Breaking Through the Clouds

Jiang Ting, the former second captain of the Gongzhou Anti-drug Corps, a first-class police inspector.He died in an explosion three years ago, and became the number one black police officer tacitly in the high-level system. He was also suspected of murdering Yue Guangping, the former deputy mayor of Gongzhou and director of the department-level public security bureau.

And last night, on a cold winter night with rain, his ghost appeared around the lakeside community in Jianning City.

"I originally wanted to go to Yan Yan, the deputy head of our city bureau. When I walked around the neighborhood, I found suspicious persons haunting his building. The perpetrator turned out to be Jiang Ting, who was suspected of killing my old comrade-in-arms Yue Guangping three years ago, and who had been identified as a "sacrifice" by Gongzhou! And he had a party to respond! I just wanted to call for help, but he found out , was stabbed by him hastily..."

In the single ward, the windows were bright and clean. The leaders of the Public Security Department of S Province sat around the bed, and several people bowed their heads to take notes.

Lu Ju leaned weakly on the head of the bed, and said hoarsely: "Fortunately, I was wearing thick winter clothes and I was fat, so I didn't get stabbed. I just passed out at that time. Alas! I am old and useless!"

His hair turned gray a lot overnight, and his chubby face also lost its shape—after all, he is a 60-year-old man who struggled in a coma for several hours on a rainy night, and it is God's blessing to save his life up.

"Who doesn't know what Director Lu said, you are both wise and brave?" The director who came from the provincial department quickly comforted: "The other party is a murderous and cunning police scum who colluded with drug dealers, and we should bring him to justice." It is right for Yifa to avenge you!"

Lu Ju sighed endlessly, and closed his old eyes in extreme exhaustion.

The director stood up quickly and wisely: "Then let's stop here today, and don't disturb the leader's rest. Director Lu, if you think of more clues, just ask someone to call, we will be there on call!"

Director Lu sighed and nodded to indicate that he knew, then waved and said, "Old Yu, send them off."

Yu Zhu personally sent the people from the provincial department away, and exchanged greetings all the way to the hospital gate. Seeing that they all got in the car and left, she turned back to the ward and winked at Deputy Director Wei who was sitting in the nurse's station.

Wei Yao stood up hastily, followed her into the ward.

Lu Ju was leaning on the pillow, his face was yellow and bloodless, and even his lips were a little gray: "What do you say?"

"We're going to set up a task force, cooperate with Gongzhou, and issue a nationwide assisted investigation notice to arrest Jiang Ting." Yu Zhu sat in the armchair beside the hospital bed, then coughed and cleared her throat, her voice showing a thick Worrying: "Lao Lu, what is going on? I don't believe what you said to the people in the provincial department. There are too many loopholes!"

Lu Ju hesitated to speak, and looked at Wei Yao.

Wei Yao understood, and nodded to Lu Ju and Yu Zhu.

"I've been working with you for 30 or [-] years, and I won't hide it from you, so let's just say it straight." Under the staring gaze of the two subordinates, Director Lu sighed, and said, "Didn't I meet Jiang Yan near Yan's house?" Stop, but know that he is at Yan Xie's house, so I went to visit him specially, trying to instigate him."

As soon as the words fell to the ground, Wei Yao and Yu Zhu's tone changed, and they blurted out at the same time: "What did you say?"

"incite defection?!"

Director Lu raised his hand and pressed down, with a wry smile in his eyes: "Don't worry, you two, listen to me. I've been thinking about plotting against Jiang Ting for a long time, but I didn't discuss it with you because of confidentiality. Jiang Ting has been secretly involved in the case of our Jianning Municipal Bureau for some time, and to be honest, if it wasn't for him, Qin Chuan would not have been exposed so easily."

Yu Zhu asked doubtfully, "Qin Chuan?"

"Yes," Director Lu paused, and briefly recounted the process before and after the investigation of the poisoning incident, and confessed what happened at Qin Chuan's house on the night when the arrest was carried out. It's not much better than him, and it can't stop making obvious breathing sounds.

"After this incident, considering Jiang Ting's position and behavior, I felt that I could take a risk, so I went to find him last night and proposed a very bold idea to him..." Director Lu's words were self-deprecating. Stronger: "I hope he can completely surrender to the police, and at the same time pretend to be a black policeman and become a nail for us to drive into the K of Spades criminal group."

