A Different Approach

"What do you mean, a logical closed loop?" Zhou Mei asked.

"My judgment is completely different from yours!" Lin Xiaosu said. "Qi Hongzhong is not Ghost Eye Lao Qi, and the flaws he left behind before fleeing weren't flaws at all. They were smokescreens deliberately planted!"

"Tell me your reasons!" Zhou Mei's heart jolted...

A moment ago, inspiration had struck her, and she had thought she'd tapped into instincts honed over many years. She had even been excited after saying it aloud.

But before three seconds had passed, Lin Xiaosu dumped a bucket of cold water over her.

Lin Xiaosu raised two fingers. "I have two points. First, as a big shot capable of keeping Fengcheng's underground syndicate firmly under his control, if he wanted to eliminate someone who threatened them, he had a hundred ways to keep himself out of it. He would never force himself to be barred from entering Great Xia for the rest of his life just to deal with an unknown nobody like me!"

Zhou Mei frowned slightly. With that one sentence, she found herself unable to respond.

That was right. This operation was essentially an exchange: Lin Xiaosu's death in return for him never being able to enter Great Xia again.

If he really was Ghost Eye Lao Qi, was that really the extent of his ambition?

Trading one-for-one with an unknown nobody?

"Second, the drug trade is inherently sensitive. Anyone who can survive in that industry is exceptionally shrewd. If they wanted to hide themselves, there was no way two cops like us could uncover so many flaws in just two hours."

The two reasons were highly convincing.

Yet no one knew that they were not the real reasons.

The real reason was that the words Lin Xiaosu had heard through lip-reading formed a logical closed loop here.

The bespectacled man he had tracked through Time Reversal in the car was Qi Hongzhong. He had said something absurd to that killer: if you get caught, give me up!

At first, Lin Xiaosu had been a little confused by those words.

Now, he understood completely.

It had been deliberate!

Qi Hongzhong had deliberately exposed flaws, deliberately created a misleading trail, deliberately drawn the police's attention to himself, then fled abroad under the name Ghost Eye Lao Qi to relieve the pressure on Fengcheng's drug syndicate.

Captain Zhang's eyes lit up...

He had also thought of another suspicious point. They had interrogated the two suspects and, with almost no effort, gotten "Ghost Eye Lao Qi" out of them. It had gone a little too smoothly.

Only if the other side had arranged it deliberately did it make sense.

"Then why do you think he did that?" Zhou Mei asked.

"It's simple. He used himself to draw our attention and buy temporary safety for Fengcheng's underground syndicate. It's like sacrificing the rook to protect the king in chess!"

Captain Zhang's heart pounded...

He understood Lin Xiaosu's second point now.

If the police identified Qi Hongzhong as Ghost Eye Lao Qi, then as long as Qi Hongzhong had left the country, every operation to round up Fengcheng's network would have to stop.

That was exactly what they wanted: for the police to stop.

Perhaps they had already sensed the danger, so they used Qi Hongzhong to buy themselves time to relocate.

Without Lin Xiaosu's reminder, he really would have fallen for it.

Even their superiors would have fallen for it.

Because that was the most basic rule of handling a case.

Captain Zhang's gaze flickered. "Say everything you want to say!"

"If solving a case is viewed as a war," Lin Xiaosu said, "then we have to break free of the track they set for us and take control of the war's pace and direction ourselves! I suggest you put some effort into another angle."

"What angle?"

"Follow the money!"

The money flow?

Every evil transaction in the world ultimately came down to money. Their goal was money, so the flow of money was the most truthful chain of all...

"Of course we've been monitoring the money flow!" Zhou Mei said. "The funds that were visible before belonged to the Five Tiger Generals. Their wealth grew too quickly, which was what first alerted us. But after we realized that the Five Tiger Generals weren't the true leaders of this organization, we believed there had to be another, more hidden and much larger financial chain. Unfortunately, we searched for a long time and never found it."

That was simply common sense when it came to criminal organizations.

Criminal organizations were not formed for "universal love."

They existed for profit!

If the Five Tiger Generals were the actual controllers of the group, then once the money chain ended with them, the loop would be complete.

But they weren't!

There was another person truly in control!

That person should have received even greater profits.

How were those profits obtained, and who received them?

That was the question giving the police the biggest headache...

Lin Xiaosu lifted his teacup, his eyes faintly gleaming. "Let's follow the visible lines first. The Five Tiger Generals' money is also moving. Where does it go?"

"Squandered!" Sun Yang spoke up. "All five of them are the very embodiment of extravagance and excess. They rely on enormous wealth obtained through means of uncertain legality, then spend it lavishly."

"How do they spend it?"

Sun Yang said, "Well... if I went into detail, I couldn't finish in three days and three nights. Anyway, they use every method of extravagance you can imagine: keeping mistresses, partying, buying luxury cars, renovating mansions, and so on..."

"A general description won't do!" Lin Xiaosu said. "Maybe you should make a list. Who did what, how much they spent, where they spent it, exactly what they bought, whom they kept, how much they gave during those arrangements, and how those people spent the money... Put it all into a spreadsheet."

Sun Yang was stunned. "That... isn't a simple task."

"Do you think outsmarting a criminal organization is simple, Officer Sun?" Lin Xiaosu asked.

