Chapter 732: The subtle details
Ran Jing was speechless. “You’ve been giving a speech but you’re still not onto the point. We also knew that would be the big fish, but we couldn’t catch them.”
Xu Cheng: “That’s why I asked, have you thought of a different way of thinking? Why did they attract you there? Is that not obvious? It means that they have a plan B as well. First, sacrifice the small ones to draw away most of your forces, even if they have to face a small loss. Based on this, I think they have learned a lesson from the West Gate casino case, because they know how to give some goods to the police so that you won’t be on their tail all the time. We all know that none of the Four Gates are clean, so why should they still pretend to be good people? They could simply let you catch something occasionally and turn it into a habit. In fact, you have already entered the trap they set for you guys. You always rely on people reporting to the police, and the first thing that comes to mind is that ‘these people are on the move again’ and you head out to catch them, then return with some accomplishment. But don’t you find it very strange? That you always manage to seize some small goods every time, and it’s always the same group of people?”
Xu Cheng took a sip of tea and then continued, “Secondly, they made such an effort to lure you there to the portside. Like you said, if they draw all the police force there, how could they complete the trade? Are they going to trade in broad daylight? That would be impossible, so have you ever thought that perhaps the real smuggling site was not at this port?”
Ran Jing’s pupils constricted slightly.
After Xu Cheng’s analysis, she indeed realized a lot of fatal problems.
When she rethought a lot of things over, it was indeed as Xu Cheng said. They had all been led by the nose and couldn’t figure the way out of this logic trap.
“Director Ran, we received an anonymous call, the same as last time. Should we go or not?” Li Chao, the leader of the criminal investigation division’s second team, came over and said to them.
Li Chao!
He was once Xu Cheng’s subordinates, and now he had been promoted to a team leader.
His body seemed to be somewhat sturdier, and he also looked more spirited.
Ran Jing couldn’t help but try to make things difficult for Xu Cheng as she looked over and asked, “Like you said, it’s a trap right in front of you right now. The question is, are you going to jump in or not? In a time when we don’t clearly know where their other smuggling sites are, fly meat is also meat. Are we willing to let go of this one or not? If we are, who knows if this is fly meat or a big fish. If it’s you, what will you do?”
This was a set up for Xu Cheng. He might be filled with theories, but when the situation really comes, what would he do? Probably the same as Ran Jing and the others; be stupid and still go for it.
Xu Cheng looked at Ran Jing with a bit of a stunned and surprised gaze, since her tactical skills had reached this point, it was a very nice passing of the buck.
In fact, she brought Xu Cheng over mainly because she wanted to see how capable the so-called Yanjing detective expert was.
As a leader, of course she could not tolerate the transfer of power with that many witnesses, so she didn’t say much and just wanted to see how capable he was. If he was not capable, then he could quit the bluff and talk properly. If he was proven capable, then they were willing to watch him play the rest of the game out.
Xu Cheng remained silent for a long time and said, “We’ll go, small fish is also meat.”
Ran Jing almost choked.
Then what was that long*ss speech for?
Xu Cheng didn’t speak as he stood up and walked to the monitoring area with all the surveillance cameras.
Li Chao saw him walking past and had a thoughtful look as he said, “This person’s back figure seems like someone I know.”
Ran Jing: “Who?”
Li Chao: “Nothing, just a bit alike. Director Ran, should we go for it tonight?”
“Of course.” Ran Jing said, “Fly meat is still meat.”
From noon till dawn, Xu Cheng sat still in the commander’s room.
Ran Jing took the lunch box and handed it to him as she said, “Eat if you want to.”
Xu Cheng took it and put it aside on the table, not intending to eat because he wasn’t at a convenient place to eat right now. Meanwhile, Ran Jing wanted him to take off his mask when he ate so she could see what he looked like, but her plan fell through.
By 10:30 PM, Ran Jing had already ordered Li Chao and others on the front line to tackle them down.
She walked to Xu Cheng’s side and saw him looking at the monitoring screen as she teased him, “You still really think that they are diverting our attention? Even if they could divert the police force, can they avoid all the surveillance on the main roads from the port? We have the surveillance on all these roads, and any suspicious vehicles will be stopped through the checkpoints.”
Xu Cheng looked at surveillance and said, “And what if someone has tampered with the surveillance area?”
Xu Cheng had been staring at it the whole day, and he had seen more than thirty screens showing the roads connected to the port.
“That would be impossible. I know what you mean, but this is real-time surveillance. If they record something and connect it to us, then the real-time clock wouldn’t be right.”
Xu Cheng: “The timestamp in the background could be adjusted, so what if I recorded an hour of the real-time surveillance ahead of time?”
Ran Jing frowned. “What do you mean?”
Xu Cheng: “Suppose at an important intersection, I record something at the same time for an hour, and at 9 o’clock on the dot, I swap it with the real-time surveillance, and then at 10 o’clock after a whole hour has passed, I take this recorded video down. Would you know if vehicles passed through this intersection during this time?”
Ran Jing froze. “Why do you think that?”
Xu Cheng pointed to a certain surveillance where a vehicle was driving from the port into the city and said, “Use GPS to see if this car is actually driving? And note the license plate number.”
A technician nodded and hurriedly used the license plate number to track down the car. The technician was immediately surprised and exclaimed, “Director Ran, this car did not pass here at all and it is not currently driving away from the city.”
Ran Jing’s expression changed drastically.
Xu Cheng smiled. “So I was right. This surveillance has actually been tampered with a recorded video.”
Ran Jing picked up the microphone. “Team 3, head to Dongling Road and stop all vehicles for investigation. Now!”
Having said that, she turned around bringing a group of people as they rushed to the scene. Indeed, someone diverted their attention and then secretly swapped out the surveillance camera, tampering with the “eye in the sky” at this area. If it wasn’t looked at carefully, then no one would have felt that the recorded video was off. The average person facing hundreds of video screens, wouldn’t have noticed the difference of a glitched second, but Xu Cheng stared at it a whole day, and he sensed that something was wrong so he asked the technician.
He was indeed correct.