Chapter 1413
Two women scrubbing each other's backs? What are you two doing in the bathhouse!
Sitting to the side, Chen Ke continued typing on the keyboard with a blank expression, seemingly indifferent to everything in front of her, faithfully recording every word of the interrogation.
Zhang Gangwei took a deep breath, suppressing his agitation, and sat back down in his chair. He didn't continue to dwell on the issue of the auxiliary police officer and the police officer, because he knew that arguing with Luo Fei about this topic would only put him in a more passive position.
He opened the folder, turned to another page, glanced at it, then looked up, his eyes sharpening again.
"Okay. You said you're an auxiliary police officer, so let's talk about what it was like when you were an auxiliary police officer."
Zhang Gangwei's tone returned to its usual businesslike manner, but his words carried an undisguised malice.
"Last July, after you got the whereabouts of Lei Sihai from the kidnappers, Lei Sihai, the son of Director Lei, treated you to a meal in Dongguan to thank you. After the meal, he took you to a bathhouse."
He paused deliberately, his gaze fixed on Luo Fei's face, as if trying to catch some subtle change in expression.
What's the name of that bathhouse?
Luo Fei's expression remained unchanged, and his tone was indifferent.
"forget."
"forget?"
Zhang Gangwei sneered.
"Let me help you remember. That bathhouse is called 'Jinhua Pool,' and it's a well-known... high-end place in Dongguan."
He dragged out the word "high-end," his tone carrying an ambiguous implication.
"According to our investigation, Lei Sihai booked a private bath room at Jinhua Pool that night. He arranged twenty women for you."
After saying this, Zhang Gangwei leaned forward slightly, his eyes filled with the excitement of a hunter seeing his prey reveal a weakness.
"Luo Fei, tell me, a man was taken to a bathhouse, given a private room, and twenty women were arranged there. What did you do in there?"
Luo Fei's expression turned somewhat strange as he listened to Zhang Gangwei's question, which carried strong implications.
He paused for two seconds, then spoke.
"bath."
Zhang Gangwei raised his eyebrows.
"bath?"
"Yes, take a shower."
Luo Fei nodded, his tone completely frank.
"Dry rubbing. We rubbed each other's backs. The two of us rubbed each other's backs for two hours. Later, he felt that the rubbing was good, so he called in a few more back-rubbing masters, one for each of us, and we rubbed for several more hours."
They went in at 10 p.m. and didn't come out until 6 a.m. the next morning.
When he said these words, the expression on his face was so serious that it didn't seem like he was just talking nonsense.
"Team Leader Zhang, you know about back scrubbing, right? It's the kind of dry scrubbing, without shower gel, just using your palms to scrub off the old dirt from your body one strip at a time. It's a skill, but also a physically demanding job."
Lei Sihai and I rubbed each other's clothes, and then the master rubbed them too. It took a total of seven or eight hours. When we came out, all the mud was gone, but we were all red-faced.
Zhang Gangwei's face turned green.
"Luo Fei! Are you kidding me?"
His voice rose again, and he slammed his hand on the table once more.
"Twenty women! A private room! Seven or eight hours! You're saying you were just giving each other back massages?"
Luo Fei met Zhang Gangwei's angry gaze with a calm expression, his tone remaining unhurried.
"Otherwise what? Team Leader Zhang, if you don't believe me, you can check the surveillance footage at Jinhua Pool. See if we've been scrubbing our backs by the pool the whole time. But—"
He paused, a slight smile playing on his lips.
"The pools in bathhouses are very steamy, so the cameras can't get a clear picture. Besides, you can't possibly install surveillance cameras in a bathing pool, can you? If they could capture footage of what's happening inside the pool, would it still be called a bathhouse?"
Zhang Gangwei was so choked by those words that he almost couldn't breathe.
He knew, of course, that there were no security cameras in the bathhouse pools, let alone in the private rooms. This was simply the unspoken rule in these upscale establishments, designed to protect the privacy of their guests.
But because of this, he had no evidence to refute Luo Fei's statement.
Luo Fei said he was just rubbing his back, what can you do about it?
You say he did something else, then provide evidence.
Without evidence, anything you say is meaningless.
Zhang Gangwei's knuckles turned white from gripping the pen so tightly. He glared at Luo Fei's expressionless face, wanting nothing more than to slap him. But he couldn't. The entire interrogation was being recorded, and his every move was being recorded as well.
