Chapter 138: Like Ants on a Hot Pan

This story is purely a work of fiction.

He understood the kindness and gentleness embedded deep within his daughter’s heart. Looking at Xiao Jing’s current condition, a pang of guilt stirred within him; shattering his daughter’s sole remaining wish would fill him with unease and a lingering condemnation of conscience.

Now, Ma Shengwei began to harbor a sense of regret—regret that he had not rooted out the trouble completely when he had the chance. The grim surrounding circumstances instilled a terrifying sense of paranoia in Ma Shengwei, a man who had never known fear. To him, a vegetative state lying in a foreign land remained a perpetual threat.

During Xiao Jing’s medical treatment in Country M, Ma Shengwei had resorted to unconventional methods, bribing Xiao Jing’s attending physician.

The doctor, of Chinese descent, accepted a massive sum of money from Ma Shengwei. Unbeknownst to anyone, he halved the prescribed therapeutic dosage, keeping Xiao Jing trapped in an endless slumber.

"If a miracle truly happens," Ma Shengwei thought to himself, "wouldn't that be the day I walk straight into my own grave?"

Then, second-guessing himself, he figured such a possibility was virtually nonexistent. "No," he muttered aloud, shaking his heavy head slowly, "that will never happen."

"Whatever. Forget it. Xiao Jing is far away in Country M, managed by a doctor on my payroll. A living corpse can never stir up any trouble." Ma Shengwei opened his drawer and retrieved his private satellite phone.

He dialed the number of the attending physician in Country M, but the call went unanswered.

"Could something have actually gone wrong?" Ma Shengwei dared not imagine.

He then dialed Xiao Yi’s number, but once again, there was no answer.

Anxiety began to gnaw at him. He thought of the teacher at Xiao Yi’s school—an informant Ma Shengwei had planted to keep tabs on Xiao Yi for the past ten years. He flipped through his phone’s contact list.

Finding the number, his eyes lingered on the screen for a fleeting moment.

After a brief internal deliberation, he dialed the teacher's number.

The phone rang continuously, but no one picked up.

Ma Shengwei grew even more tense, to the point that his hand shook, causing the phone to slip from his grasp and clatter onto the floor.

Moments later, the ringtone of his phone broke the silence.

With breathless urgency, Ma Shengwei glanced at the screen, seeing it was the teacher from Country M. A surge of excitement washed over him. "Is this Teacher John Scott?"

"Yes, Director Ma," John Scott replied.

"You weren't answering your phone; you had me worried sick! How is the situation over there?" Ma Shengwei demanded.

"I am sorry, Director Ma. A few days ago, Interpol and the Chinese police came to our school to take Xiao Yi back to China. She and her father, Xiao Jing, both returned to China a few days ago. I have done all I possibly can for you. The scale of that operation was simply too massive; it terrified me. Beijing is determined to bring Xiao Jing back, and no one can stop the joint operation between Interpol and the Chinese police," the teacher said in measured Mandarin from the other end of the line.

Hearing this news, Ma Shengwei felt the game was utterly lost.

The most pressing task now was to systematically destroy every piece of incriminating evidence.

He sat back down in his swivel chair, his eyes fixed blankly on a spot in the distance.

***

Ma Shengwei’s expression grew heavy, a murderous intent flashing across his face.

He thumbed through the desk calendar, his eyes catching a specific note: P2P. Seeing the entry seemed to provoke a surge of irritation within him.

The mention of P2P immediately brought to mind the lingering aftermath of the financial collapse, repercussions that, even after two years, had yet to be fully scrubbed away. Thinking of Vice Mayor Bian, who had been in charge of economic affairs, he could not set his mind at ease. He asked himself, "I wonder how that piece of crap is holding up?"

Outwardly, Ma Shengwei had always played the part of the submissive subordinate to Mayor Bian. In private, however, on numerous occasions, he referred to Mayor Bian as "Shit."

The Zenith Bar was a frequent haunt of Mayor Bian. Ma Shengwei had heard that the anti-corruption task force had secured certain evidence against "Shit." Even more critically, the task force had managed to grab hold of the tail end of the financial benefits funneled to Mayor Bian by Duhao Company. In particular, the records of Bian's money transfers to his son studying abroad had become pivotal evidence of his crimes.

Ma Shengwei called his subordinates, ordering them to silence Mayor Bian permanently.

Receiving the command, Ma Shengwei’s men vanished into the night of Dahe...

Having arranged everything, Ma Shengwei drove to his secret villa—a place where only one person had ever been permitted: Jin Yan.

He paced back and forth inside the villa, periodically glancing out the window at the nightscape.

He had a premonition that the beauty of this world, the days of dazzling lights and extravagant wine, might be gone forever. A profound sense of sorrow washed over him.

Turning around, he looked at an old-fashioned photograph hanging on the living room wall—a family portrait taken when Ma Shengwei was a child, featuring himself, his younger brother, and both parents.

His father had suffered a fatal heart attack the very year Ma Shengwei was sentenced and imprisoned.

His aging mother, unable to sit idle, had stubbornly insisted on opening a small sundry shop in front of their modest home in Dahe to pass the time with trivial trade.

