Chapter 13

Part One: Perils of Officialdom. Chapter 13: The unexpected always happens

The next day was his great-uncle's funeral. Whatever they needed to do, they could not get away until it was over. His mother arrived by bus at noon to attend the funeral. To avoid attracting anyone's notice, she had looked up Zeng Jianhua's home address at the municipal archives. She had also learned that someone had seen Xu Si being summoned to the West City Hotel by the Provincial Inspection Team, and Jiang Mingcheng had gone in soon afterward.

Now that they had Zeng Jianhua's address, they were all growing anxious. Though they were seeing his great-uncle off, none of them felt any grief. The body was taken to the crematorium in the northwestern outskirts of the Dong She County seat, and the ashes were brought back and placed in the Pagoda Mausoleum in their hometown. His father's older cousin seemed afraid he would never enjoy such glory again and had made the funeral a grand affair. But many of his colleagues in the county had failed to attend as he had hoped, casting a shadow over his face and making his looks at Zhang Ke's father even darker.

After the funeral, over dinner, his father's cousin no longer concealed his feelings. "Zhixing is a city official. He's always been the hope of our Zhang family. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong master. Tang Xueqian's bribery is already an established fact. That woman he found is a coward. The moment the Provincial Inspection Team questioned her, she told them everything..."

Zhang Ke had not expected word of the Provincial Inspection Team's internal investigation that morning to reach Dong She County so quickly. His father drank with his head lowered, while his younger uncle looked furious but could not be bothered to respond. Zhang Ke watched coldly as his father's cousin continued his performance. "When Jiang Mingcheng saw Tang Xueqian's woman being summoned to the inspection team to explain herself, he couldn't sit still. He went to the Provincial Inspection Team afterward and turned himself in. Tang Xueqian had planted that woman in the Xinfeng Group, then demanded bribes from him three times, totaling 270,000 yuan. He deposited it all in that woman's account. Zhixing, you were so pleased with yourself back then. I told you to pay your respects to a few more powerful people, but you wouldn't listen. Now look. Tang Xueqian has fallen. What are you going to do...?"

His younger uncle was the first to lose patience with his father's cousin. He stood up and left, and his father and mother rose right after him. In truth, listening to his father's cousin now, Zhang Ke actually found him pitiful. But he could never forget that humiliation in his memories, like being slapped across the face. Zhang Ke stood up and shoved the bowls and plates in front of him forward. They clattered and rolled aside, frightening everyone else at the table into standing up. Zhang Ke grabbed the edge of the table and heaved, sending the leftovers, bowls, plates, chopsticks, and spoons crashing to the floor.

"What are you doing?" Zhang Zhixing stopped in the doorway and sternly reprimanded his son at this sudden outburst.

Zhang Ke smiled and walked over. "After all that crap out of his mouth, can't I at least flip his table?"

Zhang Zhixing glanced back at his ashen-faced cousin, said nothing, and walked out. Liang Gezhen, however, kept complaining. "What's gotten into you? Why did you suddenly lose your temper like that?"

Zhang Ke grinned. "Who lost their temper? I was just teaching someone like him a little lesson. If Dad flipped the table, they'd probably start fighting on the spot. If I do it, he can only swallow the insult."

Zhang Ke had no intention of obediently finishing three years of high school and then going to university. He needed to change how everyone saw him now. Once this business with Tang Xueqian was over, he would really get to work.

"That's enough. He's still your elder. If you dare flip another table, I might just flip the top of your skull off." Seeing his son's smug expression, Zhang Zhixing feared making his younger cousin feel too embarrassed, so he sharpened his tone to stop the boy from boasting any further. Yet he was astonished that his son could understand people so precisely and still erupt at a moment's notice. Was this really a sixteen-year-old child?

Zhang Zhifei gave an awkward smile. "That's just how our older cousin is. So many people from the county didn't show up today, and he had too much to drink. He was just talking nonsense..."

