Chapter 344: The Unfamiliar Number

“A bunch of bastards!” Dugu Qiuhun gritted his teeth. “I did this all for the Transmigration Group, and these traitors are waving the flag of democracy! The Transmigration Group will be ruined by them sooner or later!”

After Dugu Qiuhun’s emotions had stabilized a little, Ji Xin asked him to talk about the situation that night.

“There’s nothing to talk about. I’ve told Ran Yao several times,” Dugu Qiuhun said. “I only thought of leading a team in to suppress the riot to protect the Executive Committee.” At this point, he became agitated again. “Commissar Ma has worked his heart out for all the transmigrators, and a group of idle talkers are making trouble over a few women. Is the great cause of transmigration more important, or are their genitals more important? Is there any justice in this?”

Ji Xin thought to himself that it was a very bad thing for Dugu to mention Ma Qianzhu all the time. He coughed and reminded him, “Let’s talk about your own business. Don’t mention others.”

But this reminder was obviously ineffective. Dugu Qiuhun still couldn’t stop talking about Ma Qianzhu, which made Ji Xin secretly complain. Wasn’t this just providing ammunition for the anti-Ma forces? This Dugu Qiuhun was seriously lacking in sense.

He subconsciously looked around. Could there be listening devices here? But on second thought, Ran Yao probably wouldn’t dare—eavesdropping on the conversations of transmigrators would be a major political incident if exposed, and whoever touched it would be finished. Ran Yao would definitely not touch this high-voltage line, and he had no need to.

Besides, this was the Army Club. The army had always been a place where Ma Qianzhu had deep influence. Dugu Qiuhun’s relationship with the army was not shallow either. It was impossible for the army to allow such a thing to happen on its own turf.

Ji Xin had no choice but to ignore these things and focus on asking about what happened that day.

“I’ve said it many times. You can look at the materials—Ran Yao must have given them to you.”

“I know, but I want to hear you say it again,” Ji Xin said. “One more time, don’t leave out any details.”

“Alright.”

So Dugu Qiuhun recounted the events of that day again. Ji Xin listened very carefully—in general, there were no discrepancies with the materials. It was only when he mentioned “someone called” that he interrupted Dugu Qiuhun.

“So you only knew about the demonstration after receiving a phone call?”

“Of course. I was sleeping outside the city. I’m the outer perimeter security commander, and I sleep at the police station every day, ready to deal with emergencies. I didn’t expect to be protecting such a bunch of bastards…” Dugu Qiuhun started to complain again.

Ji Xin asked, “Who called?”

“Many people called,” Dugu Qiuhun said nonchalantly. “It was a mess. Several calls came in, some on my mobile phone, some on my office phone.” He rattled off several names, some of whom Ji Xin knew, and some he didn’t. He asked about the identity of each of these people one by one. Finally, he asked:

“Who told you that someone was besieging the Executive Committee?”

“Every call was about this—”

“No,” Ji Xin reminded him. “You just mentioned that one person said ‘demonstration’,” Ji Xin said. “Think back carefully. What exactly did each person say on the phone?”

“What’s the difference?”

“The difference is huge,” Ji Xin said. Besieging the Executive Committee and demonstrating at the Executive Committee seemed to be about the same thing, but at the time, the sense of urgency was completely different.

At Ji Xin’s reminder, Dugu Qiuhun tried hard to recall the content of each phone call. It had been many days since the incident, and it was indeed difficult to recall. But there was one thing he was sure of: there was one call he didn’t know who it was from.

“It definitely wasn’t someone I knew,” Dugu Qiuhun was very certain.

“Whose number was it?”

“I don’t know whose it was. It was very unfamiliar.”

“Do you still have the number?”

“It’s on my phone. My phone has been suspended by the telecommunications company. I can’t even chat with people. It’s so boring. Ptooey!” Dugu Qiuhun was indignant.

Ji Xin was slightly relieved. If the phone had been confiscated, many links in the chain of evidence could have been lost, making it difficult to investigate. Now that the Political Security General Bureau had not confiscated the phone, it at least showed that Ran Yao was innocent in this matter. Ji Xin had already planned that if the Political Security General Bureau had really played tricks in this incident, even if Ma Jia disagreed, he would mobilize the masses to “smash the Political Security General Bureau to pieces”—he was not afraid of anything.

Dugu Qiuhun showed him his phone. Ji Xin copied down all the incoming call numbers during that period.

Obviously, this unknown caller was highly suspicious, although Dugu Qiuhun could not be sure that it was this call that said “besieging the Executive Committee.”

Ji Xin decided to start from this aspect, to investigate the matter and gather more information.

Before leaving, he reminded Dugu Qiuhun again, “Sort out the whole story. When you’re defending yourself, just talk about your own business.” Ji Xin suddenly lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don’t mention the Commissar again!”

