Chapter 59: Research Investigation

At six-thirty in the morning, the sky was faintly bright, and the chill of late autumn had quietly permeated the air. Li Yifei stepped alone into the silent courtyard of the town government, his leather shoes clicking clearly and solitarily against the cold concrete ground.

He had intentionally arrived an hour and a half early, not to show diligence, but to complete a crucial task in the undisturbed quiet: a thorough search of his own office.

His key slipped into the keyhole with a crisp, sharp click that echoed harshly in the empty corridor. Pushing the door open, he was hit by a complex scent of old wooden furniture, dust mites, and cheap air freshener.

He did not turn on the lights. Guided by the gradually brightening dawn outside the window, like a seasoned secret agent, he retrieved a palm-sized black device from his briefcase—a high-sensitivity radio frequency signal and pinhole camera detector he had brought from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

His movements were precise and calm. Inch by inch, he scanned along the walls, the ceiling, the underside of the desk, the crevices of the sofa, the inside of the telephone, and even the base of the windowsill planter and the back of the wall hanging.

The wave pattern on the detector's screen remained as calm as water until it swept over the corner of the heavy steel filing cabinet against the wall. Suddenly, a faint red light flashed, accompanied by an almost inaudible "beep-beep" sound.

Li Yifei's eyes instantly sharpened like a hawk's. He squatted down, his fingers carefully groping in the gap between the cabinet's back panel and the wall, and soon touched a cool, hard foreign object the size of a fingernail.

He carefully peeled it off—a button-shaped miniature bug, crudely made, obviously a cheap trinket available on the market.

"You really couldn't hold back," Li Yifei's lips curved into a cold arc. He did not immediately remove the clumsy listening device.

He gently placed it back where it was, as if it had never been touched. Then, he continued his scan, discovering another bug of the same model at the roots of the half-dead spider plant on the windowsill.

It seemed that Wang Chenggui, or the people behind him, were determined to keep close tabs on every move of their new secretary, unwilling to spare even this small amount of patience and cost.

Impassively, Li Yifei sat back down behind his desk, opened a brand-new notebook, and deliberately raised his voice, speaking clearly as if to himself: "It seems I need to report more often to Secretary Wei, to secure the county's support for Duogang Town..." At the same time, the tip of his pen moved quickly and silently across the paper, writing down the true record.

At eight o'clock sharp, the town government courtyard began to stir with a mixture of footsteps, voices, and bicycle bells. Li Yifei dialed the internal extension, his voice steady: "Director Wu, please come to my office for a moment."

In less than five minutes, Wu Ting pushed the door open. She appeared to have dressed with deliberate care today, wearing a well-tailored beige suit skirt that accentuated her slender figure, with slightly curled hair draped over her shoulders, exquisite makeup, and a strong scent of perfume, attempting to use professional allure to cover up yesterday's disarray.

She walked up to the desk, leaning forward slightly with a carefully calibrated smile, her voice adopting a deliberately practiced softness: "Secretary, you asked for me? Any instructions?" Her phoenix eyes rippled with light as she tried to catch Li Yifei's reaction.

Li Yifei's gaze did not linger for even a second on her meticulously adorned face, falling straight instead upon the unfolded town map and a handwritten research plan spread across the desk.

Without raising his head, he tapped a finger on the schedule, his tone flat yet undeniable: "Director Wu, arrange it for these few days. Accompany me to the villages for research. We'll start with Liuzhuang to the far north."

"Go... go to the villages for research?" The smile on Wu Ting's face instantly froze, replaced by bewilderment and undisguised resistance.

Although it was late autumn, the lingering heat of the autumn tiger still held sway. Going to the countryside meant dusty dirt roads, unpredictable weather, mosquitoes in farmyards, and perhaps not even a decent restroom.

For "Director Wu," who was accustomed to air-conditioned offices, clinking glasses at banquets, and getting by in town through her looks and social savvy, this was tantamount to torture. Her mind raced for excuses: documents to organize, meetings to prepare, superior inspections to get ready for...

However, the moment she parted her lips to speak, before a sound could escape, Li Yifei finally lifted his gaze.

