"Come, tell me about it," said the middle-aged police officer in a casual, chatty manner, as if they were brothers drinking and bragging together, putting no pressure on the suspect at all.
Qian Tong seemed to fall for it completely, becoming quite talkative: "That punk Li Li may be young, but he's got a crafty mind and kept a lot of things from me. As for me, I've been in prison for a long time and learned that the less you know, the better. I didn't ask questions, just got a general sense of what was going on. After all, I was in it for the money and didn't want any extra risk - sigh, I guess that's what happens when you get older, you just want a safe and stable life but can't let go of the past and move on."
His tone was cocky yet remorseful and unwilling to give up, while also maintaining an appropriate attitude of admitting guilt - flawless.
The middle-aged officer played along, "We all make foolish mistakes sometimes."
"But I am more experienced after all," Qian Tong looked pleased with himself. "Li Li doesn't understand high-tech stuff very well, he never even used a password on his phone. One day I happened to see him buying things online - oxygen tanks, masks, stuff like that. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now that I do - hey, what do you think that stuff could be used for?"
He lowered his voice conspiratorially, "The gold, he must have hidden it in the lake."
The middle-aged officer raised his eyebrows, "So you're just guessing? You don't actually know where the gold is?"
"I really don't, that was never part of the plan," Qian Tong swore solemnly. "Think about it, the first thing you'd do after getting the gold is run away, right? If I had time to hide it somewhere and wait around to get caught, I'd have gone out of town instead. At the time, I drove to the park to distract the cops chasing me, while Li Li jumped out halfway to hide the gold so you wouldn't catch him red-handed.
"And you believed that?"
Qian Tong was quite honest, "No, who knows if he'd take the gold and run himself? But I didn't have any other options, you guys were closing in fast and had all the roads blocked. I figured he couldn't get far without a vehicle, so it was worth the gamble. And I turned out to be right, neither of us got away - the long arm of the law is inescapable. I'll never try anything like this again."
The officers exchanged glances, and one of them sent a brief text message.
"Um, Officer, could I use the bathroom? I drank too much water and really need to go," Qian Tong made a request.
Considering his good behavior so far, the middle-aged officer thought for a moment before agreeing, "Alright."
The bathroom was at the end of the hallway. The officer escorted him there, keeping him cuffed and never letting him out of sight.
Qian Tong acted very obediently, not trying to delay them at all. He finished his business, washed his hands, and wiped his pants before they headed straight back to the office.
The officer's guard lowered a little more.
The two had barely sat back down for less than a minute when they suddenly heard someone say over the earpiece, "A suspicious boat spotted on the lake, could be Li Li."
The head of the detective squad directing things said, "The lake is too big, spread out to block him." To teams A and B he ordered, "Seal off the docks for me. Team C stays put, absolutely do not let the suspect into the hills."
Team B reported: "There's a shallow shoal to the north where he could directly come ashore."
With two docks on the lake, one at the entrance and one south at the camping grounds, there was no dock built near the archery range to the north. But the water there was shallow enough for regular boats to pull up along the shore.
The middle-aged officer signaled the other two officers, "You two head over there to keep watch, I'll stay here."
"Got it," the two rushed off to help.
The middle-aged officer warned Qian Tong again, "No funny business. You can get your sentence reduced on one hand, or heavier charges on the other - think carefully."
"Yessir, yessir," Qian Tong sat obediently on the sofa like a schoolchild.
The officer kept an eye on him while listening closely to updates from the earpiece.
The spotters keeping watch from high vantage points reported in real time: "The boat is headed towards the center of the lake. There's only one person aboard, no life jacket, wearing a hat so we can't see his face."
"The boat is going very fast, he's noticed us."
On the lake, Ji Feng stood on the deck of the lifeboat, squinting forward. They had the engines on full speed, doggedly pursuing the smaller boat ahead, but for some reason it possessed a speed completely unfitting for a recreational boat, leaving a long, thin wake in the water.
"Faster," he urged.
The lifeboat pushed itself to accelerate, gradually gaining on the other vessel.
The person on the boat looked back at them, then suddenly turned and raced northwest towards the woods.
The team lying in wait on shore, Team C, got the order and slowly moved to surround the landing point, ready to pounce as soon as the person got off the boat.
Their motions were extremely covert, but just as the boat neared the shore, it abruptly changed direction again, slipping past the shoreline eastward.
Team C cursed their bad luck, but the lifeboat didn't falter, sticking relentlessly to its tail.
Watching the distance between them shrink, Ji Feng didn't feel the usual thrill of closing in on a serious criminal for some reason. He had always trusted his instincts, and his brows furrowed as he considered what was off.
The fish food - that was it. They hadn't used it yet, wasn't that to lure away the koi so they could dive into the lake for treasure?
No sooner had the thought arisen than he saw the person on the boat open two boxes.
In a flash, Ji Feng blurted out, "Watch out!"
Before the words left his mouth, the fish food was already pouring towards the lifeboat in a cloudburst.
The large amount of fish food scattered onto the lake surface immediately attracted the greedy koi, who chased and gobbled it up. In an instant, the water around the lifeboat was occupied by koi of various colors - orange, red, golden - packed densely together, getting in each other's way as they vied for the food with open mouths.
The lifeboat had already rapidly slowed down, but still collided with many koi. They flipped over to reveal their pale bellies, like a spilled palette of paint.
"Crap," the officer driving the boat turned ash white. "This is going to cost a fortune to settle."
Ji Feng sucked in a breath, feeling the pain as if his own flesh were being cut away.
That was vicious.
