Chapter 385: The First Clues

Liu Fuqing rarely wore a uniform to work. In his own words, “I’m old, and tight clothes are uncomfortable.” Fortunately, as a detective, he wasn’t required to wear a uniform except on special occasions. After returning to Lingao, he wore a half-worn blue robe every day. Because he wore a “carefree scarf,” his lack of a topknot was not noticeable.

Because he always wore “old-fashioned” clothes, he was reported more than once within the Political Security Bureau for “harboring feelings for the Ming Dynasty” and “slandering the national uniform”—even though the Senate had never officially declared the “Australian style” of clothing to be the national uniform.

He always spoke with a smile and walked slowly, giving off an air of a refined scholar. Those who didn’t know him would probably mistake him for an old, unsuccessful scholar or a poor tutor who taught children.

This was Liu Fuqing’s appearance even before he surrendered to the short-hairs. He was always amiable to everyone. The blustering and shouting were the tricks of the yamen runners and spies. As a dignified clerk of the Ministry of Justice, he only needed to negotiate terms with people in teahouses and then, with a few strokes of his pen back at the ministry, he could decide a person’s fate.

After arriving in Lingao, he remained the same, but he no longer took bribes—not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t dare. The chiefs had no need for his extensive knowledge of “ministry regulations” and were ruthless in their punishments. Fortunately, the chiefs were much more generous with their salaries than the Ming Dynasty, and houses were also sold to naturalized citizens like him on a priority basis. Liu Fuqing now had a five-year mortgage—a symbol of envy in Lingao. Only the “red” naturalized citizens or those who had “surrendered to the short-hairs” early on had the possibility of shouldering such a mortgage. Ordinary naturalized citizens could only wait in line.

The Senate had both “saved his life” and “recognized his talent.” Since accepting the appointment as the leader of the “Sun Umbrella” special investigation team, Liu Fuqing felt rejuvenated and was full of energy every day.

As soon as he took office, he arranged for the close surveillance of Li Yongxun. He monitored her movements 24/7 and conducted a comprehensive investigation of her social circle. Based on the previous situation, he judged that Li Yongxun must be in contact with someone in Lingao. As long as he could find this person, he could follow the clues and unravel the whole network.

However, to his disappointment, Li Yongxun seemed to have realized something and suddenly cut off all contact. The surveillance on her yielded nothing.

This was a huge surprise to Liu Fuqing. He immediately began a carpet search of the people Li Yongxun had contacted and the places she had been to in the previous stage, hoping to find new clues.

So far, no new clues had been found. Liu Fuqing began to worry. This was a “major case” personally assigned by the headquarters chief. If he couldn’t find any clues, how could he explain it to the chief?

If he directly interrogated her, she would surely confess. But then, what was the point of having him? What the chief wanted was to “cast a long line to catch a big fish.”

After smoking a whole box of cigarettes and pacing around his office countless times, Liu Fuqing returned to his desk and began to study the materials spread out on it again.

In the middle of the table was Li Yongxun’s personnel contact chart. Many names were drawn out from around her name. The lines indicated their relationship with Li Yongxun, and some even had horizontal connections with each other, which were also noted in small print.

He had ordered a thorough investigation of all these people, but the results were fruitless.

Liu Fuqing stared at the personnel chart for a few minutes, then picked up a pencil and drew four heavy circles around the names of the people closest to Li Yongxun. Then he pulled the bell rope. A subordinate entered.

“Put these people on the 24-hour surveillance list.”

The first person on the list was Zuo Yamei.

In the same building, while Liu Fuqing was worrying about the lack of progress in the Li Yongxun case, a detective from the investigation department, Yang Cao, who had been working for ten hours straight, opened a document that a messenger had just delivered from the department.

Such documents were usually forwarded only after the informant network under the surveillance department had discovered suspicious clues worth digging into.

As the “capital” of the Senate, Lingao had extremely strict internal controls. Not only were there informants everywhere, but every district also had a Political Security Bureau investigation network to discover and deal with “suspicious situations” reported by informants at any time.

More than ninety percent of the clues were dealt with or filtered out at the investigation network level. Those that could be sent to the bureau’s investigation department were all considered “major clues” or “major cases” that the investigation network could not handle on its own.

The document was a forwarded report from the surveillance point at the Qiong’an Inn. Like all inns, the Qiong’an Inn was a key surveillance target of the Security Bureau because it was a resting place for outsiders. Not only was the guest register checked every day, but a special surveillance report also had to be filled out. The instructor of the investigation network would inspect the work every day.

