Drapeau fantôme

Chapitre 41

"I don't care about anything else now," Huang Jieyuan answered without hesitation. "As long as I can live with my conscience, that's all that matters! That bastard, when I find him, even if the law punishes me first, I'll accept it!"

Luo Fei was taken aback. He suddenly realized that another person had appeared before him, someone willing to break the law to punish evil. How should he view this person? Should he also consider this steadfast fighter his enemy?

Unable to answer himself, he could only shake his head with a wry smile.

Huang Jieyuan seemed to see through Luo Fei's thoughts. He leaned forward and gently patted Luo Fei's shoulder, saying, "Captain Luo, you should support me no matter what. If I really catch that guy, maybe Ding Ke will be able to make a comeback!"

Not bad. Luo Fei had a sudden thought: Ding Ke retired because of the 112 massacre. If he could help Ding Ke resolve this mental burden, he wouldn't need to hide anymore, right? So, although the 112 massacre wasn't within his jurisdiction, from the perspective of hunting down Eumenides, he should be on the same side as Huang Jieyuan.

This world is truly complex. Right and wrong are entangled in a web of confusion, making it incredibly difficult to uphold any principle.

After pondering for a long time, Luo Fei finally looked at Huang Jieyuan and said, "Go ahead and do it—if you encounter any difficulties, I can help you."

"That's enough!" Huang Jieyuan clapped his hands happily, then picked up the cup of iced tea in front of him and drank it all in one gulp.

At 10:00 AM on November 2nd.

Inside the Criminal Investigation Brigade's conference room.

Because they stayed out too late at the "Black Magic" bar, today's task force meeting was postponed. Led by Luo Fei, Mu Jianyun, Yin Jian, Zeng Rihua, and Liu Song all arrived on time.

"Liu Song, tell everyone about the situation on your end first." Nothing major happened that day, except for some minor "twists and turns" on the line that Liu Song was monitoring.

Liu Song then recounted the conflict between Du Mingqiang and Chang Kai from the previous night. When he mentioned the part about using vigilante justice to teach Du Mingqiang a lesson, Luo Fei specifically reminded Yin Jian, who was in charge of taking meeting minutes, "You don't need to write that in."

Yin Jian and the others smiled knowingly. Since the "April 18th Special Task Force" was rebuilt, such a relaxed atmosphere had rarely appeared in a meeting.

"That guy's a real jerk, all smooth talk and a whole bunch of tricks up his sleeve. You have to teach those kinds of people a lesson! The tougher you are, the more obedient they'll be," Zeng Rihua said, pursing his lips. He'd also taken action when arresting Du Mingqiang, and thinking back on it still made him feel incredibly satisfied.

Mu Jianyun shook his head slightly, seemingly feeling uneasy. However, thinking back to his meeting with Du Mingqiang yesterday, the other party's self-righteous attitude was indeed quite annoying.

"Nothing else went wrong after that, right?" Luo Fei steered the conversation back on track to avoid straying too far from the main topic.

Liu Song replied, "No—he's been staying home obediently ever since. Today I'm taking him to the criminal investigation team, and he didn't object. I've put him in the lounge, and we'll let him out after our meeting."

They could take it all in at will, and release it as they pleased. This had truly become bait manipulated by the police. Luo Fei nodded, satisfied with the situation. Then, after a moment's thought, he asked, "When you two rest at night, you won't be in the same room. Won't that give Eumenides an opening?"

"No way," Liu Song said confidently. "It's on the ninth floor! There are security cameras outside the windows, and my brothers are also secretly keeping watch outside the building."

Luo Fei grunted in agreement: "This surveillance will last for a relatively long time, so you need to be prepared for a protracted battle. Do you have enough manpower? If not, I'll transfer a few more people from the criminal investigation team."

"No need, having too many people would only make us more vulnerable. Besides—your mission over there is also very demanding." Liu Song said, glancing at Yin Jian with a knowing look in his eyes.