"Of course it isn't simple, but this isn't the main direction of the case... Is there really a need for it?"

"There is!"

The conference room fell silent.

Zhou Mei and Sun Yang exchanged looks, each seeing helplessness in the other's eyes.

This kid was getting a little carried away because of Captain Zhang's favor.

Relying on Captain Zhang's trust, he had started assigning work to the people below him.

And did he think this assignment was easy?

Those five spent money every day, and he wanted a detailed list of exactly how they spent it? Their identities were sensitive. It was already difficult for the police to get close to them, so where were they supposed to find those details?

He even wanted them to identify the people they kept. Heaven knew, no matter who was keeping whom, it was inherently secretive. He wanted them to investigate how much money those people received and what they did with it. Did he know how massive that workload would be?

Captain Zhang slowly raised his head. "Xiaosu, why do you think this needs to be done?"

"Because I once saw a case similar to this one. There's nothing new under the sun. Many crimes are simply repetitions."

That was the truth. The case he had seen was recorded in the 101 Case Records.

That case record was not a physical book but an electronic version. Just hearing the file size would show how terrifying it was: a total of 8,000G, containing nearly every representative criminal case.

It included not only cases since the founding of the nation, but also cases from ancient and modern times, both domestic and foreign.

An ordinary person could not finish reading that case record in years. Even with Humanity Orchid Heart and a photographic memory, it had taken him two full days and nights to finish it.

That was probably the real foundation that gave him the confidence to open a detective agency: his reserve of information.

"There's nothing new under the sun. Many things are repetitions! I like that!" Captain Zhang raised a hand and dialed a number. "Come in!"

About five minutes later, the elevator chimed, and a thin police officer with streaks of gray in his hair walked in.

His name was Wang Donghe. Back in the day, he had been a vigorous member of the Criminal Investigation Brigade. Later, he had been stabbed three times during an operation, injuring his lungs, and had entered a semi-retired state.

Yet tonight, after one call from Captain Zhang, he had appeared in less than five minutes. What did that mean?

It meant he had actually been working overtime in this very building!

He was not nearly as leisurely as everyone thought.

"Donghe, that assignment you volunteered for when you left the front lines because of your injuries three years ago may have been meaningful after all," Captain Zhang said. "Because Fengcheng's great detective here has proposed the same line of thought as you!"

A flush suddenly appeared on Wang Donghe's pale face. "Captain Zhang, do you want to know the full situation?"

"Come. Show us the results of your work over the past three years."

"Yes!"

Wang Donghe walked over to the computer...

He opened his phone case, revealing a tiny USB drive inside.

He plugged the USB drive into the computer, and all kinds of information were projected onto the screen.

Brother Hu's money flow...

Brother He's money flow...

Sister Feng's money flow...

Beneath each money flow were lists, photographs, amounts, and even the people who had accepted bribes. Of course, the photographs of those bribed individuals were blank, with code names beneath them.

The photographs of the women they kept were blank as well, with code names beneath them.

Zhou Mei's eyes lit up...

Sun Yang's expression shifted wildly...

He was an outstanding graduate of the police academy. Just moments ago, he had thought Lin Xiaosu's proposal was stupid. Yet in the blink of an eye, an old criminal investigator had arrived and displayed the results of three years of work—results that perfectly matched Lin Xiaosu's proposal.

What did that mean?

At the very least, it meant Lin Xiaosu's proposal was not stupid.

Because this old criminal investigator, who had spent a full thirty years battling on the front lines of criminal investigation, had used his injury as cover three years ago. He had retired in name but continued working in secret, doing exactly what Lin Xiaosu had suggested.

Only Captain Zhang in the Criminal Investigation Brigade knew about this.

Could he call Lin Xiaosu stupid? Could he also say that thirty years of criminal investigation experience was worthless?

If Wang Donghe had been willing to spend three years on this, how could it possibly have had no value?

"I'm impressed!" Lin Xiaosu said. "So Captain Zhang had already made arrangements."

"The Five Tiger Generals have sensitive identities. If the police got too close, we would alert them," Captain Zhang said. "So on the surface, we haven't approached them too closely, but that doesn't mean we haven't studied them in depth. This information is extremely important and involves many people. You don't need to know the specific identities. You only need to understand the general flow of the money."

"This information is already very detailed!" Lin Xiaosu said.

"Good. Then what do you see?"

"One conclusion, and one point of doubt!"

"Oh? Go on!"

"One conclusion is that the Five Tiger Generals are definitely involved in underground dealings!" Lin Xiaosu said.

How could he tell?

Their income from legitimate businesses was far from enough to match the growth of their actual wealth. In other words, their legitimate income alone could not possibly support their massive spending.

They definitely had another hidden source of income.

"And the point of doubt?"

"The point of doubt is Sister Feng!" Lin Xiaosu said. "The wealth she squandered far exceeded that of the other four Tigers. Does she hold a higher position in the organization? Does she receive more illicit income?"

Sister Feng alone had spent forty million on jewelry at Fengcheng Jewelry Store. The other four Tigers might own luxury cars and mansions everywhere, but in a small place like Fengcheng, luxury cars and mansions were not actually worth that much. Added together, they might not even equal forty million.