Chapter 43.1: So… should he ask Jiang Xia to come over and give it a try?
Guo Lianyi was still looking down. He counted the cloth ration coupons in the bag, and was completely stunned.
“There are actually this many cloth coupons… Good grief, there must be more than two thousand here, right? How could they have printed so many?”
Most of Feng Zhengming’s cases had something to do with money. During large-scale crackdowns on profiteering and illegal commerce, the amount of money and goods they confiscated had been no less than this. So although he was also astonished by the counterfeit cloth coupons in the bag that looked almost exactly like the real ones, he was still able to remain calm. Frowning, he said,
“I’m afraid these aren’t even all of them.”
“Come on, let’s hurry inside and take a look.”
With that, Feng Zhengming had already strode over to the main gate. He reached out, pushed it open, and walked in.
As soon as he entered, he saw rows upon rows of clotheslines, with large quantities of pale-purple sheets of paper hanging from them to dry.
A rough estimate put the number at well over a thousand.
Feng Zhengming understood immediately.
These should be the sheets that had already undergone the initial processing.
He glanced over them twice without slowing down. Keeping an eye on his surroundings, he quickly made his way between the sheets of paper and arrived at the main house, whose door was unlocked.
He pushed the door open and peered inside.
There was no one in the main room.
The entire room was a mess. Scraps of paper and cigarette butts were scattered everywhere, while complete and incomplete cloth coupons had been carelessly tossed across the floor. Looking closely, he could see all sorts of printing mistakes on them.
On the Eight Immortals table at the back, meanwhile, were several stacks of “normal” cloth coupons that had already been bundled up and packaged, probably eighty or ninety bundles in total.
Apart from that, the room was filled with all kinds of machinery and tools.
Blocks of pigment and three bottles of red and blue ink sat on the table. There were also four or five empty bottles that had yet to be thrown away on the floor. Beside them was a heavy-duty tabletop paper cutter, while in front of a small stool stood a hand-operated printing press.
In the middle of the room was a dark engraving plate about the same size as the sheets of paper drying outside. On the plate were eight neatly arranged grain ration coupon designs.
Even though he had been mentally prepared for this, Feng Zhengming was still startled when he saw the scene before him.
This was clearly a small-scale counterfeit money workshop!
“My goodness!”
Guo Lianyi came over from behind, and when he saw the scene, his eyes widened in disbelief.
“Just how many counterfeit coupons did they make?”
Good grief, he had never seen so many ration coupons in his entire life!
“There have to be more than ten thousand.”
Feng Zhengming took two steps back.
This was the first time he had encountered such a large-scale counterfeiting case. The sheer number of counterfeit coupons was simply too shocking. Especially with all those failed prints scattered across the floor—it somehow gave the impression that the coupons were nothing more than scraps of wastepaper rather than valuable ration tickets.
He looked away, gradually regaining his composure.
Thank goodness. Thank goodness they had caught them early.
Otherwise, if so many counterfeit cloth coupons had made their way into the market, ordinary people would have suffered who knew how much financial loss, and who knew how badly the entire market might have been thrown into turmoil.
Feng Zhengming closed the door again and put the lock back on.
“Everyone, stay out of this room for now. We need to call in more people to count, seal, and confiscate everything. Also, it’s obvious that more than one person has been operating here for a long time. Lame Ding definitely has accomplices. Old Guo, go around the neighborhood and ask if there’s anyone else who comes here regularly.”
Guo Lianyi immediately agreed.
“Okay!”
After locking the door, Feng Zhengming personally went to the neighborhood office on this street and called the bureau to request additional personnel.
The call went directly to Section Chief Duan’s office.
There was no other way. There were simply too many cloth coupons here. Based on their face value alone, they had to be worth at least thirty or forty thousand yuan. This was far beyond something a squadron leader could handle on his own. He had to report it to his superiors.
Section Chief Duan’s astonishment went without saying. Once Feng Zhengming confirmed that additional personnel would be dispatched immediately, he hung up.
He then pulled the small notebook he specifically used for recording telephone numbers from his pocket and called the nearby police station as well, requesting officers to come over and assist with the arrests that would follow.
Once he had finished making all the necessary arrangements, he hurried back to the little workshop.