In the monitoring room next to the interrogation room, a middle-aged man wearing a dark gray jacket stood behind a one-way glass window, a cigarette between his fingers, watching the scene in the interrogation room through the glass.
He is Li Daming, the head of the interrogation section of the Dali Division's counter-espionage department.
He was in his early fifties, his hair already streaked with gray, but his eyes remained sharp, carrying the seasoned shrewdness and composure honed by years of interrogation work. He watched the exchange between Zhang Gangwei and Luo Fei from beginning to end, his face expressionless.
When Luo Fei uttered the phrase "rubbing back," a bit of cigarette ash accidentally fell from Li Daming's cigarette and landed on the floor. He glanced down at it, then looked up at Luo Fei's calm face in the interrogation room, and his lips twitched slightly.
This Luo Fei is much more difficult to deal with than he imagined.
It's not the kind of tough opponent that's hard to deal with head-on, but rather the kind that's slippery all over, making it impossible to find a way to bite into it.
He knew Zhang Gangwei's methods well; he was considered a seasoned veteran in the entire interrogation department.
But today, facing Luo Fei, Zhang Gangwei's every move seemed to hit cotton. Not only did he fail to hurt his opponent, but his moves were also easily neutralized, and Luo Fei even turned the tables on him.
Li Daming pressed the call button on his headset, his voice low and deep.
"Zhang Gangwei, don't get entangled with him about whether he's an auxiliary police officer or not, and don't waste time at the bathhouse. Without evidence, no matter how much you talk, it's useless. Change the subject. Ask him directly about the stock trading."
In the interrogation room, Zhang Gangwei heard the instructions through his earpiece. His expression stiffened slightly, but he quickly regained his composure. He took a deep breath, composed himself, and reopened the folder.
"Okay, let's not talk about that for now."
Zhang Gangwei's tone was much calmer than before, but the hostility in his eyes had not diminished at all.
"Since you're so good at scrubbing backs, then tell me—"
His voice suddenly became sharp.
"Where did you get your stock trading skills from?"
Luo Fei narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Stock trading?"
"That's right, stock trading."
Zhang Gangwei pulled a printed list from the folder and pushed it in front of Luo Fei.
"According to our investigation, you have bought more than a dozen stocks over the past year. Each of these stocks experienced a surge in price shortly after you bought them."
And you've consistently sold at the peak, never being greedy, never making a mistake. Your initial capital of tens of thousands has grown to five or six million in your account.
He stared into Luo Fei's eyes and asked, word by word, "Luo Fei, you're just an auxiliary police officer, earning a little over three thousand a month. Before you joined the force, you were dirt poor. Tell me, how do you manage to buy at the very beginning of a price surge and sell at the absolute peak every time? Where did you get this skill? And who is giving you money through this method?"
Luo Fei leaned back in his chair, knowing better than anyone what was going on with these stocks.
That was done by the system. In the stock market, a place rife with data fluctuations, the system's precise calculation capabilities are practically like having divine insight. Every buy and sell order is the optimal solution derived from the system's analysis of massive amounts of data.
But of course, he couldn't say these things out loud.
"You're asking me how I did it?"
A smug smile appeared on Luo Fei's face.
"That's talent."
He deliberately spoke in an extremely relaxed tone.
"Some people are talented at singing, some at drawing, and some at fighting. My talent, well, it just happens to be stock trading. You know, this stuff is all about luck. I'm lucky; whatever I buy goes up, and whatever I sell goes down."
That's called a market sense; you can't have it just by envying it.
Zhang Gangwei was so angry he almost vomited blood.
Talent? Market sense?
If this were said out loud, not even a ghost would believe it.
However, he had to admit that without direct evidence, he had no way to substantiate Luo Fei's claim of "talent".
"talent?"
Zhang Gangwei's voice was so cold it sounded like it was being squeezed out from between his teeth.
"Okay, you have great talent. Now take a look at this—"
He turned to the next page of the folder.
"Before you became an auxiliary police officer, your bank account balance fluctuated around 1,000 yuan for a long time. After you joined the company, your assets began to grow rapidly. From tens of thousands of yuan at the beginning, to hundreds of thousands later, and now to five or six million."
We'll soon be able to trace the source of this money. Every deposit, every transfer, every account information.
