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

The expressway outside the Third Ring Road in the eastern suburbs of Jingzhou.

The convoy consisted of three vehicles, escorted from the front and rear, with a dark-colored bread truck in the middle. The finance manager, handcuffed, sat in the back, flanked by two inspectors.

Lu Yike sat in the second escort vehicle, holding a walkie-talkie in her hand.

Her car had just passed the East Suburbs toll station when it suddenly got stuck in traffic.

A cement mixer truck was blocking the middle of the road, its cab empty and doors wide open. Two more large trucks squeezed in from behind, completely blocking all three lanes.

"That's not right." Lu Yike grabbed the back of the seat in front of her. "The cement truck is empty and there are no construction signs."

She raised the walkie-talkie and shouted, "All vehicles come to a complete stop, lock the doors! Watch both sides—"

Before he could finish speaking, four people rushed out from the green belt on the right. They were dressed in black, wearing masks, and carrying iron pipes and sprayers.

The first person sprayed pepper spray at the window of the bread truck. The glass didn't break, but the people inside were choked and coughed incessantly.

The second person took out a window breaker and smashed it against the driver's side window.

"Don't open the door!" Lu Yike jumped out of the car, clutching a retractable baton.

A metal pipe swept horizontally towards her. She dodged to the side, and the stick struck the man's forearm. He loosened his grip, and the pipe fell to the ground and bounced.

But there are three more after that.

The third person went around to the back of the bread truck and aimed hydraulic shears at the rear door lock. The sound of metal being squeezed was like teeth grinding.

Lu Yike glanced back, but it was too late.

The sound of engines boomed from the direction of the tollbooth.

A black SUV sped along the emergency lane against the flow of traffic, leaving a long skid mark as it braked, and the door was kicked open before it had even come to a complete stop.

Qi Tongwei got out of the car. His left arm was not wearing a police badge sash, the sleeve was rolled up, and dark red seeped through the gauze. He exuded a fierce energy, as if he was desperately trying to get somewhere.

The fourth man in black turned to run, but Qi Tongwei caught up in three steps, grabbed the man by the back of his collar with his right hand and pulled him back, then slammed his knee into the man's waist, sending him crashing to the ground.

The man with the hydraulic shears turned around, saw the scene, dropped the shears, and darted into the green belt. The two inspectors from the escort vehicle jumped down, tripped the man, and held him down.

In less than two minutes, all four people were pinned to the ground.

Qi Tongwei stood beside the bread cart, catching his breath. His left sleeve was soaked from the elbow down, indistinguishable between sweat and blood.

Lu Yike ran over, saw his arm, and her face darkened.

"Don't speak," Qi Tongwei said first, cutting her off. "Is she there?"

Lu Yike opened the back door of the van. The finance manager was huddled in a corner, his face covered in pepper spray, but he was unharmed.

"Yes," she said.

Qi Tongwei nodded and leaned against the car. He raised his left arm and glanced at it; the gauze was completely ruined, the wound had reopened, and the flesh was turned inside out. He wrung out his sleeve, and blood dripped onto the asphalt.

"The master tape." He turned to look at Lu Yike. "Is it really lost?"

Lu Yike opened her mouth. She looked around at the people and lowered her voice to a level that only two people could hear.

"The master tape is lost. But I kept another copy."

Qi Tongwei's gaze froze.

"When I was securing evidence the night before last, I made an extra copy for my own records." Lu Yike touched the inside pocket of her chest. "I didn't enter it into the system, and I didn't tell anyone."

Qi Tongwei stared at her for three seconds.

Why?

"Those four words, 'Shen Jiang,'" Lu Yike said, "You have eyes around you. I believe you."

Qi Tongwei didn't reply. He lowered his left arm and turned to look at the four people pinned to the ground. They didn't speak with a local accent, were fully equipped, and had intercepted them precisely to the minute.

Including him, there were four people who knew the transfer route. The master tape location belonged to the same group of people. Three pieces of information, three leaks, all pointing to the same source.

He took out his phone and dialed the internal line in the inspection office area.

"Who worked overtime in the office area between 4 and 5 a.m. this morning?"

The person on the other end checked for a minute and then gave a name.

Qi Tongwei's fingers tightened. That was the person who had been with him for three years.

He hung up the phone and put it back in his pocket. Morning light shone down from the tollbooth's metal roof, illuminating the broken glass and bloodstains scattered on the ground.

"Lu Yike".

"exist."

"Transfer route, backup location, and access to the evidence cabinet." Qi Tongwei's voice wasn't loud, but each word was like a nail driven into wood. "All three things were leaked at the same time. Only a handful of people know these three things."

He looked up and gazed in the direction of the provincial government building.

"I'm not investigating Haizhou anymore. I'll investigate our own people first."

……

# Chapter 313 Setting a Trap to Catch a Ghost, Two Umbrellas on a Rainy Night

The provincial government building corridor, 10:00 AM.

Qi Tongwei stood at the meeting room door for half a minute without going in. Inside sat three people, from the inspection and dispatch team.

He took out his phone and sent a encrypted text message to each of the three people. The content was different, but the format was the same: The finance manager will be moving to a safe location at XX tonight. Please keep this confidential.

Three routes, three locations, none of which intersect.

Lu Yike came from the stairwell and saw him standing outside the door, so she slowed her pace.

"It's been sent?" she asked in a low voice.

"Sent." Qi Tongwei put his phone away. "Now we just need to see which one Haizhou will accept."

Lu Yike nodded, her gaze sweeping across the frosted glass of the conference room. The three people inside were still looking down at their documents, unaware that they had become the sand on a sieve.

"What about the northern route?"

"Zhou Weiguo has already lost his military communications monitoring privileges." Qi Tongwei walked towards the elevator. "As long as the Haizhou liaison terminal receives the signal, the frequency band and landing point will be untraceable."

Lu Yike followed, hesitated for a moment, and then spoke.

"Your hand needs a new dressing."

Qi Tongwei paused for a moment as he pressed the elevator button.

"Let's talk about it after we're done fishing."

"You didn't just break a thread, you broke a piece of flesh." Lu Yike's tone was firm and uncompromising. "Go to the hospital, half an hour. I'll keep an eye on the fishing."

The elevator doors opened. Qi Tongwei glanced at her, didn't object, and stepped inside.

Lu Yike followed her in and pressed the button for the basement parking garage.

The two stood side by side, the mirror in the elevator reflecting the dark, dried patch on his left sleeve. She didn't look again, but her grip on her briefcase tightened.

……

The First People's Hospital of Jingzhou, Surgical Dressing Room.

The nurse gasped as she cut away the old gauze. The wound had split open in three places, the longest of which stretched from the inside of her forearm all the way to her elbow. The granulation tissue was turned inside out, and new scabs were stuck together with old blood.

"This needs stitches." The nurse looked up at him. "How did it get like this?"

Qi Tongwei didn't answer. He sat in the examination chair, his right hand supporting him on the armrest, his face showing no sign of pain.

Lu Yike stood to the side, looking at the wound, her lips pressed tightly together.

The nurse administered anesthesia and began stitching. The sound of the needle and thread piercing the flesh was very soft, but exceptionally clear in the quiet room.

"On March 312th," Lu Yike suddenly spoke, her voice low, "when you rushed towards me against the emergency lane, I thought it was too late."