Dugu Qiuhun was stunned for a moment, then nodded in understanding. He said with some regret, “I was so confused! Now it’s all in the materials!”

Ji Xin left the Army Club with the interview notes. He went directly to Lingao Telecom and asked to see Li Yunxing.

In Li Yunxing’s office, Ji Xin showed his letter of appointment to handle the Dugu Qiuhun case and asked Li Yunxing to cooperate with the investigation.

“No problem,” Li Yunxing readily agreed. “Damn, that Dugu Qiuhun kid really lost his mind. I heard he originally wanted to take over the telecommunications building and cut off communications? This is simply lawless!”

Ji Xin was surprised. This was mentioned in Li Yiyang’s confession. Only the parties involved, Dugu Qiuhun and Li Yiyang, knew about it. The entire file of this case was still confidential. How did Li Yunxing know?

“Li Yiyang said it, right?” Ji Xin said, deliberately putting on a casual air. “He’s been implicated and suffered a lot.”

“Everyone in Bairen City is talking about this. Who is Li Yiyang?” Li Yunxing said with great interest. “Are there other people involved?”

“Everyone is talking about this?” Ji Xin was shocked.

“That’s right. I also heard it from someone,” Li Yunxing seemed very interested in this matter and kept asking if there was any inside information.

“Not yet,” Ji Xin said vaguely, handing him the copied numbers. “Can you help me check whose numbers these are?”

“You don’t need me to check this, do you?” Li Yunxing said. “Don’t you have an internal phone book? You can check everyone’s mobile phone number.”

“Please help me check. It’s more credible. This is evidence to be presented at the hearing.”

“A small matter,” he said, instructing a native clerk to check who owned each number.

Ji Xin also asked if he could check the numbers that had called Dugu Qiuhun’s mobile phone during the incident, the specific times, and the duration of the calls. He was afraid that there might be omissions in the records on Dugu Qiuhun’s phone or that he might have deleted something.

“Alright,” Li Yunxing nodded. “But you have to give me some paperwork.”

“This is a search warrant from the Arbitration Tribunal.” To facilitate the investigation, Ma Jia had prepared several blank legal documents for him in advance, all stamped. He just needed to fill in the date and reason, and add his personal signature to use them.

“My goodness, the Arbitration Tribunal is really fast. They even have search warrants,” Li Yunxing said, taking the search warrant and looking at it over and over as if it were a rare object. Then he made an internal call to Shao Zong, instructing him to immediately retrieve Dugu Qiuhun’s call records from the server.

Fifteen minutes later, Shao Zong brought the materials.

“Are there any omissions?” Li Yunxing knew this was no small matter and did not dare to be careless. He asked again.

“It’s all here. This is printed directly from the computer,” Shao Zong said. “I heard it’s for evidence. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have turned on this printer.”

“Thank you so much,” Ji Xin said. “Can you give me a desk? I need to check it.”

Li Yunxing instructed someone to give him an office. Ji Xin took this printout and the list of number holders sent by the native clerk and checked them one by one.

The records on the phone and the records on the server were consistent. The list of number holders was almost all Dugu’s friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Ji Xin saw that there was only one number with no name, just a simple “public number.”

He took the number and asked Li Yunxing. Li Yunxing told him that there were several public PHS phones in Bairen City—the manual switchboard of the Transmigration Group could not connect to mobile phones. To facilitate communication, these public mobile phones were specially set up, chained in a special box, but they were rarely used.

“How many places have them?”

“There’s one in the Executive Committee compound, one in the cafeteria, one in the public entertainment room, and one in the café at the demonstration farm.”

“The Executive Committee compound?!” Ji Xin cried out.

“Yes, in the Executive Committee’s confidential communications room,” Li Yunxing looked at him strangely.

“Oh,” Ji Xin thought it was unlikely to be this number. The confidential communications room must have a strict usage registration system. If someone wanted to play tricks, they would not use it.

“This number is from the public entertainment room,” Li Yunxing said. “I know it without checking the phone book.”

“Thank you,” Ji Xin said, quickly taking his leave. He immediately went to the public entertainment room.

The public entertainment room was a place in Bairen City specifically for the entertainment of all the transmigrators. Its internal structure was a mixture of an internet café and a library. In addition to books and newspapers printed in Lingao, there were also computers for accessing the internal network and playing games, various game consoles such as PS3, Xbox 360, and PSP, as well as entertainment equipment such as televisions, DVDs, stereos, and karaoke. This was the place where the transmigrators came most often in their daily lives.

The public mobile phone was set up in a corner. There was a rotary phone here, and a PHS phone in a plastic protective case, chained to the wall, was clearly visible.