A straight road, with no forks in the middle. How could a car driving perfectly suddenly disappear?
Ping An, standing on General Avenue, hands on his hips, anxiously watched the cars passing by on the road.
"Are you playing magic?" Qiao Yidan, who had rushed over, first berated Ping An, "Gao Da, a former soldier, makes a decent informant, but why did you send Su Tang in as well? What exactly are you planning? Where's the car! Didn't you set up a roadblock as soon as the car hit the road? Then why did it disappear?"
"It is strange!" Ping An feigned to look around, saying with annoyance, "Based on the time, the van shouldn't have had extra time to transfer, and no other suspicious vehicles appeared. There was no movement in the river or mountains. I'm baffled, did it just fly away?"
"Fly my ass, there are drones in the sky! If it hadn't been for the sudden heavy fog, we wouldn't have lost them," Qiao Yidan said helplessly. "Tell me the truth, what's going on? The model competition is starting tomorrow, with guests from all over the country, no, the world! We can't afford any major incident at this critical juncture!"
"Are human lives more important or the competition? At this point, why are you still emphasizing the bigger picture!" Ping An finally couldn't help but erupt in a furious tirade, "I have only this much ability, and now that something has happened, you're pinning it on me?"
"You, you, you, you! Fine, I won't argue with you. Anyway, the people who are missing are all your people. Let's see if you're worried!" Qiao Yidan was not Gao Xiaofei. At this juncture, a fight would not solve anything, so she stormed off in anger.
Seeing everyone keeping their distance, Ping An quietly took out his phone and made a call.
"Is everything going smoothly?" Ping An whispered.
"Brother, everything is going smoothly, it was so damn exciting." On the other end of the line was Ping An's "exclusive" deliveryman – Qiao Xixi.
"Proceed as planned," Ping An said hurriedly before hanging up.
With less than a day left before the model competition officially kicks off, a pre-competition deployment meeting was being held in the conference room of Anshi International Building.
To be honest, the journey to this competition had been fraught with challenges. Contestants dying in sewers, the CEO of the event's organizing company meeting an untimely end, and a series of murders had almost led to the cancellation of the competition. And just as the four public relations companies were doing their best to maintain the situation, on the riverine front, rumors began to surface that the competition was a sham, and the real purpose was to select beautiful women for "human trafficking." The rumors were detailed and deliberately linked the police's several actions to these groundless accusations, ultimately pointing the finger at Ou Erjian, one of the organizers of the competition.
"This is bad, I heard that Ms. Diana, the judge for this competition, has disappeared!"
"What? Is that true?"
"Look, it's already trending on hot search – the police have now sealed off General Avenue."
"Oh dear, what should we do?"
...
The meeting was adjourned, and a wave of hushed whispers suddenly spread.
Ou Erjian, who was pretending to sleep in the chairman's seat, scratched his head uncomfortably. Seeing that the room was still in an uproar, he seemed displeased and opened his phone.
—Boss, the person and the goods are missing!!!
A text message arrived at some point.
—Find them!
Seeing this obviously late text message, Ou Erjian curtly replied with a single word.
In the conference room, the topic of the competition becoming a target once it began had been debated for half the day. The heads of the four media and public relations companies each expressed their opinions. Among them, Lin Dang and Zhan Dou's companies suggested postponing the start of the competition and actively cooperating with the police to clear their names before proceeding safely. The other two companies, however, advocated for seizing the current "public opinion" momentum to expand their influence.
"I'd like to hear the views of the mainstream media," Ou Erjian said, scanning the room and noticing Ping An's absence.
"Our views are similar to those of Mr. Lin," a representative from the Hechuan Daily newspaper replied simply.
"Where is your Director Ping? Why isn't he attending such a major event?" Ou Erjian asked provocatively.
"Because our Director Ping said he's gone mad, so he can't come for now," the young representative said innocently, reciting the words Ping An had forced him to say.
"Mad? How did he go mad?" The room burst into laughter, but Ou Erjian said seriously, "As far as I know, your Director Ping has recently been a consultant for the police, and he's been breaking cases with great enthusiasm—"
"..." The young representative's face turned red, and he lowered his head unnaturally.
"Oh, did your Director Ping not expect anyone to ask this question, so he wasn't prepared?" Ou Erjian sneered.
"No, it's just that our director, um, well, he did leave a message," the young representative stammered.
"What message?" Ou Erjian sat up straight and asked.
"None of your damn business." After saying this, the young representative finally let out a long sigh.
"As you all heard, this is the sense of responsibility of the mainstream media! I propose we report Ping An!" Ou Erjian said, his face darkening. "Furthermore, I demand that tomorrow's competition must proceed as scheduled."
