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

Chen Ping stood by the window, his gaze fixed on the row of willow trees on the south bank.

The third one.

After Liu Jiangong left, only the hum of the air conditioner remained in the office. Chen Ping drew the curtains and made a phone call.

"Han Zhiming, has the management committee made any arrangements for cleaning the silt from the scenic lake?"

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

"No. The last dredging was the year before last."

"Contact the Municipal Parks and Gardens Center to arrange a river management survey tomorrow morning. The scope will be from the south bank of the scenic lake to the east bank, with a focus on the south bank revetment section, to check for blockages in the culverts."

"Schedule for tomorrow?"

"We're notifying you today to be on-site at 8:00 AM tomorrow. Tell Li Chunsheng to come and sign off on the project. Also, use the management committee's own logistics team for the construction; don't outsource it."

Han Zhiming grunted "Mmm" on the other end of the phone and didn't ask any further questions.

After hanging up the phone, Chen Ping opened the curtains a crack and glanced at the row of willow trees again. The setting sun sank below the water's surface, and the willow branches dragged on the muddy bank, wet and motionless.

At 7:50 a.m. the next day, Chen Ping was released on the south bank of the scenic lake.

Four people from the logistics team arrived, along with two shovels, a small water pump, and a wheelbarrow. Li Chunsheng stood nearby holding a stamped "River Management Survey Notice," which read in a very formal and straightforward manner: "In order to improve the water environment quality of the Management Committee's park, a routine inspection of the revetment around the landscape lake will be conducted."

Nobody found it strange. The lake really does need treatment; it had an algae bloom last summer.

Chen Ping put on a pair of old sneakers, and rolled up his trousers to his calves.

"Starting from the first willow tree on the south bank, we will conduct a thorough investigation along the riverbank eastward."

Old Zhou from the logistics team carried a shovel and walked ahead. When he reached the first willow tree, he bent down, parted the turf, and looked at the seams of the revetment.

"Secretary Chen, this section is fine; the seams are all good."

"Keep moving forward."

The second willow tree. Old Zhou squatted down and looked at it again.

"It's alright."

Chen Ping walked to the third willow tree by himself.

This willow tree is a size thicker than the two on either side, its trunk is covered with moss, and the soil at its base has been eroded by rainwater into several grooves.

He squatted down and pressed his hand twice into the soil around the tree roots.

It's on the softer side.

Normal revetment foundation soil should be compacted, but the soil in this area is loose and has a different hardness than the surrounding soil.

"Old Zhou, the soil around the base of this tree is loose. Dig it up and see if there are any cavities underneath."

Old Zhou stuck the shovel in. The first shovel went in twenty centimeters, turning over loose soil mixed with gravel and decaying leaves. The second shovel went in forty centimeters, and the shovel hit something hard.

A muffled "bang" was heard.

Old Zhou stopped.

"Secretary Chen, there seems to be something down there."

Chen Ping walked over, took the shovel, and shoveled two shovelfuls of soil down himself.

A stainless steel cylindrical can, about fifteen centimeters in diameter, had a small portion of its curved surface protruding from its shell. Its surface was covered in mud, but the metal was intact and uncorroded. The sealing cap was wrapped with two layers of waterproof tape, the edges of which were blackened by the mud.

Han Zhiming leaned closer and lowered his voice.

"Director, this..."

Chen Ping handed the shovel back to Lao Zhou.

"There's foreign matter deposited in the foundation layer of the revetment, probably left over from previous construction. Lao Zhou, take this out, I'll take it back for a record."

Without saying a word, Lao Zhou dug the jar out of the pit and shook off the mud.

The jar isn't heavy; it probably weighs two or three pounds.

Chen Ping tore a piece of plastic sheeting from the handcart, wrapped the can in it, and tucked it under his arm.

"Continue the investigation eastward, and finish reviewing the remaining sections before calling it a day."

He turned and walked towards the management committee building, his pace neither hurried nor slow. Han Zhiming followed behind him. The two crossed the parking lot, went up to the third floor, and entered Chen Pingfang's office.

The door is closed. The blinds are turned to their tightest setting.

Chen Ping placed the jar on the table and wiped the mud off the outside with a damp paper towel. The stainless steel gleamed, and a stamped serial number was engraved on it—unlike the generic airtight jars on the market, this was custom-made.