In the meantime, some detectives had tried interrogating Lame Ding, but his resistance was extremely strong. He refused to say a single word.
With no other option, they had tied him to a tree in the courtyard for the time being and assigned someone to keep watch over him, waiting for the additional officers to arrive and take him away.
Hearing the commotion of the arrests, people from the surrounding area began coming out to watch the excitement. Some even brought their rice bowls outside and squatted by the roadside, eating while staring wide-eyed at the scene.
This made things quite convenient for Guo Lianyi. He no longer had to knock on doors one by one to ask questions.
Before long, he managed to learn the identities of two more suspects from the locals.
“Captain Feng!”
When he saw Feng Zhengming return, Guo Lianyi hurried over to him.
“I’ve found out what’s going on. This Lame Ding should have two accomplices. Apparently, one of them is his own younger brother. He’s the fourth child in the family, named Ding Si. The other one doesn’t show his face very often. We don’t know his name, only that his surname is Yang. He’s around thirty years old, but there aren’t any other distinguishing features.”
“The two of them used to live here with Lame Ding. They would go several days without leaving the house, but recently they’ve been going out frequently, leaving early in the morning and coming back late at night. Sometimes, they don’t even come back.”
“In other words, we have no idea where they are right now.”
Feng Zhengming’s brow furrowed again.
If that was the case, then this gang had already begun trying to distribute the counterfeit coupons. They had only just started selling them when the police discovered the operation.
But without knowing where the suspects were, how were they supposed to arrest them?
“We’ll have to stake the place out.”
Feng Zhengming quickly thought it over.
“Old Guo, get these people to go home as soon as possible. I’ll make another call and have the people coming here change into plain clothes. And tell them not to examine the counterfeit coupons yet. Don’t touch anything here. We’ll wait for them to come back, then catch them right in the act.”
After saying that, he felt it still wasn’t enough and added,
“Just staking out this place won’t do. Ding Si might return to his own home. Hmm… In that case, I’ll leave the coordination here to you, Old Guo. I’ll go with the local patrol officers when they arrive and stake out Ding Si’s house. We have to move quickly. If they notice that something is wrong, we won’t be able to catch them.”
Guo Lianyi immediately agreed.
“No problem, Captain Feng.”
Feng Zhengming didn’t stop for a moment. After adjusting the plan, he waited for the local officers to arrive, then hurried off with them toward Ding Si’s house.
Unfortunately, luck was not on his side this time.
Yang Da was an experienced hand. The moment he saw Lame Ding being pinned down, he immediately knew that they absolutely could not stay here.
They had to run. Immediately. The farther away, the better.
Ding Si was still struggling against Yang Da’s hand over his mouth, but his resistance was hardly forceful. Yang Da knew perfectly well that he simply needed an excuse to back down. Lowering his voice, he said sternly,
“Old Si! Your brother’s already been taken down. Do you want to get yourself dragged in too? Don’t worry. Your brother won’t be in there for too many years. We’ve got the newly carved printing plate. We can go somewhere else and make a fortune. You can save the money for your brother. When he gets out, he’ll still have plenty to eat and drink!”
At those words, Ding Si quickly stopped struggling.
He slowly nodded.
Yang Da steeled himself and let go.
Ding Si neither shouted nor charged forward. Instead, he turned around and walked toward his bicycle.
Yang Da also hurried over to his own bicycle.
“Come with me.”
He quickly ran through the possibilities in his mind.
After dealing with the cops so many times, Yang Da knew their methods of catching people all too well. They either staked out your home or blocked the stations.
His home was already being watched, and there was no way they could go to the city’s train station or bus station. If they did, they might get caught there.
If they couldn’t take public transportation, then they could only ride their bicycles. They could cycle to the county and switch to another form of transportation from there.
Their original plans had already been completely thrown into disarray by the cops. Who knew whether Lame Ding would give him up next? They absolutely couldn’t go to the neighboring province.
Then they’d head south.
Hadn’t they heard that people in the south mostly used cash to buy things nowadays and didn’t rely as much on ration coupons?
They had money, a letter of introduction, and an already-carved printing plate. Ding Si’s skills were a little worse, but he knew the entire process from start to finish. If they went south, they could definitely make a fortune!
Having made up his mind, Yang Da took Ding Si and pedaled rapidly toward the outskirts of the city.
