Chapter 175: Commendation Ceremony

Yu Dazhang wanted to shout slogans too, but no one went for that sort of thing anymore.

In the old days, whether or not the job could actually get done, you would first make a promise, declare your resolve, and let the leaders feel that you had the right attitude and a sense of responsibility.

But as the times changed, that whole routine was gradually phased out.

It was all hot air, not a single person actually doing the work, and after enough time the leaders couldn't stand it either.

Especially in criminal investigation — a case-closure rate isn't something you can talk up.

No ability is no ability; you don't need much, just two cases and it shows.

No matter how glib you are, spouting off to the skies, if you can't close the case in the end it's all Bai Da.

Back at the detachment.

Yu Dazhang took out the Andean Sect file on Liu Zhengyang's sudden death and read through it again from the top.

The autopsy report was fine — the officers who had handled the case had already confirmed it.

The three steps — on-site examination of the body, external examination of the body, and the autopsy — all had complete records, accompanied by the corresponding autopsy photographs.

So far, there were three points of doubt.

One, the reason Liu Zhengyang's daughter gave for reporting the case could not be verified as true or false.

She said Liu Zhengyang had prophesied his own death half a month before he died, but she gave no specific reason.

It's not as though Liu Zhengyang himself could tell fortunes, right?

Words like that, with no beginning and no end, carry very little credibility.

Besides, no one could prove it was true, and there was no corresponding audio or video recording.

It was entirely her own say-so.

Two, Liu Zhengyang died far too cleanly.

As a billionaire, his health was monitored at all times.

Regular check-ups, medication on schedule.

All of these things were reminded to him by someone at any moment — he never had to remember them himself.

If there had been any warning signs of a sudden heart attack, he would have been hospitalized for treatment long beforehand; there was no reason for him to drop dead without any warning at all.

And he did it right in front of the company's senior executives.

Which meant that before the meeting, he had not felt any physical discomfort.

And finally, the butler's motive for murder.

In his previous life, what he had heard was that Liu Zhengyang had treated him poorly on a regular basis and shown him no respect.

That reason was a bit of a stretch.

That butler had worked for the Liu family for over ten years; if he felt wronged, he could have simply resigned and left.

There was no need at all to kill someone to vent his grievances.

Another point — if that butler had been a truly vicious sort, Liu Zhengyang would have been dead long ago.

So this murder motive is hard to stand on.

Taking all of the above into account, Yu Dazhang decided to wait a little longer.

You can't be impatient when working a case; thinking it over more is never wrong.

It's already a cold case — a few more days won't make a difference. If he really couldn't find any new leads, then he'd start with the butler.

And so, another three days passed.

Yu Dazhang no longer needed to look at the file now.

Over those three days, he had no idea how many times he'd read through it; he had long since memorized every bit of its contents clearly.

Liu Zhengyang's son, his daughter, every servant in the household, and the secretaries and executives at the company who had access to Liu Zhengyang — Yu Dazhang had suspected every single one of them.

He had even memorized the contents of everyone's statements.

The officers at the detachment were also infected by his focused attitude; they watched the fatty flip through the same file over and over, sitting there for an entire day at a time.

No one dared to go up and disturb Yu Dazhang when he was in that state.

They were all criminal investigators — they knew that when someone was thinking through a case, once interrupted, their train of thought could very well be broken.

But the more it went on, the more curious the officers at the detachment became.

So much so that the gossiping behind his back grew more frequent.

"Who is that fatty mulling over now?"

"How would I know — nobody even knows which case he's looking at."

"Remember the last time he was this focused, thinking things through — it was in the detachment corridor, and just a few days later he cracked the Tertiary Hospital case."

"Right, right, I remember too — he was wandering around the corridor the whole afternoon back then."

Every time the detachment officers chatted about this kind of gossip, it would eventually drift to the slots on the cold-case squad.

"I wonder if the cold-case squad slots have been finalized yet." "Don't even think about it — I heard the final say went back to Captain Li."

