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

Nine o'clock in the morning, in the small conference room of the Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Commission.

There were three stacks of materials on the table. The top page contained a list of abnormal assessments of Jingzhou enterprises, with names circled in red pen.

When Li Dakang entered, his leather shoes clattered heavily on the floor. As soon as he sat down, he opened the first stack of documents.

He only read two pages before his face darkened.

"Gao Yuliang, your list is more detailed than anything my municipal party committee has." Li Dakang slammed the paper on the table. "Jingzhou is under my jurisdiction. When did you start meddling in here?"

Gao Yuliang sat opposite him, his thermos unopened, his eyes behind his glasses calm yet somewhat cold.

He didn't rush to explain, but simply pushed the second stack of materials over.

"Dakang, now is not the time to argue about who looks better. Chu Pingshan isn't after Jingzhou's reputation, he's after Jingzhou's backbone."

Li Dakang stared at him, his chest heaving slightly.

Qi Tongwei stood by the door, his police uniform buttoned all the way up, the bandage on his left arm still in place. Lu Yike sat to the side, a voice recorder and an interrogation outline beside her.

Gao Yuliang opened the third stack of materials; the sound of the paper rubbing together was very faint.

"Haiheng Consulting conducted abnormal ratings for twelve companies in Jingzhou, seven of which were assessed as devalued, and three received letters of intent to invest in the Coastal Fund. The timing was very precise, with the provincial government's reassessment notices issued within 48 hours."

The veins on the back of Li Dakang's hand bulged out.

"You want me to call the business leaders out to testify?"

Gao Yuliang looked up at him.

"It's not just a desire, it's a necessity."

The meeting room fell silent for a moment.

A car drove by outside the window, its tires making a muffled thud as they rolled over the puddles.

Li Dakang closed the document, his voice hard and strained.

"The moment they open their mouths, all those old accounts of Jingzhou's past practices—such as packaging financing, project forecasts, and the proportion of supporting facilities—will be brought up. Gao Yuliang, you are the Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, not someone sent by the National Audit Office to investigate me."

Gao Yuliang picked up the thermos, unscrewed it, but didn't drink from it.

"If you don't settle old scores, Chu Pingshan will use new ones to kill you. If you hand them over to me, at least I'll know what I can investigate and what I need to keep quiet about."

Li Dakang's lips were pressed into a straight line.

Qi Tongwei glanced at him but didn't say anything.

Lu Yike lowered her head, crossed out two lines on the outline, and added a sentence about the company's voluntary statement.

Li Dakang suddenly laughed, but it was a forced laugh.

"Gao Yuliang, you've got a good plan. You made me, Li Dakang, take off my clothes myself, and I should thank you for finding me a fig leaf."

Gao Yuliang put the cup lid back on the table.

"A fig leaf is better than a blank sheet."

Li Dakang: "..."

Qi Tongwei's eyelids twitched.

Lu Yike stopped writing.

That's a really hurtful thing to say.

Li Dakang raised his hand as if to slam it on the table, but in the end he forcefully pressed down on the corner of the document.

"I can bring entrepreneurs. But there's one condition: Jingzhou cannot be made a negative example for the entire province. Jingzhou acknowledges its own problems. Chu Pingshan wants to use Jingzhou to establish his authority; that won't work."

Gao Yuliang looked at him and nodded slowly.

"I'm making this promise to you. Jingzhou is handing over evidence, not heads."

Li Dakang stood up, the chair legs scraping against the floor with a harsh sound.

He walked to the door, then stopped.

"Those companies on the list, come to the Municipal Public Security Bureau tonight. Don't use summons, use protective questioning. They are entrepreneurs, not criminals."

Gao Yuliang closed the materials.

"Dakang, you still know how to protect your own."

Li Dakang turned around and glared at him.

Stop with the sarcastic remarks. I'll take the blame for Jingzhou's problems. And nobody else can take a piece of Jingzhou's flesh.

……

That evening, only two lights were on in the small conference room on the third floor of the Jingzhou Municipal Bureau.

