Nominal: Hou Liangping blocking the door? He was slapped away!

The Passat did not head towards the provincial government.

The headlights traced a dim yellow arc on the suburban highway before turning onto the auxiliary road of the industrial park. Qi Tongwei's bread truck lagged far behind, its headlights off, its trajectory discernible only by the occasional beams of oncoming trucks.

Lu Yike stared at the GPS positioning screen, her voice choked in her throat.

"They went southeast. Two kilometers ahead is the logistics and warehousing area, and further ahead is the suburban archives custody center."

"File custody?" Qi Tongwei tapped his finger on the steering wheel.

"The document management service outsourced by the provincial government stores both paper archives and electronic backups there. Nominally, it is under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Government Office, but in reality, it is operated by a third-party company."

Lu Yike pulled up a business registration document and flipped to the last layer of equity penetration. "The operator is called Xinheng Data, the legal representative's surname is Zhou, and it shares the same registered address as Haiheng Consulting."

Qi Tongwei's lips twitched down, but he didn't reply.

The Passat stopped for less than three minutes in front of the archives center. The door opened, and the provincial government secretary got out of the driver's seat, wearing a dark trench coat over his suit and carrying a black briefcase.

The gatekeeper clearly recognized him and skipped the registration process, letting him in sideways.

Qi Tongwei parked the bread truck under a plane tree two hundred meters away and rolled down the window halfway. The night wind carried in the distinctive smell of diesel fuel from the industrial area.

Lu Yike turned the laptop towards him; the screen showed the municipal surveillance camera at the entrance of the custody center. The resolution wasn't high, but people could be clearly seen entering and exiting.

"What's in the box?"

"I can't guess," Qi Tongwei said.

He stared at the direction the secretary had disappeared in the video feed, his fingers unconsciously touching the empty holster at his waist. He was on duty in civilian clothes tonight, without any weapons.

Six minutes later, the secretary came out from another exit, and the box she was carrying was gone.

The man who walked out after him was a middle-aged man in a gray shirt. Lu Yike zoomed in on the image and took a few seconds to make out his features.

"The finance director of Haiheng Consulting is the same person as the one at the club."

Qi Tongwei's brows furrowed into a tight knot.

After leaving the club, instead of going home or back to the company, he went to the archives management center to meet with the provincial government secretary and hand over a briefcase. The whole thing smells awful.

"Break in?" Lu Yike asked.

Qi Tongwei did not move.

Three months ago, he would have already led a group to kick down the door. But after dealing with Shen Zhong for so long, he's learned some lessons without being taught; the mistakes he's made have become ingrained in his bones.

"This place is supposedly outsourced by the provincial government. If we force our way in without a search warrant, Chu Pingshan can use the procedural flaws to dismantle the entire chain of evidence tomorrow."

Lu Yike glanced at him and swallowed back the words, "When did you become so well-behaved?" that were on the tip of her tongue.

Qi Tongwei picked up his phone and dialed a number.

"Director Lu, please contact the duty prosecutor at the Anti-Corruption Bureau immediately. Apply for a temporary search warrant for the Hsin Heng Data Custody Center as part of the extended investigation into the highway checkpoint case involving organized crime. The reason is that the custody center's storage number appears in the organized crime ledgers, and we need to verify if there is any related evidence."

Lu Yike took the phone and muttered as she dialed, "Director Qi, is that reason enough?"

"Whether it's enough or not, you know better than I do." Qi Tongwei tilted his head to look at her. "You're a prosecutor by training, you don't need me to teach you how to write these kinds of documents to pass muster."

Lu Yike paused for half a second, then put the phone to her ear and spoke twice as fast.

Forty minutes later, the search warrant was obtained.

Qi Tongwei, accompanied by Lu Yike and four plainclothes officers, showed their credentials and entered the custody center. This time, the gatekeeper tried to stop them, but upon seeing the official seal on the search warrant, he opened his mouth but then closed it again.

Two of the light bulbs in the corridor were broken, causing the light to flicker. Qi Tongwei pushed open the door to the room labeled "B Zone - Outsourced Storage" and immediately smelled a burnt plastic odor as soon as he stepped inside.

