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Intuition

Before Jiang Chijing could respond, a guard on the patrol team escorted Zheng Mingyi away.

In truth, Jiang Chijing didn’t know how to respond, either.

The security cameras in prison were different from the pinhole camera Jiang Chijing installed. They were standard white cuboids and highly conspicuous.

As it was, the recreation room was no more than ten square metres and was completely devoid of anything attached to the ceiling. It was easy to tell with a single glance that there weren’t any security cameras installed here.

Taking a step back, even if there were security cameras installed in the recreation room, the connection would be linked to the surveillance room, not the library.

Just now when Jiang Chijing ran over, Zheng Mingyi’s back was to the door. That aside, the two lackeys were right behind the door, blocking the view inside. No matter which way he spun it, Jiang Chijing couldn’t possibly have known right upon opening the door that it was Zheng Mingyi who was doing the beating.

However, what just happened was that Zheng Mingyi’s inmate number left Jiang Chijing’s tongue the very moment that he wrenched the door open.

In other words, before entering the door, Jiang Chijing had already known what was happening in the recreation room.

Jiang Chijing believed himself to be a careful and cautious person, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to spy on others without being caught. But regarding this, he had to admit that he really did slip up.

The situation just now was so urgent that he didn’t have time to put too much thought into it. Now, in retrospect, he suddenly realised another problem—how did Zheng Mingyi’s brain react so quickly?

Perhaps it was because he was in a 1v3 situation, thus was constantly paying attention to what was happening behind him, or perhaps it was because he was sensitive to the matter of surveillance, thus could instantly find the faults in Jiang Chijing’s behaviour.

But whatever the reason, this wouldn’t be the logical reasoning of someone with a low IQ.

A premonition suddenly emerged in Jiang Chijing’s mind; Zheng Mingyi didn’t seem to be as simple-minded as he had thought.

He forcibly suppressed this uneasiness and consoled himself that there wouldn’t be someone so omnipotent as to discover his secret just because he had revealed a teensy opening.

***

“Old Nine is in pretty bad shape.”

Near the end of the day, Luo Hai returned to the prison from an outside hospital and came to pass the time chatting with Jiang Chijing.

“Leaving the concussion aside,” Luo Hai spoke and pointed out the positions on himself, “his right wrist bones and joints are dislocated and fractured. I don’t know how he got such severe injuries.”

Actually, Jiang Chijing did know. When Old Nine tried to punch Zheng Mingyi, Zheng Mingyi took a small step back and returned a punch straight to the fist that Old Nine was throwing at him.

Jiang Chijing had seen this action countless times before when Zheng Mingyi was boxing the sandbag at home. Back then, he didn’t have much of an impression of it. But when his earphones rang with a howl that resembled a butchered pig, he then realised how terrifying Zheng Mingyi’s fists were.

“Three words. He deserved it,” Jiang Chijing concluded.

“Let’s not talk about Old Nine for now,” Luo Hai said. “It’s been less than three days and people have come to mess Zheng Mingyi up, don’t flake out on the Michelin restaurant you promised before.”

“Wait, are you sure this counts as being messed up?” Jiang Chijing stopped Luo Hai. “Technically speaking, it was him who messed Old Nine up.”

“That’s how you’re counting it?” Luo Hai challenged with lifted eyebrows. “He already beat Old Nine up to such a sorry state. No one would dare to provoke him in the next good while. Your time limit was a week, doesn’t this count as a tie then?”

“Not necessarily,” Jiang Chijing said. “What if Xu Sheng wants to get revenge for Old Nine?”

“You know he won’t,” said Luo Hai.

Well, that he did.

Xu Sheng was the inmate who had been in prison for the longest time, also the ‘big bro’ that Old Nine was under. However, their temperaments were vastly different. Xu Sheng had been in prison for over a decade and had long learned to restrain himself. The principle he adhered to was ‘Don’t offend me and I won’t offend you’. Hence, as long as the sleeping dragon wasn’t poked, there wasn’t any cause for worry.