Zhang Ke did not mind his father scolding him. "We couldn't get any news, but Uncle found it out for us. I really shouldn't have flipped his table. I remember the last three entries in the notebook adding up to exactly 270,000 yuan, the same amount Jiang Mingcheng gave Xu Si. They want to pin those three payments on Uncle Tang. Where did the more than four million recorded before those three payments go?"

Zhang Zhixing, too, could not help marveling at his son's quick, meticulous thinking and his unerring grasp of the problem. He was nothing like a sixteen-year-old boy. Secretly delighted, he nevertheless kept a stern face to stop the brat from getting too pleased with himself. "At this point, things are already quite clear. We only need to find Zeng Jianhua tomorrow, and we'll get to the bottom of it..."

That night, Zhang Ke and his parents returned to the city in his younger uncle's Jetta. The Provincial Inspection Team had already obtained "conclusive" evidence that Tang Xueqian had accepted bribes. Afraid the team might suddenly come looking for him, his father decided not to go home for the time being. The four of them found a hotel and stayed there. The next day, his mother went straight from the hotel to work at the municipal petitions bureau. Zhang Ke, his father, and his younger uncle had breakfast at a small eatery beside the hotel before driving to the residential complex where Zeng Jianhua lived.

Zhang Ke vaguely felt something was wrong and suggested waiting until after the workday began before going to Zeng Jianhua's home to see what they could find out, rather than rushing to meet him.

Zeng Jianhua lived in a residential complex built with funds raised internally by the Xinfeng Group. With so little time, they could not find anyone to ask for more detailed information. His younger uncle parked at the entrance while Zhang Ke and his father followed the address written on the slip of paper directly to Zeng Jianhua's home. Hearing voices inside, Zhang Ke glanced at his father and reached out to press the doorbell. A middle-aged woman of about forty opened the door and looked questioningly at the two of them.

"Who are you looking for?"

"Are you Manager Zeng's wife?" Having considered the various situations they might encounter beforehand, Zhang Zhixing asked tentatively, "Is Manager Zeng home?"

"What do you want with him?" Seeing the wariness in the middle-aged woman's eyes, Zhang Ke knew things were not so simple.

"A friend introduced me to Manager Zeng. I have some business matters in Haizhou that I'd like his help with. It wasn't convenient to see him at the company, so I came here specially to pay him a visit..."

"There's no point looking for him..." The middle-aged woman's face darkened. "I'm not his wife. I'm his older sister. He ran off with the company's money, and the police have been looking everywhere for him. It's been almost half a month. His wife took their child back to her parents' home. I'm looking after the place for him..."

So that was what had happened! Suppressing his shock, Zhang Ke tugged his father's sleeve. "Oh, I see. Then we won't trouble you..." Pulling at his father's sleeve, he hurried downstairs.

As they emerged from the stairwell, Zhang Ke suddenly noticed a Santana parked in front of the building. Two men inside were leaning toward the windows to look their way. One of them had been keeping watch downstairs at Tang Xueqian's home the previous evening; presumably, his shift had brought him here. Before coming to find Zeng Jianhua, they had never expected plainclothes officers to be stationed outside his home, and they had not looked carefully before going upstairs. It had been a real mistake.

Seeing the two men open their doors and approach, Zhang Ke took his father's hand, suppressed his panic, and walked toward them. He addressed the man who had been outside Tang Xueqian's home the day before. "Oh, you've been transferred here today?" His words left the man standing there in surprise. Puzzled for a long moment, he did not reach out to stop Zhang Ke and Zhang Zhixing, but instead went into the stairwell with his colleague.

Once the two men had entered the stairwell, Zhang Ke tugged his father and quickened his pace toward the exit. After rounding a corner and making sure they could not be seen, he pulled his father into a run. They scrambled into his younger uncle's Jetta at the entrance to the complex. Without even stopping to catch his breath, he said urgently, "Drive, quickly. Don't wait. Go straight to the provincial capital..."