Luo Fei understood Liu Song's meaning, and he turned his gaze over, asking directly, "Yin Jian, have you made any progress on your end?"

Yin Jian put down his pen, looking worried. "Still no news of Han Hao."

Liu Song didn't speak, but his face clearly showed his dissatisfaction.

Luo Fei frowned as well: "Has he already left the provincial capital?"

Yin Jian licked his lips helplessly: "Right now... we can't rule out that possibility either..."

Liu Song sighed heavily. With Han Hao's abilities, if he were really allowed to leave the city, it would be like a tiger entering the deep mountains. Where would they find him again?

"I think Han Hao is still in the city," Mu Jianyun interjected casually. "He won't run away like a stray dog; that's not in his nature."

Luo Fei nodded slightly: Yes. Han Hao is an extremely arrogant and vindictive person; how could he be willing to admit defeat and leave like this?

"Do you remember what Han Hao said to his son a few days ago?" Mu Jianyun asked again, as if prompting him.

Luo Fei's mind raced, and Han Dongdong's childish voice echoed in his ears: "He went to catch a bad guy, a very, very bad guy."

That really bad person was none other than Eumenides! It was he who caused Han Hao to be implicated in a bloodbath, forcing him to abandon his wife and children and flee for his life.

Yin Jian and Liu Song both perked up at that moment. Clearly, they had also remembered Han Dongdong's words and understood their meaning.

Han Hao will not only not leave, but he will also stay close to the task force, because he and the police are both hunting a common target—Eumenides.

However, Yin Jian quickly looked dejected: "Where could he be hiding? We've checked every hotel and inn in the city, and his relatives and friends are keeping a close eye on him. Where could he possibly hide in the provincial capital?"

Luo Fei closed his eyes slightly, recalling Huang Jieyuan's theories of "net fishing" and "fishing." Han Hao was undoubtedly a cunning big fish, so even if the police cast a wide net, it would be difficult to catch him. After careful consideration, Luo Fei made a decision: "Let's put the investigation and surveillance of Han Hao on hold for now."

Liu Song immediately expressed his doubt: "Why?"

"Concentrate all our efforts on tracking down Eumenides. This way, we'll keep a close eye on this lead, and Han Hao will definitely show up," Luo Fei explained briefly. "That's the 'fishing' theory."

Those present were all sensible people, and they quickly grasped Luo Fei's meaning. Even Liu Song didn't say anything more.

Seeing that no one had any objections, Luo Fei moved on to the next topic: "Any results from the investigation into Chen Tianqiao?"

Yin Jian was also in charge of this matter. He reported to Luo Fei, "Yesterday afternoon I mainly focused on this matter. Although I don't know where he is now, I've got a basic understanding of his situation."

Luo Fei nodded, signaling him to explain in detail.

Yin Jian then explained in detail: "Chen Tianqiao, born in 1939, is a local resident. He has never had a legitimate job. In 1982, he was sentenced to three years of probation for speculation. This man is eloquent, but also good at deceiving and swindling. In his early years, he borrowed and swindled money under the guise of partnerships in business, helping to purchase scarce goods, and helping to find jobs. Wen Hongbing's debt relationship with him occurred during this period. The money that came into his hands was basically gone forever. If you tried to sue him, he wouldn't be afraid. Because he always wrote IOUs for the loans, it was difficult for the police to file a case. They could only mediate it as a civil economic dispute. Many people had no choice but to accept their bad luck, while others were driven to desperation and resorted to extreme measures. The '130 case' is an example. Later, public anger grew, and with the crackdown, they finally arrested him and imprisoned him for seven years. However, after his release, he didn't change his ways. In 1995, he registered a biological company to raise snails, which was actually a scam."

"What? So raising snails is what he did?" Zeng Rihua suddenly blurted out, his eyes wide. This drew everyone's attention. He didn't care about such things and cursed angrily, "Damn it! My parents raised these snails back then, and they lost a lot of money."

