Chapter 235 - 233: How Did You Know
Chapter 235: Chapter 233: How Did You Know
"But I’m the most familiar with that place," Su Miaoyi said after Meng Shuyi turned her down.
"Your description was very clear. We can find it without any problem," Meng Shuyi said. "You can’t go."
Su Miaoyi started to say something else, but Meng Shuyi cut in, "This is an order."
"Yes, sir," Su Miaoyi replied instinctively.
Once Meng Shuyi turned away, she looked over at Qin Chengyuan.
Qin Chengyuan glanced at her crestfallen expression, then slowly looked back down at the file in his hands.
Su Miaoyi: "..."
Zhuang Yanzheng was another one who couldn’t join the operation.
With his eye injury, he’d just be a liability.
As they watched the cars drive away one after another, Su Miaoyi and Zhuang Yanzheng felt like their hearts were leaving with them.
The garbage disposal plant was massive, so a large police force was mobilized for the raid.
"Can’t you make an exception and issue me a gun?" Su Miaoyi sighed.
"Getting you a gun right now would be about as easy as my eyes suddenly healing this very second," Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Su Miaoyi sighed again.
"You’re itching for a gun, aren’t you?" Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her.
Su Miaoyi pursed her lips, saying nothing.
Zhuang Yanzheng watched her for a few seconds, then said, "Let’s go. We can review the intel on the garbage disposal plant."
The two of them returned to the conference room and went over all the information they had on the garbage disposal plant once more.
The hours ticked by, from early night to late.
The first reports came in from Qin City and Wanxiang Village. At the Wanxiang Village cattle farm, a large quantity of heroin had been discovered hidden inside hay bales.
The farm’s manager and several others were all taken into custody.
They were all being brought to the municipal bureau.
Meanwhile, the mountain site in Qin City was temporarily sealed off. No one was allowed in or out, and all relevant personnel were arrested.
The police also gained entry to the basement.
But... it was just an abandoned drug lab, containing some obsolete and discarded equipment.
It was now being used as a stash house, and a large quantity of heroin was found there as well.
The seized quantity was enough to get them executed a hundred times over.
So, there was news from both locations.
But there was still no word from the garbage disposal plant.
Zhuang Yanzheng’s eyes began to ache from staring at the documents for so long, so he closed them to rest.
Su Miaoyi, however, kept thumbing through the files, waiting for news.
Qin Chengyuan and Meng Shuyi were also in the conference room.
It wasn’t until just after three in the morning that Meng Shuyi’s phone rang.
News had finally come from the garbage disposal plant.
The garbage disposal plant operated twenty-four hours a day.
However, the night shift was still more relaxed than the day shift.
Night was also when people were most likely to let their guard down.
Using the cover of darkness, the police surrounded the plant, catching them completely by surprise.
With Zhang Bai in tow, they went straight to the room Su Miaoyi had described.
The room had been converted into a storage closet. The cabinet Su Miaoyi had spoken of was gone; a mural now covered that spot on the wall.
But when the mural was pulled aside, it revealed another door—one Su Miaoyi hadn’t seen before.
It was a door that sat perfectly flush with the wall, without the slightest gap.
Without a close inspection or a tap to listen for a hollow sound, it was completely undetectable.
This outer door could be pushed open, but the inner door required Zhang Bai’s iris to unlock.
According to the officers on site, Zhang Bai was extremely uncooperative, keeping his eyes squeezed shut.
But the tech team was skilled enough to bypass the lock directly.
Next was an elevator. After riding it down and exiting, they moved forward.
Another security measure: Zhang Bai’s palm vein recognition.
Zhang Bai remained uncooperative, but the palm vein scan was a simple matter—they just grabbed his hand and forced it onto the scanner.
Once the door opened, the people inside resisted with firearms.
Even so late at night, the place was still full of people.
People in the main building above ground also put up armed resistance.
Ultimately, they were all apprehended.
There were no casualties during the operation.
