Breaking Through the Clouds Chapter 8 Oct 04, 2018

Volume 1: Case 502 – The Intoxicated Frozen Corpse

Chapter 8

"Even more, there's a strong possibility that the undercover drug trafficker amongst the police force's higher-ups was Jiang Ting himself."

With a loud "FUCK!", Wei Yao stormed out of the deputy director office, three steps shrinking into two as he charged down the flight of stairs, before directly barging through the door to the detachment vice-captain's office. "YAN XIE!"

Yan Xie was seated behind his computer.

"You used my password to access the internal network again! Don't you have any idea that this is breaking protocol?!"

Staying in place, Yan Xie slowly raised his head. When Wei Yao saw how he was acting, rage began to boil in his heart. "Your Captain Zhu was only just hospitalized for a few days, and you scampered off on the double to joyfully celebrate! A few days ago, you even dragged the entire team out for karaoke and drinks! Do you seriously think I'm stupid? When I called you, the loud noise in the background were filled with all those—'love in a way, as if everyday is the last day of the world!'—what the hell is love to a bunch of grown men like you lot?!"

The moment Yan Xie parted his lips to speak, he was interrupted by Wei Yao, upset at Yan Xie's failure at living up to his expectations. "Brat, you can most likely kiss your promotion goodbye! Look at your clothes! Your watch! Your shoes! Your hair! Are you here to work or do a catwalk?! How many times have the disciplinary team given a notice to reprimand you already?! Good and bad, can you at least remember them by now?!"

Yan Xie said, "Deputy Wei…"

"Log out now! Before anyone notices! THIS INSTANT!"

Gasping for breath with his hands on his waist, Wei Yao wanted to take advantage of his current mood to continue cursing when all of a sudden, Yan Xie casually asked, "How did Jiang Ting die?"

Wei Yao was taken by surprise. "What?"

"Captain Jiang Ting of Gongzhou Anti-Drug Force's Second Detachment died in the line of duty three years ago. How exactly did he die?"

Wei Yao was stunned by the sudden question for a good long while, before realizing what Yan Xie was asking about. At once, he was caught between feeling agitated and wanting to cry. "Why? It's already been a few years since then. Haven't you let go of that minor incident with the Gongzhou's City Public Security Department back then?—I get it. That year Gongzhou almost took away your credit and gave it to someone else, but didn't they choose not to do it in the end? Are you still…"

"Is Jiang Ting seriously dead?"

"Ugh! You're still going on about that?" Wei Yao asked in response. "Does this have anything to do with the 502 Frozen Corpse case you're investigating now?"

Yan Xie answered, "Yes."

"Yes, my ass! Don't simply use my password to randomly browse around the internal network when you're feeling jobless!"

"There is a connection." Yan Xie repeated to himself, lifting his hand to push the case file on the table towards Wei Yao. "Hu Weisheng from Gongzhou, was sentenced to prison for purchasing, reselling and counterfeiting prescribed drugs from abroad. He's under strong suspicion for palming off fake Adderall to trap minors into getting addicted to drugs. In Gongzhou a few years back, he was charged with attempted rape for drugging a year three female student. I suspect that there was something else to this case. The drug he used probably wasn't a roofie called Flunitrazepam, but was instead an addictive hallucinogen drug with a similar composition to Adderall."

"—at the time, the Chief of Operation for this case was Jiang Ting." Yan Xie stared directly at Wei Yao stubbornly. "Three years ago, a chain explosion ripped through the crime scene of the drug enforcement case under the command of Jiang Ting, leading to the loss of a dozen drug control agents as a result. Jiang Ting himself was blown into smithereens, with neither bones nor body left. What exactly happened then?"

Hearing his steady and powerful voice, Wei Yao suppressed his anger, and slowly sank into his own thoughts. After a long pause, he finally walked over, pulled a chair and sat down across the office desk.

With a sigh, Wei Yao said, "The various drugs recovered from the anti-drug operation then, weighed more than 80KG in total."

Yan Xie's pupil shrank—that was huge!

Soon after, what Wei Yao said next felt like his heart was splashed with icy water. "Everyone all later said that was the money they bought with the lives of a dozen drug control officers."

"…what does that mean?"