This time, Mu Jianyun wasn't disgusted by Zeng Rihua's vulgar behavior. Instead, she echoed him with sympathy, saying, "My neighbor also keeps them; those things really cause a lot of trouble."

Because Luo Fei wasn't in the provincial capital, he didn't know much about the matter, so he patiently listened to Yin Jian's detailed explanation: "This incident caused quite a stir in the provincial capital back then. Chen Tianqiao's company claimed to have imported French white jade snails, promising that after breeding them, they could be sold abroad to make a fortune, thus luring people into participating. Initially, people were skeptical, so he first signed buyback contracts, meaning that as long as you raised them, he would definitely buy them back at a high price. This led a small group of people to buy some larvae to raise at home, just to try it out. A few months later, the snails matured, and Chen Tianqiao indeed bought them back as promised, so these farmers all made money. He..." Having tasted success, the farmers naturally expanded their operations, hoping to earn even more money. Meanwhile, those around them were also drawn in, joining the ranks of snail farmers. Thus, the snowball effect grew larger and larger; by 1997, nearly a thousand families in the provincial capital were raising snails, with the total amount spent on larvae reaching over three million yuan. According to the contract terms, Chen Tianqiao's company was supposed to pay nearly ten million yuan to repurchase the mature snails by the end of that year. However, the farmers didn't live to see that day. In June 1997, after selling the last batch of snail larvae, Chen Tianqiao declared bankruptcy and disappeared without a trace.

Luo Fei understood. Similar scams had been very popular for a time, and he had heard of them when he was in Longzhou: "Shouldn't this kind of case fall under the jurisdiction of the Economic Crime Investigation Division? How come Chen Tianqiao absconded with the money, and no one has been able to apprehend him all these years?"

Yin Jian replied, "It can only be said that Chen Tianqiao is too cunning. He had a mistress at the time, and the biotechnology company was registered in her name. Then he registered another company himself. While defrauding the public through the biotechnology company, he also used some legal transactions to saddle the biotechnology company with a large amount of debt from his own company. In June 1997, the biotechnology company transferred all the funds to Chen Tianqiao's company under the guise of repaying debts. After that, Chen Tianqiao disappeared with the money. After this cycle, it was impossible to catch him legally, so the Economic Crime Investigation Team could only look for him under the pretext of assisting in the investigation, and could not launch a large-scale public manhunt."

"What about that woman? Did she run away too?"

Yin Jian chuckled, "The most unlucky one is that woman. She's nominally the legal representative of the biotech company, but she doesn't understand anything about the intricacies of the business. Chen Tianqiao transferred funds and disappeared without even telling her. She's become Chen Tianqiao's scapegoat, because they weren't officially married, so Chen Tianqiao doesn't even have to bear any joint liability."

"That guy is disgusting!" Zeng Rihua couldn't help but curse when he thought of how his parents had been scammed. At the time, they really didn't know that Chen Tianqiao was the mastermind. The deceived people only managed to corner a woman, and that woman had no assets. Even if she was sentenced, it wouldn't be able to recover the losses of the victims.

"A typical example of someone who's only after profit." Mu Jianyun defined Chen Tianqiao with disdain. "This kind of person only cares about money; they'll abandon all feelings, morality, and ethics for money."

"So finding this person is really difficult..." Yin Jian said, as if complaining, "because it's impossible for us to break through his social connections—almost everyone who knows Chen Tianqiao has been swindled by him, everyone is looking for him, but no one knows where he is."

Mu Jianyun guessed, "He's probably gone to some second-tier city to enjoy life. The money he swindled is enough for him to live a carefree life for quite some time!"

"Spending my parents' money to live a life of luxury—" Zeng Rihua grew increasingly indignant, "Damn it, don't let me catch him, or I'll make sure he never has a peaceful life again."

