Chapter 132

Lu Youliang released a trailer, then kept mum, sinking into his memories. Luo Wenzhou didn't hurry him. He slowly shuffled along the inner ring, which the traffic had turned into a pot of porridge. He rolled down the window and passed Director Lu a cigarette.

Never mind the rest, Luo Wenzhou felt that Comrade Fei Du could take a large part of the credit for his ability to have so much patience right now.

The car shuffled through the most stopped up part of the road at a speed of ten kilometers per hour. When Luo Wenzhou could finally shift his foot a little off the brake, Lu Youliang sighed. "You've been working hard lately. The load you're carrying on your shoulders must be too heavy?"

If it were someone else, no matter what, he'd have said, "All in the service of the people." But Luo Wenzhou wasn't at all modest. Hearing these words, his eyes glittered. "Oh, yes, sir, and since you've noticed, you could hurry up and raise my year-end bonus. It's hard being a man. Supporting a family is so stressful!"

"Jerk." Lu Youliang's heart, filled with grave matters, rebounded off of Luo Wenzhou's shamelessness, and for a time all his thoughts were gone. He unfeelingly said, "It's what you ought to do in the service of the people."

"I could have relied on my talent to eat, but the organization is forcing me to rely on my looks." Luo Wenzhou shook his head, deeply grieved by his fate, like a beautiful woman coming to an unhappy end. Then, when Director Lu was planning to slap him, he voluntarily returned to the main subject. "Did you want to talk to me about Senior Gu?"

"Gu Zhao…Gu Zhao." Lu Youliang repeated the familiar but strange name a few times, then leaned back in his seat, tilting his face up, hesitating for a moment as though not knowing where to start. "Your shifu was my shixiong. He was a class ahead of me. He was an influential figure at school, too. Did he talk to you about that?"

"Are you kidding?" Luo Wenzhou picked up very naturally. "Lao Yang was always bragging, saying there were quite a few girls who liked him at school. I said that was impossible, Yan Security Uni doesn't even have 'quite a few girls.' He threw me out of his office."

Luo Wenzhou seemed to be innately without reserve, whether he was speaking to his elders or his superiors. A transient smile flickered over Lu Youliang's face. "It wasn't like it is now for us back then. It was very hard to transfer into the City Bureau. While you had to be young, you couldn't be too young, and you had to have enough low-level experience to qualify to participate in the exam. We all sharpened our brains, relying on our grades, relying on our experiences. That year, for some reason, the City Bureau had an especially high quota. Gu Zhao, Lao Zhang, Lao Pan and I all came in that year—oh, Lao Pan you may not know, he hasn't been on the front lines in a long time. He teaches at Yan Security Uni now. He's the head of the Picture Album Project at the school this time around. He gives himself airs and hasn't come back to look in on us."

Luo Wenzhou raised the car window. From Director Lu's brief words, he seemed to have picked up that old photograph arranged on the director-general's desk.

"Gu Zhao and I were classmates. Lao Pan transferred from out of town. Lao Zhang was a little older than us; he'd rendered a meritorious service and was named to come to the City Bureau. There were many experts and elders on the Criminal Investigation Team then. Newly arrived young people all did odd jobs. When the four of us first came, we were basically running errands, taking notes, carrying tea. Everyone called us the 'four great maidservants.'"

Luo Wenzhou: "…"

Oh, the lively culture of a police team.

"Plus there was Lao Yang—Lao Yang was the 'steward' in charge of us 'maidservants.' He'd just transferred back from Lotus Mountain a few months ago then." Faint laughter lines gathered at the corners of Director Lu's eyes. "The five of us were all about the same age, and we'd all started working at about the same time. We spent all day together, using every moment we could get to follow the elders around learning from them, running errands together, sorting records and files together… Aside from Lao Yang, who'd 'betrayed the organization' early, we were all bachelors. Sometimes when one person was on duty and the others had nothing to do, they'd bring food and come over to keep him company.

"Lao Yang had the greatest wealth of experience. He was bold but cautious and had the highest level of professional skills. Lao Zhang's family was in business. He had the greatest means. When we went out to eat he'd volunteer to foot the bill. He got along best with people. He was our old big brother. Lao Pan was the most disgraceful, and his temper was the foulest. He and I didn't get along at all. We'd argue almost every day, but we never held grudges. As soon as we were finished arguing, we'd be all right after a while, and then in another while we might turn on each other again.