That gaze was calm and ripple-less, yet it resembled two bottomless pools of freezing water, carrying a penetrating insight into human nature and the unquestionable majesty of a superior, instantly freezing all her petty thoughts in her throat.

Wu Ting's heart gave a violent jolt, and a chill surged from the soles of her feet. She suddenly realized with stark clarity that the young party secretary before her was by no means the easily manipulated "gilded doll" Wang Chenggui had described.

The overwhelming dominance at yesterday's banquet and this icy gaze today both proclaimed that this was a truly ruthless character.

"N-no problem, Secretary!" Wu Ting straightened her back almost reflexively, her voice losing its deliberate coquettishness, becoming dry and formal instead. "I... I'll go arrange the vehicle and itinerary right now!" Not daring to spare another glance, she turned and hurried away, the sound of her high heels striking the floor laced with panic.

Half an hour later, an old, battered Santana with a chipped finish and a fine crack across the side window parked in the courtyard. Driver Lao Zhang, a honest-looking middle-aged man, smiled benignly at Li Yifei.

Wu Ting stood by the car, cradling a brand-new file folder. The high heels that had been polished to a shine that morning were already dusted with grime, and her expression was a mix of reluctance and resignation.

Li Yifei glanced at the car, which could only be described as an "antique," and then caught sight of Wu Ting's attire, so entirely unsuited for rural dirt roads, understanding everything in an instant.

This was the second intimidation tactic orchestrated by Wang Chenggui—using a broken-down car and a delicate office director to wear down his enthusiasm and make him retreat in the face of difficulties.

"Let's go." Li Yifei showed no outward reaction, pulled open the car door, and got in with crisp efficiency. The engine started with a muffled wheeze, rattling as it drove out of the town government gates and merged into the pitted road leading to the countryside.

The car trudged forward along the dusty rural highway, every bump wrung a painful groan from the chassis. Yellow dust billowed like smoke through the gaps in the windows that could not be fully closed, quickly filling the interior.

Frowning, Wu Ting pressed a heavily perfumed handkerchief tightly over her mouth and nose, occasionally letting out suppressed coughs as her meticulously styled hair gathered dust.

She glanced furtively at Li Yifei beside her, only to find him gazing intently out the window, brow furrowed in a deep frown, seemingly entirely oblivious to the misery inside the car.

The scenery outside made Li Yifei's heart sink further. This should have been the season of golden rice and bountiful harvest, but the fields along the way presented a sickly, desolate appearance.

Many plots featured sparse, withered yellow rice, clearly the result of neglect or severe pest infestation; even more fields lay entirely abandoned, overgrown with weeds and wrapped in a dead silence. This was a far cry from the vast, fertile expanse of Duogang Town he remembered.

"Driver Zhang, what's going on with these fields...?" Li Yifei could not help asking.

Driver Lao Zhang sighed, his voice laden with helplessness: "Ah, Secretary Li, you're a local, you should know. The able-bodied young folks have all gone off to work in the cities. The ones left behind are just old folks with creaky joints and women with kids—how could they possibly farm all this land?

Plus, over the last few years, seeds, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides just keep going up in price, while grain prices drop like a stone weight. After a busy year, subtracting the costs, how much money is left? A lot of people do the math and simply quit farming altogether. Leaving it fallow is better than losing money!"

Li Yifei remained silent, his fingers tightening unconsciously. The car continued northward, gradually bringing the shimmering waters of the canal into view in the distance.

Liuzhuang Village sat right at a sharp bend of the canal, a location that should have been blessed by the water and uniquely prosperous. Yet, as the vehicle approached the village entrance, the sight that greeted him made Li Yifei's heart clench even tighter.

A crooked concrete monument stood at the village entrance, the red-painted characters for "Liuzhuang Village" long since peeled and faded into illegibility.

A few emaciated, bony stray dogs lay indolently on dirt mounds by the roadside. Upon seeing the car approach, they merely lifted their eyelids lazily, not even bothering to offer a token bark.

The village committee consisted of two low, dilapidated brick-tiled rooms with large patches of plaster peeling off to reveal the rammed earth beneath. The roof tiles were missing in sections, and a wooden sign barely secured by wire hung crookedly at the doorway, its lettering equally blurred.