Luo Fei suddenly realized something and looked at Zeng Rihua with some confusion: "Weren't you assisting Yin Jian in investigating Chen Tianqiao? Why do you two seem to have little communication?"

"Oh." Zeng Rihua scratched his head. "I've been busy with other things these past few days. Yin Jian has been handling everything for Chen Tianqiao alone."

"Other things?" Luo Fei frowned, somewhat puzzled.

"It's related to the case..." Zeng Rihua explained, "...and you'll all be very interested if I tell you."

Mu Jianyun glanced at him and urged, "Then hurry up and tell me."

Zeng Rihua looked around at everyone and said, "I'm simulating Wen Chengyu's portrait." His tone was lazy, but his expression revealed a sense of pride.

Sure enough, his words immediately piqued everyone's interest. They looked at Zeng Rihua with a mixture of excitement and curiosity. Luo Fei immediately pressed for details: "How exactly will this simulation be done?"

Zeng Rihua felt great about the attention he received; his earlier displeasure was long forgotten. He leaned back in his chair, looking quite relaxed, before saying, "Didn't we find photos of Wen Chengyu's parents? Based on those photos, plus photos of Wen Chengyu as a child, we can use specialized computer software to create a rough outline of what Wen Chengyu will look like as an adult."

"Oh?" Although Luo Fei didn't understand computers, he roughly understood the principle, and his face immediately filled with anticipation. "Is the portrait finished yet?"

Liu Song and the others were also extremely concerned. If they could really obtain Wen Chengyu's portrait, the police's subsequent work would undoubtedly be much more efficient.

Unfortunately, Zeng Rihua shook his head: "How could it be so fast? This work isn't that simple..." Seeing that everyone didn't quite understand, he explained in more detail: "I organized technical personnel from the provincial department to develop this software last year, and it was just completed recently. I need to explain the principle behind the software's operation: In fact, computers themselves don't have predictive capabilities; they can only replace the human brain to complete a large amount of statistical and analytical work, thereby deriving some general laws. Therefore, the software we developed requires inputting a large amount of three-dimensional facial data of parents and direct descendants, and then performing genetic feature comparisons to form certain fitting patterns. The more data input, the more reliable the analysis. So, for a while now, my development team has been working on improving the database collection, and we can only say that it's already at a preliminary stage."

"Can it be put into application?" This was Luo Fei's biggest concern.

"Yes—" Zeng Rihua answered affirmatively at first, but then changed the subject, "but in this specific case, there are still some obstacles."

What obstacle?

"This software fits data based on three-dimensional data. However, we only have two-dimensional photos of Wen Chengyu's parents. Therefore, for the software to work properly, we must first find a way to convert the two-dimensional data into three-dimensional data."

"Can this be done on a computer?"

Zeng Rihua grinned and said, "Not for now. As I said, computers can only perform statistical and inductive work; they can't perform imaginative work. If we want the computer to convert two-dimensional data into three-dimensional data, we'll have to develop a completely new software, input a large amount of two-dimensional and three-dimensional data, and then the computer can analyze it based on this database. But developing such software will take at least another six months."

Luo Fei shook his head: "Then it's a bit beyond our reach..."

"That's how it was supposed to be, so when I saw photos of Wen Chengyu's parents a couple of days ago, I didn't think of using them to simulate Wen Chengyu's appearance..."

Luo Fei understood the underlying meaning in Zeng Rihua's words and knew that the other party liked to keep things mysterious, so he smiled and asked again, "Is there a turning point now?"

Zeng Rihua chuckled and said proudly, "Yesterday, while I was online, I happened to see a news article about a seventy-year-old itinerant artist in the old alleys of Dongguan in this city who makes clay sculptures. This old gentleman has a unique skill: the human heads he sculpts from clay are extremely lifelike!"

Mu Jianyun guessed what was going on: "So he can create a portrait just by looking at a photo?"