Wan Rou, a representative of Anshi and the only person present who could suppress Ou Erjian, heard his statement and did not react further. She calmly said, "Meeting adjourned," and left first.
As the meeting ended, Lin Dang, unwilling to give up, tried to follow, but was stopped by Zhan Dou.
"Let's go, it's no use. Either this Wan Rou has the boss's instructions, or she has other arrangements. The competition will definitely proceed tomorrow," Zhan Dou said.
"That's not right, why were you cooperating with me at every turn today?" Lin Dang asked, staring.
"Let's go, this is beyond our level to control now," Zhan Dou said mysteriously. "Didn't your man reveal anything to you?"
"Reveal what? I haven't seen him for days. That's not right, what's the connection between the competition and the investigation?" Lin Dang asked, confused.
Ou Erjian, who had hurriedly left, got into his car outside the building and made a call.
"What exactly is going on?" Ou Erjian asked.
"I don't know. The bombs are all in place. According to the plan, as soon as the car enters the detection range, I can control it immediately and detonate it remotely without a trace. But, the car never entered the detection range. I've driven several cars back and forth on General Avenue several times, and there's nothing but police cars," the voice on the other end replied.
"You were supposed to kill Diana, so why did she disappear? By the way, did that girl Su Tang get in the car too?" Ou Erjian asked.
"Yes, I saw her get in the car with my own eyes," the voice replied.
"What a shame. Go find her quickly! Bring her back alive or dead!" Ou Erjian said fiercely. "The competition starts tomorrow, and my ship is in place. If anything goes wrong, I'll hold you responsible."
On General Avenue, a middle-aged man in a black hooded sweatshirt put away his phone with annoyance and stood by the roadside, watching the cars come and go. He suddenly kicked a stone on the ground in frustration.
Not far away, in a temporarily modified surveillance vehicle, Ping An and Mei Qian, heads close together, were intently watching the middle-aged man.
"It's confirmed that the middle-aged man is Fan Bin, and the excellent audio recording confirms he planted the bomb in the car," Lai Xiang said with a smile. "What do you say, shall we apprehend him now? I'm sure the person he just called is definitely a 'big fish'!"
"No rush, he's definitely not alone. Let him make a fuss on Jianjun Avenue first!" Ping An said without looking up. "How is Su Tang doing? Tell her I'm only giving her twelve hours. If she can't find a live broadcast point, she should go home obediently."
"Alright, I'm going right away," Lai Xiang said and quickly got out of the car.
"By the way, did Diana say anything?" Mei Qian suddenly stopped Lai Xiang.
"She said it all, without a hitch. They tricked girls with legitimate companies to fall into their trap, then abducted them to Fan Bin's car, and finally, it was for sale, murder, or organ harvesting. She doesn't know about that," Lai Xiang said. "Diana is still insisting she doesn't know the final crime boss, but with a little interrogation, she probably won't last."
"Very good, with our setup, it's probably enough to make her sweat," Ping An mused. "Let's not let her know we're the police. Pass a message to our Boss Wan, at a critical moment, she can fabricate a boss behind the scenes, perhaps Anshi, and see what Diana says."
"Alright!" Lai Xiang left in high spirits.
Watching Lai Xiang leave, Ping An glanced at the time and realized it was evening. He patted Mei Qian's arm and said, "Do you want to report, or should I? We need to hurry. Xiao Fei has already cleaned his gun several times, waiting for us to initiate the plan!"
"You! I would never have come up with such a shameless plan. You almost led me astray!" Mei Qian said grumpily, then took out her laptop and clicked into an internal online conference of the public security system.
In front of the computer screen, Xiang Wanfeng and other big shots were all waiting for Ping An's explanation.
"Dear leaders, the situation is unusual, and in these critical times, I have used some unconventional methods," Ping An explained. "This case spans too long a period, and it's really hard to get started with conventional methods. The only information we have is about Fan Bin, the driver who has been exclusively picking up girls for many years, Diana, and Awei Culture. So, my plan revolves around these two people and a live broadcast."
It turned out that after gathering all the intelligence, Ping An had conducted a comprehensive study and found that no matter how they investigated, they would always be one step behind the enemy. To overtake them, they had to resort to "feigning mystery."
"So, Diana, Gao Da, and Su Tang are all under your control now, right?" Xiang Wanfeng said, relieved. "How did you manage it? Although that area is by the mountains and water, there are no roads in the mountains and no boats in the water. People can leave, but what about the car?"
"That's simple. We've already achieved initial results. The intelligence we've coaxed is very valuable, and we plan to coax more to tear open another crack in this criminal gang," Ping An said.