Chapter 935: Aftermath Ripples

Of course, even though these cases have already been solved, the suspects have been caught, and Qin Wushuang has confessed without reservation to her crimes, the extended handling of the case is still not over.

First comes the situation over at Third Middle School.

Whether it’s Xu Wenbang or Wang Jinde, all of the school leadership at Third Middle School actually bear an inescapable responsibility for this matter.

Put mildly, they claimed they were doing it for the school’s reputation; put less mildly, what they committed was the crime of harboring and shielding.

And besides the people from Shandong who need to be investigated and dealt with, another batch of people has been dragged out into the open.

This is because Zhang Haibin was killed, so the investigation into the interpersonal relationships around him could be said to have been extremely thorough.

Everyone who had ever given gifts to Zhang Haibin was basically all dug up.

The criminal police may not be good at investigating economic crimes, but compared with the economic crime investigators, the criminal side is much better at spotting details.

As the deputy director of the Fiscal Bureau, with several million in cash hidden under his bed, the first thing was to carry out a full audit of the areas he oversaw.

That Chen Guojun was also found to have problems in this thorough inspection.

His promotion was bought by bribing Zhang Haibin in the first place.

And with his meager salary, if he wanted to offer a bribe, without saving for eight or ten years and not eating or drinking, there’s no way he could have come up with that money.

So a briber first has to take bribes himself; only after taking them does he have the money to go on bribing.

Once they started digging, the findings were spot on; a whole string of people under Zhang Haibin were all placed under case review.

Of course this kind of thing isn’t what the Criminal Investigation Team is supposed to be doing; they just handed the relevant leads over to the relevant departments.

"Captain Lu, I heard... three leaders from the Fiscal Bureau have been taken in?"

In the office, the extermination case was completely wrapped up, everyone now had nothing urgent to do, the pressure wasn’t too high, and people like Wang Zhaokai were chatting in Lu Chuan’s office.

Compared with other leading cadres, Lu Chuan actually came off as more easygoing.

Lu Chuan handled more of the professional work; when it came to administrative work, he wasn’t particularly willing to get involved.

Why do so many people like being leaders? There’s a kind of underlying logic here about satisfying a need for self-worth.

Whether it’s in private enterprises, state-owned enterprises, or government, no matter the setting or the company, many people like being leaders mainly for two reasons.

The first is to make more money; people in leadership positions of course earn more.

But that’s often not the most important thing.

Especially in the public-service system.

To be honest, among public servants in general, those with corrupt or embezzling behavior are after all only a tiny minority.

And the reason these people want to move further up is actually the demand for self-realization.

When a leader assigns work, he’s not just deploying the work itself; the inner logic is imposing his own ideas on other people.

This invisibly satisfies a certain urge to control.

It’s a concrete way in which a person’s self-worth gets displayed.

For example, you look at a barren hill that’s going to be greened; that greening raises a whole question: do you plant grass, or trees, or flowers?

In theory, whether you plant grass, trees, or flowers, all of them meet the requirements of greening.

So what do you do at that point?

Of course you need the relevant parties to step in and make the call.

If it just so happens some leader likes willows, then this barren hillside will be planted with willows for greening.

Conversely, if some leader prefers grass, then this barren hillside will be covered with grass for greening.

There are also leaders who like certain sports, such as tennis, table tennis, or billiards.

Basically, once a leader comes in, everyone under him switches to his favored sport.

But to be honest, do the people below really like tennis? Do they really like badminton?

Isn’t it just because the leader likes to play?

But in this regard, Lu Chuan basically has no such needs.

No matter when you go into his office, it feels like your own office.

Lu Chuan usually doesn’t put on airs when he’s working; unless they’re solving a case, he speaks with final authority, but at other times he’s more like an ordinary criminal cop.

He smokes with everyone, and they’re smoking his cigarettes.

"The Fiscal Bureau is nothing; this time things have blown up."

Chen Jiang crushed out his cigarette butt: "After we handed the case over, the relevant departments took all the government affairs materials too. Do you remember the black notebook we found in the safe in Zhang Haibin’s office?"

Everyone, including Lu Chuan, nodded. They had all read that notebook.

To be honest, some of it was pretty shocking.

This guy Zhang Haibin had one good habit: he liked to keep a diary.

But he didn’t write about trivial everyday stuff; he liked to record little secrets about himself and other people.

For example, on such-and-such a day, with so-and-so, at such-and-such a place, they had an expensive meal.

Or, with so-and-so, he went to some club and had indescribable contact with a girl named Hong.

Or that so-and-so, on such-and-such a day, gave him a hundred thousand yuan.

Or again, that on such-and-such a day, he gave so-and-so two cases of liquor and several tens of thousands in cash.

The people mentioned in this diary had already been investigated to a certain extent as part of mapping out Zhang Haibin’s personal network.

But since most of the people inside were public servants, many in fairly high positions, the odds of them resorting to murder to silence someone were probably low.

Not that they wouldn’t or didn’t dare, but at the time Zhang Haibin’s work was going smoothly and nothing had happened.

His killing simply wasn’t triggered by anything to do with his work.

Also, these people basically all had alibis, so they weren’t pursued further.

But the fact that the criminal police didn’t dig further doesn’t mean other departments won’t.

Just from the names in Zhang Haibin’s diary, three leaders from the Fiscal Bureau alone have been implicated, and they’re just the small fry.

Lu Chuan, for his part, probably knew even more.

This time a lot of people have been affected, and the scope involved is very wide; it’s said that some people at the Haizhou City level have already been brought under investigation.

It’s just that nothing has been announced yet; the investigation work is still being carried out in secret, but those people are already under supervision.

Chatting away, Lu Chuan just mentioned things casually.

"Seriously?"

Lu Chuan shook his head: "This is just what I heard. Whether it’s true or not, we don’t know."

"I think it’s pretty likely. I haven’t seen that guy on the TV news the last couple of days; that definitely means something’s up."

Chen Jiang sounded quite convinced.

These days, it doesn’t matter who appears on TV; the key is who doesn’t show up on TV—that’s probably who’s in trouble.

In the period that followed there were no major cases; on Friday, a visitor came to Lu Chuan’s office.