Later on, when his mother grew frail and sickly, it was thanks solely to Lü Jiahui’s devoted care that she managed to spend her remaining years in peace.

Unable to expose his true identity, Ma Shengwei could only rely on Lü Jiahui to handle their elderly mother’s funeral lavishly when she passed away.

The people of Dahe buzzed with talk about the grand scale of that funeral for quite some time. The motorcade stretched out like a dragon, clogging even Dahe's longest boulevard, which spanned over ten kilometers.

Lü Jiahui’s care for his mother somewhat compensated for Ma Shengwei's lifelong regrets regarding filial piety. Consequently, Ma Shengwei turned a blind eye to Lü Jiahui’s wrongdoings, letting him act with unchecked impunity.

In Ma Shengwei’s eyes, Lü Jiahui possessed a certain shrewd intelligence. Before Duhao Company was officially registered, the pawnshop Lü Jiahui operated was merely a facade. The green lights given to him by Ministry of Commerce officials allowed him to thrive in the usury industry, propelling his loan-sharking business to soaring heights.

When it came to Lü Jiahui’s private lending company, virtually everyone in Dahe knew of it, raking in billions in profits within a few years. Duhao’s official incorporation came much later.

While Lü Jiahui soared in business, his romantic life was an absolute trainwreck. He had married a bank clerk blessed with natural beauty, and he obeyed her every whim. At times, Ma Shengwei felt that his younger brother acted like a mental defective in front of his sister-in-law.

Lü Jiahui’s wife was restless in her personal life, and rumors of her infidelity soon began to circulate. Initially, Ma Shengwei only half-believed them.

For reasons unknown, his sister-in-law became entangled with Mayor Bian, which finally convinced Ma Shengwei that the rumors of infidelity were true. Between 2007 and 2014, the massive amounts of capital absorbed by Duhao Company's predecessor had been funneled through Mayor Bian's connections into Lü Jiahui’s wife's account in H City.

The transfer of these massive funds caused Duhao’s capital chain to fracture. It was precisely this rupture that triggered a high-profile suicide involving someone jumping from a building, a tragedy that shocked the central leadership. The subsequent deployment of the central anti-corruption task force to Dahe was directly linked to that incident.

Ma Shengwei remembered the monumental effort it had taken to sweep the matter under the rug, though shelling out vast amounts of money to avert disaster had, of course, been indispensable.

***

Because of that rooftop suicide incident, the underground vault had been half-emptied of cash, a loss that left Ma Shengwei deeply aggrieved for quite some time.

Inhaling the scent of the towering piles of banknotes inside the vault, a nameless sense of satisfaction swelled within his chest.

Watching his closed-eyes expression, the intoxicating sensation was simply beyond the power of language to describe.

Just as Ma Shengwei was reveling in supreme intoxication, his cell phone rang.

The call displayed no caller ID. Listening to the voice, though somewhat familiar—reminiscent of a distinct regional dialect from his days as a police station chief in the mountains—he could not immediately place who was on the other end.

He racked his brain, but the identity remained elusive.

"Who the hell are you? Why can't I remember who you are?" Ma Shengwei felt a creeping tension.

"Of course you wouldn't expect who I am, but I know very well who Ma Shengwei is! Still, if you found out who I was, would you be scared enough to piss your pants?" the stranger retorted.

Ma Shengwei's tension escalated sharply. *Could someone have exposed my true identity?* he wondered. Swallowing hard, he replied coldly, "What a joke. Up until now, I don't even know how the word 'fear' is spelled."

"I am Wu Huayang, Ma Shengwei’s deskmate from high school. I've also been assigned to Dahe to assist with the anti-corruption campaign. Scared yet?" the voice asked from the other end of the line.

Feigning composure, Ma Shengwei snapped, "Stop playing the ghost and casting spells here. If you have something to say, spit it out."

"Well, since you insist, I won't stand on ceremony," the stranger said. "I’m right here in Dahe now. The anti-corruption situation in Dahe must still be quite tense, right?"

"Tense or not, what the hell does it have to do with you?" Ma Shengwei growled in disgust.

"Doesn't concern me? Well then, does Dahe's Wu Zhengzhe concern you?" Wu Huayang asked from across the line.

"So what if he does? Didn't I chase him out of the Dahe Police Bureau just the same? You probably don't know, but right now he's neither human nor ghost, hiding from the light of day. He can only skulk in the shadows like a turtle hiding in its shell," Ma Shengwei sneered.

"Don't laugh too soon; your time to cry is coming," Wu Huayang warned.

"Cry? When would that be?" Ma Shengwei challenged.

"Shouldn't be long now. Just wait for someone to personally escort you to the dock," Wu Huayang replied.

"The dock? Who? You? That's hilarious! Ten years ago, that same Wu Zhengzhe you mentioned claimed he was going to toll the death knell for me, but look what happened? Am I not still doing just fine right now?" While speaking, Ma Shengwei covered the mouthpiece of the satellite phone and used his other cell phone to call his informant. "Hurry up and trace the location of this call for me!"

(To be continued)