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

On the third day after Qi Tongwei put on his new police uniform, there was no welcoming ceremony.

Only seven people entered the small conference room on the third floor of the old provincial government building. He had called them all. The door closed, the lights came on, and there were no banners or tea on the table.

Qi Tongwei pushed a sheet of A4 paper to the center of the table.

"Check the address carefully." He didn't sit down. "Haizhou Shunda Logistics Park, Chengdong Port Area. The controlling shareholder went through four layers of shell companies, ultimately ending up under the name of a fund registered overseas. This account saw 1.1 billion yuan withdrawn in six months."

The head of the Criminal Investigation Department was surnamed Zhou, and he was a few years older than Qi Tongwei. He glanced down at Qi Tongwei, and his brows furrowed.

"Director, this industrial park has foreign investment registration. If we touch it, we'll have to get past the provincial government."

"The provincial government doesn't have a governor right now," Qi Tongwei said, pushing his sleeve up half an inch. "Chu Pingshan has been promoted to the second tier. Who approved that?"

Team Leader Zhou did not respond.

Lu Yike sat at the other end of the long table, a laptop in front of her. The screen displayed a dense string of code, green background with black text, scrolling rapidly.

"The night Xinheng's data center was compromised, their cleanup script didn't finish running." She looked up, her tone as flat as if she were reading from a case file. "Among the remaining logs was a scheduled task that pushed a report to a specific IP address every Wednesday morning. I traced the physical location of that IP address."

She pressed Enter.

A satellite image popped up on the screen. A red circle was placed over the main warehouse of Shunda Logistics Park.

The meeting room fell silent for a moment.

"The throughput doesn't match up." Lu Yike pulled up another table. "The books show 20,000 tons of goods leaving the warehouse every month, but the electricity and water bills are only enough to keep an empty warehouse running. 1.1 billion comes in from here and leaves from here. The goods are fake, but the money is real."

Team Leader Zhou tapped his fingers twice on the edge of the table and then stopped.

Qi Tongwei took the page back, folded it, and put it inside his chest.

"Before tonight, the funds for this park were still in use." He looked at Captain Zhou. "They were doing a final liquidation. Once the money is gone, the people will disperse, and then we can only investigate the shell company."

"So, do we need to go through the approval process?"

"I'm not leaving."

Qi Tongwei spoke the two words very softly.

Team Leader Zhou looked up at him. Several other people present also looked over.

"Special Police Unit, stand by. We'll seal off the port tonight." Qi Tongwei put on his police cap, pulling the brim down. "If anything goes wrong, I'll take responsibility. I'll handle the organizational talks myself."

……

On the same night, the lights were still on in an office on the top floor of the provincial party committee office building.

Sha Ruijin sat at the table, the third draft of the "Self-Inspection Report of the Provincial Party Committee" spread out in front of him. He crossed out the paper again and again with a red pen, revising the page so much that the original sentences were almost illegible.

He added a phrase after the line “the provincial party committee failed to supervise outsourced audits”.

"The department responsible for implementation."

He paused, then circled the words "Provincial Party Committee" and wrote a note next to them: "Adjust the wording and place it in the office."

The secretary knocked lightly on the door. "Secretary, would you like your tea refilled?"

"No need." Sha Ruijin didn't even look up. "Make two extra copies of the Standing Committee's materials for tomorrow morning."

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. He had carefully considered each word in the report. He could admit to oversight, but whose fault it was had to be clearly stated. Mentioning the provincial party committee was like cutting off a wrist; mentioning the department was just a scratch.

He would rather have a scratch.

The city lights outside the window stretched out in a blur, but no one knew that in the eastern port area, a convoy was driving towards the port with its lights off.

……

At the main gate of Shunda Logistics Park, red and blue police lights flashed on.

Behind the iron fence, a man who looked like a security captain jogged out, holding a walkie-talkie, and blocked the front of the car.