"Gu Zhao was the youngest. We called him 'Number Five.' He didn't speak much, and he was very good at taking care of people. He was clearly so poor he rattled, but if anyone so much as told him they were having financial hardships, he'd be ready to help the needy for justice. And he was very diligent, took the most careful notes, always had a book in his hand. Seven or eight years after he graduated, he went back to the alma mater at his own expense to get a graduate degree in his free time."

Amiable, diligent, considerate, nervous when taking pictures… Lu Youliang's words gradually colored in the image of Gu Zhao. The "bicycle knight" lit by the setting sun that Xiao Haiyang had described became flesh and blood, standing up out of the shallow and chilly CV on the intranet.

"Later, a group of elders stepped back from the front line, and Number Five was promoted to deputy-captain. We were all very satisfied, because really no one was as hard-working as him. When you were with him, whether working or hanging out, you'd feel very peaceful. Looking into his eyes, you'd feel you were too restless yourself and involuntarily calm your mind." Lu Youliang paused. "The 327 case was the first major case Gu Zhao handled after becoming deputy-captain. It caused a sensation, and it was settled very tidily. The only fly in the ointment was that Lu Guosheng had gotten away.

"You can imagine that because this wanted criminal was on the loose, the people around National Road 327 were in a state of anxiety. As soon as it got dark, no one would dare to go on that road. There was a nationwide wanted notice issued in order to catch him, and the reward in the end went up to 100,000—and this was fifteen years ago. 100,000 really wasn't a small sum. At the time, an informer who'd gone into mortal danger to lure out drug traffickers would only get three or five thousand when it was over, and sometimes their expenses wouldn't even be paid promptly. When they heard about this business, the informers all went crazy. For a while there were always people staking out Lu Guosheng's old address. But he never turned up again. It was as though he'd vanished off the face of the earth. We couldn't find him no matter what."

To make the government cough up 100,000 yuan, the people in charge would have had to call in all their connections and talk themselves blue in the face. But for people like Wei Zhanhong and Zheng Kaifeng, what did it amount to? They wouldn't even bother to bend down to pick it up if they dropped it on the ground.

Unfortunately, no one had known at the time whom they'd been up against.

"A year later, Lu Guosheng got himself drunk and accidentally left behind his fingerprint." Luo Wenzhou broke the silence. "Director Lu, could you tell me in detail how it all happened back then?"

"The fingerprint was turned up by the forensics people below us, responsible for handling the brawl at the bar. The special investigation team had already broken up then. When we found out that Lu Guosheng was still in the area, we were all excited and immediately obtained the bar's security camera records, interviewed the witnesses and informers without rest. Lao Yang's little child was sick, and the situation wasn't very good, so he'd asked for his annual leave and was absent from work. Gu Zhao was in charge of the business," Lu Youliang said. "The bar was irregularly managed. The security cameras were only for show. We staked out the area for over a week, caught a couple of gangs selling ecstasy while we were at it, but we didn't see a trace of Lu Guosheng. We had to leave.—We guessed at the time that after accidentally getting involved in the brawl and alerting the police, Lu Guosheng had been afraid and had perhaps already left Yan City."

"Not necessarily," Luo Wenzhou said. "If he'd been going to run, he'd already have run. If he was still around over a year after 327, there had to be something he was concerned about keeping him in Yan City. The fact that he dared to go out drinking showed that he had a fixed source of income and a place to hide, and his means were perhaps rather ample.—Didn't you go investigate at the transport company where he'd worked before?"

"Your surmises are exactly the same as Gu Zhao's. If he were still alive, I figure you two would…" Laugh lines flickered at the corners of Lu Youliang's mouth. Then he fell silent again. "We investigated the transport company, but Lu Guosheng's affair with the boss's wife was very covert. If he hadn't personally confessed it, we wouldn't have known. Even his own brother, who'd killed people with him, didn't know."

"And the driver who'd threatened him?"

"He'd run off. I figure he'd heard of the 327 case, knew the police hadn't caught Lu Guosheng, and was afraid of his vengeance," Lu Youliang said. "We didn't know there was anything else there at the time. We didn't investigate carefully."

Lu Guosheng's fingerprint was like a stone that had raised a thousand-layer wave, but it had only been a fleeting glimpse. Soon after, all trace of him vanished; the trail broke off.