In a situation like this where Old Nine had gone after someone and gotten himself roughed up, Xu Sheng naturally wouldn’t intervene.

“Forget it then,” Jiang Chijing said.

Originally, what he expected was for Zheng Mingyi to drive away the first wave of people who came to trouble him, drawing even more public anger, followed by a second wave of even stronger people.

But Luo Hai was right. Now that Zheng Mingyi pummelled Old Nine to the point of requiring external hospitalisation, was there anyone who would still dare to provoke him?

“Why don’t we just have a casual meal,” Luo Hai suggested. “There’s a decent restaurant that opened in the city recently, do you want to try it?”

“Sure,” Jiang Chijing said. “Let’s do this Friday.”

Time in the night was precious on working days. A trip to the city was a 40-minute drive, so only when the weekends came was Jiang Chijing willing to go down to the city.

Not long after returning home from work, the hot summer day finally welcomed the first rainstorm of the year.

Dark clouds were densely clumped in the sky, interlaced by thunder and lightning, as if the apocalypse had come, and the only sound left in the world was the roar of pouring rain.

Jiang Chijing made sure that all the windows in his house were tightly closed. However, when he looked over at the small house across the road, he couldn’t help but stop moving and stare at it for a while.

With no windows in the way, the curtains in the bedroom were being tossed in the rain by the fierce wind. The ink botch on the wall had also been spread by the downpour, making it look even gloomier.

Zheng Mingyi was sentenced to a 300-million fine. He probably didn’t have enough liquidity in hand and even this house was sealed by the court, causing the community workers to harp on this for a good time.

Jiang Chijing shifted his gaze away, drawing the curtains in his house.

The torrential rain left as quickly as it came. By the time Jiang Chijing was getting ready for bed, tranquility was restored to the community outside.

In recent times, Jiang Chijing no longer looked across at what was happening on the other side.

However, he was mildly curious today what Zheng Mingyi’s house would look after the rain stopped. So he casually lifted the curtains, glancing across at the other side. At this, his movements immediately pulled to a stop.

The black-clothed man appeared in Zheng Mingyi’s house again.

As the curtains were completely blown open by the fierce wind, Jiang Chijing’s view was completely unobstructed this time.

And so he saw that the black-clothed man had tossed Zheng Mingyi’s wardrobe upside down, not even neglecting the springs in the mattress.

Any fool could see that the black-clothed man was looking for something.

Jiang Chijing didn’t hesitate, immediately calling the police. But this time he didn’t see the black-clothed man at the first moment, so the black-clothed man had already left Zheng Mingyi’s house before the police arrived. Nevertheless, it didn’t look as if he had managed to find what he was looking for.

The police car stopped on the street between the two houses and a plainclothes policeman got out of the car. He shone a torch towards Zheng Mingyi’s house. Finding no unusual movement, he shifted the light to Jiang Chijing’s side.

“Guan Wei?”

Jiang Chijing pulled the curtains open and poked his upper body out of the window, greeting the plainclothes policeman downstairs.

“Old Jiang?” Guan Wei also looked quite surprised, obviously not expecting to run into an acquaintance here.

“Why are you here?” Jiang Chijing asked.

Previously, when Jiang Chijing was still working at the courthouse, he would often encounter Guan Wei. But ever since he transferred to work at the prison, they broke off contact.

“I’m investigating the malicious short-selling case from earlier on.” Guan Wei put aside his torch. “Were you the one who called the police just now?”

“Yeah,” said Jiang Chijing. “Let’s talk inside.”

After they exchanged pleasantries, Guan Wei talked about the reason for his presence here.

It turned out that Jiang Chijing wasn’t the only one to change jobs. Guan Wei had also been transferred from the criminal division to the finance division and was involved in the investigation for Zheng Mingyi’s case.

“About two months ago, we suspected that the hedge fund firm, HX Management, was involved in insider trading and set up an investigation team to look into it to no avail. But some time later, an employee of their firm, namely Zheng Mingyi, contacted me, saying that he had evidence about his boss’ insider trading with him…”

“Wait, are you saying that Zheng Mingyi voluntarily contacted you?” Jiang Chijing interrupted Guan Wei.