Hearing the car engine, Village Secretary Liu Laoda trotted out to welcome them. He was a man in his fifties, his skin dark and rough like tree bark, wearing a faded blue cotton jacket with a patch on the shoulder, a pair of old rubber boots caked in fresh mud, and his trousers rolled up to his calves.

His face wore a naive, almost awkward smile as he rubbed his hands nervously against his jacket hem: "Secretary Li! Welcome, welcome! Quick, please come in!"

In his gaze, alongside the instinctive awe of a superior leader, was a trace of imperceptible numbness and detachment—he had seen too many "inspecting" leaders over the years, who either skimmed through for a few photo ops or ate, drank, and patted their bottoms before leaving, never bringing any substantive change to this impoverished village.

Following Liu Laoda, Li Yifei stepped into the dim, damp village committee office. The indoor lighting was abysmal, and the glass of the only two small windows was coated with a thick layer of grime.

A few paint-peeled, wobbling tables and chairs were scattered haphazardly. A few yellowing, curled policy propaganda posters hung on the wall. The only modern equipment was an archaic black rotary dial telephone, which looked older than Li Yifei himself.

"Old Liu, sit down. Don't bother with that." Li Yifei stopped Liu Laoda from reaching for the thermos to pour water, pulling over a creaking wooden stool to sit down himself. "Tell me the real situation in the village. What's the resident population now, and what are the main sources of income?"

Liu Laoda rubbed his rough, calloused hands, sighed, and pulled up a stool to sit across from him, his voice low: "Secretary Li, I'm not afraid of making a fool of myself.

Our village census has 586 people, but look for yourself, fewer than 200 actually stay in the village now! They're all old folks like me, plus a bunch of kids in school and their mothers.

The young and able-bodied have all gone south for work, only coming back for a few days during Chinese New Year." He held up three fingers and smiled bitterly, "Last year, the whole village averaged less than 3,000 yuan per capita! Even that relies on the harvest depending on the mercy of the heavens, plus whatever pittance the kids send back from outside. It's hard!"

Li Yifei listened in silence, his gaze sweeping over the minimalist, impoverished furnishings of the room and landing on Liu Laoda's cracked, calloused hands.

"I noticed our village backs onto the canal, a pretty good location. Has the village ever thought about trying aquaculture or utilizing the waterways? Surely that's better than leaving things to the mercy of the weather?"

"Thought about it! How could we not?!" Liu Laoda's eyes suddenly lit up like a sparked flame, but they quickly dimmed again as if doused by a basin of cold water. "The year before last, a few of us village cadres dared to run to the county aquatic products bureau.

They actually sent a technician to take a look. The technician said the water quality in our section is fine, suitable for raising fish and shrimp. But..." He sighed heavily, "To do aquaculture, you first need to build a decent small pier, right? You need to buy net cages, fry, and feed, right? And you need technical guidance! The technician did a rough calculation for us—we'd need to invest at least 200,000 to 300,000 yuan just to start!

Secretary Li, you tell me, our village accounts don't even have 10,000 yuan to spare! We swallowed our pride and went to the town government to apply for subsidies, ran our legs off, and wore down our tongues..." At this point, he choked off as if grabbed by the throat, casting a wary glance at Wu Ting standing at the doorway, who looked visibly uncomfortable in this crude environment, swallowing back the rest of his words, leaving only bitterness and helplessness.

Li Yifei's heart sank; he understood. He stood up: "Old Liu, take me around the village to see the folks."

Walking along the pitted village paths, the scenes before his eyes were even more shocking than the accounts in the office. Many houses had cracked walls with fissures wide enough to insert a finger;

the roof tiles were scattered haphazardly, and some areas were barely covered with plastic sheeting and straw. Pointing to a mud-brick house whose walls were severely leaning and seemed ready to collapse at any moment, Liu Laoda spoke with repressed anger and sorrow: "This is Old Man Liu's house. Both husband and wife are pushing eighty and in poor health.

Their son was working on a construction site in the city the year before last, fell from scaffolding, broke his leg, and can't do heavy work anymore. Now he picks through garbage in the city.

