Chapter 1: Puzzle in the Cold Night
In June in Binhai City, the dampness of the plum rain season hangs heavy over the city like an invisible net, shrouded in the glow of neon lights. Inside the Criminal Investigation Division office of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, the lights are blindingly bright, and the air is thick with the mixed smell of instant coffee and moldy paper. Amidst the swirling smoke, Captain Chen Feng slams a freshly printed lab report onto a long table covered with documents; the frayed edges of the pages tremble slightly in the bright light.
“We cross-referenced the overseas cash flow of the Gu Group over the past five years with twenty-seven offshore accounts,” he said in a hoarse voice, tapping his knuckles on a string of numbers circled in red on the report. “Especially those few transactions in the second half of 2019, which were remitted to ‘Yuanxing Capital’ in the Cayman Islands under the guise of ‘technical service fees,’ the total amount exactly matched the shortfall in compensation for the illegal demolition of the Xinggang land.”
Across the table, young police officer Li rubbed his bloodshot eyes and pushed a stack of bank receipts over: "Captain Chen, and this too—Gu Yanting's personal assistant, Secretary Wang, sent an attachment to 'Yuanxing Capital' via an encrypted email address on October 22, 2019. We traced the IP address, and the source points to the server in Gu's headquarters building."
Outside the window, a flash of lightning ripped through the night sky, briefly illuminating the whiteboard covered with photos and relationship diagrams. In the center of the diagram, Gu Yanting's name was circled in red, radiating outwards with a dense array of arrows: pointing to the registrant information of "Yuanxing Capital," to the former contractor of the Xinggang plot, and to the suspicious "accidental" fire three years ago—in the photos, the broken steel structure was faintly visible in the ruins of the burned factory, creating a glaring echo with the "shoddy workmanship" annotation on the building quality inspection report.
“There’s only one piece of the puzzle missing.” Chen Feng stared at the blank space marked with a question mark on the whiteboard—the actual controller of “Yuanxing Capital.” All the clues were like a meticulously woven spider web, ultimately pointing to the shadow hidden behind the offshore company, and Gu Yanting’s every move of funds was like using spider silk to cover his tracks.
At three in the morning, Zhong Hua stood on the balcony of her rented apartment, clutching her phone. Raindrops dampened her hair, and on her phone screen was a message from Chen Feng: "Found Secretary Wang's call records. He made a call to an unregistered number in the early morning of October 23, 2019, lasting seven minutes and twelve seconds."
She recalled a metal box forgotten at the bottom of an old leather suitcase when she was sorting through her father's belongings two weeks ago. Inside the box, besides a few yellowed engineering drawings, was a worn SIM card with "A Zhe" scrawled on the back in pencil. At the time, she had only thought of him as an old friend of her father's, but now it struck her like an electric shock—her father had been the supervising engineer for the Xinggang site, and that fire had claimed his life.
“Reporter Zhong, are you sure you want to do this?” Chen Feng’s voice was hesitant on the other end of the phone. “If this card is really related to ‘A Zhe’, and ‘A Zhe’ is the actual controller of Yuanxing Capital… your father’s death may not be an accident.”
Zhong Hua took a deep breath, rain mingling with tears as she slid down her cheeks. She remembered Gu Yanting's hypocritical sympathetic face at her father's funeral, and his nonchalant attitude in front of the media when she was being cyberbullied. She turned and ran back into the house, rummaging through a drawer to find the metal box, her fingernails tracing tiny marks on the pencil writing on the back of the SIM card.
Chapter Two: The Forgotten Corner
Meanwhile, in an abandoned shipyard warehouse on the outskirts of the city, Ah Yu was carefully examining a stack of photocopied engineering supervision logs by the light of her phone screen. Lin Wanqing sat on an oil drum not far away, holding a copy of the Gu Group's annual financial reports, her fingertips repeatedly tracing the "non-operating losses" column.
“Brother, look at this,” she suddenly looked up, her eyes shining. “In the fourth quarter of 2019, there was a 30 million ‘equipment maintenance fee’ in Gu’s financial report, but the corresponding fixed asset list did not include any equipment that required such a high maintenance fee. And the demolition compensation for the Xinggang plot was also exactly 30 million.”
Ah Yu took the financial report and his gaze fell on the name of the supplier for "equipment maintenance"—"Binhai Hongyuan Machinery Co., Ltd." The name looked familiar. He opened the supervisor's log and found that on October 20, 2019, his father, Zhong Zhiyuan, had marked a line in red: "The steel test report provided by Hongyuan Machinery is questionable and needs to be retested."
“Hongyuan Machinery…” Ah Yu murmured to herself, then suddenly remembered something and pulled out a crumpled industry blacklist from her backpack. “The company that was found to have forged its qualifications last year, the legal representative is called… Zhao Jianzhe.”
Zhao Jianzhe, A Zhe.
Zhong Hua called at that moment, her voice trembling slightly with excitement: "Ah Yu, I found the SIM card! Captain Chen is checking the number's ownership, but..." She paused, her tone becoming heavy, "My father's supervisor's log mentions a materials supplier named 'A Zhe,' who may be related to Hongyuan Machinery."
The information, like scattered pearls, was suddenly strung together by a thread. Ah Yu abruptly stood up, the sheet metal on the warehouse roof rattling in the wind: "Gu Yanting used Hongyuan Machinery to manipulate accounts, transferring funds with forged project payments, and this Zhao Jianzhe is the actual controller of Yuanxing Capital. My father discovered the problem, so..."
He didn't finish his sentence, but Lin Wanqing already understood. She recalled something Gu Yanting had once said unintentionally: "It's better to resolve some troubles sooner rather than later." At the time, she had only thought of it as business competition, but now it felt like falling into an ice cave.
At 4:30 a.m., Chen Feng called again, with the sound of rapid keyboard typing in the background: "Zhong Hua, we've found the call records for the SIM card! The call on October 23, 2019, was ultimately transferred to an encrypted line at a Swiss bank. And we just received a reply from Interpol regarding their assistance—the actual controller of Yuanxing Capital is Zhao Jianzhe, who also has another identity: a distant nephew of Gu Yanting's mother."
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