I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

The interrogation room in the air-raid shelter on the east side of the Confidentiality and Security Department had no windows. There was only a 60-watt incandescent bulb hanging in the center of the ceiling with a sheet metal shade. The light only shone down, illuminating the tabletop in a snowy white light, while everything outside the tabletop was dark.

Li Huaiyuan sat on an iron stool, his handcuffs fastened to the horizontal bar in front of him, his hands resting on the edge of the table, his fingertips trembling.

He had been locked up for forty-eight hours without changing his clothes. There was a ring of black sweat stains on the collar of his white shirt, and sweat dripped down his temples onto the table.

When Director Wang pushed the door open, Li Huaiyuan glanced at the doorway first, then quickly looked down.

He knew Director Wang.

The metal document box was placed on the table. Director Wang did not sit down, but stood up, opened the box, took out the light blue notepad, flattened it, and pushed it in front of Li Huaiyuan.

Li Huaiyuan looked down at the paper, his lips first tightened, then began to tremble.

Do you recognize this piece of paper?

Li Huaiyuan did not answer. His gaze lingered on the microprinted words on the paper for three seconds before moving away.

"At 10:30 tonight, a postman tried to sneak into the Third Electronics Factory with this letter, but my men caught him on the spot." Director Wang pushed the envelope over, address facing up. "Gansu office, your territory."

Li Huaiyuan closed his eyes, and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

"I didn't write this letter."

"I know you didn't write it. You've been locked up here since the night before last." Director Wang's voice was low and his speech was slow. "What I'm asking is, who's been doing the work for you?"

Li Huaiyuan turned his head to one side, refusing to look at the things on the table.

"The mailman said that the person who handed him the letter claimed to be your secretary, in his thirties, wearing glasses and a gray Zhongshan suit."

Li Huaiyuan's chin twitched.

"What's your secretary's name?"

The silence lasted for about ten seconds, and the faint sound of water flowing in the heating pipes could be heard outside the air-raid shelter.

"Cheng Weiliang," Li Huaiyuan said softly. "He was assigned to my side by the section chief."

Director Wang didn't move, standing still, waiting for him to continue.

Li Huaiyuan raised his head, his eyes bloodshot and his face ashen.

"Those transfer orders and those special handling slips were not things I wanted to do; they were things I was told to sign from above."

"Who's up there?"

"Director-General." When Li Huaiyuan uttered these three words, it was as if something had been pulled away from him, his upper body slumped forward, and his forehead almost touched the table. "Starting from April last year, he would give me a blank slip every month, with the name and quantity of the items to be allocated written on it, and ask me to open a formal allocation order under the guise of loss, without going through the ledger or entering it into the monthly report."

"And you did as I said?"

"Can I not do as you say?" Li Huaiyuan looked up, his lips twisted in a crooked smile, as if he wanted to laugh but couldn't. "He has something in his hand."

"What is that?"

Li Huaiyuan remained silent for a while, then the handcuffs clattered against the horizontal bar.

"Old Lei's case."

Director Wang did not move, but the flat-topped clerk noticed that his right hand slowly tightened its grip on the edge of the document box.

"In 1949, when Lao Lei was conducting electromagnetic experiments in the Northwest, there was a meeting summary, top secret, with only five attendees. The section chief was the representative of the military logistics department at the time, and he was present." Li Huaiyuan's voice was intermittent. "That summary contained a section about frequency allocation, which later became one of the core pieces of evidence in the case after Lao Lei's incident."

"He's using this memo to threaten you."

"He didn't threaten me," Li Huaiyuan shook his head. "He just showed me a handwritten copy of the minutes and then told me that everyone who handled that document back then met a bad end, and that I should think carefully about my future."

Director Wang finally sat down, the chair leg scraping against the cement floor.

Where is Cheng Weiliang now?

"I don't know." Li Huaiyuan buried his face in his arms. "He usually lives in the dormitory of the material allocation department, but I can't track his whereabouts. He only reports to the director."

Director Wang turned to look at the flat-headed clerk, who had already written down the name in his notebook, closed the notebook, and walked out.

Only Director Wang and Li Huaiyuan remained in the interrogation room.

"What is the full name of the section chief?"

"Meng Dechang".

Director Wang repeated the name to himself without uttering a sound.

Meng Dechang, the director of the Materials Allocation Office, joined the revolution in 1938. He was born in the Taihang Mountain base area and was transferred to the logistics and military supplies system in 1943. In 1949, he went to Beijing to take over the work of industrial materials allocation. He was senior and had deep connections, and was never named in any political movement.

You shouldn't even touch such a person unless you have irrefutable evidence.

Did you keep the IOU he gave you?

Li Huaiyuan shook his head.

"After each transfer order was signed, he made Cheng Weiliang take back the IOU."

"Not a single one left?"

"I only have the earliest one, the one from April. I secretly copied the contents and tucked it into an old book at home."

Director Wang stood up, walked to the door, opened it, and called the flat-headed clerk back.

"Go to Li Huaiyuan's residence and find that old book."

The flat-headed clerk nodded and left.

Director Wang returned to his desk, put the blue paper and envelope back into the tin document box, locked it, and hung the key back on his waist.

He didn't ask Li Huaiyuan anything more. After standing there for a while, he opened the door and went out.

There were no lights in the corridor, only a little light coming from the guard room at the end.

He stopped in the middle of the corridor, took out the glass medicine bottle containing red wool fibers from his pocket, and looked at it for a while in the dim light in the distance.

Meng Dechang wore a maroon woolen overcoat in winter, which was common knowledge in the ministry. This was because the overcoat was a prize awarded by Beijing Municipality to meritorious cadres in 1950, and only thirty were awarded in the entire city.

But a single fiber is not evidence, nor is a handwritten note conclusive proof.

Old Lei's case, the minutes of the top-secret meeting, the frequency allocation content, the Gansu office, the Tongxian brick kiln, the waste transfer of the East Suburb Chemical Plant, and the inflow channels of the Soviet-made eight-cavity magnetrons—all these threads now point to the same person, but no single thread can pinpoint him.

Director Wang put the medicine bottle back in his pocket and continued walking towards the end of the corridor.

In the duty room, the flat-topped officer was making a phone call to request personnel to search for books at Li Huaiyuan's residence.

Director Wang stood beside him and waited for him to hang up the phone before speaking about another matter.

"Tomorrow morning, submit a report to the ministry in the name of Research Lab 502, stating that the upgrade of receivers on the front lines in Northwest China requires the Material Allocation Department to coordinate the expedited transport of two batches of oxygen-free copper from Shenyang. Please have the Director personally oversee the coordination in Beijing, and he is not allowed to leave Beijing for business trips without approval."

The crew-cut clerk was stunned for a moment, but quickly realized what it meant.

"Restrict his range of activities."

"We can't arrest him, but we can't let him escape either." Director Wang's voice seemed to be squeezed from the bottom of his throat, carrying something he had been holding back for a long time. "Tie the bag up first, then slowly pack it up."