He raised his eyes, his gaze piercing Luo Fei like a knife.
"Will your 'talent' still be explainable then?"
Luo Fei met Zhang Gangwei's gaze without flinching.
"check."
His voice was calm, but every word he spoke was powerful and resounding.
"Go ahead and investigate. Where the money came from, whether it was earned from stocks or given to you, is clearly stated in the bank statements. If you don't mind the trouble, you are welcome to investigate."
"you--"
Zhang Gangwei suddenly jumped up from his chair, slamming his hand heavily on the table, making the folder jump.
His face was flushed red, his chest heaved violently, and his eyes behind his glasses seemed to spit fire. The hand holding the pen trembled slightly, not from fear, but from anger.
He had worked in the Dali Division for so many years, what tough nuts hadn't he met? What kind of suspects hadn't he interrogated? But he had rarely encountered someone like Luo Fei, who sat calmly in the interrogation chair and left him speechless.
What's even more frustrating is that, while their words were infuriating, they were logically sound. They couldn't provide concrete evidence to refute the auxiliary police officer's status, the lack of surveillance in the bathhouse, or the legality of the stock trading profits.
"Luo Fei..."
Zhang Gangwei gritted his teeth, about to say something more, when Li Daming's unquestionable voice suddenly came through the earphone.
"Zhang Gangwei, come out."
Zhang Gangwei stopped moving. He took a deep breath, suppressed his anger, closed the folder, and turned to walk towards the door.
Chen Ke, sitting to the side, continued typing on the keyboard with a blank expression, as if everything in front of her had nothing to do with her.
The interrogation room door was opened and then closed.
When Zhang Gangwei entered the monitoring room, Li Daming was standing in front of the window, looking at Luo Fei sitting in the interrogation chair in the interrogation room across the street.
"Section Chief..."
Zhang Gangwei's tone was filled with resentment.
"This person is completely uncooperative, talks nonsense, and dodges all your questions."
Li Daming didn't turn around; he simply flicked the ash from his cigarette.
"Cooperate?"
He repeated those two words, his tone carrying a hint of disdain.
"Why should he cooperate? Can you produce solid evidence? Without evidence, you expect him to back down? Do you think he's some petty thief? He's the director of the National Security Bureau, a man who's fought his way out of piles of corpses. You think you can intimidate him with just a few words?"
Li Daming turned to look at him, his gaze calm, but his tone heavy.
"Interrogation isn't an argument. Do you think banging on the table will intimidate people? The more you bang on the table and get angry, the more you expose the weakness of our hand. Understand?"
Zhang Gangwei moved his lips, but ultimately said nothing more, only nodding silently.
"You stay here and observe, and learn something."
Li Daming stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, picked up the folder on the table, and turned to walk towards the door.
The interrogation room door was pushed open again.
Luo Fei looked up and saw a new face he had never seen before walking in. The man was about fifty years old, with some gray hair, of medium build, wearing a dark gray jacket, walking at a leisurely pace, and with a calm and composed expression on his face.
Those eyes didn't hold the overt hostility of Zhang Gangwei; instead, they held a deep and restrained scrutiny.
He held a folder in his hand, pulled out the chair that Zhang Gangwei had just sat in, and sat down opposite Luo Fei.
Chen Ke remained seated beside him, her fingers tapping on the keyboard, the screen recording the interrogation in real time.
"Luo Fei."
Li Daming's voice was calm, carrying a composure completely different from Zhang Gangwei's.
"Let me introduce myself. My name is Li Daming, and I'm the head of the interrogation section of the counter-espionage department. That young Zhang from earlier is one of my subordinates. He's a young man, a bit hot-tempered, so please don't take offense."
Luo Fei looked at Li Daming and narrowed his eyes slightly.
He didn't take Zhang Gangwei seriously, because such people's true colors were written all over their faces, their joys and sorrows were laid bare. But Li Daming in front of him was different.
This man spoke calmly and had a friendly demeanor, but Luo Fei could sense that this old man was much tougher than Zhang Gangwei.
This is the real tough opponent.
"Section Chief Li."
Luo Fei's tone also calmed down, without the provocative roguishness he displayed when speaking to Zhang Gangwei.
"Then I won't stand on ceremony. Your Dali Division brought me here and is detaining me; you should at least give me an explanation, right? Ask me what's wrong, and if there's nothing, release me." (End of Chapter)