47: Chapter 47 Testimony Takes Effect

9:17 AM.

The door to Conference Room 0307 closed from the inside.

Lin Yuan sat in the last row of the public gallery. According to regulations, evidence providers were not entitled to enter the witness statement session. But this morning, he received an unsigned email with an electronic pass attached, valid for two hours.

He didn't check the sender. He couldn't find it.

Zhou Jishen stood at the podium, the bronze bell in front of him. He didn't press it. The clerk reminded him that he could start the timer once he was seated, but he shook his head and said he could speak more clearly while standing.

The seven commissioners were seated. Commissioner Wenchang had switched to a pair of narrow-framed glasses today; the lenses reflected the light, making it impossible to read her eyes. The low-profile commissioner next to the Great Emperor Baosheng emblem remained with eyes cast down, as if dozing off.

"Begin," Commissioner Wenchang said.

Zhou Jishen didn't look at any documents.

He spoke, his voice steadier than it had been at Paiyun Hall last night.

"My name is Zhou Jishen, thirty-four years old, majoring in Psychic Engineering. Twenty-one years ago, I joined the Summer Palace ley line restoration project. My direct supervisor was Mo Feigong."

"In my third year, I began providing technical cover for his illegal activities."

As the first sentence left his lips, someone in the gallery shifted their posture slightly. Lin Yuan didn't move.

"The energy extraction rate of the vein-locking nail exceeded the design specifications from the very first year. Per Mo Feigong's instructions, I performed data smoothing thirty-seven times, removing outliers, hiding peaks, and shifting the critical value prediction interval upward as a whole. Thirty-seven times, and every single time was a verbal order from him."

"Are there any recordings?" Commissioner Wenchang asked.

"No."

"Is there any third-party corroboration?"

"No."

"Then how do you prove these orders were given by him?"

Zhou Jishen was silent for two seconds.

"For twenty-one years, he never gave me an order in writing. But for those thirty-seven data modifications, I have memorized every date, time, location, and his exact words."

He began his statement.

"The first time, the seventh day of the fourth month, in my third year of employment, at 3:20 PM, in the abandoned hall behind the Summer Palace. He said: 'Smooth the energy extraction rate curve a bit more; I've already spoken to the committee about it.'"

"The second time, the thirteenth day of the eleventh month of the same year, at 8:40 PM, at that teahouse in the west of the city, he said: 'The ten thousand infant banner needs to increase its capacity. Adjust the upper limit of the critical value prediction interval up by ten points. Once this version is done, your year-end bonus will double.'"

"The third time..."

Only his voice remained in the conference room.

He recited dates, times, locations, and the original words. No pauses, no hesitation, as if reading from a script he had memorized for twenty-one years.

When he reached the seventeenth time, the commissioner who had been keeping his eyes down raised his head for the first time.

He looked at Zhou Jishen for five seconds.

Then he lowered his eyes again.

When he reached the twenty-fifth time, Commissioner Wenchang interrupted.

"That's enough."

Zhou Jishen stopped.

Commissioner Wenchang took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. The movement was very light, but Lin Yuan noticed the hand she used to rub her nose; there was a silver ring on her ring finger, the surface worn very thin, as if she had worn it for many years.

"Can every order you just mentioned," she asked, "be verified?"

Zhou Jishen nodded.

"The teahouse has surveillance. That teahouse in the west of the city was Mo Feigong's regular meeting spot. He installed seven surveillance systems in that private room—to monitor others. But he didn't know that I was the one who helped him select the supplier for the storage servers for those seven systems."

The conference room was silent for a second.

"The supplier left a backdoor."

Commissioner Wenchang looked at him.

"Is the data still there?"

"Yes. Twenty-one years, every frame."

Someone in the gallery took a sharp breath. Lin Yuan leaned back against his chair.

He thought, Zhou Jishen wouldn't have to go back to that old state-owned enterprise family compound tonight.

The statement continued for eleven more minutes.

Eleven minutes later, Zhou Jishen finished the details of the thirty-seventh order.

He paused.

"There is one more thing," he said.

"Fifteen years ago, for that batch of green bonds, I was the second author of the 'Feasibility Analysis of Ley Line Maintenance Technology' in the prospectus attachment. The first author was Dr. Li Cian. I was the one who took her signature to her."

Lin Yuan's fingers tightened slightly.

"Mo Feigong asked me to handle this. He said, 'Dr. Li Cian's reputation is useful in the industry; go find her and say this is a public welfare project that needs a professional endorsement.'"

