Siheyuan came through and sent Jia Zhang to prison

Zhao Lei suddenly looked up, startled by the startled shout. When he saw it was him, his brows furrowed immediately, and his tone was impatient: "Didn't I tell you two to keep an eye on Liu Li? Why did you come back? What happened to him?" Liu Li was their informant whom they had been monitoring for half a month. He held key clues about the smuggling gang, and the goods were supposed to be delivered tonight. They couldn't afford any mishaps at this crucial moment.

Liu Tao swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing, and finally managed to recount the bizarre death of Liu Li in the alley in detail. By the end, he was so anxious that he kept rubbing his hands together, his knuckles almost turning red: "Captain, we didn't dare to move anything at the scene, we just guarded it. What should we do now? This kind of thing happening at this critical moment... could it be the work of those smugglers?"

Zhao Lei rubbed his throbbing temples, feeling a buzzing in his head and a sinking feeling in his heart. Why did Liu Li have to die at this time? He had initially planned to organize the materials and report to the bureau chief that very night, but then he thought that disturbing too many people in the middle of the night would be inappropriate. The worst thing for a crime scene investigation is to delay; he had to go and check it out first.

"I understand." Zhao Lei stood up abruptly, grabbed his coat from the back of the chair and draped it over his shoulder. The coat still had dust on it from when he went out on a call a few days ago. "Call Lao Wang from the technical team, get the car ready, we're going to go and see what's going on."

Police cars roared through the empty streets, their flashing lights piercing the silence in the pre-dawn fog, alternating between red and blue. By the time they arrived at the scene, the sky was already turning a pale white, the grayish sky gradually revealing a faint glow. Zhao Lei and his technical team meticulously examined the area all night, from one end of the alley to the other, scrutinizing every crack in the brickwork and every scrap of paper in the garbage heaps. But apart from Liu Li's body, they found no clues—only scenes of a fight, all they knew was that Liu Li had been brutally beaten.

The next morning, when He Feng entered the police station, he saw Zhao Lei sitting on a bench in the corridor, leaning against the cold wall. His eyes were sunken, and a thick layer of bluish stubble covered his chin. He looked as if all his energy had been drained away, listless and lifeless. He felt a sinking feeling in his heart and quickly walked over: "What's wrong? You look like you've been through something."

Zhao Lei looked up and saw him, then suddenly stood up, his movements so hurried he almost tipped the chair over. His voice was hoarse, as if it had been sanded: "Chief, Liu Li... is dead." He recounted the discovery of the night in detail, then lowered his head in defeat, his voice filled with self-reproach, "When we arrived, he was already dead. We searched all night, but we couldn't find any useful clues. The scene was so clean it looked like it had been deliberately tidied up."

He Feng's fingers gripped the handle of his briefcase tightly, his knuckles turning white and the bony protrusions protruding. He was burning with anxiety—Liu Li's death was no accident. This was the third person to have his plans thwarted, from Jiang Hu to Zhang Jie, and now Liu Li. It was as if an invisible hand was precisely extinguishing the clues he had laid out, disrupting his plans step by step. But he showed no emotion on his face, only saying in a deep voice, "Thoroughly investigate Liu Li's cause of death. Contact the forensic doctor for a detailed autopsy. Also, find out who he's been in contact with recently, where he's been, even if he bought a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of water on the street—find out everything, not a single second can be missed."

"Yes!" Zhao Lei straightened his back, saluted, and turned to run towards the technical team, his steps filled with a desperate determination.

He Feng watched the man's figure disappear completely at the end of the corridor, the "tap-tap" of his leather shoes on the ground like the receding tide, gradually fading into the distant silence. He slowly turned around, his gaze falling on the window—the morning sunlight, as fierce as tempered steel needles, pierced through the thin layer of dust on the glass, casting a dazzling patch of light on the floor, almost making one squint. But even this intense light couldn't penetrate the shadows hidden in the city's folds—like the unseen transactions huddled in the shadows of back alley corners; like the hushed whispers behind closed doors and windows; and it couldn't penetrate the intricate calculations deep within people's hearts, the knives hidden behind smiles, the traps concealed beneath gentle words.

He pinched his throbbing temples, his fingertips feeling cool against the skin. His heart felt heavy, as if weighed down by a damp wad of cotton. This invisible battle had only just begun, and his opponent was clearly more cunning and difficult to deal with than he had initially anticipated, like a slippery fish that always managed to find an opening to escape before the net could be pulled in.

After all, the plans he had laid out these past few days had almost completely failed. He had originally thought that by following Liu Li's lead, like pulling a vine, he could eventually find the person behind him, uncover the true source of the smuggling chain, and see who was secretly pulling the strings. But he never expected that before the net could even be tightened, Liu Li would become a cold corpse in a roadside ditch, dying silently without even a trace of struggle, the scene as clean as if it had been deliberately wiped clean. It felt like throwing a punch with all your might, only to hit cotton; having a lot of strength but nowhere to use it, leaving one with a suffocating feeling in their chest.

He Feng leaned back against the cold wall, the chill seeping through his shirt and slightly calming his agitation. His mind replayed the details of the past few days like a movie: when the surveillance was arranged, who bought the tracking equipment, who was avoided when the operation was announced… A thought, like a sharp thorn, suddenly pierced his heart, making it tighten—who had seen through his entire plan? Was there a mole among his own ranks?

He instinctively thought of Zhao Lei. After all, the core details of this plan to spy on Liu Li were known only to Zhao Lei and three trusted confidants he had personally selected. Even the specific timing of the operation was only announced the night before, so it shouldn't have been leaked. But now that the plan had been exposed and Liu Li had died a violent death in the street, the most likely explanation, besides the fact that the opponent was incredibly resourceful and could precisely eliminate the clues, was that the information had been leaked in advance.

Those subordinates… He Feng's eyes darkened, as if a thin layer of ice had formed. Although they had followed him for some years and seemed loyal, you can't judge a book by its cover, especially in a case like this that involved so many people. Who could guarantee they hadn't been corrupted by self-interest? It seemed he had to scrutinize each of them, starting with their recent movements and contacts, not even letting a moment for buying a pack of cigarettes slip by. But this matter absolutely could not be publicized. If he alerted the enemy and they realized he was investigating an internal mole, even the last remaining clues would be lost. He would have to operate like an earthworm buried in the soil, moving silently and slowly digging through the earth in the shadows.