Jiang Ting, former captain of the second division of the Gongzhou Anti-Narcotics Corps, first-level police inspector. He died in the explosion three years ago, and became the number one black policeman tacitly in the high-level system. He was also suspected of murdering Yue Guangping, the former deputy mayor of Gongzhou and director of the department-level public security.
But last night, on a cold winter night with rain, his ghost appeared around the lakeside community in Jianning City.
"I originally wanted to go to the deputy detachment leader of our city bureau, Yan Xun, and when I walked near the community, I found that there were suspicious people haunting his house. It seemed that they were peeping and monitoring his building. I immediately hid and waited for an opportunity to secretly follow, and found that the peeping The culprit turned out to be Jiang Ting, who was suspected of killing my old comrade-in-arms Yue Guangping three years ago and has been identified as a 'sacrifice' by Gongzhou! Moreover, he has a support from the party! I was about to call for help, but he found it out of nowhere , was stabbed by him in a hurry..."
In the single ward, the windows are bright and clean, and the leaders of the Provincial Public Security Bureau of S are sitting around the bed, and several people are bowing their heads and taking notes.
Lu Ju leaned weakly on the head of the bed, and said hoarsely: "Fortunately, I was wearing thick clothes in winter, and my body was fat, so I didn't get hit. I just passed out at that time. Alas!
In one night, his hair turned a lot whiter, and his chubby face took off. After all, he was a 60-year-old old man. He struggled for several hours in a coma on a rainy night. .
"What did Director Lu say, who doesn't know that you are smart and brave?" The director who came down from the provincial department quickly comforted: "The other party is a scumbag who colludes with drug dealers and is extremely cruel and cunning. We should bring him to justice. It's right to avenge you with the law!"
Ju Lu was so sighed that he closed his old eyes in exhaustion.
The director quickly stood up and said, "Then let's be here today, don't disturb the leader's rest. Bureau Lu, if you think of more clues, let someone call and we will be there anytime!"
Bureau Lu sighed and nodded to indicate that he knew, and then waved his hand and instructed: "Old Yu, send them off."
Yu Zhu personally sent the people from the provincial office away, and greeted them all the way to the hospital gate. Seeing that they all got into the car and left, she turned back to the front of the ward and winked at Deputy Director Wei, who was sitting in the nurse's station.
Wei Yao hurriedly stood up and followed her into the ward.
Lu Ju leaned on the pillow, his face was yellow and there was no blood, and even his lips were a little gray: "How do you say?"
"Prepare to set up a special task force, cooperate with Gongzhou, and issue a nationwide investigation notice to arrest Jiang Ting." Yu Zhu sat in the armchair beside the hospital bed, and then cleared her throat with a cough, and her voice showed a strong voice. "Old Lu, what's going on here? I don't believe what you said about the people in the provincial department. There are too many loopholes!"
Lu Ju stopped talking, and looked at Wei Yao.
Wei Yao understood, and nodded to Bureau Lu and Yu Zhu.
"I've been working with colleagues for twenty or thirty years, and I'm not hiding anything from you, so I'll just say it directly." Director Lu sighed while the two subordinates watched, and said, "I didn't meet you near Yan Yan's house. Jiang Ting, but knew that he was at Yan Yun's house, so he went to visit him specifically, trying to convince him."
As soon as the words landed, Wei Yao and Yu Zhu both changed their tones and blurted out at the same time, "What did you say?"
"incite defection?!"
Director Lu raised his hand and pressed it down, with a wry smile in his eyes: "Don't worry, you two, listen to me. I've been thinking about turning against Jiang Ting for a long time, but I didn't discuss it with you because of confidentiality. Jiang Ting has been secretly involved in the case of our Jianning Municipal Bureau for some time. To be honest, if it wasn't for him, Qin Chuan wouldn't have been exposed so easily."
Yu Zhu asked suspiciously, "Qinchuan?"
"Yes," Director Lu paused, briefly recounted the process before and after the investigation into the poisoning incident, and then confessed what happened at Qin Chuan's house that night when the arrest was carried out. Hearing Deputy Director Wei's eyes straightened, Yu Zhu Not much better than him, he kept making a clear breathing sound.
