Chapter 1600 - Deep Throat
He forced himself to stay calm. "This humble one doesn't know what this is... It doesn't look like writing..."
At that moment, the female officer who had been silent suddenly spoke:
"Do you know Li Yongxun?"
Lin Ming tensed. Though he had already suspected this was why he'd been brought in, being confronted with the question so directly still made his hands and feet go cold. He could barely speak.
He stammered: "This humble one doesn't know her..."
The female officer actually smiled. "Stop playing dumb. You came here specifically to find her, didn't you? Inspector Lin of the Hundred."
Lin Ming was at a loss for words. Making one last desperate attempt, he forced a smile:
"Chief, I'm just a poor sailor. I'm no inspector..."
"You can drop the act. The shopkeeper Liu at Runshitang—he knows you quite well. Those regular gifts you received from him during the holidays never missed a beat..."
Lin Ming cursed inwardly: How could he have forgotten this! The Runshitang pharmacy in Lingao had a branch in Foshan, and the manager there had close dealings with his family.
Seeing that further denial was useless, he hung his head. "Since you already know, why bother asking?"
Seeing that he had admitted his identity, the female officer continued: "What are you doing in Lingao?"
"Looking for Li Yongxun. She's my wife's younger sister. She disappeared in Macau, and I owe her family an explanation."
"How did you know she was in Lingao? Did someone send you information?"
"No, I figured it out myself."
The female officer clearly didn't believe him and repeatedly pressed him about whether he had contacts in the area or other objectives. Lin Ming flatly denied everything, insisting that his visit to Lingao was entirely personal and that he had no one helping him.
"He confessed everything." Several hours later, Yang Cao reported to Wu Mu. "It matches what Li Yongxun said."
Wu Mu flipped through the materials Yang Cao had brought, looking somewhat disappointed—no leads.
"Are you certain they're both telling the truth?"
"Their statements are fully consistent," Yang Cao said. "So Li Yongxun probably isn't lying—she's been under our surveillance the whole time. As for Lin Ming, we're verifying his statement now. Based on his confession and social connections, we've drawn up a list of persons to assist in the investigation, and we're bringing them in one by one."
Wu Mu stood and began pacing restlessly around the office, hands clasped behind his back. This was bad, he thought. Given the scale of this disturbance and the nature of the attack on Qian Duoduo, if he failed to identify the "deep throat" inside Lingao, there was no way he could satisfy anyone.
He already knew that Shan Liang and several other Elders were stirring, preparing to launch an impeachment at the next assembly. The Elders from the Cultural Affairs sector, who were most directly affected, were furious. Qian Duoduo's father was the Speaker and head of the Flying Cloud Society, wielding considerable power in the Elder Council. If he chose to ally with Shan Liang... The Propaganda sector might have published "positive coverage," but that was for naturalized citizens and natives—how they would write for the Elders remained uncertain...
"Should we proceed to the next phase of questioning?"
Yang Cao saw that her superior was unsatisfied and made a suggestion. According to regulations, intensifying interrogation for suspects in major cases had to proceed in stages, with each escalation requiring approval from superiors.
"I authorize you to proceed to Stage Two. Focus on getting every detail of their activities in Lingao."
"Yes, Chief."
"Xin Nachun! Open the door! We're the police!" Several officers in black gathered at a room in a tea house, the squad leader shouting.
There was no sound from inside. The door had been bolted from within.
Half an hour earlier, they had been ordered to arrest Xin Nachun at the call-girl station where she worked. But the other women there said she hadn't been seen all day yesterday.
Since she wasn't at the inn where she lodged, the officers immediately headed to the tea house where she often took clients and learned that she had indeed booked a room there but had never checked out.
The squad leader nodded, and an officer who had been standing ready immediately swung a breaching ram at the lock.
With a thunderous crash, the door burst open. The officers waiting outside rushed in, instantly filling the small room.
"Damn!" the squad leader cursed. The woman they were looking for, Xin Nachun, lay motionless on the bed. Her two eyes, gray and clouded, stared up at the ceiling. That voluptuous, alluring body of hers had gone cold and stiff.
News of Xin Nachun's death reached the task force immediately, disappointing Liu Fuqing, who had high hopes. Though the autopsy report was not yet in, she had obviously been silenced. As for the silencer, it was most likely the "Seventh Master" mentioned in several statements. Xin Nachun had probably been his contact, which was why the cunning mole had killed her before launching the operation.