The room was empty. A desktop computer screen was lit with a blue light, and the hard drive indicator light had stopped flashing. The paper shredder next to it was still running quietly, with half a basket of paper scraps piled up at the output, and the machine was hot to the touch.

"It's been formatted." Lu Yike squatted down and glanced at the interface on the back of the host. The data cable had been completely unplugged.

Qi Tongwei ignored the computer, walked straight to the paper shredder, squatted down, picked up the basket of paper scraps, and placed it on the table.

He took out a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, put them on, and began to sift through the shredded paper piece by piece.

Most of the paper had been shredded into strips the size of fingernails, making it impossible to piece together the complete content. However, the shredder's blades were clearly not sharp enough, and several strips that were too wide got stuck at the edges and were not completely cut.

Qi Tongwei picked up one of the pieces and held it up to the light.

The curved line of half an official seal is below a line of printed text: "Final payment for the third phase of Haizhou Port supporting consulting services, 3,200,000 RMB."

He handed the note to Lu Yike.

Lu Yike took it and looked at it twice, her voice turning serious. "Haizhou Port Phase III? This isn't a project in Handong."

"No." Qi Tongwei stood up, took off his gloves and held them in his hand. "Haizhou Port is on the coast, and it was a project that Chu Pingshan was in charge of to achieve political success before he was transferred to Handong."

The two exchanged a glance, saying nothing, but their meaning was clear enough.

Chu Pingshan implemented a bottom-ranking elimination system and outsourced auditing in Handong, appearing clean on the surface. However, the team he brought from the coast likely had more deep-seated grievances than those in Handong itself.

Lu Yike put the note into the evidence bag, sealed it, and took out her phone to take photos of the scene.

Qi Tongwei stood at the door, looking at the locked security door at the end of the corridor, and gritted his teeth.

We were too late. The finance manager had run away, the box was gone, and the hard drive had been formatted. The only things left were these few scraps that had slipped through the shredder.

He dialed Gao Yuliang's number.

Gao Yuliang answered quickly, and then remained silent for three seconds after listening.

"Haizhou Port Phase III," Gao Yuliang repeated, his voice a half-tone lower than usual. "I've seen this name before; it's in the attachment to an internal report. That's Chu Pingshan's most impressive achievement along the coast—the project received the highest score in the entire province during acceptance testing."

Qi Tongwei understood the underlying meaning in his words. "Too clean?"

"Unnaturally clean." Gao Yuliang's voice came through the phone, as if through a thin layer of ice. "Seal all the shredded paper and fragments first, and proceed with the evidence chain for the extended case involving organized crime. I'll take a closer look later."

The phone hangs up.

Qi Tongwei picked up his phone and was about to lead his men away when Lu Yike leaned out of the window and called to him.

"Director Qi, come and take a look."

He walked quickly to the window. The second-floor window faced the backyard parking lot of the care center, and the streetlights illuminated the ground in a dim light.

A gray Buick with a pass for the provincial party committee guesthouse was slowly driving out of the back door.

Lu Yike turned her phone camera to the highest magnification and took a picture of the license plate and the driver's side profile.

Not a secretary.

It's Team Leader Ma.

He was carrying a black shockproof bag about the size of a laptop, and he glanced around before getting into the car.

Qi Tongwei stared at the shockproof bag, his pupils contracting.

"Don't chase after her." He pressed down on Lu Yike's phone, which she was about to dial.

Why?

"The secretary was the obvious bait, the briefcase was a decoy." Qi Tongwei's voice was low, as if he were speaking through gritted teeth. "They knew we might be watching the secretary, so they sent her first to muddy the waters. The real stuff they wanted to move was in Team Leader Ma's hands from the very beginning."

Lu Yike took two seconds to process this before her expression changed.

The following morning, a brief announcement was posted on the provincial government's official website: "A secretary of the General Office of the Provincial Government has been suspended from duty to cooperate with the organization's investigation due to inappropriate contact with an outsourcing company for personal reasons."

Qi Tongwei looked at the announcement and waved his phone screen at Lu Yike.

"See that? Cut off the front line. The secretary was a scapegoat, from the very beginning."

Lu Yike stared at her phone screen, her voice very soft.

"Director Qi, the hard drive in Team Leader Ma's hand might be the real list of Han Dong they're trying to take away."