"After this incident, considering Jiang Ting's stance and behavior, I felt that I could take a risk, so I found him specially last night and put forward a very bold idea to him..." Lu Ju's words were more self-deprecating. Thick: "I hope he can completely surrender to the police, and at the same time pretend to be a black policeman, and become a nail for us to drive into the K-spade crime group."
More than ten hours ago—
"Counter-measures?" Jiang Ting put his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned his left shoulder against the wall of the living room, as if he had heard a particularly ridiculous joke: "Tell me to pretend to surrender to the king of spades, go deep into the drug cartel, and risk my life with the police. Should the inside and outside work together?"
The humming of soup cooking in the kitchen continued, the steam warmed the room, and there was a large white mist on the floor-to-ceiling windows. Lu Ju sat on the large milk-white leather sofa in the living room, his eyes were sharp behind his reading glasses, and he stared at the handsome but needle-like aggressive young man in front of him: "Yes, it is true that I will risk my life, but this pair of It's the best way out for you."
Jiang Ting rubbed his eyebrows, put his hands into his trouser pockets, and asked with a smile, "—but why should I work for the police?"
"Because you are still alive, more than one or two people have already known the secret of your existence. If you worked for the police, there is at least a chance to save your life, but what if you are caught by the police? More than a dozen people who exploded in the plastic factory. Anti-drug police, your actions are enough to be sentenced to death, right?"
Jiang Ting's eyes sank instantly.
Different from his sharp-edged attitude, Lu Ju is like a cotton wall, quietly absorbing and defusing all attacks.
"Do you still want to show up in the sunshine one day in the future? Do you want to bear the name of a dead person and live in a sewer for the rest of your life? Jiang Ting, Yan Xun is not in Jianning now, I just need to make a phone call, you I can't even get out of this neighborhood today."
"Think about it for yourself and think clearly." Lu Ju snorted softly and said, "If you are caught by the police, I promise, no matter how many times the spade K explodes, it will not take you out of the detention center. Rob it out!"
The living room fell into silence, Jiang Ting was silent for a long time, and the stalemate froze every inch of the air into ice. After a good few minutes, he finally spoke slowly: "...I can't promise you."
Lu Bureau did not expect that he would refuse, and immediately twitched.
"There are two reasons. First, the king of spades knows what kind of person I am, and would never believe I was willing to surrender to him... As for the second."
Jiang Ting's voice paused for a while, the bright lights in the living room reflected in the depths of his pupils, he stared straight at Bureau Lu, and a strange smile gradually appeared on the corners of his lips.
"—And then?" Deputy Bureau Wei couldn't help but ask.
There was silence in the ward. Deputy Bureau Wei and Yu Zhu seemed to be immersed in shock. After a long while, Bureau Lu exhaled heavily:
"If the first reason is just a subjective factor and can still be evaded; the second is that I really never thought of it, and it is absolutely impossible to think of it. The moment he said this, I realized What a foolish decision to turn his back on himself, because it is true that he cannot cooperate with the police and will never be on the same side as the police."
Yu Zhu unconsciously leaned forward: "Then the second reason is..."
Outside the gate of the hospital, in a car parked on a hidden street corner, a clerk who had just appeared in the ward with the provincial government leader in charge of taking notes was wearing headphones, and the monitor in front of him flashed blue light.
Not knowing what Director Lu said in the earphone, he suddenly gasped, his heart thumped violently, and he looked around in a hurry.
There were cars and cars on the road, pedestrians in the distance, no one noticed this ordinary-looking car with a single-sided window film.
The eavesdropper sneakily unplugged his earphones, stepped on the accelerator, and headed straight for the opposite direction from the provincial office.
·
Eighty kilometers away from Tongshan County, Yongkang Village.
Following the bumpy mountain road for two full hours, Qi Sihao felt that not only his skeleton, but also the frame of his car was about to be torn apart. Through the hairy windows of the car, even the dilapidated rural brick houses on the edge of the fields gradually disappeared, replaced by large areas of wasteland and dead trees, the gray-white hillsides in winter are endless, and the withered grass is scattered on the rough road.
The sun had already passed through the sky, and Qi Sihao was so hungry that his chest was touching his back, but looking at Yan Yan's gloomy face next to him, he swallowed and didn't dare to say anything.
How did the son of the rich family go to the countryside to donate to help the poor in person
Where are the warm welcomes and warm receptions all the way from the counties, towns and villages
Finally, before Qi Sihao was about to faint from hunger, the car stopped in a drowsy state, and the driver sent by the county magistrate shouted, "I'm here—"
Qi Sihao looked up like a rescuer.