“Exactly. At that time, we were still communicating over the phone. He said that he would give me the evidence in person as soon as possible after he had put them together, and as a result…” Guan Wei paused here, sighing. “…he was attacked that night.”

Jiang Chijing gave a start when he heard this, immediately recalled the last time that the black-clothed man broke into Zheng Mingyi’s house.

“He had agreed to pass the evidence to me, but ever since that night, he hasn’t answered any of my calls.” Guan Wei sighed again.

“He doesn’t trust you,” Jiang Chijing frowned, his tone heavy.

In actuality, Jiang Chijing and Guan Wei’s relationship wasn’t very deep. But based on his interactions with Guan Wei, Jiang Chijing knew that he wasn’t a corrupt cop.

“I swear, I really wasn’t the one who leaked the information. But I understand where he’s coming from; it’s normal not to trust me after that.” Guan Wei said, “Later on, when HX Management was exposed for malicious shorting of stocks, all the evidence pointed to Zheng Mingyi. He didn’t defend himself and confessed straightaway.”

Hearing this, Jiang Chijing couldn’t help but find it strange. “So was it actually him?”

If Zheng Mingyi had voluntarily reported his boss, it would be telling that he was someone who could distinguish between right and wrong. So how did he turn out to be a criminal in the end?

“To be frank,” Guan Wei took a deep breath. Helplessness coloured his tone. “I don’t know either.”

“We can analyse it this way,” Guan Wei went on. “If he was framed, then he is facing a powerful opponent who had the means to create a complete chain of evidence to frame him. And he, not trusting the law enforcement, didn’t rashly resist and chose to hide in prison.”

Jiang Chijing didn’t expect the case to be so complicated behind the scenes. But when he thought more closely into it, if the case really was as simple as it appeared on the surface, it would be hard to piece where the black-clothed man came into the story.

He thought back to Zheng Mingyi’s previous question about whether there was surveillance everywhere in prison. This was highly likely to be one of his methods to ensure his personal safety.

“But on the other hand,” Guan Wei’s words suddenly took a turn. “It’s also possible that he is the chief culprit and we spooked him when we started investigating the firm. He planned to plant the blame on his own boss, but the affair was exposed sooner than he thought, so he had to resign himself to his fate.”

Two completely opposite tangents of thought. Both with enough logic to stand.

“Then what do you think the situation is?” Jiang Chijing couldn’t resist asking.

“Policemen don’t rely on intuition to solve cases, only hard evidence,” Guan Wei said. “But if I have to say something, I still feel that there’s something fishy about this case. I was just on my way over to check it out when I received the police alert.”

Jiang Chijing explained, “There was someone rummaging through his house.”

“The possibility of a burglar cannot be ruled out,” Guan Wei said objectively. “I’ll go in later and take a look.”

Jiang Chijing nodded and made no further comment. He was just an outsider and had no reason nor position to interfere with someone else’s case. Whether Zheng Mingyi had been wrongfully accused or if there were still suspicious points about this case, none of these had anything to do with him.

“Oh, right.” Guan Wei relaxed, changing to a more conversational tone. “I remember that you used to be good at reading people. You mentioned that you’ve met Zheng Mingyi in prison. Care to share what kind of person you think he is?”

A long time ago, a witness Guan Wei found changed his testimony in court on the spot, resulting in the accused not being convicted.

Guan Wei went to talk it out with the witness without making any headway. Later when Jiang Chijing was chatting with him, he casually suggested that he could try beginning from the witness’ child, which allowed Guan Wei to successfully find a breakthrough point.

Even if Jiang Chijing wasn’t always able to help, he did provide Guan Wei with many new avenues to explore. He unconsciously started to say, “I think that Zheng Mingyi is…”

But as he spoke, Jiang Chijing suddenly reacted to a problem—he didn’t know how to answer this question.