"Indeed! He's been sculpting portraits for over fifty years; his accumulated experience probably surpasses even the databases in computers," Zeng Rihua remarked. "Yesterday afternoon, I went to find this old gentleman, and he's agreed to help us create portraits of Wen Chengyu's parents. Once his portraits are finished, I can use a computer to collect 3D data and then create a model of Wen Chengyu's current head."

"Very good!" Luo Fei controlled his emotions and calmly pressed on, "How much longer will it take to complete this work?"

"I estimate that we'll have Wen Chengyu's composite sketch in three to five days at the earliest, and a week at the latest!"

The people in the room exchanged excited glances. This was arguably the most exciting information the task force had obtained in recent days. At a time when their pursuit of Ding Ke and Chen Tianqiao had encountered setbacks, this change undoubtedly brought a sense of relief and exhilaration. Zeng Rihua, in particular, was beaming with pride, grinning smugly while stealing glances at Mu Jianyun's reaction.

Luo Fei maintained his meticulous and cautious thinking. Amidst the jubilation of everyone, he didn't forget to instruct Yin Jian: "Take some men and bring the old man to the criminal investigation team as soon as possible. If he really doesn't want to leave home, have someone accompany him and make sure his safety is guaranteed."

Yin Jian immediately and readily agreed to the order.

Because the safety of the veteran performers wasn't considered in time, Zeng Rihua's contribution seemed somewhat overshadowed. He shook his large head, speaking with a hint of self-justification, "Captain Luo, you're being a bit too cautious... My operation yesterday was absolutely secret; even you didn't know about it, so how could Eumenides have?"

"That being said, it's always better to be cautious," Mu Jianyun said to Luo Fei, expressing his support. "After all, we're dealing with some extraordinary characters; we need to be absolutely certain of success in whatever we do."

Seeing Mu Jianyun's attitude, Zeng Rihua stopped arguing. He stretched and yawned, "That's fine. You can all just wait patiently for my good news!"

The Fate of the Death Sentence (23)

Nothing happened that day.

As night deepened, even in a first-tier city like the provincial capital, the streets gradually became deserted.

Luo Fei was alone in the room, taking advantage of the quiet to organize his thoughts.

Just like the desolate night, the work of the 418 task force had also fallen into a slump. In the past two days, their investigations in all directions had made no breakthroughs, especially on the front lines, where it was extremely difficult to find clues about Ding Ke, who had been missing for so long.

However, this Ding Ke is also the key figure who knows Eumenides' background, and at the same time, he is the link between the focus of the task force and Eumenides.

Eumenides has been silent since the incident at the internet cafe. Is he also facing the same problem and at a loss? It should be noted that Eumenides' desire to find Ding Ke is much stronger than that of the police.

However, the tranquility at this moment also hinted at a storm brewing: Eumenides had already issued a death sentence to Du Mingqiang, which meant that he would inevitably launch a new round of fighting with the police this month; more importantly, there was the good news received at today's meeting - Zeng Rihua had begun to create a composite sketch of Eumenides. If this work was completed successfully, the police could turn the tide and reverse the passive situation that had been in place since the start of the battle!

A fierce battle is imminent. Now is the time for both sides to recuperate. I should also relax and regroup.

With this thought in mind, Luo Fei went to bed early to settle down and rest. Little did he know that a storm was brewing!

11:25 PM, inside the Longyu Building.

Located in the city center, this 27-story building houses the headquarters of the Longyu Group. Although it was nearly midnight, the building was brightly lit. A dozen or so men dressed in black and wearing sunglasses stood guard at the building's entrance, their expressions imposing. Occasionally, passersby would stop to watch out of curiosity upon seeing this display, but they dared not get too close—the Longyu Group's reputation was simply too great; ordinary people simply couldn't afford to offend them.

In fact, security was tight not only at the building entrance but also inside. Men in black were stationed and guarded at elevator and stairwell entrances. This was especially true on the 18th floor, where guards were stationed at every turn in the corridors, with layers of security extending all the way to the security checkpoint at the end of the corridor.