"She asked three questions: Where is the money used, who is supervising, and how long until it shows results."

"I answered. For all three questions, I answered with lies."

Zhou Jishen's voice wavered for the first time.

"She said, 'Okay.' And signed it."

The conference room was silent.

Commissioner Wenchang looked at him.

"Do you know what this testimony means?"

Zhou Jishen nodded.

"It means that when Dr. Li Cian signed the vein-locking nail agreement twenty-one years ago, she was deceived. When she signed the green bond recommendation letter fifteen years ago, she was also deceived. From beginning to end, she never participated in any illegal decision-making."

"It means that the resignation statement she signed twenty-one years ago was the only thing she signed proactively."

Lin Yuan looked at Zhou Jishen's back.

He stood there, his shoulders slightly slumped, as if he had carried an entire mountain into this conference room and could finally put it down.

Commissioner Wenchang did not press further.

She glanced at the timer.

"Statement time is up."

She closed the blue-covered report in front of her.

"Witness is dismissed. Evidence provider Lin Yuan, please proceed to the waiting room. The results will be notified within forty-eight hours."

Lin Yuan stood up.

Zhou Jishen turned and walked toward the door. As he passed Lin Yuan, he stopped for a moment.

He didn't look at him.

"About my mother," he said, "thank you."

Lin Yuan didn't ask what he was thanking him for.

Zhou Jishen walked out of the conference room.

The door closed.

Lin Yuan stood alone in the last row of the gallery, looking at that door.

Outside the window was the ten o'clock morning sunlight.

He didn't know who had placed that pot of Qilin Tail in the witness waiting room.

But he knew that from today on, Zhou Jishen didn't need to rely on it to prove anything anymore.

2:00 PM.

Lin Yuan sat in the cafe on the first floor of the Regulatory Committee building.

The coffee had long since gone cold. He stared at his phone screen, where a message from Boss Qian had just arrived:

"Mo Feigong is blowing up. His lawyer applied for an emergency suspension of the hearing, which was directly rejected by Commissioner Wenchang. The reason for the rejection was 'The witness has made a full statement, and there is no legal basis for suspension.'"

"He just brought in six overseas enforcers. They aren't coming for the committee—they are coming for Zhou Jishen and his mother."

Lin Yuan stared at the line of text for three seconds.

He dialed Boss Qian's Spirit Link.

"Where is Zhou Jishen now?"

"I don't know. After he left the committee, he was picked up by a black sedan. The license plate can't be traced; it belongs to a shell company."

"Direction?"

"West of the city."

Lin Yuan hung up.

West of the city.

No. 7 Construction Road Compound.

He stood up, knocking over the cold coffee and spilling it all over the table. He didn't care.

Forty minutes later.

Lin Yuan stood outside that green security door.

The door was open.

Not ajar, but wide open. The faded 'Fu' character on the door frame had been torn in half, hanging in the wind.

He walked in.

There was no one in the living room. The folding dining table was still in its old place, the medicine box on the coffee table was still there, and the photo frame above the TV cabinet was still there. But that green plant he hadn't noticed yesterday—the one on the windowsill, the same variety of Qilin Tail that Zhou Jishen had given Dr. Li twenty-one years ago—had been uprooted from its pot and thrown on the ground, soil scattered everywhere.

Lin Yuan stood next to the withered plant.

Footsteps sounded behind him.

He didn't turn around.

"He's gone," the old woman's voice came from the doorway, hoarse, but she hadn't been crying. "After one o'clock in the afternoon, someone knocked on the door. He opened it. Two people were standing outside, wearing black clothes. They didn't speak, and he didn't speak. He handed me the canvas bag and said, 'Mom, wait for me to come back.'"

"Then he left with them."

Lin Yuan turned around.

The old woman stood in the doorway, holding onto the door frame. She was still wearing the washed-out floral loungewear, still in those non-slip slippers. Her eyes were fixed on the uprooted Qilin Tail on the floor.

"Where is the bag?"

The old woman looked up.

"Come with me."

She led him into Zhou Jishen's bedroom.

The room was very small, with a single bed, a desk, and an old-fashioned wardrobe. The desk was piled with professional books and yellowed documents, the surface kept very clean.

The old woman dragged the faded canvas bag out from under the bed.

"He didn't take it."

Lin Yuan squatted down and opened the bag.