"Stop, stop! This is a foreign-invested enterprise registration site. You don't have a letter from the provincial government—"

Qi Tongwei got out of the car, his police uniform crisp and clean.

"Which article of the filing regulations? Recite it to me."

The security captain was taken aback by the question. He opened his mouth, then said, "Anyway...anyway, foreign companies are protected, you can't just come in."

"I didn't just walk in."

Qi Tongwei walked up to him. The walkie-talkie was still held in mid-air, emitting a crackling sound.

"I am the Director of the Provincial Public Security Department, and I am here with a warrant for arrest."

Snapped.

He slapped the walkie-talkie, sending it flying three meters before it crashed into the concrete and split in two.

The security captain froze.

"This is Handong." Qi Tongwei withdrew his hand, his left arm tucked under the cuff of his sleeve, but his expression remained unchanged. "Not Haizhou."

Special police surged in from behind him, their black-clad figures dispersing to various storage doors. Chaos erupted immediately in the park; several men in suits tried to escape through the back door but were blocked.

Qi Tongwei didn't rush into the main warehouse. He went around to the back of the row of electrical distribution boxes on the side of the park and squatted down.

There was a bundle of thread there, thicker than the others, with a red outer sheath.

"Captain Zhou." He waved.

Team Leader Zhou ran over, squatted down, and his expression changed slightly.

"This isn't an ordinary communication line," Zhou said in a low voice. "This is a dedicated line. It's encrypted."

"Where does it lead?"

Team Leader Zhou followed the wire to the base of the wall and found a repeater box embedded in the wall, with a line of small characters printed on the lid.

His throat went dry when he read it aloud.

"Provincial Party Committee... confidential matters."

Qi Tongwei squatted in front of the bundle of red thread, without moving.

The harbor wind blew in, causing the dark red cloth on his sleeve to flip up.

……

Building No. 3, Nanhu Sanatorium of the Provincial Party Committee.

It's the fifth day since Chu Pingshan moved in. He's supposed to be resting quietly, but two people who aren't wearing white coats are guarding the door, and they don't leave even at night. The window can be opened a crack; outside is the lake, and the wind that comes in carries the fishy smell of water.

He didn't sleep.

The black notebook was tucked under his pillow; he'd even carried it in the inside pocket of his bathrobe while showering these past few days. The contents of that notebook were his last weapon, the last nail he could pierce into someone else's flesh.

At one o'clock in the morning, the sound of a cart being pushed could be heard from the end of the corridor.

The wheels rolled steadily on the floor tiles. Two nurses pushed the treatment cart in, their masks pulled up tightly, and their caps pulled down over their eyes.

"Governor Chu, routine night inspection."

Chu Pingshan leaned against the headboard, remaining silent. He had spent half his life navigating the officialdom of Handong, and his eye for detail was sharp. These two men were too steady, more steady than nurses on night shift.

The person in front reached out to touch his wrist, while his other hand had already pulled out a syringe.

Chu Pingshan's breath caught in his throat.

The syringe contained a clear liquid. Colorless and odorless. He knew this stuff all too well; once it entered his veins, he'd be a second-tier retired cadre suffering a sudden heart attack by tomorrow morning.

He abruptly pulled his hand back and grabbed the glass teacup from the bedside table.

Clang!

The teacup smashed against the windowpane and shattered on the floor.

"Someone come here—"

The man in front didn't panic; he simply pulled a gun from his waist. A black silencer was screwed onto the muzzle.

"Governor, don't shout." The voice came out muffled from behind the mask, with a Haizhou accent. "Shouting will only make it faster."

Chu Pingshan pressed his back against the headboard and shrank into the corner of the wall.

At this very moment—

boom!

The floor-to-ceiling window in the corridor shattered.

Broken glass poured into the room like rain. A dark figure rolled in, wearing a police uniform, kneeling on one knee, his right hand already holding a gun level.

Qi Tongwei.

"lay down!"