording files will be retrieved every 48 hours. Retrieval method will be notified separately."

There was no signature or endnote.

Chen Ping folded the paper, stuffed it back into the file folder, put it back in the cabinet as before, closed the door, and locked it.

This locker is a one-way mailbox. Someone leaves a message, and Xiao Li comes to pick it up. Xiao Li said that the time and frequency of the person leaving the message are not fixed. But the fact that the red note has only appeared for less than half a day indicates that this round of delivery is very short.

The other party got anxious.

At 1:40 p.m., Chen Ping sat down in the temporary office of the Second Technical Division of the Provincial State Security Department.

Pei Xiangyang was already waiting inside, with three sets of printing materials spread out on the table. He was a tall, thin man in his early forties, with his left index fingernail cut extremely short, a habit from long hours of typing.

"Director Pei, I need your people to keep an eye on locker number 47 on the second floor of the cafeteria."

"How long should we keep an eye on them?"

"Stay until the person who gave the instructions appears. Don't leave the items in the cabinet, don't remove the red slip of paper, and wait for him to come himself."

Pei Xiangyang flipped through the materials in his hand.

"I suggest adding another layer. Attach a miniature camera to the inside wall of the locker; it should have a wide angle and a 72-hour battery life with its lithium battery. Set up another one at the corner of the corridor. The two cameras will provide overlapping coverage, with blind spots no more than half a meter wide."

Chen Ping nodded.

"Where are the manpower?"

"Recruit two people from the second technical department, have them wear white coats in the cafeteria kitchen, and have them keep watch in the food preparation area. Also, assign a female comrade to work as a waitress in the private rooms on the second floor, responsible for observing the activity in the corridor."

The deployment was finalized. By 4 p.m. that day, all the equipment had arrived.

Chen Ping didn't return to 307. He asked Lin Shaofeng to find him an old jacket and a baseball cap, then changed into them and sat down in the storage room at the end of the second-floor corridor. The door was directly facing the lockers, with an unobstructed view.

and so on.

The dinner rush came and went. No one lingered in front of the lockers.

The storage room was stuffy and hot, with mops and disinfectant buckets piled up in the corner, and the smell of bleach made one's nose dry. Chen Ping chewed two pieces of gum and stared at the row of metal cabinets outside the crack in the door.

7:19 PM.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor. They moved at a measured pace, the soles of leather shoes clicking rhythmically on the terrazzo floor.

A man in his fifties walked over. He was of medium build, with gray hair, wearing a dark gray jacket, and carrying a black tote bag.

The man walked to the locker, looked around, then squatted down and took out a key.

Chen Ping pressed his back against the wall.

The key is inserted into the lock. Cabinet number 47.

The man opened the cabinet door, reached inside, and touched the file folder. He pulled it out, felt its thickness, and then pushed it back in as if it were still sealed.

Close the cabinet door. Stand up. Turn around and leave.

The man's purpose was simply to confirm that the file folder was still there.

Confirm whether Xiao Li has executed the instructions.

Chen Ping emerged from the storage room, his baseball cap pulled low. At the other end of the corridor, a waiter arranged by Pei Xiangyang approached with a tray, precisely blocking the man's path.

"Master, this is our private room, please settle the bill."

The man stepped aside to let him pass.

In that instant, Chen Ping leaned against him from behind.

"Master, are you from the provincial government's motorcade?"

The man turned around abruptly, his shoulders tensed, his foot stomped on the ground, and he took a half-step back.

The reaction was too strong.

"Who are you?" The man's jaw tightened.

Chen Ping took off his baseball cap.

The man paused for two seconds. He recognized him.

"Chen... Deputy Secretary-General Chen?"

"Let's go find a place to talk."

Ten minutes later. The door to the empty private room in the corner on the first floor was locked from the outside.

The man sat at the round table, his hands resting on his knees, his fingers interlaced.

Pei Xiangyang leaned against the door frame and took out a small notebook.