Three businessmen sat at one side of a long table, their faces grim. The middle-aged man at the head of the table, surnamed Tan, was the owner of Jingzhou Precision Machine Tool Factory. His hands were calloused, and the cuffs of his suit jacket were worn white.

Qi Tongwei sat opposite them, without putting on airs, and simply pushed a cup of hot water towards them.

"Mr. Tan, tonight is not for interrogation. Who pressured you, and how? Explain clearly. After you finish speaking, the Municipal Bureau will provide security for you."

Mr. Tan held the paper cup, his fingers trembling.

"Director Qi, I've already said it, can the company even survive?"

Lu Yike placed the voice recorder in the center of the table.

"If you don't speak up, the rating report could put you on the bank's blacklist tomorrow. If you do speak up, at least the report will have to undergo judicial verification."

Mr. Tan looked up at her.

The other two businessmen in the room exchanged glances, and one of them muttered a curse under his breath.

"Haiheng's people said that our debt-to-asset ratio was abnormal and our capacity utilization was insufficient. According to the provincial government's reassessment standards, we could only be classified as an inefficient enterprise." General Manager Tan took out a USB flash drive from his briefcase. "But on the same night, people from the Coastal Fund contacted me and said that as long as they invested, Haiheng could have its rating upgraded back to excellent."

Qi Tongwei didn't move, his eyes fixed on the USB drive.

"Who said that?"

Mr. Tan swallowed hard.

"Team Leader Ma's brother-in-law. And Haiheng's project manager."

Lu Yike took the USB drive and plugged it into the isolated computer.

After the audio was turned on, a buzzing electrical sound rang out for two seconds.

Then, a slightly slick male voice came out.

"President Tan, don't overcomplicate things. Governor Chu only looks at the report, not the process. If you accept the coastal fund's investment, the rating will naturally follow."

No one spoke in the meeting room.

The sound continued to roll down.

"You old businesses in Jingzhou have been propping yourself up with government funding for so many years; it's time to let professional capital in to clean things up. Otherwise, once the reassessment is implemented, who will protect you?"

Snapped.

Li Dakang was standing at the doorway at some point, his lighter falling to the ground.

The three entrepreneurs stood up at the same time.

"Secretary Li."

Li Dakang didn't look at them, he just stared at the computer screen, his facial muscles tense like iron plates.

"Keep releasing."

Another sentence came through the recording.

"Don't blame us for being blunt, but the province wants impressive data, not the sentimentality of you old factory workers."

Li Dakang bent down, picked up the lighter, and held it in his hand.

Several seconds passed before he spoke.

"Qi Tongwei, give a statement. Anyone who threatens the company will not be allowed to leave Jingzhou standing up."

Qi Tongwei nodded, signaling the police officers to begin securing the evidence.

Lu Yike printed out screenshots of the audio timeline and marked three key sentences: "Coastal Fund", "Governor Chu only looks at the report", and "Rating Adjustment".

At 11:30 p.m., the manuscript was delivered to Gao Yuliang's office.

Gao Yuliang read it twice and circled a word in red pen.

Coastal Fund.

He looked up at Qi Tongwei.

"Tongwei, go check the money. People can lie, but money can't."

At the same time, the lights in the provincial government office were still on.

After listening to his secretary's report, Chu Pingshan paused, his pen resting on the paper.

"Have companies in Jingzhou been summoned for questioning by the political and legal system?"

The secretary kept her head down.

"Yes. It was a protective inquiry; there were no procedural issues."

Chu Pingshan put the pen cap back on.

"Haiheng Consulting's access to certain data is suspended. The re-survey office is notified to immediately prepare for a counter-investigation into the responsibility for the false reporting in the Jingzhou project."

Sha Ruijin sat on the sofa, his teacup halfway up.

"Are you going to back down?"

Chu Pingshan looked out the window, his profile reflected in the glass.

"It's not about bowing down, it's about getting Li Dakang to help us! Gao Yuliang wants to use someone else as a scapegoat, isn't he afraid of getting cut himself?"