After following Little Lu to the district bureau, Li Ye was warmly greeted by Captain Pang, who grasped his hand.
"Hello, Comrade Li Ye. I'm Pang Zhongxian. I truly have to thank you for your assistance this time. The composite sketch you provided was a tremendous help. I've been so worried about catching these bastards these past few days that my hair was practically falling out."
Looking at Captain Pang's graying hair, Li Ye believed in the man's urgency to solve the case. Anyone who repeatedly encountered such disgusting cases involving human lives would be under immense pressure to crack them.
But Pang Zhongxian continued, "Comrade Li, when you identify the suspects later, don't listen to their nonsense. These people are like dogs—the fiercer they bark, the more cowardly they are."
Li Ye froze for a moment, not understanding what Pang Zhongxian meant.
But once he arrived at the identification site, he understood completely.
In the early nineties, many government departments on the mainland were strapped for funds. For a time, even the payment of wages ran into one problem after another.
The one-way mirrors used for suspect identification in Hong Kong and Taiwanese films were absolutely an unnecessary luxury. They basically did not exist in mainland Public Security Bureaus.
So in a case like Li Ye's, identifying suspects meant facing them directly, face-to-face, in the same room. There was little protection for the witness's privacy or safety.
Thus, when Li Ye came face-to-face with the suspects who had been "invited" in, they immediately began clamoring like monkeys drunk on baijiu, chattering away nonstop.
"Say, Captain Pang, are you getting someone to identify us? Did you run into some major case with a deadline and decide to frame good people like us as scapegoats?"
"Yeah, Captain Pang. We're all