His daughter-in-law rents a tiny room in the county town with their young grandson, taking on odd jobs while caring for her husband—how could she possibly look after things back here? Every year the village applies for dilapidated housing renovation subsidies for them, piling up applications stack after stack, but..."

"The subsidies never came down?" Li Yifei's voice was as cold as ice.

Liu Laoda's smile was uglier than crying as he pointed to another dilapidated house nearby supported precariously by a few wooden beams: "Every year we apply, and every year it sinks without a trace. When we ask, it's always 'still processing' or 'funds are tight.'

Do you remember that heavy rainstorm last summer? Half of Old Wang's house in the back village collapsed with a loud crash! Fortunately, it was daytime, and the old couple were visiting neighbors next door, or they would have been crushed to death inside!

Even then, the town squeezed out five thousand yuan like toothpaste, calling it 'emergency relief'! Five thousand yuan, what is that good for? They bought some bricks to patch it up crudely, and now that house is no better than Old Man Liu's!" His voice trembled with agitation.

Squatting down in the roadside mud, Li Yifei picked up half a piece of paper soaked through by rain, its text blurred and edges tattered.

Inspecting it closely, he could faintly discern the header "Duogang Town Rural Dilapidated Housing Renovation Subsidy Application Approval Form for XX Year," along with a few blurred names and red thumbprints.

Quietly, he folded this ragged scrap of paper, which bore the desperate hopes of the villagers, and tucked it carefully into his inner pocket. This was not only evidence, but a heavy responsibility.

At noon, Liu Laoda vehemently urged them to stay for a meal, even secretly instructing his wife to buy some meat on credit from the village's only grocery store.

Watching the old man pull out a crumpled wad of small change bound by a rubber band from his inner pocket, those wrinkled bills and coins pierced Li Yifei's eyes like needles.

"Old Liu, I appreciate the thought. We have matters back in town, so we won't eat here." He firmly declined. Before leaving, while Liu Laoda wasn't looking, he tucked the five hundred yuan cash from his own wallet under the tea-stained enamel mug. The plain water he had just drunk from that cup suddenly felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.

Over the next three days, Li Yifei's figure appeared in the remaining eight administrative villages of Duogang Town. The sights were largely the same—desolate villages, abandoned fields, ruined houses, and the vacant, hopeless gazes of left-behind elderly and children.

The only slightly "prosperous" village was Donggou Village, due to a privately owned brick kiln where many villagers worked. But the price was massive: the village was shrouded year-round in grayish-yellow smoke, the air reeked of pungent sulfur, and many villagers suffered from coughs and chest tightness.

Entering a household, Li Yifei saw cheap bottles of bronchitis medicine sitting on the table, deepening his heavy mood.

Wu Ting's attitude underwent a subtle change during these days of muddy trekking, one she hadn't anticipated herself. On the first day, she had still been complaining of sore backs, whining about the sun and dirt, and constantly reapplying her makeup.

By the second day, she had quietly discarded her high heels and exquisite suit skirt, switching to comfortable sneakers and dark, dirt-resistant trousers. Though she still frowned, the complaints dwindled.

When she saw Li Yifei in Zhangjiacun shed his jacket without a word, roll up his sleeves, climb onto a roof to help an elderly widow replace leaking tiles, and get covered in mud and dust;

when she saw Li Yifei squatting under the old locust tree at the entrance of Liijiawa Village, patiently helping a few left-behind children with their homework in a voice as gentle as an older brother's;

when she saw Li Yifei firmly rejecting village hospitality everywhere he went, even digging into his own pocket to leave charitable tokens for the most destitute... The contempt and resistance originally in her eyes washed away like dirt in the rain, replaced by complex emotions—surprise, being moved, and a hint of respect she was unwilling to admit.

On the fourth day at dusk, during the bumpy car ride back from the last village to the town government, an exhausted Wu Ting leaned against her seat, gazing out at the passing desolate fields and remaining silent for a long time.

The car rolled over a deep pothole, shaking violently and pulling her back to her thoughts. As if making up her mind, she turned her head to look at Li Yifei beside her, who looked equally exhausted yet kept a sharp gaze. Her voice was very soft, laced with hesitation and imperceptible tension:

"Secretary Li... about those... those subsidies..." She trailed off, her fingers nervously twisting her hem.

