Rebirth of Corrupt Officials

“So, you actually did not believe that the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection could handle this matter? My advice to you is to wait because that Lian Cheng is a very good young man with a good family background.”

Among Beijing’s group of young masters, Lian Cheng was considered to be the cleanest and most capable one. If he wanted to quickly resolve the Zhang Qing issue, taking advantage of the chaos in Chengzhou to clean up all the issues, he would undoubtedly rely on his family’s network and power.

The other thing was to consider Zhang Qing.

After all, Zhang Qing held such a high position that even to deal with him required cumbersome procedures and involved many aspects; it was not something that could be settled with one or two documents.

Lian Cheng was a qualified chess player, but Jiang Xiaochuan was not a qualified chess piece.

He had to do something after all.

“It was useless.”

“Qu Zhendong didn’t have no one above him; there was still Zheng Liangyou.” Zheng Liangyou was the secretary of the provincial party committee, while Qu Zhendong was still a deputy.

“Zheng Liangyou had long been politically marginalized. And then again, the matter of Zhou Qian—was he really completely clean?”

Marrying his daughter to Zhou Qian didn’t seem right. In officialdom, such matters should be a taboo; since he had been implicated, there was no one else to blame.

Driving at high speed, the lights outside the window transformed into the shape of a streamline. A glance over showed that Chengzhou appeared as prosperous and quiet as it seemed. Everyone was lazily hiding in the night, experiencing the many stories that were unfolding.

This was a kind of toxic prosperity.

“There weren’t many people I could trust, General Yue.”

In the end, he returned to the villa, but the hunched back of Yue Huasheng as he left reminded Jiang Xiaochuan of those who had left and never returned.

Even if Lian Cheng handled the situation faster, it couldn’t be faster than the changes in the political situation in Chengzhou. If the top gave Qu Zhendong absolute power, then everything would be really bad.

Before Yue Huasheng left, he had asked the old man to make a phone call for him.

If he remembered correctly, in the past, Qu Zhendong had asked him to be friendly with the military region. This proved that even if it was just for its skin, Qu Zhendong’s connection with the military region was still intact. With Yue Huasheng’s status and influence, if he said something, it was hoped that Qu Zhendong would not reject the request.

He went back to his room, called Qu Zhendong, and then turned on the TV. He caught a glimpse of the late-night news being broadcast with subtitles sliding underneath.

The trial of Chengzhou City’s investment corruption case had started again, with key witness Zhang Xiaoli testifying against former Chengzhou City’s executive vice mayor Zhou Qian for false testimony, and the People’s Prosecutor’s Office was investigating the case once more.

Zhang Xiaoli…

He didn’t know how Zhou Qian’s heart felt right then.

He had been watching the news for a while; it was always the official voice.

From the television, the whole country seemed to be doing well. The party centre and the government were issuing measures, but people never knew what was really happening in Chengzhou.

He turned off the TV and looked at the wall clock.

It was three o’clock in the morning.

He took the gun out of his pocket and placed it on the coffee table.

The bullets in the clip were meant to kill Xue Yan.

He spread out his hand, placing an empty bullet shell next to the gun.

Suddenly, he remembered a movie he had seen before— “the last bullet?”

He went into the bathroom, filled the bathtub with water, and buried himself deeply.

His naked body was in contact with the warm water, and he was immersed as if he were submerged in warm blood.

There was a story about a fish that didn’t have any tears, but it swam in the water all the time, and even if it shed a tear, no one could see it.

The oxygen-free, sealed, watery world gave him endless suffocation.

When he came out of the water, he was drenched with water droplets, and his eyes seemed to have been washed with water.

At that point, who was right and who was wrong?

Yue Huasheng was not a mortal; Yue Qingci was gone. How could the real murderer, Qiao Yusheng, escape sanctions?

In the end, it was the law that decided everything—this cold and heartless thing favoured by the world.

He had loved it too.

However, he had never thought of going outside the party discipline and national law to defect completely.

He had never thought of going out of his way to defect from the party and the country.

Yue Huasheng had said that people in this life always had to walk some paths that were wrong.