23: Chapter 23: Have Ga Zi bring me a fish; I want to make soup.

Municipal Party Committee Guest House, third-floor suite.

The Inspection Team had been stationed here for over half a month. Since the warning conference ended, this place had become an invisible eye of the storm in Linjiang's political scene.

Everyone had assumed that this inspection would be just like the previous ones.

Loud thunder and little rain.

The curtains in the room were tightly drawn, allowing only a few dim, gray shafts of light to filter in.

The ceiling lights were off. Only the dim yellow desk lamp on the coffee table illuminated a few printed sheets of A4 paper.

They contained the contents of a whistleblower letter, as well as the equity structure of the "Shengda Construction" shell company.

Team Leader Qiu Rui sat on the sofa, rubbing the pages between his fingers. He had been staring at them for a full twenty minutes.

Beside him stood two young, core members of his team—expert auditors he had brought down from the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection.

"Team Leader, this material..." one of them said, pushing up his glasses.

"We've spent the past half-month cross-referencing it, and it's basically flawless."

"It's almost as if someone chewed up the food and fed it directly to our mouths."

Team Leader Qiu Rui picked up on his words, put down the papers, and reached for his peeling thermos.

Having worked in discipline inspection for twenty years,

he had seen far too many plays of killing with a borrowed knife.

Normally, whistleblower letters of this kind were either exaggerated or vague.

But one like this, where even the chain of evidence was seamlessly put together,

had only one explanation: an insider had turned, and it was someone highly skilled in the trade.

"Shengda Construction, legal representative Wang Jianguo."

Team Leader Qiu Rui pointed at the name.

"Have you looked into his background?"

"We did. He's a regular on the debt defaulter blacklist. He doesn't have a single piece of decent construction equipment under his name; it's entirely a shell company," the young man replied.

"But this man has a distant relative who is a deputy director of the Municipal Development and Reform Commission's office."

That connected the dots.

"Team Leader, do we make a move?" the young man asked again.

"This is clearly a battle of the giants. Someone wants to use us as their gun."

"But who controls the gun is up to whoever holds it."

Team Leader Qiu Rui stood up and smoothed out his old jacket.

"Let's wait a moment."

Team Leader Qiu Rui pointed to the thick stack of A4 papers.

"Xiao Wang, double-check the compiled materials and prepare a brief. Especially the closed-loop flow of funds—it must be crystal clear."

Xiao Wang was taken aback.

"The evidence is already this solid, and we're still not acting?"

"What if the Development and Reform Commission gets wind of this and destroys the evidence?"

"Procedural justice is the bulletproof vest that protects us."

Team Leader Qiu Rui stood up again and straightened the hem of his jacket.

He was a veteran of discipline inspection.

The closer it got to pulling in the net, the more composed one needed to remain.

Although the Provincial Inspection Team held the imperial sword of authority, if they wanted to place a municipal-level division-head cadre under detention,

they had to go through the internal approval process of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Those were the rules.

"Get to work."

Leaving it at that, Team Leader Qiu Rui walked into the inner bedroom with his phone, closing the door behind him.

Standing by the window, he dialed a number.

The Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection building.

Inside the office of Executive Deputy Secretary Guo Changchun, the aroma of tea filled the air.

Lin Hai, Deputy Director of the Second Office of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, was standing before the desk, reporting on the verification of clues for several backlogged cases.

*Ring, ring—*

The telephone on the desk rang.

Executive Deputy Secretary Guo Changchun glanced at the caller ID and raised his hand to interrupt Lin Hai's report.

"I'll take this call."

Lin Hai was highly observant. He immediately closed his notebook and bowed slightly.

"Secretary Guo, please go ahead. I'll excuse myself."

Executive Deputy Secretary Guo Changchun said nothing, merely waving his hand dismissively.

He picked up the receiver.

"Hello, Old Qiu."

Lin Hai turned and walked out.

His steps were steady, his leather shoes making only faint, muffled thuds on the thick carpet.

Reaching the door, he grasped the handle.

He paused for a second with complete naturalness, as if adjusting his posture before stepping out.

It was during this very second

that Executive Deputy Secretary Guo Changchun's voice behind him drifted into his ears.

"Mhm... I understand. Since the flow of funds for Zheng Jianguo from the Development and Reform Commission has been verified and you have the evidence, you may place him under detention."