Sensing the anomaly in her tone, Li Yifei turned his head slowly, his gaze calm yet deeply penetrating: "Director Wu, do you... know something?"

Meeting his gaze, Wu Ting's heart gave another jolt, as if her thoughts had been laid bare. She bit her lower lip, lowering her voice until it was almost a whisper: "I... I just happened to... heard someone mention it while helping out at the finance office... That the finance department every year... every year intercepts a portion of the various village-level subsidies allocated from above..."

She paused, seemingly weighing her words and observing Li Yifei's reaction, her voice trembling slightly. "This matter... Mayor Wang... he... he should know about it..." Having said this, she seemed to have spent all her energy, instantly turning her head away to stare nervously out the window, not daring to look at Li Yifei again.

Li Yifei's eyes instantly turned icy cold, the temperature inside the carriage seeming to drop several degrees. The knuckles of the hands resting on his knees turned slightly white from force.

Anger surged like magma within his chest, threatening to erupt! Intercepted! Those were life-saving funds for ordinary people! Life-preserving funds for dilapidated housing renovations! The sole hope of those suffering elders and left-behind children! These parasites!

Yet he forcibly suppressed this towering rage, his voice low and restrained, devoid of any ripples: "Oh? Is there evidence? Or... do you know how it's operated specifically?"

Wu Ting's body visibly stiffened. She shook her head rapidly, panic in her voice: "N-no evidence! I... I really just heard about it! The specific accounts... are all held by Director Li! He... he is Mayor Wang's confidant..." She reiterated once more that she had merely "heard" of it, rapidly pulling back her words to distance herself completely.

Li Yifei did not press further, offering only a flat "Hmm" as he turned his gaze back to the gathering twilight outside the window. Wu Ting's retreat was within his expectations, but her speaking up was already a crucial signal.

It at least confirmed his worst suspicions and pointed directly to the first tumor that needed eradication—the finance office! Fatty Li!

Returning to that bugged office—symbolizing both power and traps—Li Yifei locked the door behind him.

Without turning on the lights, he lit a cigarette in the dark, the faint spark glowing and fading in the gloom. Then, turning on his desk lamp, he carefully retrieved the "trophies" he had gathered over the past few days from his inner pocket:

that half-torn subsidy application form, several copies of applications bearing bright red thumbprints that had sunk without a trace, dozens of shocking photos of dilapidated housing he had secretly snapped with his phone, and the notebook records of the helpless, angry dictations from the various village secretaries.

He spread these heavy pieces of evidence across the desktop one by one, unfolding a scroll of Duogang Town's suffering.

Finally, he laid out the town map, using pens of different colors to make striking marks on every village he had visited, and jotting down his preliminary, reality-based visions beside them:

Liuzhuang: Coordinate with aquatic experts for a demonstration, strive for special project funding support, establish a small ecological aquaculture base, and use the canal to attempt short-distance specialty water transport.

Donggou Village: Decisively shut down the heavily polluting brick kiln, introduce environmental technology or transition to ecological agriculture, and coordinate with the county health department for health checkups and interventions for villagers.

Zhangjiacun: Revive traditional handicraft weaving, connect with e-commerce platforms or cultural tourism companies, and build a specialty handicraft brand.

Liijiashan Village: Integrate resources to establish a village-level left-behind children's care center.

Other villages: Tailor strategies to local conditions, guiding the development of specialty planting, small family farms, and primary processing of agricultural products.

Yet all these visions were castles built on shifting sands.

Their prerequisite was the thorough elimination of the parasites entrenched within the town government, especially the critical blood vessel of the finance office! They had to reclaim every single fen of the people's money that had been greedily devoured!

Li Yifei's gaze finally locked dead onto the location of the "Town Government" on the map, his eyes sharp as a blade, burning with a silent rage capable of consuming everything in its path.

Leaning back in his chair, Li Yifei closed his eyes. In the silence of the office, only his own breathing and the two hidden bugs in the corners recorded everything in this darkness.