Chen Pingfang sat opposite him.

"Name."

"Guo Yongchang. The motorcade of the Provincial Government Offices Administration Bureau, he has been driving for nineteen years."

Nineteen years. Longer than the length of service for most division-level cadres.

"Who gave you the key to locker number 47?"

Guo Yongchang's right knee twitched.

"It was arranged by the leader..."

"Which leader?"

silence.

"Master Guo, I'll ask you one more time." Chen Ping placed the file folder on the table, sealing it so the opening faced Guo Yongchang. "Who sent you to check this cabinet?"

Guo Yongchang rubbed his palms together and his lips moved twice.

"I don't know him."

Chen Ping did not interrupt.

"It was always an email notification. The sender was listed as 'Provincial Party Committee Inspection Team Office,' and the email address ended in .gov.cn. I thought it was a legitimate work arrangement."

Pei Xiangyang walked over from the door frame, opened his notebook, and wrote two lines.

Do you remember my email address?

Guo Yongchang recited a series of sentences:

Pei Xiangyang stopped writing and looked up at Chen Pingfang.

Chen Ping caught that look. gov.org.cn, with an extra "org" compared to the official gov.cn, was indistinguishable to the average person.

A fake government email address.

"What did the email ask you to do?"

"It's just about regularly putting things in locker number 47, or checking if things are still there. Sometimes it's a note, sometimes a USB drive, sometimes an envelope. The key was mailed to my house in a courier box without a sender's address."

Guo Yongchang's Adam's apple bobbed.

"I really didn't know it was illegal. I wouldn't dare ask any questions about the tasks my superiors gave me."

Chen Ping stood up and pushed the chair back under the table.

Reaching the door, he lowered his voice and said something to Pei Xiangyang.

"This person was used as a pawn. The email address was professionally made, the domain name was accurately disguised, and they had a thorough understanding of the provincial government's internal administrative processes, personnel hierarchy, and information transmission habits."

Pei Xiangyang closed the notebook, unscrewed the pen cap, and then put it back on.

"The fact that they can forge orders in the name of an inspection team shows that they know one thing: the drivers of the provincial government's motorcade have a special mentality. No one dares to refuse or speak out about any request that includes the words 'inspection team.' This is a precise social worker attack that takes advantage of the system's obedience."

Chen Ping turned the lock on the door of the private room.

"Check the server hosting that email account. Retrieve the IP address, registration information, and login history—everything."

"I'll go ahead and investigate the parts that the province can investigate first; the cross-border parts need to be reported to the Ministry of State Security."

"Run within the province first."

Chen Ping walked out of the cafeteria building, the night wind blowing into his jacket collar. He took out his phone; two missed calls.

Article 1: Fang Xudong.

Article 2: Governor's Office.

In the provincial government system, a phone call from the governor's office means only one thing: Liu Mingyuan is personally contacting someone.

Chen Ping dialed back.

The governor's secretary received it.

"Deputy Secretary-General Chen, Governor Liu requests your immediate presence in his office on the fourth floor."

"What is it?"

The secretary paused for a moment.

"From Beijing. This afternoon, the Intellectual Property Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology received a letter of complaint filed by a person with a real name, accusing the core algorithm of the 'Chip Spark Project' of plagiarizing foreign patented technology."

Chen Ping opened the car door and threw his baseball cap into the back seat.

Who is the whistleblower?

There was a three-second silence on the other end of the phone.

"The whistleblower column lists Zhou Zhixing as the Deputy Secretary-General of the China Semiconductor Industry Association."

Zhou Zhixing.

That person who should have been brought under control. The first nail pulled from the shadow network.

Chen Ping's thumb was on the turn-off button, but he didn't press it.

While Zhou Zhixing was in detention, the letter of denunciation reached the capital.

When was the letter sent? Or perhaps it wasn't even sent by him at all?

The light was on in the governor's office on the fourth floor, and the window could be seen across the entire street.