Inside were those white-covered documents—twenty-one annual data falsification reports, three Optimization proposals for energy extraction rates, the prospectus attachment for that green bond.

And a new letter.

Not the one from twenty-one years ago. It was new.

There was no writing on the envelope. Lin Yuan opened it.

Inside was only one page of paper, handwritten.

"Mom:

I've gone to finish the letter that should have been sent twenty-one years ago.

Give this bag of things to the young man who came to the house to find me. He knows how to use it.

The plant on the windowsill is one I brought back from Dr. Li's clinic last year. I didn't take good care of it, I'm sorry.

There are dumplings wrapped in the fridge, chive and egg filling, enough for you to eat for a week."

Signed: Jishen.

Lin Yuan folded the letter and put it back in the envelope.

He stood up and looked at the old woman.

"He left dumplings."

The old woman nodded.

"Enough for a week," she said.

Lin Yuan was silent for a long time.

He walked to the living room and picked up the Qilin Tail that had been uprooted from the ground. The roots were still there, and the soil could still be used. He put the plant back into the pot, gathered the scattered soil back in, and pressed it down with his hands.

The old woman stood in the doorway watching.

"Can it live?" she asked.

Lin Yuan looked at the drooping leaves.

"The roots aren't broken," he said. "It can live."

He straightened up.

"Wait for me a moment."

He went out and bought a plastic spray bottle at the grocery store at the entrance of the residential compound. He came back, filled it with tap water, and squatted next to the replanted Qilin Tail, slowly watering it thoroughly.

The water seeped into the soil with a faint hissing sound.

He stood up.

"Water it once a day, don't overwater. Move it to the windowsill when there is sun, and leave it in place when there isn't."

The old woman nodded.

Lin Yuan walked to the door and stopped.

"Regarding Zhou Jishen," he said, "I will make sure he comes back to eat the dumplings."

The old woman stood by the replanted Qilin Tail and didn't speak.

Lin Yuan walked into the afternoon sunlight.

His phone vibrated.

Boss Qian's Spirit Link:

"Zhou Jishen has been taken to the abandoned hall behind the Summer Palace. Mo Feigong is waiting there personally."

"He wants to make Zhou Jishen watch himself become a 'container' next to the ten thousand infant banner."

Lin Yuan stared at the line of text.

He didn't reply.

He opened his contacts and dialed a number he hadn't saved but had long since memorized.

It rang twice.

The middle-aged man from the teahouse's voice:

"Lingxiao Capital does not provide armed protection."

"I don't need armed protection," Lin Yuan said. "I need real-time footage of all physical surveillance cameras within three kilometers of the ten thousand infant banner, pushed to my phone. From this moment on, update every three seconds."

The other party was silent for two seconds.

"Can do."

"Also."

"Speak."

"I need an architectural blueprint of the abandoned hall behind the Summer Palace. Preferably the version just after the renovation twenty-one years ago."

"Three minutes."

He hung up.

Lin Yuan stood at the entrance of No. 7 Construction Road Compound, watching the pedestrians coming and going.

Someone was carrying groceries back from the market. Someone was pushing a stroller and walking by slowly. The pot of pothos on the windowsill of the guard room was still there, even yellower than when he saw it the day before yesterday.

His phone lit up.

The first frame of surveillance footage pushed through.

Behind the Summer Palace, abandoned hall, thirty meters outside the main entrance.

In the frame, two people in black were standing at the door. Behind them, the door was open, and a faint, ominous blood-red light shone from inside.

Lin Yuan zoomed in on the image.

Inside the door, the outline of a person was tied to a chair. He couldn't see the face clearly, but he could see the clothes—the only suit Zhou Jishen had worn that morning.

The image updated.

Three seconds later.

Three more seconds.

Lin Yuan stared at that door.

He opened the architectural blueprint he had just received.

Abandoned hall, basement level, core area for refining the ten thousand infant banner.

There was only one entrance.

—That was that door.

He shrank the blueprint and pulled up the panoramic map of the Summer Palace.

Kunming Lake. Wan Shou Mountain. Back of the mountain. Front of the mountain. Paiyun Hall. vein-locking nail cave entrance.

The positions of the seven vein-locking nails, like seven chess pieces, were pinned on the map.

He looked at it for a long time.

Then he closed the map.

He sent a message to that number from the teahouse:

"Help me set up a meeting with The Chess Player. Tonight. Same old place."

Sent.

He put his phone in his pocket.

He walked into the flow of people.