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墨書 Inktalez
Finding Li Xian was not easy. By the time Li Xian hung up on me for the third time, Mary had already tracked down his location. It was a game room that looked quite shabby from the outside. But we all understood that the more inconspicuous a place is, the more likely it is to be involved in illicit activities.
Despite its dilapidated state, this game room had not gone out of business for one reason: the customers inside were regulars. If there wasn't any gambling going on, I wouldn't believe it for a second. Pushing open the door and stepping inside, we found ourselves in a narrow hallway just a few square meters wide. To the left, there was a staircase, and it seemed that the gambling area was on the second floor.
Before we could head upstairs, a head popped out from around the corner. He raised his eyebrows and asked, "What are you two doing?"
I replied, "We're friends of Li Xian."
He seemed to take my word for it and led us upstairs. The space on the second floor was much larger, and we quickly spotted Li Xian sitting at a gambling table, looking serious as he played Mahjong, much like a United Nations Secretary-General contemplating international affairs.
From the number of tiles on the table, it appeared there were no wind or arrow tiles in play. During my time in prison, I often heard gamblers discussing strategies. Playing in this manner would speed up the pace of the game, allowing the house to take a larger cut while also increasing the stakes and losses. Clearly, these players had their money laid out on the table; it looked like each round's bet was at least around one hundred yuan.
However, these gamblers were still stuck in an older phase, using cash to wager their bets on the table. A fellow inmate once told me that nowadays gambling rarely involves cash openly; winnings and losses are transferred via mobile payment apps. Even if the police showed up, they couldn't do anything since we were merely having fun and not gambling.
I remembered asking him back then, "So how did you end up here?"
The gambler seemed momentarily stunned as if someone had pressed a pressure point on him. After pondering for a while, he finally asked me, "Yeah, we're so hidden; how did you find us?"
I replied, "If you want to keep something secret, you must not do it at all. Technology can change lives, but some things remain unchanged; think about it."
As I reminisced about that moment, Gu Chen's voice pulled me back to reality: "Li Xian?"
Li Xian was focused intently on his Mahjong tiles, frowning as he studied his hand and completely oblivious to Gu Chen's call. I finally understood why gamblers became so fervent; they truly poured their souls into their games.
Without hesitation, Gu Chen stepped forward and grabbed Li Xian's wrist, causing Li Xian's Mahjong tile to fall to the ground.
"Who are you?" The other gamblers finally noticed us and turned to inquire.
Gu Chen declared, "Police."
Everyone seemed taken aback and stared blankly at Gu Chen until he repeated his identity. At that point, chaos erupted as everyone scrambled to escape—some grabbed their money while others fled entirely. The only one left behind was Li Xian, whose wrist Gu Chen held tightly. Having gambled away most of his money over the years, he would be in a different situation if someone lent him funds.
In an instant, the room was left with only Li Xian.
"Why are you only arresting me when so many people are gambling?" Li Xian protested sullenly when he realized resistance was futile.
But in reality, I wasn't here to catch him; I was here to catch someone else.
This was Li Xian's gambling friend, who had won twenty million. If someone were to buy a lottery ticket with a genuine twenty million, he would definitely be the reason behind it. Because after taxes, twenty million would become less than twenty million. If Zhou Guo used twenty million to buy a lottery ticket, then Zhou Guo's overseas twenty million would be laundered.
"Take him back," I said to Gu Chen.
Gu Chen asked, "What about his friend who won the lottery?"
I smiled and replied, "He's burdened with too much baggage to leave."
As soon as we returned to the City Bureau, Li Xian immediately implicated that gambling friend. In less than half an hour, this friend appeared before us. Under our questioning, he admitted that someone had indeed come to buy his lottery ticket, but he had never seen who that person was.
Gambler Liu Huarong lost his father at three, his mother at twelve, and was kicked out of his home by his aunt at seventeen. At twenty, he found a job that barely made ends meet, but by twenty-two, he became addicted to gambling and lost all the money he earned. For the next twenty years, Liu Huarong lived a life of uncertainty.
Whenever he had a little spare cash, Liu Huarong would gamble. Eventually, realizing this couldn't continue, he gritted his teeth and quit smoking—a habit he'd picked up since he was twelve. This way, Liu Huarong could save ten yuan to gamble.
