At nine o’clock sharp, I pushed open the door to the Economic Crime Investigation Detachment’s meeting room on time.
Zhou Qiming was already sitting in the main chair. Beside him was Old Zhao, along with two young girls from the administrative team. Two chairs at the other end of the conference table were empty, without even teacups set out—the new recruit’s spot, but the person hadn’t arrived yet.
“Captain Shen, you sit here.” Little Liu from administration pointed to the seat I usually took, right on Captain Zhou’s right.
I didn’t sit, instead standing by the window to glance at my watch. Nine-0-one.
“Who is reporting today?” I asked.
“I heard she was transferred over from the Audit Office. Her name is Wen something Zhou—” Little Liu rummaged through a drawer. “Wen Ruzhou. Personnel said she’d be here at nine sharp.”
Nine-0-one.
I pulled out the chair and sat down. Zhou Qiming lit a cigarette beside me, looking at me with a smile: “Don’t be too strict. She came all the way from Beijing, maybe she hasn’t adapted to our schedule here yet.”
“Are people from the Audit Office all this delicate?” I said.
Zhou Qiming didn’t reply, only smiling. Old Zhao smoothed things over from the side: “It’s her first day after all, maybe traffic was blocked on the way.”
I didn’t chime in.
Nine-0-three.
The meeting room door was pushed open.
She stood at the doorway: medium height, a round face, wearing a cream-white knit cardigan with a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. She looked like a fresh college graduate. A smile hung on her face, her eyes curving into two crescents, dimples faintly visible.
“So sorry, so sorry,” she walked in briskly, her tone carrying just the right amount of apology. “I took the wrong exit while transferring subways and made a huge detour.”
I cast a glance at her.
Nine-0-five.
“Wen Ruzhou?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s me.” She looked at me, her eyes sparkling. “You must be Captain Shen? I’ve heard so much about you.”
I didn’t take her compliment.
“Latecomers go to the archives room first,” I said. “Building A, third floor, Room 307.”
Her smile paused for a second.
Only a second. So brief that hardly anyone except me might have noticed—what flashed in her eyes was not surprise, but a kind of assessment. Like a chess player scanning the board before making a move.
Then she smiled again.
“Alright, Captain Shen,” she said, her tone even softer than before. “Is there a key for the archives room?”
Old Zhao stood up, intending to lead her there.
“No need,” I said.
“Okay,” she responded very crisply. Turning around, the strap of her canvas bag slipped down from her shoulder; she tossed it back up with a casual flick without turning her head. After taking a couple of steps, without it being clear if she was talking to herself or intentionally letting me hear, she murmured in a low voice:
“What a grand display of official authority.”
Her voice was very faint.
I didn’t reply.
Yet as she said those words, her pace neither sped up nor slowed down. A normal person’s rhythm.
When a newcomer is publicly sent to the archives as punishment on her first day, the normal rhythm is to quicken one’s pace—afraid the leader might speak again, and afraid of colleagues’ glances.
She didn’t.
She was walking. Not escaping, but walking.
The door closed.
Silence fell over the meeting room for a few seconds. Old Zhao spoke up to break the silence: “This girl is quite clever, just a bit…”
“A bit lacking in tact,” Little Liu said softly. “Talking back to Captain Shen on her very first day.”
“She didn’t talk back,” I said.
“Then what was that?”
“She was keeping mental notes.”
“Notes on what?”
I didn’t answer.
Zhou Qiming flicked away ash from his cigarette beside us: “Little Shen, do you have an issue with the newcomer?”
“No.”
The meeting began.
The agenda was the case file transfer for a loan fraud case concluded last week. As I listened to Old Zhao’s report, my mind was on other things.
Wen Ruzhou. Transferred from the Audit Office, supposedly a specialized talent in finance. Zhou Qiming had brought her up to me several times, saying our detachment lacked someone who understood auditing, telling me not to be too picky. I hadn’t taken it seriously at the time—in the economic crime line, the thing least lacking was people who thought themselves professional.
