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

"Comrade Chen Pingfang."

Those four words slammed into his eardrums, and Chen Ping's spine straightened an inch from his tailbone upwards.

The guests next to him were still applauding. Governor Liu on the stage seemed to be reading from a prepared statement, which contained something about "coordination among five provinces" or something similar.

Chen Ping stood to the side with his phone in his hand, but it seemed that no one saw him making a call; he didn't move at all.

"My surname is Fang, Fang Cunyi."

Chen Pingfang was taken aback when he heard the name.

Fang Cunyi, Chen Pingfang knew this person. He was the former deputy auditor general of the National Audit Office and is now the leader of the Sixth Inspection Team.

But Chen Pingfang was deeply impressed by him for another reason. This reason was related to an old photograph in his home.

The photo was in a drawer in the study; it was a very old one. It showed his father, Chen Jianbang, standing with a young man wearing glasses—that man was Fang Cunyi.

There were a few words written on the back of the photo, something like "Let us encourage each other with righteousness", and the date was the winter of 1999.

"Uncle Fang."

These two words came out without any calculation.

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

"You still remember that name?"

My mother mentioned you.

"Hmm." Fang Cunyi's voice was very low. "I'll get straight to the point. The memo your father submitted at the end of 2000, seven pages of material, involving the flow of funds and overseas transit accounts—the provincial discipline inspection commission's archives have a copy of this."

Chen Ping's jaw muscles tensed slightly.

"The original is in my hands."

Fang Cunyi pronounced each word extremely slowly.

"The night before Jianbang submitted his memorandum, he called me. It lasted forty-seven minutes. He dictated the core content of the document and asked me to make a handwritten copy. The original was sent to my residence in Beijing at the same time. The copy sent to the provincial government disappeared without a trace, but the one in Beijing has always been there."

Chen Ping turned his head and glanced at the stage. Liu Mingyuan was shaking hands with the representative from Guangdong Province, and the camera flashes went off everywhere.

"Uncle Fang, why are you only saying this now?"

"Because you've come this far." Fang Cunyi paused. "Twenty-three years ago, your father discovered Ren Shaoting's shadow network, but the conditions weren't right at the time. If the higher-ups didn't act, the lower-ups wouldn't dare to. Jianbang, a deputy head of an inspection team, couldn't break through an already established system."

The applause on stage rose again. Chen Ping put his left hand into his pocket and pinched the piece of paper folded into four folds.

Ren Shaoting. Three characters.

"He kept that memo not just as evidence," Fang Cunyi said, his speech slowing. "Jianbang once told me, 'If something happens to me, this is my way of explaining things to my son.'"

Chen Ping's Adam's apple bobbed, but he didn't make a sound.

"Pingfang, the Provincial Public Security Bureau officially reopened the investigation into your father's car accident this morning. I signed the approval documents; it went through the channel assigned by the Central Inspection Team. No one can stop it."

The ceremony on stage entered its final stage. The orange-red chip pattern on the backdrop lit up again, and the light reflected from the steel plate shone on Chen Pingfang's profile.

"Uncle Fang, I understand."

"There's one more thing," Fang Cunyi said in a flat tone, "On the sixth page of that memo, Jianbang drew a symbol. A folding fan. Next to it were four characters: 'This person is in the center.'"

Chen Ping pressed his thumb firmly against the corner of the paper in his pocket.

Folding fan.

The folding fan on the back of the business card.

The folding fan in my father's notes.

The thread from twenty-three years ago, and the business card that had been flipped over on the coffee table three days ago, have now been connected.

"receive."

The phone hangs up.

Han Zhiming walked over from three steps away, lowering his voice.

"Director, the ceremony is almost over. Governor Liu wants you to go over and take a group photo."

Chen Ping put his phone back in his pocket, took two steps toward the VIP seats, and then stopped.

"Zhiming, have someone remove the chairs from those three empty seats at the Provincial Political Consultative Conference. Don't leave them there."

Han Zhiming paused for a moment, then nodded and turned to do it.

During the group photo, Chen Pingfang stood in the second row, near the side. Liu Mingyuan stood in the center, flanked by the director of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and representatives from the five-province alliance. The instant the shutter clicked, Liu Mingyuan's gaze shifted slightly to the right, meeting Chen Pingfang's for less than half a second.

There was nothing superfluous.

But that half second was enough.

After the ceremony, Chen Pingfang did not attend the luncheon. He asked Han Zhiming to entertain the people from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in his place, while he got into his car, took the hardcover notebook out of his briefcase, and turned to the last page.

Liang Bowen tucked a letter into the title page, but he also tucked something into the last page—a yellowed sticky note, stuck to the inside of the back cover and secured with transparent tape.

The note contained only one sentence, and the handwriting was neither Liang Bowen's nor RGD's.

It was written in the handwriting of his father, Chen Jianbang.

"This man, Shaoting, used a folding fan as his code, connecting eleven people from the provincial and municipal levels. The core channel: the Party School's internal server. This document is forwarded to Brother Bowen for safekeeping. Jianbang, December of the Gengchen year."

Chen Ping closed the hardcover notebook and placed it on the passenger seat.

Twenty-three years.

This notebook went from Liang Bowen's bookshelf to his briefcase, separated by his father's life.

My phone vibrated again. This time it was Director Chu.

"Ren Shaoting went into the interview room of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and said nothing."

"Didn't utter a single word?"

"Not a single word." Director Chu's breathing was heavy. "But he made a request."

Chen Ping waited.

He wants to see you.

The sunlight streamed in through the car window, illuminating the dashboard.

"I only saw you alone. I said there was something about a folding fan that I wanted to return to you personally."

Chen Ping placed his hand on the steering wheel, his thumb rubbing against the seam of the leather cover.

Over the past 23 years, Ren Shaoting has cultivated numerous hidden networks, connected countless key nodes, and embezzled a great deal of money. The provincial discipline inspection commission and the central inspection team will calculate these details one by one.

But he happened to speak out during the silence.

I don't need a lawyer, and I don't need to see the family members.

I need to see Chen Pingfang.

You should return a folding fan.

"Director Chu, is the data acquisition equipment in the interview room capable of full-band coverage?"

"Fully open."

"I'm going there now."

Chen Ping started the car and drove out of the industrial park gate. In the rearview mirror, the 20-meter-wide backdrop grew smaller and smaller, and the two characters "Core Fire" on the steel plate shone brightly under the midday sun.

He didn't look back.

As the car drove onto the elevated road, Han Zhiming sent a message:

"The Criminal Investigation Division of the Provincial Public Security Department has formed a special task force, and this afternoon it officially opened a case for the traffic accident in the Year of Gengchen. The case number has been assigned, and the deputy chief of the division, Tao, is in charge."

Chen Ping put his phone back in his pocket and stepped on the gas.

Twenty-three years ago, the knife his father handed out was stopped by someone.

Now the knife is back in his hands.

The provincial discipline inspection commission building appeared two kilometers ahead of the windshield, its gray-white exterior walls devoid of warmth in the winter light.

Chen Ping parked the car in the underground garage, turned off the engine, and removed the key.

He sat for five seconds, then pushed open the car door.

At the end of the corridor, the iron door to the interview room was half-open, and the lights inside were blindingly white.

Ren Shaoting sat inside, his hands resting flat on the table, his fingers interlaced.

He looked up at Chen Pingfang, who appeared at the door, and his lips moved slightly.

"You've come." He raised his right hand from the table, palm up, and opened it.

A brass-colored cufflink lay in his palm, with an open folding fan engraved on its surface.

"These belong to your father."