More than ten hours ago——

"Countermeasures?" Jiang Ting put his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned his left shoulder against the wall of the living room, as if he had heard a particularly ridiculous joke: "Tell me to pretend to surrender to the King of Spades, go deep into the drug cartel, and risk my life to fight with the police The inside should cooperate with the outside?"

The gurgling sound of cooking soup in the kitchen continued, the steam filled the room, and a large cloud of white mist formed on the floor-to-ceiling windows.Sitting on the big creamy white leather sofa in the living room, Director Lu stared sharply behind the reading glasses at the handsome but aggressive young man in front of him: "Yes, it's true that you have to risk your life, but it's right It's the best way out for you."

Jiang Ting rubbed his brows, put his hands in his trouser pockets, and asked with a smile: "——but why should I work for the police?"

"Because you are still alive, more than one or two people know the secret of your life. If you work for the police, at least there is a possibility of saving your life, but what if you are caught by the police? The dozen or so people who exploded in the plastic factory Anti-narcotics police, your actions are enough to be sentenced to death, right?"

Jiang Ting's eyes instantly sank.

Different from his sharp-edged attitude, Bureau Lu is like a cotton wall, absorbing and defusing all attacks without composure, making people helpless:

"Do you still want to appear in the sun in an open and aboveboard one day in the future? Do you want to bear the name of the dead and live in the gutter for the rest of your life? Jiang Ting, Yan Yan is not in Jianning now, I just need to make a phone call, you Couldn't even get out of the neighborhood today."

"Think about it yourself, think about it clearly." Director Lu snorted softly in his nasal cavity, and said, "If you are caught by the police, I guarantee that no matter how many times the K of Spades explodes, you will not be released from the detention center." Rob it!"

The living room fell into silence, Jiang Ting was silent for a long time, the stalemate froze every inch of air into ice.After several minutes, he finally opened his mouth slowly: "...I can't promise you."

Bureau Lu didn't expect him to refuse, so he twitched immediately.

"There are two reasons. First, the King of Spades knows what kind of person I am, and he will never believe that I am willing to surrender to him... As for the second."

Jiang Ting's voice paused slightly, and the bright lights of the living room were reflected in the depths of his pupils. He just stared straight at Lu Ju, and a weird smile gradually appeared on the corners of his lips.

"——and then?" Deputy Director Wei couldn't help asking.

There was silence in the ward, Deputy Bureau Wei and Yu Zhu seemed to be immersed in shock, and after a long while, Bureau Lu let out a heavy breath:

"If the first reason is just a subjective factor, it can still be evaded; the second reason is that I really never thought of it, and it is absolutely impossible to think of it. The moment he said this sentence, I realized What a stupid decision to instigate his own rebellion, because he really can't cooperate with the police, and he will never stand with the police."

Yu Zhu unconsciously leaned forward: "Then the second reason is..."

Outside the gate of the hospital, in a car parked on a hidden street corner, a clerk who had just appeared in the ward with the leaders of the provincial government and the department to take notes was wearing headphones, and the monitor in front of him was flashing blue light.

I don't know what Lu Ju said in the earphone, he gasped suddenly, his heart started beating suddenly, and he looked around hurriedly.

Cars were passing by on the road, and pedestrians were jostling in the distance. No one noticed this ordinary-looking car with a single-sided window film.

The eavesdropper unplugged his earphones furtively, stepped on the gas pedal, and headed straight in the opposite direction from the provincial hall.

·

Eighty kilometers outside Tongshan County, Yongkang Village.

Bumping along the mountain road for a full two hours, Qi Sihao felt that not only his own skeleton, but even the frame of the car were about to be knocked apart.Through the hairy car window glass, even the dilapidated rural brick houses on the edge of the field are gradually disappearing, replaced by a large area of ​​wasteland and dead trees. In winter, the gray and white hillsides are endless, and the dead grass is scattered on the rough road.

The sun had already passed through the middle of the sky, and Qi Sihao was so hungry that his chest was on his back, but seeing Yan Yan's gloomy face beside him, he swallowed and didn't dare to say anything.

How did the son of a rich family go to the countryside to donate to help the poor?

Where are the warm welcomes and warm hospitality from the counties, towns and villages that have been agreed?

Finally, before Qi Sihao was about to faint from hunger, the car stopped in a daze, and the driver sent by the county magistrate said at the top of his throat, "Here—"

Qi Sihao looked up as if he had been saved.