However, that split-second flash in her eyes earlier wasn’t right.
That kind of light wasn’t something a newcomer being publicly punished would have.
It was the light after being provoked—not angry, but holding it in mind.
The archives room was on the third floor of the administrative building, Room 307. Three years of cold cases, over two thousand files—enough to keep a newcomer busy for a month.
This wasn’t a punishment; it was a filter.
Only those who could find valuable things in the archives room were qualified to stand before me.
Those who couldn’t could go back and write reports.
The meeting ended near eleven o’clock. Returning to my office, I flipped through last week’s fund-tracking report. Densely packed numbers covered the statements, jumping from one series of accounts to another, spreading outward like a spiderweb.
Numbers didn’t lie, but people did. Yet no matter how skilled at lying a person was, they would still leave traces within the numbers.
This was what my master taught me on my very first day on the job.
The phone rang.
It was Old Zhao calling.
“Captain Shen, that new girl, Wen Ruzhou, pulled out an old case file in the archives room.”
My brows knit together slightly: “Which case?”
“The Dingsheng case from five years ago. Illegal absorption of public deposits.”
My hand paused.
“How did she pull that one?”
“I don’t know. She said she wanted to get familiar with our detachment’s handling style, so she went to look through old cases herself. She happened to turn up the Dingsheng file and thought something was wrong.”
“What did she say was wrong?”
“Her exact words—’Brother Zhao, this case’s capital chain broke, but the person didn’t. It’s a bit strange.'”
I fell silent for a few seconds.
I knew the Dingsheng case. The principal culprit was sentenced to twelve years and was still squatting in prison. Back then, that case was the second year my master took the lead; I was still just a young cop who had newly entered the force.
“Where did she say it was off?”
“The flow of funds ultimately pointed to a trading company called Hengtong, but Hengtong was deregistered three months before the crime occurred. It’s impossible to have transfer records after deregistration, but she went through the original vouchers and discovered two incoming transactions after Hengtong was deregistered.”
My brows furrowed even tighter.
“Let me see the files.”
The archives room was at the end of the hallway, its door half-open.
When I walked in, Wen Ruzhou was lying across the desk turning through things. Her hair was tied up, exposing a section of her fair, clean neck. Five or six files were spread out on the desk, alongside a notebook filled with densely written words.
I walked over and stood behind her.
She didn’t notice me.
Drawn in the notebook was a fund flow diagram—but not the left-to-right tracking method commonly used in the police system. She used reverse deconstruction, pushing backward from the ultimate account, labeling each layer of fund sources with timestamps and amount ratios, like the “penetrative analysis” used when the Audit Office performs financial verification.
Different from our method.
Our method was “follow the money”—wherever the money went, follow it there, and speak only when reaching the end. Her method was “check the source of the money”—the source of every bit of funds was more important than its destination, because destinations could be disguised, but sources were difficult to fake.
This was an auditor’s line of thought.
Not a police officer’s line of thought.
Yet—that diagram she drew was clearer than any fund analysis report I had ever seen before.
The flow of funds in the Dingsheng case was dismantled by her in three steps. We had spent two weeks back then.
“Captain Shen?”
She turned around, still holding those two original vouchers in her hand. Surprise showed in her eyes, but it was quickly covered by a smile.
“You came so fast,” she said. “I wanted to finish reading before reporting to you.”
Without replying, I walked straight to the desk and picked up those two vouchers.
Bank-stamped, complete signatures. The date was indeed after Hengtong’s deregistration.
“The amounts?”
“The first is 470,000, the second 630,000. From the same personal account.” She lowered her head to flip through her notebook. “The account name is Zhou Jianguo.”
Zhou Jianguo.
“This diagram you drew,” I pointed to her notebook, “what method did you use?”
“The Audit Office’s penetrative analysis,” she didn’t hesitate. “Pushing back from the terminal account, marking timestamps and amount percentages at every level. Faster than your police tracking method, though not detailed enough—your method is good for catching people, my method is good for auditing accounts.”
