Chapter Ninety-Three: Pursuit and Analysis (Seeking Monthly Votes)

Ning Zhiheng slipped away with effortless composure, racing and darting across the rooftops. After two blocks, he reached a residence and saw several garments hanging in the courtyard.

He glanced down at the clothes he was wearing. He had deliberately changed into them the night before: an all-dark outfit suitable for moving about under cover of darkness.

But dawn had already broken, and in daylight such clothes would draw attention. Thinking this, he dropped from the roof, casually took down one of the drying garments, threw it on as quickly as he could, and vaulted over the wall to leave.

Soon he was back home. By then it was already eight in the morning. He hurriedly took off all the clothes he had worn, changed into the garments he usually preferred, tidied himself up, and headed out to the Military Intelligence Bureau for work.

At the same time, outside Zhongkang Herbal Pharmacy, Shen Le, director of the Nanjing Party Affairs Investigation Office, was listening to the report on the case from Wen Hao and Duan Xingzhou.

After gathering together the information he had collected, Wen Hao stepped forward and reported to Shen Le: "Director, based on the information provided by Guo Ming and Li Feiyang from the field operations team, and our interviews with some of the citizens who were present at the time, we have pieced together the following sequence of events.

"At seven in the morning, Guo Ming, who was on surveillance duty, discovered that the target, Wu Quanjiang, and another accomplice had disguised themselves as pharmacy clerks and left the shop. Zheng Mingshan prepared to tail them, but then received orders to arrest Wu Quanjiang immediately, so they carried out the arrest at once. The two sides exchanged brief fire, and one of the accomplices was wounded in the leg.

"Later, two more accomplices came in from the street corner and joined Wu Quanjiang. Zheng Mingshan had already cornered them in the narrow alley beside the street, when a masked gunman suddenly appeared behind them. This gunman was highly accurate and extremely agile. In the space of just two minutes, he shot and killed seven agents, including Zheng Mingshan.

"At the same time, Wu Quanjiang and his accomplices fled toward the street corner. Just then, Li Feiyang and the other action-team members arrived and drove them back.

"The masked gunman attacked again, shooting dead two more action-team members and pinning Li Feiyang's group at the street corner, allowing Wu Quanjiang and his accomplices to escape in the confusion.

"Li Feiyang and the others were in a standoff with the masked gunman for about ten minutes. Before our reinforcements arrived, the masked gunman withdrew on his own."

After hearing Wen Hao's analysis, Shen Le fell silent for a long while. At last he let out a bitter laugh and said helplessly, "In other words, this gunman acted alone, killed nine of our men in just a few minutes, covered Wu Quanjiang and his accomplices' retreat, and then left unscathed, calmly walking away."

He turned a sidelong glance at Duan Xingzhou beside him and said mockingly, "Captain Duan, is the tactical training for the action team really so leisurely? Even killing nine pigs would make them squeal twice. Yet one gunman was enough to leave them in such a sorry state, scrambling everywhere. How am I supposed to write this report?"

Duan Xingzhou hung his head miserably, unable to say a word. Being ridiculed face-to-face by his superior was worse than taking a slap across the face. He was so ashamed he wanted nothing more than to find a crack in the ground and crawl into it.

Seeing how embarrassed Duan Xingzhou looked, Wen Hao felt sorry for him and spoke up to smooth things over. "Director, of course the action team bears a heavy responsibility for what happened today. But this gunman was simply too formidable. We judge that he is probably the same man who killed Zhang Pei and the other two earlier this morning."

"Oh? Why do you say that?" Shen Le asked at once, startled by the remark.

"We found nothing useful in the safe house apartment, but the killer made one mistake. Though he erased all traces inside the apartment, he overlooked the footprints left outside the back wall. We recovered the shoe prints.

"Just now we also recovered footprints from the rooftop where the gunman had lingered. After comparing them, we found that both the size and the tread pattern were exactly the same.

"At the same time, both the man who killed Zhang Pei and the gunman who shot the nine action-team members showed the same trait: exceptional agility and extremely strong combat ability.

"And there is also the continuity of the case. After killing Zhang Pei and the two action-team members at two in the morning, this killer searched out information on Wu Quanjiang and then warned him. Wu Quanjiang disguised himself as a pharmacy clerk and tried to flee, and this same killer then covered his successful escape. The progression of the case is very continuous, so this should not be wrong."

After hearing Wen Hao's analysis, Shen Le lowered his head and thought for a moment. Then he suddenly frowned and said, "What you say makes sense, but the timing doesn't fit. By two in the morning, the killer had already obtained the information. Walking from the apartment to here would take only about fifty minutes. Then Wu Quanjiang should have received word that he had been exposed by around three in the morning. Yet he delayed until daylight before fleeing. It would have been much more advantageous for him to leave under cover of night. What was he doing during those nearly three hours?"