The tin door had already changed color in the wind and the sun, and with the rustling of the wind, the two gray second-floor cement houses were smoldered by smoke and stood abruptly on the overgrown "playground". A group of odd-shaped mud monkeys were lying on the back of the wooden fence on the second floor, staring straight at their car, and they couldn't tell they were human children from a distance.
Yan Yan got out of the car, squinted his eyes and raised his head in the wind and sand.
There are five rusty characters on the main entrance of Hongri Welfare Institute, each of which lacks arms and legs. The paint on the iron gate is still faintly recognizable. It is a semicircle that has faded to light red and is cut off by a horizontal line. Several rays symbolizing sunlight are intermittent, radiating outward from the center of the semicircle, forming a rather perfunctory image. Sunrise image.
—The pattern behind Teng Wenyan's corpse, and Jiang Ting's yellowish blood coat when he was a child, finally traveled through time and space at this moment and gradually overlapped.
Several men and women in bloated suits stood outside the iron door, hurried forward with smiles on their faces.
The "warm welcome" that Qi Sihao had been waiting for for a long time finally arrived.
·
"Yes, the county government should have informed you. It is a poverty alleviation project of our company in S province. Every fund and task will be implemented in various regions. Of course, I will do a site inspection before signing..."
Yan Xun walked through the "playground" surrounded by the leaders of the orphanage, and the children with snot and dusty faces galloped past.
"It's not easy!" The dean, who is about forty years old this year, rubbed his hands and shook his head and sighed: "Most of them are girls, and they don't need to be thrown away when they are born. I can't blame parents for being cruel. Can you do it? It’s a good heart to be willing to go to the trouble of throwing it away! Boys can count on one hand, and few have all hands and feet, and they are so sick that they can’t do anything about it. In the hospital, the hospital will send it to us again - you have seen this environment, it is really difficult, and the national finances are not good!"
Qi Sihao was so hungry that he had no choice but to follow the staff to eat a small stove. The dean diligently invited Yan Yan into the office door, and poured tea and water for him by himself.
The dean's office may be the best decorated place in the whole orphanage. At least it has tile floors and an air conditioner, which is much better than the cave-like dormitory Datong. Yan Yan looked at the dusty wasteland and the dark dormitory building outside through the glass window, and seemed to see another scene in a trance:
A thin child, running happily in the afterglow of the midsummer evening, was blown by the wind with short black hair. He crossed the plains and across the fields, like a nimble deer slicing through the paddy fields to the end of the blue sky under the morning star.
Don't go over, a desolate and powerless voice sounded in Yan Yan's heart, and it became clearer and clearer: Don't stop, come back—
But no one heard.
The little boy, bathed in the light of the sky where day and night meet, galloped gleefully toward his only childhood friend.
"Mr. Yan, that... Mr. Yan?"
Yan Yan came back to his senses and saw the dean rubbing his cuffs, his eyes narrowed: "That donation thing..."
This is not difficult to do. Yan Yan had considered this problem before he came. He first greeted the county government through the annual fixed poverty alleviation project of his family. All the signing procedures were completed quickly, and the genuine red-headed document was sent on the same day. In his hands, there is absolutely no false part about acting.
"Just follow the numbers approved by the county people's congress, and I'll do it later..." Yan Yan paused, then added a sentence: "... make up 50% more, and repair the dormitory before the year, otherwise it will be too cold. already."
The dean was overjoyed.
Yan Yan said: "I would have people come to see it a few years ago."
The dean's smile from the bottom of his heart faded immediately, and then he strongly assured: "Of course! Of course!"
These tricky Yan Yan knew in his heart that he did not have the unrealistic idea that all the funds could be used for practical purposes, as long as some of them could work. The dean didn't expect him to be so happy, and he enthusiastically took out documents such as the welfare institution's management regulations and target plans and introduced them. Yan Yan patiently listened to him for about ten minutes before picking an appropriate opportunity to interrupt. : "In an institution like yours, when children come in and go out, there should generally be records, right?"
The dean said: "Yes, yes, there must be. We are the only welfare home in the local area, so it has been decades since the 1980s..."
"Can you show me?"
The dean didn't expect him to have such a request, so he was stunned: "What are you looking at?"