＊
Feng Zhengming rushed to Ding Si’s house without stopping.
It was a dilapidated old house.
The walls were made of piled-up rubble and stood only about half a person high. Inside were two rooms, one main room and one side room. They hadn’t even been plastered, leaving the dark-red bricks exposed, thickly coated with dust.
There were even two cracks in the eaves, each about the width of two fingers.
The main gate was locked now. Although there were some miscellaneous items piled up in the courtyard, they were all covered in a layer of dust, giving no indication that anyone had been living there.
“Judging by the looks of it, the owner of this house hasn’t been back for quite some time.”
One of the young patrol officers couldn’t help commenting, “Could we have come to the wrong place?”
Tian Jianguo felt that what he really wanted to say was that they had made the trip for nothing.
Feng Zhengming glanced at him as well.
“If you hadn’t come, how would you know whether we came to the wrong place?”
The young patrol officer immediately fell silent, too intimidated to say anything more.
Feng Zhengming pondered for a moment.
Arresting suspects had always been difficult work. In the vast sea of people, without sufficient legwork, enough surveillance, and adequate leads, catching a criminal was practically impossible.
For detectives, making a long trip only to come away with nothing was an everyday occurrence.
Unfortunately, this operation had been arranged too hastily. They knew far too little about the suspects—not even where they were. So all they could do was eliminate possible locations one by one.
There were no signs of anyone here, which meant they could at least rule out one possibility.
The question was whether they should continue staking out the place.
Two or three seconds later, Feng Zhengming came up with another idea.
They should first find out what the situation was with these two brothers.
“You two, spread out for now. Don’t gather here. Go keep watch at the intersection and pay attention to anything unusual.”
As he sent the others away, he walked over to the neighboring house and knocked on the door.
“Who is it?”
An elderly woman came out of the house, leaning on a cane. She opened the door and, seeing the patrol officers behind Feng Zhengming, looked at them suspiciously.
“You’re the police? What do you want with me?”
“Auntie, are you familiar with this household?”
Feng Zhengming asked, “How many people are in their family? And why has no one been living here for so long?”
“There used to be six of them.”
At the mention of her neighbors, a hint of disdain appeared on the elderly woman’s face.
“It was a husband and wife with five children. The oldest was a girl, and the four younger ones were all boys. Their mother left after giving birth to the youngest one.”
“Their father was no good. Whenever he managed to earn a little money, instead of using it to support the children, he spent it all on liquor. The youngest didn’t have any milk to drink and ended up dying. All the children survived by relying on the eldest girl to find odd jobs wherever she could, along with some help from us neighbors. Even then, they barely managed to get by. Unfortunately, the third child still died young, and the second boy burned his leg while starting a fire one winter. He ended up crippled.”
“About seven or eight years ago, I’d say, the man of the house finally drank himself to death. The eldest girl had also gotten married and moved away, leaving just the two brothers living here. Unfortunately, both of them were crippled and poor, so no one was willing to find them wives.”
As she spoke, the old woman suddenly seemed puzzled herself.
“But they haven’t been back for quite a while. I have no idea where they’ve gone.”
Feng Zhengming nodded slightly and continued asking, “Then, Auntie, do you know where these two brothers usually go—”
Before he could finish, a neighbor across the street, having heard the commotion, poked his head out. Hearing what the old woman said, he immediately corrected her.
“Auntie Chen, you’ve got it wrong. Who said they haven’t been back? Didn’t they come back the day before yesterday? They only stayed for a little while before leaving again. I don’t know what they were doing. Oh, right—they just came back again a little while ago.”
What?!
Feng Zhengming instinctively sensed that something was wrong. He turned around and pressed the man for more information.
“What did they look like when they came back? How long ago did they leave?”
The neighbor thought carefully for a moment.
“They seemed to be in quite a hurry when they came back. They rode bicycles and took a large bundle with them when they left. As for how long ago… It must have been more than an hour.”
Feng Zhengming immediately clenched his fists.
Damn it. They were too late. The two men had escaped!
A surge of irritation rose in his heart, but beneath that frustration was a deep sense of puzzlement.
According to the timing, the two men had escaped even before they arrested Lame Ding. So how had they realized that their operation had been exposed?
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