Chapter Forty-Six: Zhang Chiguo (A 4,000-Character Plea for Monthly Votes)

"Xiao Han, go wash your hands. It's almost time to eat."

Before long, the food was ready. The three of them sat down to eat together. Surprisingly, Zhang Chiguo didn't bring up anything about what had happened ten years ago or their work at the Disaster Management Bureau. Instead, he kept asking Han Su whether his cooking had gotten worse.

Han Su answered by eating two big bowls of rice. He was thoroughly satisfied with the meal, and Zhang Chiguo looked pleased too.

After they finished eating, Cui Qiao went to wash the dishes. Clattering and banging sounds kept coming from the kitchen. Zhang Chiguo seemed not to hear them. He slowly took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one.

He didn't hurry to speak, and Han Su simply brought him a can of cola.

There was no tea in the house, only the cola they'd bought with the instant noodles. Han Su set a can in front of Zhang Chiguo, then quietly sat across from him and waited.

Zhang Chiguo glanced at Han Su and nodded. Secretary Cui Qiao, who was still wrestling with the bowls, immediately looked as if she'd been set free. She stood up, shook the suds from her hands, and went outside.

No one knew what she did, but the lights in the room suddenly began to flicker, as if there were a loose connection. Even the high-end television turned on for no apparent reason, though it had no signal and the picture kept flickering.

But when they looked out the window, they could see that only their own apartment was affected. The lights in the surrounding buildings remained steady.

"Is all this really necessary?"

Han Su watched and couldn't help laughing. Of course, he understood why Secretary Cui Qiao had come with him first: she'd been cleaning out the cameras and listening devices someone had planted in the room, all for this conversation between him and Zhang Chiguo.

But seeing that they even needed Secretary Cui to go outside and keep watch before starting the conversation—and to use her ability to block it off—seemed a little excessive.

"Of course it is."

Zhang Chiguo glanced at Han Su and nodded slightly. "Once you're familiar with this line of work, you'll understand. Sometimes, it isn't only dangerous if certain conversations are overheard."

"Sometimes, having the conversation at all is dangerous."

"..."

Han Su listened quietly. He picked up the cola in front of Zhang Chiguo, popped the tab with a hiss, and slid it back toward him.

Zhang Chiguo looked at the cola, set his cigarette down, and let it burn between his fingers. He regarded Han Su thoughtfully. "Xiao Han, your performance at the Disaster Management Bureau exceeded my expectations. I admit I underestimated your talent. You've earned the right to know some things."

"But before we begin, I still want to ask you something."

"Once you know certain things, there's no going back. Are you ready for that?"

"..."

Han Su looked Zhang Chiguo in the eye and said seriously, "Uncle Zhang, this Kidnapping Case came looking for me, and even now, it still hasn't let me go."

"So I have to get to the bottom of it."

Looking into Han Su's sincere eyes, Zhang Chiguo finally gave up trying to dissuade him. He let out a quiet sigh. "It's the same for me, really. After all these years, was there ever a day when I didn't think about this case?"

Han Su was already feeling a little nervous, though his expression remained composed. "Then..."

"At first, I just wanted to solve the case and find the missing children. I never imagined it would end up affecting the rest of my life..."

Zhang Chiguo spoke slowly, a bitter smile seeming to tug at the corner of his mouth. "In fact, even my joining the Disaster Management Bureau was connected to this."

"You've seen what I was like back then. I was desperate to investigate the case, but to be honest, I didn't believe what you said about monsters."

"I preferred to believe someone had drugged you or used some other method to mess with your mind. After all, you seemed dazed back then and couldn't even explain who you were or give us information about your family."

"Anything you said about being kidnapped was even less believable."

"..."

Han Su could understand. He only cared about one thing. "And... what happened after that?"

"After that..."

Zhang Chiguo's expression dimmed at the question. He lowered his voice. "I tried everything I could think of. The school, the school bus company, Azure Harbor's underworld, even the families of some of the victims. I was just trying to find a lead connected to the Kidnapping Case."

"But strangely, there were no leads."

"Or rather, every lead disappeared in an eerie way, as if the road just suddenly ended while you were walking along it."

"But I still uncovered some strange things. For example, I gathered the times when you vanished from surveillance footage and when you reappeared, then made a detailed reconstruction of the entire Kidnapping Case."

"I even thought what you'd said made perfect sense, and submitted a report."

"But after I submitted it, everyone around me thought I'd gone mad. My superior told me to rewrite it. I refused, so the Public Security Bureau forced me to take leave."

"Even then, I continued investigating through my own connections and contacts, until someone came to me and asked if I wanted to work in a new department."

"..."

Han Su shifted slightly as he listened. "Secretary Number 5?"

"Right!"

Zhang Chiguo's expression grew serious. "At the time, I even thought I'd run into a con artist, because Azure Harbor didn't have a Secretary Number 5."

Han Su could imagine what Zhang Chiguo had been thinking back then. So he, too, had gotten too close to these things while investigating, which was why Secretary Number 5 had noticed him?

"What happened after that?"

"After that, I stopped living like an ordinary person."

Zhang Chiguo let out a quiet breath. "The Disaster Management Bureau hadn't been fully established yet. Many people had to juggle several jobs, me included. That was when I finally saw the strange and absurd things that shouldn't have existed in reality."

"I have to admit, the shock of it made me doubt myself for a while. For a time, I even set your Kidnapping Case aside."

"I worked with the people Secretary Number 5 sent over to investigate, recruit staff, and establish procedures. I encountered more and more things that made no sense, until everything I'd once trusted finally fell apart..."

"..."

"Whoa..."

Listening to Zhang Chiguo's story, Han Su couldn't help feeling surprised.

"So, according to you, the Disaster Management Bureau has only been around for five or six years?"