The iron door had already changed color in the wind and sun, and with the rattling of the wind, two gray two-story concrete houses were smoky and stood abruptly on the "playground" overgrown with weeds.A group of grotesque mud monkeys were lying behind the wooden railing on the second floor, staring straight at their car. Even from a distance, they couldn't tell it was a human child.

Yan Yan got out of the car, squinted his eyes and raised his head in the wind and sand.

There are five rusty words in the Hongri Welfare Institute at the gate, and each word is missing an arm or a leg.The painting on the iron door that has long since faded is still recognizable. It is a semicircle that has faded to light red and is cut off by a horizontal line. Several radiating rays that symbolize the sun are intermittent, radiating outward from the center of the semicircle, forming a rather perfunctory pattern. Sunrise picture.

——The patterns on the back of Teng Wenyan's bones, and Jiang Ting's yellow bloody clothes when he was a child, finally travel through time and space at this moment, and gradually overlap.

Several men and women in bloated suits stood outside the iron door, smiling and walking forward quickly.

The "warm welcome" that Qi Sihao had been waiting for for a long time finally arrived.

·

"Yes, the county government should have notified you. It is a poverty alleviation project of our company in S Province. Every fund and task will be implemented in various regions. Of course, I will do a field trip before signing the contract..."

Surrounded by the leaders of the orphanage, Yan Yan walked through the "playground", and children with runny noses and dusty faces rushed past.

"It's not easy!" The dean, who is about forty years old this year, rubbed his hands and shook his head and sighed: "Most of them are girls, and they are thrown away after birth. You can't blame the parents for being cruel. The country has nothing to do with fines. What if you don't have a son?" Can it work? It’s a good intention to go to such lengths to throw it away! Boys can count on one hand, and few of them have all their hands and feet. They are really sick and have no choice. In the hospital, the hospital will send it to us—you have also seen this environment, it is really difficult, and the state's finances are not good!..."

Qi Sihao was so hungry that he couldn't help it, so he went to eat Xiaozao with the staff.The dean courteously invited Yan Yan into the office, and brought him tea and water with his own hands.

The dean's office may be the best-decorated place in the entire orphanage, at least it has a tiled floor and an air conditioner, which is much better than the cave-like dormitory Chase.Through the glass window, Yan Yan looked at the dusty wasteland and the dark dormitory outside, and seemed to see another scene in a trance:

A thin child, running happily in the afterglow of a midsummer evening, with short black hair blown up by the wind.He crossed the plain, crossed the fields, like a nimble deer cutting through the rice fields, and rushed to the end of the blue sky under the morning star.

Don't go there, a desolate and weak voice sounded in Yan Yan's heart, and it became clearer and clearer: Don't stop, come back——

But no one heard.

Basking in the light of day and night, the little boy gallops happily to his only childhood friend.

"Mr. Yan, that...Mr. Yan?"

Yan Yan came back to his senses, and saw the dean rubbing his cuffs, his eyes narrowed: "The matter of the donation..."

This is not difficult to do. Yan Xie had considered this issue before coming here. First, he went to greet the county government through his group's annual fixed poverty alleviation project. It's in his hands, and there is no part of false play at all.

"Just follow the figures approved by the county people's congress before, and I'll do it later..." Yan Xie paused, and then added a sentence: "...make up 50.00% more, and repair the dormitory building before the year, otherwise it will be too cold .”

The dean was overjoyed immediately.

Yan Xie said: "A year ago I will let people come to see it."

The dean's smile from the bottom of his heart faded immediately, and then he strongly assured: "Of course! Of course!"

These tricky Yan Mo knew in his heart that he didn't have the unrealistic idea that all the money could be used for real purposes, as long as a part of it could play a role.The dean didn't expect him to be so happy, and he enthusiastically took out documents such as the management charter and target plan of the orphanage to introduce. Yan Xie patiently listened to him for about ten minutes before picking an appropriate opportunity to interrupt. : "Institutions like yours, when children come in and out, there should be records, right?"

The dean repeated: "Yes, yes, there must be. We are the only orphanage in the local area, so it has been decades since the 80s..."

"Can you show me?"

The dean didn't expect him to have such a request, so he was taken aback: "What are you looking at?"