Just as their attention was all fixed on Yu Dazhang, a piece of news suddenly reached the sub-bureau.

The municipal bureau had decided to hold a large-scale commendation ceremony the next day, covering the entire city's public security system.

This type of commendation ceremony had no fixed schedule.

It mainly depended on the completion of certain special cases.

The officers who heard the news all understood clearly in their hearts that being able to convene a commendation ceremony of this scale must have been connected to the special cases that had been cracked one after another over the past few months.

The next day.

The municipal bureau's grand hall.

More than a dozen city and bureau leaders sat on the stage.

Below the stage were public security officers from every department, the vast majority of them elite personnel from their own units.

Not a single mistake, not a single hair out of place, not a single flaw in content!

They wore police uniforms, chests out, heads high, their expressions solemn as they looked toward the stage.

At a glance, they resembled a vast deep-blue ocean, inspiring awe in the heart.

In the solemn atmosphere, Director Liu announced the start of the commendation ceremony.

Right after that came the leaders' speech.

This was also the part Yu Dazhang feared most—the hypnotic effect was so strong that before the leader had even officially begun speaking, he was already getting drowsy.

Li Jun, sitting beside him, afraid he might do something inappropriate, secretly slipped him a mint candy.

"Keep it in your mouth."

Captain Li really does think of everything… Yu Dazhang gave him a grateful glance, then held the candy in his mouth.

And to tell the truth, once the cool flavor spread, it really did have a refreshing, mind-clearing effect.

Seeing the mint candy was working, Li Jun quietly slipped a red chili pepper back into his trouser pocket.

What surprised Yu Dazhang a little was that this time the leader's speech wasn't long.

And there were no high-sounding platitudes either.

It was basically a summary speech centered on the major and important cases that had occurred in recent months.

Half an hour later, the medal-awarding ceremony began.

Within the system, commendations are all called medal-awarding—the "medal" is the award.

Why not call it award-giving, or prize-presenting?

This is a public security commendation ceremony, not the Golden Horse Awards—only the entertainment circle calls it prize-presenting; they're two completely different concepts.

At an occasion like this, only public security officers who have earned First, Second, or Third-class merit can go on stage to receive awards.

As the ceremony began, groups of officers took the stage one after another to receive their awards.

The first to be awarded were the collective honor medals.

It is worth mentioning that the criminal investigators of Hongkou Sub-bureau went up on stage the most times.

Yu Dazhang also went up to receive one collective Third-class merit and two collective Second-class merits.

Only after getting on stage did he realize the credit for the body-snatching case had also come through.

One of those collective Second-class merits was awarded to the detachment.

Right after that came the individual medal-awarding.

A total of seventeen people received individual Third-class merit this time, and Yu Dazhang was not among them.

Three people received individual Second-class merit—Lu Zhongxin, Li Jun, and Wei Qian—and again Yu Dazhang was not among them.

In the process of investigating the Sanjia Hospital case, Lu Zhongxin organized the operation to capture the suspects and ultimately succeeded in bringing the criminal suspects to justice.

Li Jun and Wei Qian, on the other hand, faced enormous pressure from all sides, yet they did not flinch, persevering until the case was fully investigated.

It could be said these three earning individual Second-class merit was well deserved.

Yu Dazhang, watching the three on stage from below, couldn't help muttering to himself.

Could it be that because he had received his medals early last time, he was left out this time?

That didn't add up either.

The individual Second-class merit he had received was for cracking the trafficking case.

What about the subsequent Sanjia Hospital case and the body-snatching case?

His contributions didn't seem any less than those three up on stage, did they?

Was his seniority insufficient, and he'd been pushed down?

But they couldn't just give him nothing—even an individual Third-class merit would do.

Just as he was feeling indignant, the name "Yu Dazhang" was suddenly called out from the stage.

In an instant, every eye in the room turned toward him in unison.

(End of chapter)