Starting from more than ten days ago, the ten-person team at the Qiong’an Inn had been reporting to the instructor that a newly arrived wealthy family was rather suspicious and might have many martial arts figures with them.

It was not uncommon for wealthy families to have martial artists accompanying them on long journeys, either hired from escort agencies or retained as martial arts instructors.

But this time, the surveillance personnel noticed some unusual clues.

First, the Zhuo family had brought an unusually large number of maids. According to their guest register, the Zhuo family was from Huguang. It was a journey of thousands of miles from Huguang to here, yet they had brought seven or eight maids.

In ancient times, travel was difficult, and it was very inconvenient for women to live and travel. Therefore, in principle, women tried not to travel far. Even the mistresses and old ladies of wealthy families would at most bring one or two capable maids to take care of their daily needs when they went out, and would not bring many maids. If it was a man traveling, even a wealthy one, he would rarely bring a woman with him. That’s why there was the saying that a pageboy was versatile and could even serve as a concubine at night.

Although the Zhuo family had an old lady with them, it was still very strange for just one old lady and one young master to bring so many maids on the road.

Next, the surveillance personnel discovered a second strange thing: although the family usually spoke Mandarin, the accents of the maids, servants, and masters were all different.

Although the servants could come from all over the country, their accents would tend to converge after living together for a long time. Most importantly, the old lady’s Mandarin accent was completely different from the young master’s!

As the suspicions grew, the instructor, through the Ninth Division of the National Police General Affairs, invited Zhou Shizhai, a former escort of the Qiwei Escort Agency who was now a consultant for the National Police.

Hearing that there were martial arts figures inside, Zhou Shizhai did not show himself rashly. He only walked around the courtyard, looked at the people coming in and out from outside the courtyard, and questioned the waiter for half an hour. When he came back, he told the instructor very clearly: “This is not a family!”

Everyone in the courtyard had martial arts skills, and they were quite good. The so-called “young master” was particularly skilled.

“So, they’re a gang of robbers?” the instructor asked Zhou Shizhai.

Zhou Shizhai shook his head. “No, robbers don’t do business like this. They’ve spent so much money, they must have other plans.”

The instructor immediately thought of the recently cracked “Umbrella” case, which also involved martial arts figures.

So the case was transferred to the investigation department. Because the case involved people from the jianghu, and because Yang Cao came from a jianghu opera troupe and could be considered half one of them, it was assigned to her.

Political Security First-Class Commander Yang Cao was engrossed in reading the transferred files in her office. She was very tired. It was already dawn, but she couldn’t get off work yet—at least not until she finished reading the case files. When she reached for a Gaoshanling cigarette, she noticed that the ashtray was full. She rang the electric bell on her desk. A probationary associate walked into the office. Yang Cao didn’t speak to him, but pointed at the ashtray. The probationary associate stood at attention, nodded, replaced it with a new one, and then went out, closing the door.

No words, no jokes. This was the impression Political Security First-Class Commander Yang Cao gave people. She was a student of the first Political Security training class. As everyone knew, this class was personally selected by Director Zhao and personally supervised by Director Wu. The graduates of this class had all taken up leadership positions, and some had even made outstanding achievements on the political security front.

Yang Cao was one of the best in this class. Although she was not the most outstanding in her professional studies, she was a fanatic, with the fanaticism and ruthlessness of a martyr.

She came from a humble background and was abused in her youth, both physically and mentally. She had been through the eighteen levels of hell. It was the Senate that saved her life, and more importantly, gave her dignity and the power of revenge.

Yang Cao didn’t care what the Senate’s purpose was or what it wanted to do in the future. She hated the Ming Dynasty, and she hated everyone in the Ming Dynasty who had a higher status than her, a half-prostitute actress. In the bureau, Political Security First-Class Commander Yang Cao had a reputation for being a fanatic. Destruction and revenge were what she cared about most. As a wholehearted supporter of the Senate, Yang Cao’s ideology was simple and firm, and had never wavered, not at all. She threw herself into the pursuit of traitors. She hated them, hated their ingratitude, hated their opposition to the Senate—even if they only thought or talked about it. She was cold and passionate, just like when she was “in the zone” when she was acting. She felt a sense of exhilaration during the pursuit and interrogation.

Yang Cao was almost thirty. Someone had introduced her to a naturalized citizen cadre—it was said that he didn’t care about her past. Yang Cao rejected the marriage without hesitation. She said, “The Senate is my master. My life only continues to kill traitors!”