"We thought of every trick we could think of and tried them all, but it was like looking for a needle in the ocean. You know it's in the water, but you can't find it. We trawled for a long time, but it wasn't like we didn't have other things on hand, and which of the cases that come to the City Bureau aren't important? We really were at our wits' ends. We had to move on. Only Gu Zhao privately never abandoned it. I saw that he was very hard-up then. He wouldn't tell you anything if you asked about it. Other people thought he was carrying on a romance… Now that I think about it, maybe he was privately paying his informers extra."

Luo Wenzhou didn't interrupt. He knew he was about to come to the critical part.

"I remember that day was the first time I went to visit my father-in-law. I had some drinks with the old man. It was nearly ten at night when I left. I was a little drunk. I took a shortcut alone to take a bus. On the way, I got a phone call from Lao Yang. He said something had happened. I didn't understand precisely what it was. I just had some kind of dim feeling, gave a start, and instantly sobered up.

"When I hurried over, I saw Lao Yang holding someone by the collar, the veins in his neck all standing out. He looked like he was going to hit him. A crowd of guys was desperately pulling at him.—We all knew the person he was holding. His codename was 'Old Cinder.' He was a professional informer. He'd been in the profession four or five years. He was on record at the City Bureau's Criminal Investigation Team, and he'd accompanied us on quite a few actions, gone through fire and water with us. He was halfway to one of our own brothers."

Luo Wenzhou considered his diction, then said, "I heard that there was a witness who escaped the fire at The Louvre and accused Gu Zhao of being the chief culprit behind the fire—was that this Old Cinder?"

"Yes. Lao Yang was holding Old Cinder up with one hand, and he was howling and crying, saying Gu Zhao was normally good to him, he couldn't be like this, couldn't say it." Lu Youliang quietly said, "As soon as I heard that and looked at Lao Yang's face, my heart went cold.

"Later, when we questioned him carefully a few times, Old Cinder finally admitted that Gu Zhao had solicited bribes more than once, all under the guise of investigating. He'd made some of the informers he was familiar with take molds of Lu Guosheng's fingerprints, fix on a target, figure out the environment, then place the fingerprint in the store. Gu Zhao would pretend to have received an informer's report and come over to search. He'd simply present a bill, and if you didn't shell out, he'd say that the place was harboring wanted criminals, that there were fingerprints and 'witnesses,' and you wouldn't be able to continue your business."

"The dead can't testify. You only had a one-sided account," Luo Wenzhou said. "What was the other evidence?"

"First there were the results of medical examiner's autopsies. Gu Zhao really had had a physical altercation with the manager at The Louvre before he died. All the details matched with the witness's account.

"Second, we found an identical fingerprint mold in Gu Zhao's locker in the duty room.

"Third were the witnesses. With only Old Cinder saying it, we and Lao Yang didn't believe it. But we found a notebook that hadn't burned all the way among the wreckage at the scene of the fire, the one Gu Zhao normally carried with him. Half of it had burned away. You could faintly distinguish some names of places and people on it. The people's names were all codenames of informers, and the place names must have been businesses Gu Zhao had gone to investigate recently.—We called all those people in for questioning. There was only one business owner who was maybe afraid of stirring up trouble and wouldn't answer any questions, wouldn't give evidence. Aside from him, everyone else agreed."

Luo Wenzhou's heart sank. "The witnesses were all professional informers on the record?"

There were many types of informers. There were the ones doing it for the reward, there were the ones who hung around "doing odd jobs," there were the ones atoning for their crimes with good deeds, and then there were the professional informers. These people had records with the police, had cooperated with the police more than once. Sometimes they nearly seemed like planted agents. They were highly trusted and had very close relations with the police.

The evidence hadn't been invulnerable, but he'd already been dead, and the witnesses had been of this kind…

"Gu Zhao was loyal when he was alive. His good relations with his informers were well known," Lu Youliang said. "We had to take their statements seriously, whether we liked it or not. The security cameras in the bar where Lu Guosheng's fingerprint had first appeared hadn't filmed him. The bar's employees didn't have any memory of Lu Guosheng, but there was a bartender who identified Old Cinder, and Old Cinder later admitted that he'd faked Lu Guosheng's fingerprint.—In other words, the fact of this criminal who had been on the run for a year appearing in Yan City had been entirely fabricated and had no foundation."

