The Gong Jiafu Case

The fact that Pan Guangtian placed the item in the mattress lining instead of displaying it in the open suggests that their relationship has not yet been officially made public, and he is still carefully maintaining it.

When Su Ping was questioned, she said something that surprised Zhao Rui: she said that her relationship with Pan Guangtian was not honorable, but Pan Guangtian was really good to her, said he wanted to marry her, and said that he would soon save up a lot of money.

Su Ping couldn't say exactly how much money it was or who she was paid for it. She said that Pan Guangtian only said that one sentence and never mentioned it again.

Zhao Rui jotted these words down in his notebook, quickly piecing together all the clues in his mind—Pan Guangtian suddenly had some extra money, voluntarily taking out 20,000 yuan to give to Gong Jiafu, and telling Su Ping, "I'll be able to save up a sum of money soon." This money clearly didn't come from his normal income as a repairman at the logistics park, but from his role in the Gong Jiafu case—he was hired to carry out the murder, and his employer had already paid him at least part of the compensation.

Pan Guangtian was taken away from the maintenance workshop of the logistics park by the special task force on the afternoon of the third day after the incident.

When the police officer asked him to put the wrench down, he had just finished disassembling the hydraulic pump of a forklift, his hands were covered in oil, and the cuffs of his work clothes were rolled up to his elbows.

He didn't shout like Cao Yong, nor did he act like a dead pig unafraid of boiling water like Xing Laosan. He simply placed the wrench on the worktable, took off his gloves, dusted himself off, and then held out his hands for the police to handcuff.

In the interrogation room, Jiang Ruolan sat opposite him and asked Lu Zheng to put two things on the table—the key to Gong Jiafu's house and the bloodstained work clothes found in Pan Guangtian's rented room.

Pan Guangtian looked down at the two items and remained silent for a long time.

His hair was already gray, and the wrinkles on his face were much deeper than his actual age of forty-six. The old scar above his left eyebrow gleamed pale under the interrogation lights.

He spoke in a low voice, with a deliberate calmness:

"Jiafu is from my hometown. We grew up together, practically inseparable. He's a few years younger than me, and I've always treated him like a younger brother. He came to the city later than me, and I was the one who introduced him to the forklift operator job. Back in our hometown, our two families' land was adjacent, and during harvest time, if one family was short-handed, the other would volunteer to help. The year his wife gave birth to our son, he was short of money, and I even lent him some. I didn't come to kill him. That night, I just wanted to scare him, make him return the money, and stop meddling. But he said he had already packed up his things and that if those people dared to lay a hand on him, he would hand them over to the police. I said, 'Are you crazy? Can you handle those people?' He retorted, 'Are you one of them too?'"

Pan Guangtian paused here, his Adam's apple bobbing violently.

His fingers curled and straightened repeatedly on the table, with black machine oil still embedded in his fingernails.

After a long silence, he suddenly spoke in an extremely tired voice about his employer—a freight forwarder surnamed Shi named Shi Lei.

In the logistics park, everyone calls him "Brother Stone," as he specializes in freighting building materials and daily necessities from Yian to surrounding counties and cities.

Shi Lei approached him privately, asking him to "get things sorted out with a few forklift operators on the night shift" in the logistics park, saying that a batch of goods needed to be transferred at night and could not go through normal customs declaration.

For each transfer, the forklift operator received 2,000 yuan, and Pan Guangtian received 500 yuan as a referral fee.

Pan Guangtian said he initially refused, but when Shi Lei raised the price to 800, he couldn't resist. He introduced Shi Lei to three forklift operators, one of whom was Gong Jiafu.

The task force is simultaneously investigating who Shi Lei is and who is backing him.

Zhao Rui retrieved Shi Lei's business registration information from the system—Yi'an Hengtong Logistics Freight Forwarding Department, registered at Chengdong Logistics Park, legal representative Shi Lei, 41 years old, a local of Yi'an, with no criminal record.

However, his freight forwarding department has seen an abnormal increase in business volume in the past six months, especially the number of night freight orders, which far exceeds the industry average.

The task force took coercive measures against Shi Lei in accordance with the law and found a handwritten ledger in his freight forwarding office. The ledger contained detailed records of every night-transported cargo, forklift operator codes, contact information of the consignor and consignee, and the corresponding amount of payment.

Among the nighttime transported goods recorded in this ledger, some were marked with special codes. After comparison with the Provincial Narcotics Control Department, it was confirmed that the characteristics of this batch of goods were highly consistent with those of contraband in multiple drug trafficking cases.

During interrogation, Shi Lei confessed to his upstream supplier—a man named Quan Ge, who specialized in freight routes from the provincial capital to Yi'an.

Quan confessed that he got his goods from a freight forwarder surnamed Duan in the provincial capital. After the Provincial Department of Public Security's Economic Investigation Division intervened, Duan confessed that his goods came from overseas. The entire smuggling chain spanned three provinces, using legitimate freight transit stations as cover to transport drugs and contraband at night by replacing containers and smuggling contraband.

The key execution point of this chain in Yi'an was the forklift operators like Gong Jiafu, who were bribed and then silenced.

Shi Lei's supplier was also apprehended in the provincial capital, and the entire smuggling chain was dismantled.

After the interrogation ended, Jiang Ruolan came out of the interrogation room and stood in the corridor for a while.

The municipal bureau building was quiet in the early morning. The branches of the plane trees outside the window cast interlaced shadows under the streetlights, and the faint sound of freight train whistles could be heard from the east of the city.

She took her notebook out of her pocket, turned to a blank page, and wrote a line: "The breakdown of the smuggling chain: an honest man took money that wasn't his, thinking he could uphold the bottom line. He did, and so he died." After writing this, she capped her pen.

Lu Zheng walked over from the other end of the corridor, holding a steaming cup of strong tea, and handed it to her, saying that Gong Jiafu's wife had come to collect his belongings that afternoon, taking the 20,000 yuan with her.

She didn't cry; she just stood in the lobby of the municipal police station for a long time, clutching the small cloth bag wrapped in old newspapers, before bowing to the slogan on the wall that read "People's Police Serve the People."

She said her husband had never done anything wrong in his life, and she would burn the 20,000 yuan at his grave for him.

Gong Jiafu's son stood beside her, holding her arm. The boy hadn't cried since his father's murder, but when he received his father's belongings, he suddenly squatted down and covered his face with his sleeve.

Jiang Ruolan took the teacup from Lu Zheng, took a sip, and then added four words below the line in the notebook: "We held on, but the price was too high." She closed the notebook, finished the tea in one gulp, placed the cup on the windowsill, and told Lu Zheng that it was almost dawn and he should go to sleep for a while, as there was a case analysis meeting tomorrow.

Then she pushed open the office door and stepped into the gradually brightening dawn light...

...........