Originally, Liu Fuqing had suspected that "Seventh Master" might be the Embroidered Guard Inspector Lin Ming, linked to Li Yongxun. However, after cross-checking, they found he had no opportunity to commit the crime. While this didn't completely clear Lin Ming, it made him far less likely to be Seventh Master.
He and Yang Cao had both thought Lin Ming was a "big fish" and that Li Yongxun might be a Ming Dynasty "deep throat" planted inside Lingao. But as the interrogation deepened and peripheral witnesses provided statements, the suspicion around Lin Ming and his sister-in-law continued to shrink.
Given the current information, if one had to be serious about it, aside from the sister-in-law's failure to immediately report her brother-in-law—an "agent of hostile forces"—who had infiltrated Lingao, there really wasn't much of a crime. As for Lin Ming, if one ignored his identity, he could be considered innocent... though, of course, there was the matter of forging his documents.
This left the task force putting all their hopes on the heroic men and women of the martial world. All captured martial artists who weren't too badly wounded were currently suffering in interrogation rooms. Their statements were flooding into the task force, but so far nothing useful had emerged.
After twelve hours of first-round interrogation, Liu Fuqing had roughly sorted the captured martial artists into grades. Unfortunately, those currently being tortured mercilessly in the interrogation rooms were mostly low-level figures. The key figures among the prisoners, Zhuo Yifan and Sima Qiudao, were both severely wounded and being treated in the hospital's monitored ward. Harsh interrogation was out of the question—even basic questioning would be difficult.
As for the people arrested at the Huang Family Pharmacy in Nanbao, they were quite cooperative and confessed everything. Yet they too had no idea who Seventh Master really was. Huang Zhen testified that all their contact with Seventh Master had been through Sima Qiudao.
But Sima Qiudao was now on the verge of death. His confession would have to wait a few more days.
Liu Fuqing paced around the large table piled with documents, glancing from time to time at the complex relationship diagram on the blackboard, racking his brain for a breakthrough.
Yang Cao sat on the edge of the table, chain-smoking. The room was already thick with smoke. Everyone except Liu Fuqing had been driven out by the fumes. After a long silence, she said:
"If Lin Ming isn't Seventh Master, then who is? It must be someone naturalized."
"That's like looking for a needle in a haystack. There are hundreds of thousands of naturalized citizens in Lingao," Liu Fuqing said with a bitter smile.
"No—this person is no ordinary naturalized citizen," Yang Cao said. "Huang Zhen mentioned that Seventh Master provided them with a booklet called Notes on Pacifying the Shorn. It contained many details about our management practices. An ordinary farmhand or factory worker couldn't know these things. Either he holds some position of authority, or he works in a sensitive department."
"You're right. But even so, the pool is still large," Liu Fuqing reminded her. "I've thought about this too. If only we could see the book, we could analyze the author's likely department based on its contents."
"Huang Zhen is trying to recall and write it out from memory, but it'll probably be fragmentary—not much use." Yang Cao frowned. "Let's go through the case once more."
"All right."
Though there had been multiple firefights across Lingao County throughout the previous day, only three had been initiated by the terrorists: the street intersection outside the stadium, the ambush at the Wenlan River dock, and the attack on the folk music troupe.
The first needed little discussion. According to statements, they had known about the Cultural Festival at the stadium well in advance and had planned to concentrate their forces there to assassinate Elders. Reconnaissance materials and statements from "cooperative interviewees" also outlined how they had gathered intelligence and "cased" the surroundings. Interrogation of the captured terrorists largely confirmed this.
"Don't you find it strange, Lao Liu?" Yang Cao suddenly said. "How did the terrorists who ambushed the Xiaocang know there was an Elder aboard?"
"The intel must have come from Seventh Master," Liu Fuqing said deliberately. "Unfortunately, everyone who ambushed the Xiaocang is dead..."
"One got away," Yang Cao said. "Young Chief Qian said one escaped."
"But who was it that got away?"
"That doesn't matter," Yang Cao said, her eyes gleaming. "Even if we knew who escaped, they probably don't know who supplied the intelligence—just another 'Seventh Master.' But think about it: how many naturalized citizens could have known the Xiaocang's itinerary and that it was headed to the stadium?"
"Quite a few, actually. Just the dock at Bopu alone has many people..." Liu Fuqing suddenly stopped himself: Exactly! That day, many naturalized citizens knew they were going to the stadium. But even if they knew, how could they have relayed the information to the terrorists? The terrorists had no telephone or telegraph! And according to Qian Duoduo's statement, the terrorists at the dock had clearly made careful preparations. One of the women had even put on a female student uniform that Xin Nachun had procured.