Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

Half an hour later, at the back building of the Municipal Party Committee Guesthouse.

The single rooms, originally intended for the temporary accommodation of cadres from other places, have now been completely sealed off by the guards.

Two armed guards stood at each end of the corridor, and even the windows were guarded by hidden sentries. The glass of the door, which had been temporarily replaced with a new lock, had been boarded up from the outside, preventing any light from getting in.

As Li Yuanchao stepped onto the stairs, a guard officer quickly approached him and saluted in a low voice: "Director Li."

"How's it going inside?" Li Yuanchao asked in a deep voice as he walked towards the door.

"The doctor just gave her a sedative, so she's calmed down for now."

The cadre followed closely behind, reporting in a low voice, "After being escorted out of the municipal party committee building, this man's mental state has been off. One moment he's calling out for his son, Chen Bin, and the next he's roaring orders for Wang Biao to take men to bomb the hospital. He was lucid for a few minutes in between, but no matter who goes in to question him, he just stares straight at the wall, as if he's deaf."

Li Yuanchao stopped in front of the closed door, his brow furrowed slightly: "Have you eaten?"

"All the food that was brought in was smashed."

The guard paused for a moment, then added with a somewhat complicated expression, "When the nurse went in to clean up the broken dishes, he mistook a broken enamel mug on the floor for a telephone receiver, holding it tightly to his chest and calling out Wu Jianming's name into the mug for a long time."

His gaze was fixed on the door that was nailed shut with wooden planks, his voice completely flat.

"Open the door."

The guard took out his key, unlocked the outer chain, and turned the lock with a "click".

The heavy wooden door was pushed open.

A strong smell of Lysol mixed with the sour smell of fermented food hit me instantly.

Li Yuanchao stepped over the threshold and went inside without any expression.

The curtains in the room were drawn tightly, and the only light source was a dim light bulb overhead.

The ground was a mess, with overturned aluminum lunch boxes, crushed cabbage leaves, and shards of broken glass everywhere.

In the innermost corner of the room, Chen Jianguo slumped like a lump of mud between the bed and the wall.

This once powerful and arrogant municipal party secretary now had disheveled hair like a bird's nest, and his white shirt was wrinkled and covered in stains that were hard to tell whether it was vegetable soup or mud.

He was clutching the broken enamel mug with a large chipped piece of porcelain to his chest, his eyes unfocused, and he was muttering something incoherently.

Hearing the door open, Chen Jianguo didn't react at all, still staring blankly at the mottled white wall opposite.

"Chen Bin..."

Chen Jianguo pressed his face against the enamel mug, his voice hoarse like sandpaper, "Tell Wang Biao to hurry... get the car ready, kill Old Scar... we absolutely can't let him live to see the cops..."

The security officer followed behind and whispered, "Director Li, he's been like this ever since he got his injection."

Li Yuanchao raised his hand, signaling the cadres to leave and close the door.

With a soft "bang," the door closed again.

In the cramped room, only the two of them remained.

Li Yuanchao didn't rush to speak, nor did he approach. He simply stood amidst the mess, looking down coldly at the deranged man before him.

I watched it for a little over a minute.

Li Yuanchao took out a cigarette case from his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and struck a match with a "snap".

The firelight flickered in the dim room.

He took a drag, slowly exhaled a bluish-gray smoke, and then sat down on the broken wooden chair opposite Chen Jianguo.

"Alright, Lao Chen."

Li Yuanchao flicked his cigarette ash: "The door is closed, there are no outsiders here. Stop acting."

Chen Jianguo seemed not to hear him, still clutching the enamel mug, his body trembling slightly, muttering, "Chen Bin...where did Binzi go...tell him not to wander off..."

Looking at him like this, Li Yuanchao saw no arrogance of a victor in his eyes, only unfathomable complexity and a trace of indescribable sorrow.

"Wu Jianming is dead."

Li Yuanchao, with a cigarette between his fingers, spoke calmly as if reading an obituary, "I believe you received this news before you started feigning madness."

The trembling body in the corner stiffened almost imperceptibly for half a second.

But Chen Jianguo still didn't look up; his muttering paused for a moment.

"Just half an hour ago, in the orthopedic debridement room of the emergency building."

Li Yuanchao leaned forward slightly, looking through the rising bluish-white smoke at his old adversary amidst the mess. "He used a scalpel that the nurse hadn't had time to put away to sever his own carotid artery. Blood splattered all over the walls, staining his badge and uniform crimson."

Chen Jianguo's fingers, which were scratching his scalp, tightened unconsciously, his nails digging deep into his flesh.

"He did all that dirty work for you for so many years, and when he finally reached his end, he chose to die in the most tragic way possible, leaving his police uniform with a last bit of dignity, so that he could die like a man."

Li Yuanchao threw the half-smoked cigarette on the ground and slowly crushed it out with the sole of his leather shoe, his voice becoming extremely heavy.

"But what about you?"

"As the Party Secretary of the city, you have held absolute power in this city for over a decade. After receiving news of the death of your most loyal subordinate, you have lost even the basic principle of facing your own problems squarely."

Li Yuanchao sat in the chair, staring directly at him.

"To escape trial, to live a few more days, you're hiding in this dilapidated house, pretending to be crazy while hugging a broken teacup."

"Chen Jianguo, don't you feel sad?"

The narrow, dimly lit room fell into a deathly silence.

In the corner, Chen Jianguo's cloudy eyes slowly moved.

He stared at a patch of mold in the corner of the wall, his breathing becoming somewhat heavy.

"Heh...hehe..."

Chen Jianguo suddenly let out a bizarre, maniacal laugh. He abruptly raised the broken enamel mug to his ear as if grasping a lifeline telephone line, his aged face contorted with an extremely twisted, fawning expression.

"Feed? Jianming... Is that you, Jianming?"

He shouted hoarsely and urgently at the empty teacup, saliva dripping from the corners of his dry mouth.

"Your clothes are red? It's okay... I'll have the Municipal Party Committee Office send you new ones... new ones! Wang Biao! Where the hell is Wang Biao! Get the car ready! I'm going to pick Jianming up from the hospital!"

Chen Jianguo screamed erratically as he scrambled across the trash-strewn, broken glass-strewn ground, trying to grab a broken aluminum lunchbox that had fallen to the floor. He cried out incoherently, "Where's my official seal...? Who touched my seal...?"

Li Yuanchao sat in his chair, quietly watching Chen Jianguo writhe in the garbage heap, having completely abandoned all the dignity of being human.

Faced with the tragic news of Wu Jianming's death, and the questioning from his old rival who was trying to awaken his last shred of decency, this old fox chose to respond with even more complete madness.

He didn't care about saving face anymore; as long as he could escape this ordeal, he was willing to truly become a mad dog.

The last glimmer of hope in Li Yuanchao's eyes—a desire to engage in equal dialogue with him—was completely extinguished.