"While the case was going on, due to the enormous amount of drugs and monetary transactions involved, the traffickers used three things—people, money and goods—as a means of handling business. The force was following a mole's tip to close in on two main dealing locations. One was at the suburb's plastics plant while the other was at an eco-park. Through analysis, they identified that the dealing between the buyers and the sellers was at the plastics plant, while the enormous amount of drugs and illegal firearms were hidden in some plantations on the eco-park."

"The original plan was, that Jiang Ting should have brought enough firepower and a large squad of elite special task force members to infiltrate the plantations, while the other team was supposed stake out the plastics plant, and prepare to carry out arrests. Yet before they could make their move, Jiang Ting, as the Chief of Strategic Operations, suddenly pulled out the squad of elites who should have been secretly rushing to the eco-park, and transferred them to the plastics plant. In addition, they dashed in with an obvious lack of preparation. Barely more than half an hour later, a sudden chain of explosions ripped through the place."

"The traffickers and buyers were already gone before the cops arrived, and had rigged the bombs beforehand." Wei Yao slowly explained. "Jiang Ting's sudden inexplicable change of plans was the same as sending his comrade-in-arms to Hell."

Surprised, Yan Xie asked, "How did the dealers got away? Did news of the operation get leaked?"

"After the incident, a lot of people were suspicious about that, so much that some believed Jiang Ting was 'cooperating' with the drug dealers by bringing the large squad of special task force members to the plastics plant. But this suspicion was difficult to prove because Jiang Ting himself died as well. The fire burnt too quickly. In the end, they couldn't even find his body intact."

When he spoke up to here, Wei Yao paused for a moment, before dubiously asking, "—What's up? Do you suspect that he's alive?"

Yan Xie slowly leaned back into his seat, his eyes somewhat distant. A few seconds later, he coughed to clear his throat and said, "Oh, of course not."

Looking as though he wanted to say something, Wei Yao suppressed the urge back down, only using a probing look to size him up and down. "Then why did you ask me if he was really dead earlier on?"

"…I'm just curious why wasn't he honored as a fallen hero? Just now, I saw that all of the sacrificed officers from the Gongzhou Anti-Drug Force's Second Detachment were awarded the title. If it was a misjudgment on his side, although serious, he still sacrificed himself during the course of it. I don't think it reached the point where he wouldn't be given the title of a fallen hero."

Actually, this doubt was just an example of Yan Xie talking nonsense without thinking the matter through, but Wei Yao's expression suddenly looked like he had a difficult time cleanly explaining the matter. After thinking for a moment, he eventually uttered, "Because of that undercover agent."

Yan Xie replied, "Hmm?"

"After the blast, the Gongzhou City's Public Security Department established a special investigation unit. Following a thorough investigation on the deployment and after going over the details of the operation, they discovered one thing—do you still remember what I said about the mole reporting two dealing locations?"

Unbeknownst to Yan Xie, his brows were beginning to knit together.

"This undercover agent with the code name 'Rivet', had been hiding in the drug trafficking organization for several years. Although he didn't manage to infiltrate to the side of the leader at the highest level within the organization, code name "Big K", he was once close to the second-in-command. As a result, he used to provide a lot of valuable clues and was a very valuable source of information in the Gongzhou's anti-drug organization."

"After the explosions at the plastics plant, it was suspected that internal communications inside the police force was leaked. 'Rivet' was also at great peril of being exposed. As a result, the special investigation team urgently formed a small rescue team for his safety, but by the time they figured out his location and rushed over, it was already too late. The traffickers had killed Rivet, and burned his corpse into ashes. All that rescue effort was made in vain."

Wei Yao sucked in a long, deep breath. Even Yan Xie's expression was turning solemn.

"After the death of Rivet, the special investigation team grabbed ahold of the computer he used, and discovered that he had forwarded an encrypted email to the police about the drug trafficking organization. When decrypted, they found it was a chart of the trade, detailing all the hidden drugs and equipment in the eco-park's plantation. Which meant that it was impossible for Jiang Ting, as Chief of Strategic Operations, not to have seen the email beforehand. So the original intent of his act, in suddenly pulling away the elite firepower from the eco-park to the plastics plant, leading to a dozen drug control agents losing their life in the explosions, became extremely suspicious."