Zhang Chiguo glanced at him. "Three years, to be precise. For the few years before that, we didn't even have an official name. There was just a group of us running around, cluelessly trying to keep busy while making sure we hadn't gone insane."

Han Su suddenly felt as if a light had gone on. "So that's why the Disaster Management Bureau always felt like some slapdash outfit to me."

"And on top of that, I knew Old Zhang was impressive, but I didn't realize he was practically a founding member of the Disaster Management Bureau."

"..."

Zhang Chiguo didn't try to guess what Han Su was thinking. He only shook his head slowly. "Of course, I never forgot your Kidnapping Case. By then, I'd come to believe everything you told me."

"I felt the same way I did when you questioned me a week ago:"

"If this city can have so many bizarre things, why couldn't the monster that kidnapped those children be real?"

"..."

At that point, Han Su immediately asked, "And then?"

Zhang Chiguo let out a quiet breath. "Then, just as I was trying to add the Kidnapping Case to the list of bizarre phenomena the Disaster Management Bureau needed to investigate with concentrated resources, I received a warning."

"What kind of warning?"

"It was simple. Just a reprimand."

As Zhang Chiguo spoke about it, his face remained expressionless.

But Han Su knew him. Perhaps this was when the old detective was most dissatisfied, yet had no choice but to act indifferent:

"Someone higher up said the Disaster Management Bureau had limited resources, and should focus on more urgent, more worthwhile work—not believe the ramblings of a child..."

"..."

Han Su fell silent. Then he suddenly remembered how he'd felt a week ago.

Defiant. Unwilling to accept it.

If he hadn't encountered the Ghost Truck, he could have understood why nobody believed him. The so-called monster kidnapping case was simply too far removed from the real world.

But after seeing the Ghost Truck—and discovering that plenty of people were already familiar with bizarre things like it, so familiar they barely reacted—he'd snapped.

Why could those things exist, while everyone insisted the monster kidnapping case was just a hallucination?

"Back then, the Disaster Management Bureau was organizing all the strange, inexplicable cases and leads from Azure Harbor in recent years that might be connected to the bizarre. My job was to add your Kidnapping Case to the list."

Zhang Chiguo continued, his voice full of helplessness. "But because of that one remark, the Kidnapping Case was excluded. It wasn't added to the list awaiting investigation."

"At the time, I even thought the information I'd gathered wasn't convincing enough. I kept looking for more, hoping to submit another report."

"But things didn't go the way I expected."

"..."

As he spoke, Zhang Chiguo finally lit the cigarette. His eyes seemed weary in the curling smoke.

"Your Kidnapping Case had a wide-reaching impact."

"It wasn't just me who submitted a report. Many investigators and data collectors who joined the Disaster Management Bureau around that time also tried to submit reports, believing the case might be related to our work."

"But..."

He paused, then sighed. "Every single one of them was rejected."

Han Su raised his head slightly. "Did they give any other explanation?"

"Not at first."

Zhang Chiguo slowly shook his head. "It just seemed as though our reports weren't convincing enough to make the people above accept them."

"Later, someone gathered all the information in detail and submitted it to the higher-ups. But that report was different from ours. Instead of proving the case was connected to the bizarre, it argued the exact opposite: that it had nothing to do with our work."

"Of course, that's part of an investigator's job: determine what a case is before deciding whether to follow up!"

"I never saw that report, but I'm sure it was full of holes. I can hardly imagine anyone making such absurd claims with such certainty."

"But the report was approved by the people above. From then on, there was no chance of adding the case to the list. We were even reprimanded, and forbidden from investigating it any further."

"..."

As Zhang Chiguo spoke, a trace of anger finally showed on his face. "I—and everyone else who disagreed—understood."

"The more complicated and incomprehensible a problem seems, the simpler its answer often is. Why was this Kidnapping Case so hard to classify?"

"Because someone didn't want it classified!"

"..."

Han Su understood those words deeply. He slowly raised his head. "Uncle Zhang, then who was the person who didn't want this case classified as a Bizarre Incident?"

"Don't ask."

Zhang Chiguo shook his head and looked Han Su in the eye. "Or rather, I don't know either."

"I was recruited by Secretary Number 5 personally, so I know the identities of most of the powerful figures at the Disaster Management Bureau and the people who can influence it. But even I can't guess the identity of the person who approved that report."

"I only know that I realized then that there was nothing I could do."

"I knew that if I was smart, the right thing to do was forget about the Kidnapping Case."

"..."

Han Su could imagine what Zhang Chiguo had been thinking at the time, and even understand his choice. He didn't feel any particular emotion about it.

He just smiled. "Uncle Zhang, in that case, I'm only interested in one thing. Who wrote the report that was sent up, the one that ruled out any supernatural connection to this Kidnapping Case?"

"A senior investigator with plenty of experience."

Zhang Chiguo's gaze deepened as he spoke slowly. "You can easily find out who he is. Once you have clearance, you can look it up yourself. But I don't think it matters."

"He was probably just following orders too."

"..."

Han Su said nothing. His fingers tapped unconsciously against his thigh. He understood what Zhang Chiguo was trying to tell him.

So this investigator was someone Han Su couldn't afford to provoke either?

"But that isn't the point."

To Han Su's surprise, Zhang Chiguo spoke again, his expression serious. "Back then, I understood what the people above meant, and I knew what a smart person should do. But..."

"...I've never been a smart person."

Seeing his solemn expression, Han Su felt his heart tremble slightly. "Then you..."

Zhang Chiguo spoke slowly. "Even though I understood what the people above meant, I didn't give up."

The investigation had reached a dead end in every direction, and he could no longer make use of certain high-level resources at the Disaster Management Bureau. But after thinking it over, he still found a new direction to investigate.

"That was your mother."

"..."