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

The driver lunged forward, causing the table to shake as he pulled on it.

"Send Sha Ruijin! I only speak with the provincial party secretary! You're not high enough rank; none of you can handle this!"

Lu Yike looked at him.

"You're just a private car driver, yet you insist on meeting the provincial party secretary. You've got quite the airs."

"I only have things to say to him."

"Whose message are you relaying?"

The driver shut his mouth.

Lu Yike sat back down.

"You want to save your life?"

The driver forced out a sound from his throat.

"I want to see Sha Ruijin."

"Do you think he can protect you?"

The driver didn't respond to that, but instead looked up at the security camera in the corner.

"I won't say another word unless Sha Ruijin comes."

Lu Yike did not ask any further questions.

She picked up the glass on the table, poured him half a glass of water, and pushed it towards him.

"drink."

The driver looked at the glass of water, but his hands were cuffed and he couldn't reach it.

Lu Yike moved the cup a little further in front of him.

"Don't worry, no one will touch you here."

The driver stared down at the water, still panting.

In the ward, Qi Tongwei watched this scene, his lips didn't move, but his eyes turned cold.

A critical condition notice was still hanging outside the door, and armed police were guarding the corridor. It's estimated that people in the provincial party committee compound were also waiting for news that his "rescue attempt failed."

But he was awake.

He sat there, watching them put on their act, layer by layer.

The ride-hailing driver thought he was about to meet a powerful figure.

Sha Ruijin thought he could still stand on the shore.

The core player thought the Q5 could still block the fire.

Qi Tongwei raised his hand and turned off the public microphone, leaving only the sound from Lu Yike's earphones.

Lu Yike looked up at the camera in the corner of the interrogation room.

She knew that Qi Tongwei was about to make his move.

Qi Tongwei looked at the screen and said coldly, "He wants to see the provincial party secretary? Fine, go ahead and ask Secretary Sha to 'take over' the situation."

……

The lights in the provincial party committee office are white.

Sha Ruijin sat behind his desk, his tie retied, his shirt buttoned to the second button, his hands resting on the table, his knuckles pressed together, making no sound.

The dial tone from my father-in-law's phone call was still ringing.

Abandon the vehicle.

Just those two words.

The door opened, footsteps echoing in unison. Ji Changming walked ahead, dressed in a dark suit, a briefcase tucked under his arm, his face expressionless. Tian Guofu followed behind, his dark gray coat buttoned neatly. Two bailiffs entered, standing on either side of the doorway, not against the wall, just standing there.

Lu Yike was the last to enter.

He wore a dark suit, his hair was tied up, a key was stuck to his collar, and he was carrying a black briefcase.

Sha Ruijin glanced around.

"Quarterly inspection, today is..."

"Routine inquiry." Ji Changming placed his briefcase on the table. "This is a case involving a meeting at the Retired Cadres Activity Center. According to procedure, Secretary Sha needs to cooperate."

"What does this case have to do with me?"

Lu Yike pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Sha Ruijin. She took the voice recorder out of her briefcase, placed it in the center of the table, pressed the switch, and the red light came on.

Sha Ruijin looked at the voice recorder and his lips twitched slightly.

"Director Lu, this isn't an interrogation room. This whole setup—"

"Witness questioning." Lu Yike looked up. "Follow the standard procedures."

"A witness?" Sha Ruijin leaned back in his chair, raising his voice by half an octave. "I am the provincial party secretary. If you have anything to discuss, do it according to the protocol for intra-party talks. It's not like you can bring a recording pen into my office and say a few words and call it an interrogation."

Ji Changming opened his briefcase, pulled out a stack of documents, and without saying a word, pushed the first one onto the table.

It is a copy of the driver's statement. There is a stamp in the corner of each page. The statement is three pages long, handwritten, with heavy strokes.

Sha Ruijin's gaze stopped at the first line.

The second one followed. It was a screenshot from the ward's surveillance camera, with a clear timestamp. The caregiver's hand lingered on the medicine bottle for four seconds, the angle was perfect, and it was all clear at a glance.

"Secretary Sha," Ji Changming said calmly, "the case involves the murder of the provincial public security chief. Under the dual-track military-civilian procedure, you can only be a witness now."

The lights in the room were not flickering.

Sha Ruijin did not take the materials; he tapped his finger on the table and then withdrew it.

He looked at the two documents and thought of his father-in-law's tone before hanging up the phone, which was so clean and left no room for negotiation.

The line at the activity center, between the driver's end and the caregiver's end, is completely sealed off. These materials are presented not as evidence, but to show him the size of this network and his place within it.

Tian Guofu sat down next to Ji Changming, put his pen on the paper, but didn't start writing. He just left it there, waiting.

Lu Yike tidied up the document bag and then spoke.

"March 3rd. Did your father-in-law's chief secretary make special contact with the Handong Railway line through you?"

Sha Ruijin pressed his finger on the table.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Who sent you that 'policy coordination statement'?"

"This document does not exist."

Lu Yike opened her document bag, pulled out a screenshot, and pushed it onto the table. "On March 3rd, the chief secretary's chauffeur appeared near the northern route. The time, route, and stops all match up." She tapped the screenshot with her finger. "You said there was no contact, so his appearance in Handong that day was a coincidence?"

Sha Ruijin looked away from the picture, feeling something stuck in his throat.

The driver had already confessed. When he entered Tian Guofu's room and saw those materials, he knew in his heart that this connection couldn't be broken.

"On March 3rd, I did receive a... coordinated statement." He began, his voice low. "It was discussed over the phone; there was no written document."

Who made the call?

"It was relayed by the secretary."

"The chief secretary relayed the message," Lu Yike wrote in her notebook, "and what was the content?"

"Let Handong authorities... slow down at a certain provincial-level approval stage."

Which project?

"I can't remember."

Lu Yike put down her pen, took out a photograph from the bottom of the briefcase, and pushed it over. It was an enlarged photograph of the metal piece from Q5-HD-011, the one that had been pulled out from the driver's shoe.

Sha Ruijin looked at the circular emblem, and his jaw muscles twitched slightly.

"I can't remember the project, but I recognize this one." Lu Yike pointed to the micro-carving number on the edge of the photo.

Sha Ruijin remained silent.

Tian Guofu pressed the pen tip onto the paper, wrote a line, and didn't look up.

Ji Changming flipped through a page of the document next to him, then casually closed it and placed it on the corner of the table.

"Secretary Sha, regarding the coordination of statements, you said it was relayed over the phone, without any written documentation," Lu Yike spoke again. "Then what about the archived documents?"

"No archived file".

"Phone records?"

"It's been cleared."

Lu Yike looked at him but didn't chase after him.

The room fell silent for a moment. Then the sound of a car approached from outside the window, before fading away again.

"Has your secretary contacted you since March 3rd?"

"no."

Are you sure?