"Album data, document records, children's files, etc., I only need the parts from the 1980s and 1990s." Yan Yan smiled at the surprised eyes of the dean, and said lightly: "To be honest, my wife used to be there when she was a child. I stayed in the orphanage in S province for a few years, and then I was adopted out. I donated this time because I wanted to visit the various orphanages of the year and try to find clues about his biological parents from the adoption information of that year, so as to help him complete the donation. The long-cherished wish of tracing back to the source.”
The dean's face suddenly realized: "Oh oh oh-"
Judging from the expression, the dean probably made up a series of bloody dramas in an instant, from the eight o'clock in the domestic village to the popular Korean drama in the 1990s. Yan Yan was too lazy to explain anything, and raised the corner of his mouth coldly, only to hear the dean's enthusiasm several times immediately: "Okay, no problem, I'll go find it for you!"
The dean immediately went out and called someone, and took a few staff members to open the archives. The management of the welfare institutions in the rural areas here is obviously relatively backward. It is not easy to look through the old archives. Splashed everywhere, relieved: "It's all here!"
Yan Yan was a little surprised—the information from more than 20 years ago was actually more than he thought.
But think about it, there is no waste paper in this broken place. As long as there are no accidents such as fires and floods, the paper materials are probably piled up in corners and corners, and no one will tamper with them.
The archives are stacked in chronological order, and Yan Yan is very clear about the specific year, so it is not difficult to find. While dealing with the dean's greetings that he couldn't hide his heart of gossip, he rummaged through Jiang Ting's texts when he was ten years old, and suddenly turned to a yellow and gray leather notebook. .
In just an instant, Yan Yan's eyes were fixed on a certain corner of the album—
In a black and white group photo, a dozen or so gray children stand in a row from tall to short. The background is the dormitory of the orphanage that was very new back then, and the painted sketches of the sunrise are clearly visible on the two iron gates.
The children were all dull and ignorant, wearing the same round-necked short-sleeved undershirts, and looking around, they looked like clay dolls carved out of the same mold, except for the third boy from the left, who was slightly twisted and had wide eyes.
The camera recorded his curious and shy smile at that moment, then sealed it in the corner of time, and smashed it in front of Yan Yan more than 20 years later.
"... This child," Yan Yan pointed to the photo, her voice trembling strangely: "There are such big boys in the welfare home?"
"Ah, that's right." The dean came over to take a look and explained, "It may be that no one is willing to adopt because of a congenital illness, or it was not too long after being sent out. Everyone's living conditions were not good at that time. It’s not easy for an older child with memory to find someone else, if they are two or three, four or five years old, it will be much easier!”
Yan Yan's tongue had a slightly sour taste, and he swallowed hard, pressing down the fiery pain in his chest.
"Then was he adopted later?"
"Hey, I only came here seven or eight years ago. I have to check this." The dean rolled up his sleeves and looked through the pile of archives for a long time. Finally, he found a work record and took a photo. Forehead: "Come on, this is it!"
The dean flicked the dust off the record: "This was the adoption registration back then, but some of it was missing. The management at that time was not as standardized as we are now, and we treated those children very carefully and caringly, and resolutely implemented them. The state's policy on supporting the welfare of children... ”
While chatting, he squinted to observe Yan Yan, obviously very curious about this unusual young rich man.
Yan Yan's reading movement stopped.
[On September 18, XX, the adopted child, Jiang Ting. 】
Just a few lines of scribbled and faded pen words recorded the most crucial moment that reversed Jiang Ting's fate more than 20 years ago.
Yan Yan didn't waste time researching the adopter's fabricated information, his eyes fell on the picture attached to the page. A man in his 40s or 50s with small eyes and gloomy appearance is standing in front of a black car at the entrance of the orphanage. On his left is Jiang Ting, who was thin and shy back then, and on his right is another with a white face and dressed in clothes. Elegant little boy.
The boy was obviously one year younger than Jiang Ting, but he was significantly taller. Just like his father, he consciously avoided the camera, turned his face slightly, and looked at Jiang Ting with a smile.
At first glance, it was just two little guesses, but the darker and deeper meaning behind that smile instantly pierced Yan Yan's heart like a needle—
He knew that he had seen the king of spades more than 20 years ago.
Jiang Ting did not tell the complete truth.