When he had money, he would bet big—ten yuan, fifty yuan, even hundreds. When funds were low, he would still gamble with two or five mao or one yuan. But Liu Huarong was always losing more than winning; over the years, he didn't know how much money he'd lost. Like most gamblers, the more he lost, the more he wanted to win it back.
Sometimes he knew there was no way out ahead and that he was heading straight for a wall. Yet they would crash into that wall without turning back because once they did, it meant denying themselves. Many people are aware of the dangers of gambling but simply cannot control themselves. The whole world may have denied them; if they deny themselves too, how pitiful would that be?
Liu Huarong sometimes reflected on his forty-plus years of life and felt like an unfortunate person from birth. Why could some people become rich overnight while he remained a pauper? Liu Huarong felt resentful and decided to use his meal money to buy a few lottery tickets.
One of those tickets turned his life around; he became a wealthy man. He hugged the television and kissed it for a long time because he had won second prize—what did second prize mean? It meant twenty million. But what did twenty million mean? Liu Huarong couldn't quite grasp it since every ten-yuan bill on him had been placed on the gambling table.
So he went to claim his prize. However, before he could do so, a child handed him a phone. The child was thin and wore a hat; after giving him the phone, the child quickly left. Liu Huarong didn't understand what this meant and answered the call.
A deep voice from a middle-aged man came through the line. He told Liu Huarong that if he won second prize, he was willing to pay twenty million for it. Liu Huarong had heard similar conversations at the gambling table before; it seemed like someone wanted to bribe some leader under the guise of lottery winnings so that they could spend the money openly while claiming it was from family winnings.
Unexpectedly, such an event happened to him. Liu Huarong hesitated and feared it might be a scam. But he also knew that if everything went smoothly, he'd end up with sixteen million at most after all transactions were done. However, if the other party genuinely wanted to pay twenty million upfront and transfer the money into his account first before handing over the ticket to that child...
After thinking for a moment, Liu Huarong agreed. Four hundred thousand was still just a number for him; when Liu Huarong provided his account details, soon enough, the money was transferred into his account—exactly twenty million. Without suspicion, Liu Huarong handed over the ticket to that child.
As for what happened afterward, Liu Huarong had no idea.
The child Liu Huarong described to us appeared to be just a student running errands for someone else. The real mastermind behind everything had never shown himself. Liu Huarong thought this matter was settled until we caught him today unexpectedly.
I called Mary and asked her to check if there were any issues with Zhou Guo's account. However, that twenty million first circulated through foreign accounts and then went through various banks domestically. I thought it would be difficult to trace the source of this money. Even if we determined that it was the twenty million defrauded by Li Zhinan, without substantial evidence, there wasn't much we could do.
Could a teenager really handle things so meticulously? What kind of experiences must he have gone through in his childhood to act in such a way?
Liu Huarong shared everything he knew, but we had no way to confiscate his assets; we could only let Liu Huarong return to where he came from. Of course, Li Xian couldn't leave yet. As the guardian of the minor Li Taida, he still had a series of procedures to complete, but that was no longer our responsibility.
Before long, Guan Zengbin found us; she had completed the autopsy on Zhou Guo's body.
It turned out that among the two cups of water on the table, one contained a sedative and the other poison. The test results showed that only one person's fingerprints and lip prints were on the cup—those belonged to Zhou Guo. In fact, both cups had been consumed by Zhou Guo: one to anesthetize himself and the other to end his life.
Guan Zengbin informed us that Zhou Guo died from poisoning, with the time of death pinpointed to around two o'clock, which coincided with when Guan Zengbin was incapacitated; Zhou Guo chose suicide then. The fraud scheme planned by five individuals corresponded to five children, totaling one hundred sixty thousand dollars—five youths each with their own dreams.
Suddenly, something struck me. If that were the case, then it was very likely that Zhou Guo's mother had passed away long ago.
At that moment, my phone rang. It was Liu. He opened with, "Lao Wu, it turns out Zhou Guo's mother died when he was in eighth grade; not many people knew about it back then, not even the teachers at school."
"Check on Zhou Guo's father," I sighed in response to Liu Dao.
Sure enough, my mind suddenly recalled what Zhang Xue had told me. That night, five teenagers on the rooftop of their school. Dreams require money. If Zhou Guo wasn't using the money for his mother's medical treatment, then he must have divided that sixteen million among the other four.
All the puzzles were solved.
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