Chapter 318: Don't worry, he won't run

This position is too important... Yu Dazhang had a certain understanding of how the police station assigned posts.

The deputy station chief was usually the main force in handling cases, responsible for the specific handling and execution of cases.

In a certain sense, the real power in the deputy station chief's hands exceeded that of the station chief and the political instructor.

From the criminal's perspective, this was even more so.

"Contact the Songhai side, apply for an off-site extraction of files, investigate this Hong Liuwen."

Yu Dazhang gave the order in a low voice to Lu Zhongxin:

"Go now."

Lu Zhongxin nodded and stood up to leave the office.

This kind of thing wasn't suitable for Zhang Sen to do; he had always been doing anti-fraud work in the Second Brigade, and although he was also a criminal investigator, he didn't have as much say as Lu Zhongxin.

Moreover, Lu Zhongxin was now a group leader in the First Brigade, which counted as a minor leader, and was also easier to talk to in terms of communication.

After a short while, Yang Feng came back, holding a file folder in his hand.

"Found it."

After he sat down, he opened the file, then looked at Yu Dazhang, only to notice one person was missing:

"Where's that colleague?"

"He went out to take a phone call." Yu Dazhang answered with a smile.

"Oh." Yang Feng responded, looking as if he didn't mind, then looked at the file and said:

"Five years ago it was indeed me who received Fang Peng. After he explained the situation, I immediately reported it to the deputy station chief, and the reply I got was to settle Fang Peng down first."

As they say, a good memory isn't as good as a bad pen.

No matter how good your brain is, storage is limited after all, and after a long time it naturally fades.

Yang Feng right now was an example of that.

He had originally forgotten most of what happened back then, but seeing the report record he had written with his own hands, those memories gradually became clear again.

"Didn't you feel there was something a bit off about how your deputy station chief handled it back then?" Yu Dazhang asked.

"Something off?" Yang Feng shook his head and said:

"I think it was perfectly normal. I settled the person who came to report first, and the deputy station's side also needed time to verify, and early that morning he led us to rush to that factory."

Was this being too close to the situation to see it clearly... Yu Dazhang found himself left speechless by what he said.

If looked at from Yang Feng's perspective, it did seem to make sense.

Previously they had been looking at this matter through Fang Peng's statement, which belonged to a God's-eye view.

Although clear, it only existed as a written record.

If you put yourself in the parties' shoes and looked at it from their perspective, things were far from being that simple.

"What time did Fang Peng arrive at the police station?" Yu Dazhang asked again.

Yang Feng glanced at the report record:

"1:10 a. m."

"What time did you go to the factory in the morning?" Yu Dazhang continued to ask.

Yang Feng only glanced at the document on the desk, and immediately answered:

"Departed at 6:20."

More than five hours... Yu Dazhang calculated in his mind.

Half an hour was enough for taking a statement, so that left at least four and a half hours.

That time was enough for people to withdraw, even enough to empty out all the goods in the factory.

The verification explanation didn't hold up; the only way to verify this kind of thing was to go to the scene and see what was really going on.

Yet that deputy station chief had stubbornly held things up for four and a half hours.

The reason Yang Feng thought there was no problem came down to two aspects:

One was trust in the leader, feeling the leader's decision couldn't be wrong, especially since that deputy station chief had also given a reason.

The other was being caught up in the situation, unable to see the direction of the whole matter.

Why couldn't it be that Yang Feng and the deputy station chief were in collusion?

Because Yu Dazhang hadn't seen a single suspicious point about him; his expression was natural, and his words had no issues either.

Yang Feng performed far too calmly, without even a trace of nervous emotion.

Anyone with something to hide wouldn't behave like that.

"After you got to the factory, didn't you notice anything unusual?" Yu Dazhang stared at him and asked.

"There was nothing there at all." Yang Feng asked back, somewhat puzzled:

"What could be unusual about an empty factory?"

"So you didn't continue the investigation?" Yu Dazhang was beginning to understand where the problem lay.

That deputy station chief, on the grounds of having no evidence, concluded that Fang Peng had filed a false report.

And the unlucky part of this whole thing was Fang Peng's appearance.

The look of someone with Down syndrome easily led people to mistake him for an intellectually disabled person.

And when such a person opened his mouth to speak, people often wouldn't easily believe what he said, and might even develop doubt and prejudice toward his statements.

Yang Feng nodded and answered:

"The facts were right there before our eyes, the situation was completely different from what Fang Peng said, and he couldn't provide any other evidence either, so the case wasn't filed for handling."

"There was also the matter of him saying he'd been imprisoned for a year; we even checked the relevant records for that and found no report filed."

"We also couldn't verify whether he was lying, nor had any way to investigate, so in the end we could only send him back to his place of household registration."

As he said these things, his expression was calm, his gaze steady, his speaking pace even and his logic clear.

Yu Dazhang even caught a hint of helplessness in his tone.

So he'd written Fang Peng off as mentally disabled… Yu Dazhang concluded to himself.

That deputy director had also used this very point to successfully suppress the matter.

"Regarding that factory, didn't you verify it further?"

Yu Dazhang felt the precinct shouldn't have been so careless.

Even if they thought Fang Peng was intellectually deficient, they should at least have looked into the factory's situation.

"We did verify it," Yang Feng replied:

"According to the deputy director, he contacted the person in charge at the factory, and the other party said the factory had been shut down for some time."

"Precisely because of that, we concluded that what Fang Peng said didn't match reality."

Then there was nothing more to say… Yu Dazhang saw no need to continue the conversation.

Now every suspicious thread pointed to that deputy director named Hong Liuwen.

"The leader back then was Hong Liuwen, right? Your deputy director," Yu Dazhang asked:

"That's right," Yang Feng nodded.

"Please get in touch with him," Yu Dazhang said, looking at him:

"Just tell him we want to talk to him about a case from five years ago."

"Alright." Yang Feng agreed, then stood and left.

After he was gone, Zhang Sen asked quietly:

"Aren't you worried that Hong Liuwen might run?"

"No," Yu Dazhang shook his head:

"Everyone has a get-off-with-it mentality. He managed to bury it back then, and now five years have passed — he'd be even less afraid."

"If he really does run, it actually saves us the trouble."

Zhang Sen nodded after hearing that.

It was true — if the other party ran, there'd be no need to keep investigating; they could just arrest him on the spot.

This time, the one who came back first was Lu Zhongxin.

After entering the room, he first scanned the area, and only after confirming no one else was present did he speak:

"Hong Liuwen's file has been sent over. I forwarded it to your phone."

Hearing this, Yu Dazhang quickly pulled out his phone, found the electronic file sent over on the messaging app, and immediately began looking through it.

Hong Liuwen, male, 44 years old, a local of Yancheng…

(End of chapter)