Taking advantage of the chance, the pilot of the other boat changed direction again and plunged into the water near shore. Bubbles surfaced, then no trace remained.
Ji Feng was struck by realization and spoke into his mic, "That might not have been Li Li, could be Zhou Bing instead."
Luring the tiger from the mountain.
He quickly asked, "Lao Gao, everything okay there with Qian Tong?"
"All good," came the middle-aged officer's voice.
"Keep an eye on him," Ji Feng said.
"Will do."
Meanwhile, Qian Tong removed the shackles around his ankles and tossed them aside, urging Li Li who was dressed as a janitor, "Hurry, I can't stall for too long."
Li Li held a sledgehammer, aiming for the newly revealed secret room in the park director's office. He activated the switch and the jackhammer smashed into the concrete wall, breaking an opening after just a short while.
Through the hole, they could vaguely make out a small portable safe box.
Qian Tong and Li Li's expressions simultaneously relaxed. That's right, this was the gold they were looking for. No one would ever imagine they had hidden something so valuable in such a secure location.
To be honest, all that talk of sinking it to the bottom of the lake was just reading too many treasure hunting stories.
No matter how big, could anywhere be safer than a safe?
Everyone assumed they had fled here in a panic, but that wasn't the case at all. With the gold stolen, the police would surely focus their investigation on tracking down the loot. Their plan all along was to hide the gold and lay low for a year or two until the heat died down before dividing it up.
This location was decided after Qian Tong scouted it out multiple times. The secret room in the park director's office had the highest security. Other than himself, no one would ever come here, let alone steal the gold.
At the time, the old building was being renovated, so even if something seemed off, no one would notice. Who could have imagined that all they did was smash open the concrete to stash the gold inside the wall, then use concrete to perfectly seal it back up, completely concealing the gold.
Even after being caught, they hadn't worried about Zhou Bing taking the gold for himself. The old guy was getting on in years and didn't understand high-tech stuff, much less crack the password for the secret room. He had no chance to take the gold.
Qian Tong also wasn't concerned about Li Li keeping it for himself after breaking out of jail - only he could open this room, so they had to cooperate.
Indeed, everything had gone perfectly.
He used a cigarette butt to pass the key info about the "office" to Old Zhou.
Seeing so many police, Zhou must have known Qian Tong would come and just needed to tail him to get clues about their coordinated plan - he didn't even need to worry about tools, the guy had surely figured out ways to prepare over the past three years.
Then, Zhou Bing pretended to be Li Li to distract the police while Li Li disguised himself as Zhou Bing and sneaked into the office. Most critically, he had been cooperating with the police all along and used a fruit knife in the office to take care of the middle-aged policeman Lao Gao who was guarding him.
Of course, Qian Tong had anticipated that he would be asked questions, so he asked his cellmates in prison to teach him some voice changing skills. He couldn't imitate it perfectly, but it was enough to fool people for a period of time.
"Old Zhou can give us twenty minutes at most," Qian Tong urged. "We have to be quick."
Li Li sped up.
The cement wall wasn't thick, and his electric drill had plenty of power. After about three to four minutes, he could barely get the briefcase out.
"Got it," Li Li was overjoyed.
Before Qian Tong's joy surfaced on his brow, he suddenly saw someone running over from afar. Although only wearing casual clothes, his height and leg shape were highly recognizable. He immediately recognized: "Crap, the police are back! Run!"
Li Li was puzzled: "How did he come back so quickly?"
"Our cover is blown, let's go!" Qian Tong jumped out the window and ran.
Li Li followed closely behind.
The two jumped down, giving Jian Jing who was waiting outside a fright.
She hesitated, unsure whether to chase after them or not.
— Let's rewind ten minutes earlier.
Ten minutes ago, Jian Jing made up an excuse to leave Cheng Jiayou and the others, and sneaked into the office building. She pretended to use the bathroom and walked upstairs in broad daylight.
At that time, the two policemen guarding Qian Tong happened to be out providing support.
She went to the third floor, of course not appearing openly, and hid in the bathroom to observe the situation... Alright, she actually didn't know what to do and just squatted there to keep watch.
As a result, a blind cat ran into a dead mouse. Not long after, she vaguely heard noises coming from the office.
There were only two offices on the third floor. The park manager's office was lent to the police, and no one had come to the other office, and the sound insulation was quite good, so almost no one noticed.
She hesitated for a moment, then carefully went over and eavesdropped at the door.
Li Li was in the confined space, the thick walls filtering out ambient noise, but Qian Tong was keeping watch outside, so his voice wasn't too hard to hear.
Jian Jing hadn't expected them to all be here, and had actually obtained the gold. Shocked, she hurriedly informed Ji Feng.
Okay, back to the present.
The two suspects had jumped out the window and ran away. Should she chase them or not?
While Jian Jing was contemplating, her legs had already honestly darted out. The third floor wasn't high, and her recent physical fitness was quite good. She barely managed to keep up from behind.
Qian Tong and Li Li were headed towards the horse ranch at the back.
The horse ranch was very big, difficult to navigate, so golf carts were provided. Zhou Bing didn't know where he had come ashore from, but was waiting soaked in some hidden spot.
"Quick, let's head into the mountains immediately," seeing the briefcase, his eyes lit up. He didn't look like a 60-year-old man at all. "I know a small path that can definitely shake off the police."
The three got on the cart and instantly drove off into the distance.
Jian Jing was panting heavily. She called Ji Feng: "Where are you? They're about to get away!"
"Saving someone," Ji Feng gritted his teeth, continuously performing CPR on Lao Gao.