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

As Zhao Qinming was being taken away, he glanced back at Qi Tongwei.

Qi Tongwei didn't look at him. He put the photocopy of the tattered page from the black book into his inner pocket and fastened it.

"Take a statement, record the whole thing on video, and have a lawyer present." He told Lu Yike, "If he cooperates, the sentence will be lenient. But the line about Haizhou, not a single word can be missed."

"clear."

The interrogation room lights were off. Li Dakang was already waiting in the corridor, a brown paper bag tucked under his arm.

"There's been some activity overseas." He handed over the bag. "The two shell companies of the Coastal Fund in the Cayman Islands match the code name provided by the fund manager. The Hong Kong account was frozen last night. I had someone use a special channel for the freeze order, bypassing the provincial finance department."

Qi Tongwei flipped it open and glanced at it.

The freeze receipt, amount, and associated entity are listed. The code in the third line is clearly among them.

"All five are complete." He closed the bag. "Witness: Zhao Qinming; physical evidence: the privately prepared master tape; overseas: the freeze order; documents: the portion stolen from the logistics park's secret warehouse; assassins: four from the eastern suburbs."

"That's enough for the handover."

"A joint case file between the military and local authorities," Qi Tongwei said. "Zhou Weiguo's case is handled by the military, while the provincial department's case is handled by the judicial authorities. The two lines are intertwined, and neither can withdraw from the case."

Li Dakang hummed in agreement, then suddenly asked, "You got your arm stitched up?"

"It's sewn up."

"It's still tearing even after being stitched up." Li Dakang glanced at the left arm and didn't say anything more. He was the kind of person whose concern was disguised as nitpicking.

……

Provincial Party Committee, 4 PM.

Sha Ruijin's office door was open. He was revising the "Self-Inspection Report," on its third draft.

The secretary entered, her face pale. "Secretary Sha, it's a call from the Organization Department."

Sha Ruijin picked it up.

The voice on the receiver wasn't loud, but every word carried weight. He listened for two minutes without uttering a single word. The color drained from his face little by little.

The phone hangs up.

He sat there, his hand still resting on the receiver.

No matter how well the report was revised, it couldn't cover up one thing—Qi Tongwei had completely wiped out the stronghold in Haizhou. Funds, documents, insiders, assassins—everything was in their hands. The suspension order he signed was meant to put the brakes on things, but it only created a deeper rut. During the three-day review period, before Haizhou could even clean up the mess, the Political and Legal Affairs Commission opened a secret, protecting both the people and the evidence.

Programming was something he'd worked with his whole life. This time, the program turned on him.

The door was pushed open again. Li Dakang came in, carrying nothing in his hands.

"Secretary Sha," he stopped, "I think we shouldn't change the self-inspection report."

Sha Ruijin looked up.

"Someone investigated for you," Li Dakang said. "On the afternoon of the day Chu Pingshan was suspended, between three and four o'clock, there was an unnamed visitor to your office. It was a car with a Haizhou license plate, and there are photos of it entering and exiting the turnstile."

The office fell silent.

"The person you met that day," Li Dakang said, emphasizing each word, "is on the same line as the middleman who tipped off Haizhou and kept Zhao Qinming from being put on the defensive for three days."

Sha Ruijin's fingers tightened. "Dakang, what are you doing—"

"I didn't do anything," Li Dakang interrupted him. "The evidence will come out on its own. I was just passing by and letting you know."

He turned to leave, but stopped at the door.

"I guess you understood what I meant by that phone call from Beijing." He didn't turn around. "The team's oversight is a minor issue. If we investigate further, it won't just be an oversight."

The door closed.

Sha Ruijin sat alone in his office. The sky outside the window darkened, and as he stared at the report that had been revised three times, he suddenly felt that every word was superfluous.

……

East of Jingzhou City, in an old alley.

Qi Tongwei sent Gao Yuliang a photo of the sealed joint military-civilian case file.

In the courtyard, Gao Yuliang was changing the soil for his orchids. He wiped his hands, glanced at his phone, and showed no expression.

He replied with a single line: "Eastern end of Han River, cleaned up."

Qi Tongwei looked at the screen and asked again: "That file folder with the sealing wax, and the line with Director Qin, is it still there?"

Gao Yuliang was slow to return this time.

Do not move.

The second rule is: neither of us is allowed to touch that page with the capital's code name. We can only reveal it when Shen Zhong returns. Hold onto it.

Qi Tongwei put his phone away.

He understood what "holding fast" meant. The victory at the eastern end of Han was visible to the naked eye, but the line in the sealing wax bag was ten times larger than Hai Heng's. If Shen Zhong didn't return, anyone who touched him would die. This was the rule, and also fate.

……

Northern front, field command post.

Shen Zhong sat in the tent, with two documents spread out in front of him. One was a sealed report from Handong, and the other was a military mobilization order that had just been intercepted under strategic intelligence authority.

The transfer order was issued under the guise of "compliant personnel transfer," but it landed on the edge of the military-civilian integration process in Handong. The method was clean and flawless.

But Shen Zhong could see the source of the problem very clearly.

It was a name on that page in the capital that reached out for the first time. Across a thousand miles, through a program, they wanted to quietly manipulate the situation in Handong.

Shen Zhong picked up his pen and wrote a line on the briefing.

"The eastern border of Han is cleared. The battle on the northern front, and the one in the capital, are all part of the same game—it's almost over."

He turned to the page with the code name for the capital city and circled a name.

The pen tip pressed down, leaving a dent in the paper.

……

Provincial Department Archives.

Lu Yike and Qi Tongwei stood side by side, watching the box of files being sealed.

"All five certificates are complete," she said. "We've held Hantong this time."

"We held out." Qi Tongwei looked at the date on the seal. "Before General Shen returns, we prevented Haizhou from causing any more trouble here."

Lu Yike turned her head to look at his arm. The gauze had been changed; it was clean and white.

"That backup master tape," she said, "I've already entered it into the system and officially filed it. That card has been played."

Qi Tongwei nodded.

Neither of them spoke again. After the seal was affixed, one of the lights was turned off.

Qi Tongwei's phone vibrated.

An encrypted text message. Sent by Shen Zhong.

He clicked on it.

Six characters.

"Get ready and wait for me to come back."