She spoke very candidly. There was no intent to show off, nor modesty.
Like stating a fact.
“Who taught you?”
“An old division chief at the Audit Office. He worked in economic crime investigation for eight years, then was transferred to the Audit Office, combining the methods of both sides.”
“What’s his name?”
“Do you know him?”
“Not necessarily.”
She looked at me and didn’t press further.
“He said, ‘The Audit Office and police economic crime investigation—one looks at where money comes from, the other looks at where money goes. Only by bringing them together can things be seen clearly.’ I think he was right.”
I didn’t answer.
But she was right.
“Captain Shen,” she suddenly opened her mouth, “this case isn’t right.”
Someone walked past outside the window, their footsteps gradually fading into the distance. It was very quiet inside the archives room, with only the old air conditioner humming away.
She stood there, her shoulders held very straight, her eyes looking at me.
Not the gaze of a newcomer.
It was the kind—where she had already thought things through clearly and was waiting for you to say “correct.”
I turned and walked outside.
“Captain Shen?”
“Hand in your onboarding report to Personnel before three o’clock this afternoon. Put the files back where they were after you’re done.”
When I reached the doorway, her voice came from behind:
“Can I continue following this file?”
I didn’t turn back.
“Finish your procedures first.”
Returning to my office, I dredged up the name Zhou Jianguo from the depths of my memory.
Fifteen years.
Back when I followed my master to learn auditing accounts, my master said a phrase: In this line of economic crime, what’s most feared isn’t being unable to find problems, but finding problems and not daring to pursue them further. Investigating deep offends too many people; investigating shallow betrays one’s conscience.
My master was a man with a conscience. So when he reached a point where he couldn’t investigate any further, he applied for a transfer to the grassroots level.
That Zhou Jianguo line was his final lingering obsession before letting go.
The main culprit of the Dingsheng case went to prison, while Zhou Jianguo remained free at large. My master was transferred, and I took over. From that day on, I knew some debts would have to be settled sooner or later.
I just hadn’t expected that the first person to unearth this old account for me would be that girl who was late this morning.
I checked the time: 2:40 PM.
Opening the computer, I pulled up the original files for the Dingsheng case. Reading from the beginning, page by page, just as my master taught me fifteen years ago.
Not for her sake. For my own.
At three o’clock sharp, Little Zhang from Personnel knocked on the door and entered.
“Captain Shen, Wen Ruzhou handed in her onboarding report, all procedures are complete, and she’ll officially be on duty tomorrow.” She hesitated for a moment. “By the way, Captain Shen, she asked me to pass along a sentence to you.”
“What sentence?”
“She said—’Captain Shen, as for this person Zhou Jianguo, I’ll help you investigate him.'”
My hand paused on the keyboard.
Little Zhang was still waiting for a response.
“Got it. You can go out.”
After the door closed, I stared at the screen, not moving for a long time.
This Zhou Jianguo line hadn’t been touched in fifteen years. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to touch it, but the timing wasn’t right.
But now—
I leaned back against the chair, closing my eyes.
The sight of her lying among the stack of files in the archives room still lingered in my mind.
The method she used to draw the fund flow diagram was different from ours. When she said, “The Audit Office and police economic crime investigation—one looks at where money comes from, the other looks at where money goes,” her tone sounded like reciting a line heard long ago.
When she said “Do you know him?”, she didn’t press further.
A newcomer, dispatched to the archives room on her first day, unearthed a fifteen-year-old cold case within two hours, used an auditor’s method to draw a fund flow diagram faster than us, and then—
Instead of rushing to show off, she said a single line: “I’ll help you investigate him.”
Not claiming credit, not probing.
It was her telling me—she knew what I was investigating.
Outside the window, the sky dimmed down. Dusk came late in June, but the sky still had to turn dark.
I opened my eyes.
Tomorrow she officially reports for duty.
I suddenly felt like knowing what this smiling Audit Office girl actually wanted to investigate.