"I'll report to Secretary Chen of the Discipline Inspection Commission tomorrow. You guys go to his home first thing tomorrow morning and secure him. Don't let anything go wrong."

*Click.*

Lin Hai pulled the door open, stepped out, and gently closed it behind him.

The corridor was completely empty.

The expression on Lin Hai's face remained unchanged, still wearing his usual cautious and prudent look.

He even nodded and smiled at a passing staff member.

It was only when he stepped into the elevator that he pressed the button for the third floor.

The elevator descended to the floor of the Second Office. He returned to his office and retrieved a phone from a corner.

He quickly drafted a message and sent it out.

Then, he popped out the SIM card and snapped it in half.

Finally, he walked into the restroom and flushed it down the toilet.

...

Linjiang City, Mayor's Office.

Mayor Su Changming had just concluded his first routine government meeting since taking office as mayor.

Because Secretary Zhu Tianhe had not yet stepped down as Executive Deputy Mayor, the meeting had been exceptionally long. Feeling exhausted, he leaned back in his executive chair.

His personal phone on the desk vibrated.

A short buzz.

He picked up the phone and swiped open the screen.

It was an unsigned text message with only a single line:

[Rain tomorrow. Zheng of the Development and Reform Commission. Detention.]

Detention.

He knew all too well what those words meant within the system.

It meant "shuanggui" (disciplinary detention).

It meant a complete loss of freedom, endless interrogations, and confessions.

Zheng Jianguo was finished.

Mayor Su Changming tossed the phone onto the desk, stood up, and walked over to the massive French window.

Outside, the neon lights of Linjiang City appeared particularly hazy through the rainy mist.

Zheng Jianguo was a spineless coward.

Mayor Su Changming knew this better than anyone.

That idiot, who would bluster at the banquet table and grant "director's special approvals" for a few million yuan in construction funds, stood absolutely no chance against the Discipline Inspection Commission's tactics.

Once Zheng Jianguo was put inside,

and that iron-faced judge, Team Leader Qiu Rui, exerted even a bit of pressure,

all the shady accounts that had passed through Zheng Jianguo's hands over the past few years would be spat out completely.

When that happened, pulling up the radish would bring up the mud.

He, a mayor who had only been in office for half a month and whose seat wasn't even warm yet,

would have to go inside and sew sewing machines right alongside Zheng Jianguo.

"Fool."

Mayor Su Changming cursed under his breath.

He had originally thought that after submitting the profiles of the Development and Reform Commission's leadership, all he had to do was issue a supplementary document, make a gesture of cutting ties, and have Zheng Jianguo take a disciplinary hit to put this matter to rest.

He had never expected the Inspection Team to actually get their hands on criminal clues regarding Zheng.

Where on earth had things gone wrong?

Mayor Su Changming turned around and sat back down in his chair.

He sat in the darkness, silent for five minutes.

A benevolent man does not lead soldiers; a righteous man does not manage wealth.

In politics, the dead are always tighter-lipped than the living.

He picked up the landline on his desk and dialed the extension of his secretary, Secretary Li Changgeng.

"Boss," Secretary Li Changgeng's voice quickly came through.

"Come in for a moment."

After his secretary entered, Mayor Su Changming gave a quiet instruction.

"Give Gazi a call."

"Tell him to come over to my place and bring me a fish."

Secretary Li Changgeng's breath caught instantly.

"Bringing a fish" was Mayor Su Changming's slang.

Gazi was a ruthless character Mayor Su Changming had deliberately groomed back when he was a township party secretary. Later on, Gazi cleaned up his act and went into the earthworks business, specializing in handling dirty work that couldn't see the light of day for Mayor Su Changming.

"Boss, right now we are in the teeth of the storm..." Secretary Li Changgeng tried to dissuade him.

"Some crows are just too noisy and annoying."

"I hope that tomorrow, that cawing crow can fall from the tree on its own."

"Preferably, dying right in its own nest."

"Make sure it's done cleanly."

"Once the job is done, bring the fish to my house. I want to make soup."

"...Understood."

Mayor Su Changming pulled open a drawer, took out a box of matches, and lit a photograph.

The burnt smell of the combusting photo drifted through the office.

He stared at the wisp of blue smoke, expressionless.