A total of one hundred thirty-two people were arrested, and a massive amount of narcotics and raw manufacturing materials were seized.
The suspects had to be transported, the garbage disposal plant secured and swept for evidence, and the narcotics and raw materials all had to be brought back.
They didn’t return to the municipal bureau until after daybreak.
The number of arrests was overwhelming.
Many people needed to be interrogated.
Qin Chengyuan headed straight back to his own department.
Everyone at the municipal bureau was thrown into a flurry of activity.
All of the interrogation rooms were immediately occupied.
But despite the numerous arrests, Zhang Yan Yu was not among them.
Zhuang Yanzheng went to interrogate Zhang Bai.
Su Miaoyi and Lu Zhishen listened in from outside the interrogation room.
Zhang Bai was in much worse shape than he had been a couple of days ago.
It might have been the fever, or it might have been from having to witness his garbage plant facility get busted.
He was utterly dejected and broken. The fight that had kept him going seemed to have vanished, taking his spirit with it.
Zhuang Yanzheng sat in the interrogation room, looked at Zhang Bai, and said, "Doing okay?"
Su Miaoyi hadn’t slept all night, and her head was pounding. She was massaging her temples with her eyes closed when she suddenly heard Zhuang Yanzheng’s question to Zhang Bai.
She opened her eyes and exchanged a look with Lu Zhishen.
Lu Zhishen shot her a look of utter admiration for Zhuang Yanzheng.
Su Miaoyi found herself agreeing with him.
’If she were Zhang Bai,’ she thought, ’after being so arrogant for so many years, only to get captured and then forced to watch her own operation get dismantled... she’d be on the brink of collapse. To suddenly hear a question like that? She’d lose her mind.’
’Doing okay?’
’How could he possibly be okay?’
’How in the world could he be okay?’
’There was absolutely nothing to be okay about!’
Sure enough, after a few seconds of silence, Zhang Bai exploded. He seemed to have gone completely berserk. "WHY! WHY! HOW DID YOU FIND IT?! HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY FIND IT?! HOW DID YOU PINPOINT THE LOCATION?! WHO TOLD YOU?! WHO WAS IT?! WHO?! WHY DID YOU KNOW EVERYTHING IN SUCH DETAIL?! HOW DID YOU KNOW THE FIRST DOOR NEEDED MY IRIS AND THE SECOND ONE NEEDED MY PALM VEIN?! WHY!"
Zhang Bai’s voice was raw and hoarse, but he screamed with vicious intensity.
The sound was grating. His voice would occasionally break, but he continued to shriek madly.
Watching him slam himself against the interrogation chair over and over, Su Miaoyi held the earpiece a little further from her ear.
The noise made Lu Zhishen’s expression darken.
The raid on the garbage disposal plant seemed to be the final straw for Zhang Bai.
Su Miaoyi had heard that during the previous night’s operation, a hood had been placed over Zhang Bai’s head.
He couldn’t see a thing, yet as the police car neared the garbage disposal plant, he had suddenly started to struggle.
Even without his sight, he had discerned the location; he knew exactly where they were headed.
He had become extremely agitated.
"Was it Kang Hong?!" Zhang Bai shouted the name, then immediately refuted himself. "No, it couldn’t be Kang Hong. Absolutely not! That guy has a terrible sense of direction; he can’t even tell north from south. Blindfold him in a car and he completely loses his bearings. He can’t even tell if the trip was long or short. He didn’t even know I’d switched drug labs on him. It couldn’t have been him."
"You switched from the mountain in Qin City to the garbage disposal plant in Jinghai?" Zhuang Yanzheng prodded.
Zhang Bai stared at him. "How did you know that?! How did you know!"
"We have our ways."
"Was it Zhang Yan Yu?" Zhang Bai asked. "It had to be him! No... no, it couldn’t be. Even if he hates me, he’d never use the garbage disposal plant to get back at me. He wouldn’t give up such a huge financial interest. He wouldn’t. It wasn’t him."
...