"Photo albums, paper records, children's files, etc., I only want the parts between the 90s and [-]s." Yan Xie smiled at the dean's surprised gaze, and said lightly: "To be honest, my wife used to be in S province when she was young. I stayed in the orphanage for several years, and was later adopted. I made this fixed-point donation because I wanted to visit various orphanages back then, and try to find clues about his biological parents from the adoption information back then, so as to help him complete the tracing. Pursue the source of this long-cherished wish."

The dean suddenly realized: "Oh-oh--"

Judging from the expression, the dean probably made up a series of bloody dramas in his brain in an instant. From the domestic rural eight o'clock file to the popular Korean dramas in the 90s, he went back and forth a few times, and the eyes of Yan Yan also became more meaningful.Yan Yan didn't bother to explain anything, and raised the corner of his mouth coldly, only to hear the dean's enthusiasm several times immediately: "Okay, no problem, I'll go find it for you!"

The dean immediately went out to call for someone, and took a few staff members to open the file room.The management of the orphanages in the rural villages here is obviously relatively backward. Looking through old files is not an easy task. It took a long time for the director to come back, "Hey!" Splashing, relieved: "It's all here!"

Yan Mao was a little surprised in his heart—these materials from more than 20 years ago were more than he thought.

But thinking about it, there is no one collecting waste paper in this poor place. As long as there are no accidents such as fires and floods, paper materials are probably piled up in corners, and no one will lose them.

The files are piled up in chronological order, and Yan Xie is very clear about the specific year, so it is not difficult to find them.While dealing with the dean's gossiping greetings, he searched for Jiang Ting's written materials when he was ten years old, and suddenly found a yellowed and grayed cowhide notebook. When he opened it, he saw that it was full of old photos. .

In just an instant, Yan Xie's eyes were fixed on a certain corner of the photo album——

In a black-and-white group photo, a dozen or so gray children stand in a row from tall to short. The background is the dormitory of the orphanage that was still new at that time. The painted stick figures of the sunrise are clearly on the two iron gates.

The children were all sluggish and ignorant, wearing the same round-neck short-sleeved sweater, and looking around, they seemed to be clay dolls carved out of the same mold, except for the little boy who twisted his body slightly and opened his big eyes third from the left.

The camera recorded his curious and shy smile at that moment, and then sealed it in the corner of time, and 20 years later, it whizzed and smashed into Yan Yan's eyes.

"...this child," Yan Yan pointed at the photo, with a strange tremor at the end: "Is there a boy this old in the orphanage?"

"Ah, that's right." The dean came over to take a look, and explained: "It may be that there is a congenital disease, so no one wants to adopt, or it was just sent here, and there was no time to go out. At that time, everyone's living conditions were not good. Well, it’s not easy for older children with memories to find someone, but it’s much easier if they’re two, three, four or five years old!”

There was a slightly sour taste on the base of Yan Yan's tongue, he swallowed hard, suppressing the hot pain in his chest.

"Then was he adopted later?"

"Hey, I only came here seven or eight years ago. I need to look it up." The dean rolled up his sleeves and rummaged through the pile of file bags for a long time, finally found a work record, and took a picture of it. Forehead: "Come on, this is it!"

The dean shook the dust on the record: "This is the adoption registration back then, but some are missing. At that time, the management was not as standardized as we are now. We treated those children with great care and care, and resolutely implemented them. The state's policy on supporting children's welfare..."

While chattering, he squinted at Yan Mao, obviously extremely curious about this unusual young rich man.

Yan Xie stopped flipping through the pages.

[On September 9, XX, the adopted child, Jiang Ting. 】

A few lines of scribbled and faded pen writing recorded the most crucial moment when Jiang Ting's fate was reversed more than 20 years ago.

Yan Xie didn't waste time to research the adopter's seemingly fabricated information, his eyes fell on the picture pasted on that page.A man with small eyes and gloomy appearance, about 50 years old, is standing in front of a black car at the gate of the orphanage; on his left is Jiang Ting, who was thin and shy back then, and on his right is another fair-faced and well-dressed man little boy.

The boy was obviously one year younger than Jiang Ting, but he was obviously taller. Just like his father, he consciously avoided the camera, turned his face slightly, and looked at Jiang Ting with a smile.

At first glance, it was just a childhood sweetheart, but there was a darker and deeper meaning behind that smile, which instantly pierced Yan Yan's heart like a needle prick——

He knew that he saw the king of spades more than 20 years ago.

Jiang Ting did not tell the complete truth.