Chapter 2053 - A Special Memento
"Knock knock."
"Come in!"
The three of them turned to see Nan Wan'er enter, carrying a woven rattan case in her left hand with a satchel draped over it and a paper bag balanced in her right.
"Director Ai, Director Wang, Director Zhang..." After pausing at the doorway to greet each leader in turn, Nan Wan'er placed everything on the coffee table in front of the sofa at Zhang Xiaoqi's gesture. "This case was kept in Chu Xiaoran's dormitory room. The satchel was in her office." She opened the paper bag, revealing a notebook and miscellaneous documents. "These were found in her office."
"Chu Xiaoran should also have a notebook in the tax service window drawer, used for work records. I didn't have time to get it yet given the rush..."
"No need—thank you. You may go." Hearing Nan Wan'er refer to Chu Xiaoran by name rather than the usual "Sister Chu" or "Comrade Chu," Wang Qiyi couldn't help but glance at her.
"This is a book for tracking expenses, plus some daily notes..." Zhang Xiaoqi opened the notebook, glanced at the first page, then hesitated and set it down again.
"Come on now, Director Zhang! Don't go bringing privacy protections into this era. The person's dead—we need to figure out why, and fast!" Ai Zhixin grabbed the notebook, about to flip through it, when Zhang Xiaoqi stopped him again. "Respect for the dead—even as Elders, isn't it improper for us to just paw through her personal privacy like this..."
Wang Qiyi nodded gravely. "Director Ai is right. Right now, the priority is figuring out why she killed herself. She was a member of the investigation team. A sudden suicide means Political Security will definitely inquire. When the internal and external investigations come, there won't be a shred of privacy left anyway..."
Only then did Zhang Xiaoqi relent. Wang Qiyi said, "How about this—Sister Zhang, you check her case and bag. She was after all a woman, and there must be some personal items. It's not appropriate for us to look."
"Alright."
Ai Zhixin opened the notebook and flipped through page by page for quite a while before tossing it back on the table in disappointment. "...Utterly useless."
Wang Qiyi picked it up to look. It was a diary-style daily planner. Chu Xiaoran came from a scholarly family and could read and write. The notebook was written in small, elegant calligraphy. She was clearly a meticulous person—the contents were extremely detailed. Not only did it record daily work arrangements and key points, but also a running account of income and expenses. There wasn't actually much personal emotional content. Wang Qiyi flipped from beginning to end—apart from occasional gaps and the last few days before the suicide being left blank, the entries were largely uniform.
Meanwhile, Zhang Xiaoqi first checked the satchel. Inside were just a few tax booklets, some documents and promotional materials, and some stationery. Nothing special. From the bag, she also retrieved a package claim stub from the Guangzhou Postal Bureau: two days ago, Chu Xiaoran had sent a package to her daughter studying at Fangcaodi. The contents were listed as "clothes and food."
She then opened the case—it was a small woven rattan travel case manufactured by the Lingao Luggage Factory. Appropriate in size and very sturdy, many naturalized cadres had purchased them. It was practically standard equipment for naturalized cadres in Guangzhou. Inside were just a few changes of undergarments and two sets of publicly issued cadre uniforms. Nothing special. Digging to the bottom layer, she finally touched a round object, hard to the feel.
Pulling it out, she saw it was wrapped tightly in cloth. Zhang Xiaoqi unwrapped the bundle to find it further wrapped in newspaper and cloth scraps. Growing more curious, she opened everything to discover a large bowl, quite exquisite. After studying it for a moment, she suddenly noticed three characters fired into the rim: "Yuyuan Lou."
Zhang Xiaoqi's eyelid twitched. She knew Yuyuan Lou—it was right by the Pearl River, a famous large restaurant locally. Most critically: Yuyuan Lou was Lin Zunxiu's family property!
Lin Zunxiu was one of the main suspects implicated in the Guangzhou tax case, yet Chu Xiaoran had treasured a bowl from a restaurant under his name!
The care with which she'd kept it among her clothing spoke volumes about its importance. Yet the bowl itself, though fine, wasn't particularly valuable—clearly, it carried emotional significance as a memento of some event or person. Could it be...
Zhang Xiaoqi didn't dare continue that line of thought. She'd originally assumed this young mother was pure, a victim of the old society. And in Chu Xiaoran's daily work and life, she'd appeared completely serious, even devoid of personal feelings. Zhang Xiaoqi had felt entirely at ease about her. But clearly, things weren't so simple. She couldn't bear to see another Han Yue incident. Not only had that affected the Tax Bureau's work, but it had also cast an extremely negative shadow on the Elders' view of women.
She hesitated, set the bowl aside, and continued searching—when suddenly she discovered two letters.
"There are two letters!" Zhang Xiaoqi picked up the envelopes and exclaimed.
"What?!"
One envelope bore the names of all three of them written neatly; the other bore her daughter's name.
Neither was sealed—these were obviously farewell letters.
Zhang Xiaoqi took the first one, opened it, read a few lines, and her face flushed red. Wang Qiyi knew this was a sign of his wife's emotional agitation and quickly asked, "What is it?"