"There was a strong possibility that he had done it intentionally." Yan Xie muttered in a barely audible tone.

"That's right," said Wei Yao, his gaze turning grave. "It was considered a possibility that the traitor who leaked out word of the police operation was him all along."

Yan Xie didn't utter a single word, the atmosphere between them suddenly became extremely coarse, as though a short blade were scraping against the skin of his face one sliver at a time.

The two of them sat across from one another for a long while before Yan Xie continued in a low voice. "When a report was made after the end of an old case resolved in Gongzhou, someone came to barter, telling me to voluntarily give the credit to a 'well-connected individual' at Gongzhou. I was full of youthful vigor at the time so I refused. In the end, I was lectured in turn by several people for half a month. It felt like the whole world was after me. Everyday, I couldn't suppress the resentment I held deep down. I was itching so bad to grab a brick and bash the entire City Bureau into ruins."

Deputy Director Wei let out a cough with his mouth covered.

"I pulled a long face everyday, trapped in a rut of bad moods. This continued on until two days before the award ceremony. All of a sudden, Gongzhou send word that the Commander-In-Chief had eventually signed the report and given me the credit in the end. At the time, he even gave me a second-class merit." Yan Xie gave a soft sigh before continuing, "The Commander-in-Chief during the operation then was Jiang Ting."

Wei Yao was older so he was more mature about studying the problem. "People are multifaceted. You're not wrong for feeling indebted to him, but for whatever happens after, you still need to treat them as two separate matters."

"—No, I don't feel indebted." Yan Xie said resolutely. "There's none of that."

Wei Yao didn't understand what he was trying to say.

However, Yan Xie didn't explain his thoughts to an outsider; after a brief pause, he said, "I just can't figure Jiang Ting out."

Wei Yao patted him on the shoulder. "He's already dead. Although no final judgement was passed on him upon his death, it's useless to think on it more. Whatever I told you today, bear in mind not to spread it, since it's Gongzhou's unsolved case. It's also extremely sensitive. It won't do you any good if it gets spread to the public."

Yan Xie nodded wordlessly.

The phone on the desk began to ring continuously. "Hey, Vice-captain Yan! We caught Hu Weisheng, that son of a bitch! We've almost reached the City Bureau!"

"Go work on your own tasks." Wei Yao stood up from his seat. "Any drug-related case won't be  a small matter. We must get to the bottom of the source, the downlines, and the entire network, as well as capturing the suspect and the accomplices all in one go. If we can dig out the truth behind the attempted rape case in Gongzhou, we mustn't throw away the chance to do so! Do you understand?"

Yan Xie replied, "I do."

Yan Xie personally sent Deputy Director Wei off from his own office. He stood at the head of a flight of stairs, watching on as Wei Yao entered the elevator. Soon, a clamouring emerged from the lower level as the sounds of cars, footsteps and chattering came closer and closer. The investigators who had picked up the suspect from his lair at first light were back.

"Brother Yan!" Ma Xiang poked his head out from the end of a corridor, indicating to the interrogation room with his lips. "—Let's go together?"

Yan Xie raised his hand and beckoned for him to come over.

Confused, Ma Xiang ran over, only to hear Yan Xie softly speaking into his ear. "Call Vice-captain Qin from the room over and interrogate Hu Weisheng with Old Song and Old Zhao. I'mma head out for a bit. Don't tell anyone."

"You're heading to…"

Yan Xie patted him on the back. "If there's a situation, just keep in contact over the phone." He added as he walked towards the direction of the stairs. After heading down a couple of steps, he abruptly came to a stop as he recalled something.

Spinning back around, he headed back into his own office and grabbed a car key that hadn't been used in a long time from the drawer. As he got up, he caught a glimpse of the monitor and his movements instantly came to a halt.

On the screen, Jiang Ting's calm and cold gaze was staring right into space. His faintly colored lips in a slight frown, resembling a bust dressed in police uniform without the slightest warmth.

Fixing his gaze on him for a long while, Yan Xie slowly took out a gun from the drawer and fastened it at his waist. Then, he covered up with a coat and turned to leave, closing the door as he did so.