Thinking about it, the fact that a wanted criminal who'd brought about a sensational case would be able to hide himself for a year without being found, and would openly go out drinking, in itself filled you with misgivings. Adding in Gu Zhao's unusual enthusiasm and dedication to this work, as well as his solitary actions and even shifty conduct… Luo Wenzhou felt that looking at it from an outsider's perspective, he would have nearly been convinced of the conclusion.

"But since they said he'd solicited bribes, where was the money from the bribes? Where was it stored? What was it used for?"

"The money was in his house, cash, found under the bed, over five million altogether, more or less matching what the informers had said.—His mother had cancer. The old lady herself didn't know. There were medical reports stacked on top of the money. Gu Zhao's family background was unremarkable. His parents were farmers, his father died early, and the family wasn't thriving. His mother worked at a department store in their town. It was temporary work, and the company was improperly managed. No one was conscious of needing insurance then. With an illness like that, that money still wouldn't have been enough."

The motive was obvious, the evidence was clear, the unshakeable witnesses spoke with certainty.

Never mind that Gu Zhao had been dead; even if he'd still been living, it wasn't clear what would have happened.

"Societal circumstances weren't as relaxed then as they are now, and the internet hadn't been developed. With such a big scandal coming out of the City Bureau and the person involved dead, the leaders reacted by covering it up, forbidding it to be mentioned again. If you went to the database to search now, you wouldn't find it… Fourteen years."

Fourteen years. The truth had come too late.

Luo Wenzhou was silent for a good while, then suddenly said, "Director Lu, there's something I think is very strange."

Lu Youliang looked up, meeting Luo Wenzhou's gaze reflected in the rearview mirror.

"Our rate of solving cases isn't a hundred percent. There are always some cases that go unresolved. As long as police manpower is limited, some things have to temporarily be put aside according to their severity and urgency. But while the special investigation group had broken up, the case was still there. As long as it didn't violate discipline and didn't interfere with his other work, there would have been nothing wrong with the person in charge of the case continuing to investigate." Luo Wenzhou said, "Why did Gu Zhao have to act alone?"

Even if he hadn't wanted to add to his colleagues' burdens and had chosen to investigate alone, when he'd made some progress or had some new ideas, he must have wanted to find a colleague to accompany him—because according to regulations, evidence gathered by a police officer without notifying anyone else was non-compliant; if he brought it back, it could only be used for reference; it had no value.

Lu Youliang was temporarily silent.

Luo Wenzhou slowly stopped the car by the side of the road. The front of the car was aimed at the City Bureau's front gate. The enormous national emblem over the public security logo reflected the afternoon light.

"Uncle Lu," Luo Wenzhou said quietly, "it's just you and me here. Whatever you say, it won't reach any third person's ears."

Lu Youliang lowered his eyes and at last spoke almost inaudibly. "Yeah. If Gu Zhao suffered an injustice, there's only one possibility. Our team is dirty."

Inside the car, there was only the hum of the air-conditioning and the sound of Lu Youliang tapping his own knee from time to time.

Lu Youliang said, "When we unexpectedly found Lu Guosheng's fingerprint, we added another fifty thousand to the original reward. After it was made known, we received phone calls making reports over and over, saying they'd seen a person like that somewhere. However fast we got there, we came up empty-handed.—Later this also became another confirmation that this business wasn't real."

"The materials of informers on record are all kept strictly secret. Only our own people know their identities," Luo Wenzhou said. "A petty thief couldn't come into a public security bureau to pilfer. If Gu Zhao was framed, then only our own people could have put things into his locker in the duty room.—Gu Zhao suspected that there was a rat in the City Bureau, so he chose to investigate on his own. But he also knew the rules, so when he found The Louvre in the end, to be rigorous about collecting evidence, he must have chosen a partner among the people he trusted. And that person killed him."

Lu Youliang seemed to age ten years in an instant.

Luo Wenzhou turned his head to look at him. "Uncle Lu, is there anything else you want to tell me?"

He had a feeling that there had to be something Lu Youliang wanted to say. But he waited a long time, and Director Lu at last avoided his line of sight. "No. This is all that I know. All of us old farts are suspects. This has to rely on you youngsters."

Luo Wenzhou looked at him deeply, then drove into the City Bureau's yard, considerately taking Lu Youliang up to the office building.

When he'd seen him drive off, Lu Youliang sighed gently and reached into his coat pocket—inside it was a miniature listening device that had run out of batteries.