"See for yourself." Zhang Xiaoqi handed the letter to Wang Qiyi, her expression clearly one of relief. She saw Ai Zhixin sitting there holding the other letter, not opening it, just turning it over and over in his hands, and asked, "What's in that letter?"
"It's Chu Xiaoran's letter to her daughter. Unsealed. Do you want to read it?" Ai Zhixin held up the letter between two fingers and waved it.
"You haven't read it?"
"No." Ai Zhixin sighed. "I'm afraid reading it would kill my appetite."
"Then I won't read it either." Zhang Xiaoqi said dejectedly. "I don't think it's necessary. Leave it for Wu Mu and his people."
By the time she'd finished speaking, Wang Qiyi had already read the letter. With a dark expression, he passed it over. Ai Zhixin took it and read—the letter was short, just a few lines.
He finished and flicked the letter in his hand. "All spelled out. Such a pity... because of a meal? Even if it was a life-saving meal, was that worth repaying with her life? What do you call this? Ignorance! Ignorance!" Ai Zhixin suddenly grew agitated. "She kept the small virtue but forgot the greater cause! Smith saved her and her daughter's lives? What a joke! It was the Executive Committee that saved them! It was us! Us! Without us, that bowl of food would only have delayed their deaths by one day! And what's this 'sorry to the Executive Committee'... MB, does she think her life is worth that much? Fuck, she's caused me more trouble than she was ever worth!" Ai Zhixin finally couldn't hold back and cursed.
With that, he threw the letter heavily onto the coffee table, stood up, put his hands on his hips, and paced angrily around the room twice. Still feeling suffocated, he went back behind his desk and, not caring whether Wang Qiyi and his wife smoked or not, lit a cigar and took several deep drags before calming down.
"Alright, Director Ai, what's done is done. She's gone—there's no use getting angry." Seeing Ai Zhixin's emotions settle slightly, Wang Qiyi stood up, grabbed the thermos, and filled Ai Zhixin's cup with water.
"No, no, no, Old Wang. I'll do it myself." Ai Zhixin wasn't so angry as to lose his head. Seeing Wang Qiyi pour water for him, he quickly dropped his cigar and stood to take the thermos with both hands.
"It's convenient. Sit." Wang Qiyi waved off Ai Zhixin's hand, filled the cup, capped it, and pushed it toward him. Then he slowly set down the thermos and sat across from Ai Zhixin.
"Look, Director Ai, this is truly infuriating, I know. Who could have anticipated this connection? We're the ones disaster has fallen upon while sitting at home." As he spoke, Wang Qiyi unhurriedly turned to reach for his cup on the coffee table. Zhang Xiaoqi passed him the cup and then shifted to sit on the sofa closer to Wang Qiyi.
"The letter we've all read now. It seems her suicide was simply because Smith once saved her and her daughter's lives, and now with her 'benefactor' in trouble, she felt compelled to help. But doing so betrayed the Executive Committee's grace in giving her a new life. So faced with this dilemma, she..."
"Says it was a life-saving meal." Ai Zhixin was still peeved. "MD—a cup of rice earns gratitude, a bushel earns resentment." He glared at the large bowl, wishing he could stomp it to pieces.
"Oh come on, Director Ai, this isn't 'bushel resentment.' Let me finish, let me finish..." Wang Qiyi stopped Ai Zhixin's complaints and continued, "To summarize: two life-saving benefactors got entangled, and the one rescued had to figure out how to repay both, right?"
"More or less."
"This scenario is ancient as dirt. Flip through history books and unofficial biographies—they're full of such cases. At least we have something to reference and won't be shooting blind."
"Old Wang, I have to say this—how is this the same? I know you want to argue extenuating circumstances, but forget about me—I doubt many in the Executive Committee would agree. You're forgetting the Han Yue incident? Nobody cares what your reasons are. What people look at is consequences. Forget Zheng Shangjie—even Liu Xiang got caught in some of the fallout, and he's an old hand from the original Guangzhou Station who passed the highest-level Political Security review."
"Right, you're absolutely right. People look at consequences. After all, they weren't there—how do they know whether the reasons are just made up by us field Elders?" Wang Qiyi paused and took a sip of tea. "But hasn't this failed to cause any serious consequences? Can Smith actually escape? In fact, I'd say this grass that startled the snake was startled well—saves us the trouble of slowly prying things out of him."
"Alright, Old Wang. I know you mean well. But a naturalized cadre dying like this—our Tax system has taken first place in the Executive Committee. We can't slide past this. Those trolls in Lingao—I know them. I'll take the hit on this. At worst..."
"Don't—that's not necessary." Wang Qiyi quickly waved his hand to stop Ai Zhixin. This young man's attitude actually touched him a little. "A rabbit knows to kick its legs before it dies. Our Tax Bureau has money and guns—how can we just let those trolls push us around?"
Next update: Volume 7 - Two Guangs Campaign Section 167
(End of Chapter)