Wen Hao also agreed after hearing Shen Le's objection, and explained further. "That doesn't contradict anything. It only shows that this killer and Wu Quanjiang had no contact within the underground party organization and did not know each other. If he had gone directly to Wu Quanjiang with a warning, Wu Quanjiang would not have trusted him. There had to be a process for the intelligence to be passed along, and that process would have taken time."

Wen Hao truly deserved his reputation as a top investigator. His analysis of Ning Zhiheng was meticulous and logical, dissecting every step of his actions one by one, and he was almost never wrong.

Shen Le nodded. As his trusted assistant, he had great confidence in Wen Hao's analytical ability.

"Then do you now have a more concrete description of this killer?" Shen Le asked.

"Based on Guo Ming's description, this killer has short hair, an average build, and is between five foot eight and five foot nine. He is highly skilled in close combat and exceptionally accurate with a gun. Every one of the fallen action-team members was shot in the head and died on the spot. This also confirms our earlier judgment: he must be a martial expert from the jianghu who later joined the army and learned military hand-to-hand combat as well as precise shooting skills.

"Also, once we get back, we will recover the bullets from the skulls of the fallen men and carry out a strict ballistic analysis, then trace the source of the firearm for leads."

"Find him. You must find him. A man with this level of operational skill is far too great a threat to us," Shen Le said decisively. "Take charge of this matter personally."

"Yes, Director!" Wen Hao stood at attention and accepted the order. He also wanted to take action himself and track down this mysterious opponent.

"Captain Duan, how is the search for Wu Quanjiang going?" Shen Le then turned and asked Duan Xingzhou, who stood nearby.

Hearing the question, Duan Xingzhou said awkwardly, "Director, by the time we arrived, Wu Quanjiang had already been gone for a long time. Although we searched in many directions, we still have no leads. Please punish me, Director."

Duan Xingzhou had indeed done everything he could, almost turning the two surrounding blocks upside down, but in the end he found nothing. Now he could only steel himself and report to Shen Le.

Shen Le was so angry that the corners of his mouth twitched upward. He raised his hand, ready to slap the useless man again, but seeing the many subordinates around them, he finally forced himself to restrain his temper. One slap from him might be enough to strip Duan Xingzhou of all authority in front of his men from this day forward.

"Continue the search. Send people to notify every major hospital in Nanjing. If any patient comes in with a gunshot wound to the leg, report it immediately. Any concealment will be punished the same as being a Communist Party member!" Shen Le ordered.

"Yes!" Duan Xingzhou dared not delay and quickly agreed.

After issuing his orders, Shen Le truly had no desire to remain in this cursed place. He waved his hand, left Duan Xingzhou to continue searching for Wu Quanjiang, and rode back to the Party Affairs Investigation Office with Wen Hao.

The car had been driving for some time when Shen Le, who had been resting with his eyes closed in the back seat, suddenly asked, "How confident are you that you can catch this killer?"

Sitting in the front passenger seat, Wen Hao heard the question and understood that his superior had never stopped thinking about the matter. He considered it for a moment, then answered, "Honestly, I have no confidence."

Then he added, "For some reason, when I was searching the apartment today, I kept having a feeling that I had seen this before."

"A familiar feeling? Why do you say that?" Shen Le opened his eyes, curious about Wen Hao's answer.

"I can't really explain why. It may just be some inexplicable intuition. I keep feeling that the way this killer cleaned up the traces is very similar to a case from two months ago.

"Many criminals, when erasing evidence, leave some kind of flaw, more or less. Very few can do it this cleanly.

"Cleaning up traces sounds simple, but in reality it is not easy at all. A truly skilled person can make it so that you cannot even tell anyone had entered the scene.

"First, the person must be meticulous, and especially good at short-term forced memory.

"From the moment he enters the scene, he has to arrange the steps and order of his actions. After finishing, he must be able to recall every place and corner he passed through so that he can clean away the traces.

"He must remember the position and orientation of every object he touched, as well as every tiny detail, so he can restore everything to its original state.

"Truth be told, in all these years I have examined many scenes, but there have been very few cases where everything was truly spotless, with not a single trace left behind.

"The safe house apartment was very similar to Lu Guangran's home. In both places, the sequence was from the inside outward, and the cleanup was extremely thorough."

Wen Hao seemed to be recalling something carefully, then gave a self-mocking smile. "Of course, I may simply be overthinking it. After all, linking these two cases is rather forced."