I tore off the waterproof tape, twisted the cap three times, and unscrewed it.

The jar was lined with two layers of sealed plastic bags. The first bag had been vacuum-sealed and had a desiccant attached. Chen Ping used a utility knife to cut open the bag and remove the second bag.

There were no gold bars, no cash, nothing of value inside.

There was only one stack of paper.

A4 size, about thirty or forty pages, handwritten. The handwriting is neat, in blue-black fountain pen, and each line is numbered.

Chen Pingfang recognized the character.

My father's handwriting.

He had seen his father countless times at home—sitting at the old desk in the study, the desk lamp turned up to its brightest, one hand holding down the manuscript paper, the other holding a pen, writing stroke by stroke until the wee hours of the morning.

The manuscript's cover had no title, only a line of small print in the upper right corner: "Draft - Unfinished - Do Not Distribute".

Chen Ping turned to the first page.

This is not a draft of an academic paper.

It is the original material for a research report. The time span is from the spring of the Gengchen year to the autumn of the following year. The content involves personnel appointments, fund flows, and abnormal records of project approvals in seventeen county-level units in Jiangsu Province.

Each record is followed by one or more names, with their job title and place of origin indicated in parentheses next to each name.

Starting from the third page, a frequently used term appears: power broker.

My father wrote a note in the margin: "These people don't work within the system, but they use their old networks to pass on information and allocate resources. They operate very covertly, often using informal activities like 'academic exchanges,' 'alumni gatherings,' and 'hometown associations' as cover. The brokerage network above the provincial level has at least three independent channels for making money."

Chen Ping turned the pages one by one.

Page twelve contains a hand-drawn diagram of relationships.

A circle was drawn in the middle of the diagram, with the name "Song Baiqing" written inside. Seven lines were drawn outward from this circle, connecting to seven squares. Chen Pingfang only recognized two names in the squares: one was the deceased vice president of the Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, and the other was a department-level cadre who was transferred away in the late 1990s.

The ink on the box connected by the seventh line is newer than that on the other six.

The name in the box is Wei Liangjun.

The parentheses next to it read: Song Baiqing's son, who took his mother's surname, Wei. After the investigation began in the year of Gengchen (1900), Song Baiqing died of illness, and his son was not investigated. He now works in the Sichuan Provincial Development and Reform Commission system.

Chen Ping's fingers lightly traced the lines of text, and he could feel the roughness of the paper.

Song Baiqing's son. He took his mother's surname.

He suddenly understood everything: why Song Baiqing wanted his father's notes, why Wei Liangjun pretended to be a "student" to get close to his mother, and what was the listening device under the orchid pot all about.

The missing files from the archives, the missing research materials, and the original manuscripts are right here.

Someone took the official version from the archives, but not the original manuscript. This was because the father had already given the original manuscript to Zhao Deming.

wrong.

Was Zhao Deming simply keeping this item for someone else, or did he intercept it himself?

Chen Ping turned to the last page.

He noticed that his father's handwriting had become very messy at this point.

The last line only had half a sentence written on it, with a thin ink mark at the end, showing that the writing was done hastily.

The inscription reads: "Wei Liangjun, son of Song Baiqing, is the only 'fish that slipped through the net' in the Gengchen year."

Chen Ping closed the manuscript and placed it on the table. The air conditioner in the office was a bit noisy.

Light shone in from outside, illuminating the cover of the manuscript, where the words "Do Not Disseminate" could be seen.

Han Zhiming stood by the door without saying a word; he felt the atmosphere was a bit serious.

Chen Ping pressed his finger on the last page of the manuscript and pressed hard, leaving a dent in the paper.

"Han Zhiming, can you investigate something for me?"

"Okay, go ahead and say it."

"Back in the year of Gengchen, a batch of research projects at the Provincial Academy of Social Sciences were abruptly halted. The project numbers all started with 'GC'. Go find the project approval forms for those projects and show them to me, especially the section with the approver's signature. See who the second approver is," Chen Ping instructed in detail.

Then Han Zhiming took out his phone and started writing it down.

Chen Ping's fingers were still pressing on that line of text.

He thought to himself, "This fish that slipped through the net has actually swum for twenty years, and finally swam into my own living room. It's really unbelievable."