The Mole

What is called "giving oneself away," this is exactly it.

"Didn't see anything important" meant seeing something very important; "didn't speak to anyone" meant actually speaking to someone; "didn't do anything" proved having done some illicit things.

Shao Zi also found it a bit amusing. He had clearly asked, "Did you encounter anything unusual?" yet this little brother, who wasn't very good at lying, chose the worst coping method—denying these "unusual" events according to his own thoughts, only to ramble on because his subconscious directly narrowed the scope of the question, digging a hole for himself.

This kid indeed had no deviousness; trying to lie relied purely on intuition. It seemed he was not very familiar with this line of work, looking very much like an honest person.

"Then do you want to talk about what you saw, who you spoke to, and what you normally did these past two days?"

Shao Zi guided him step by step, preparing to use a gentler method to get Du Mao to speak.

But at this moment, Du Mao himself had also realized it, yet he still wanted to be stubborn: "I... I didn't say I did those..."

"Your father is far away in another province; your claim that you wanted to go take care of him is a lie." Shao Zi said calmly, "Lying on normal days is a small matter, but if you don't cooperate with the investigation and even deceive the police, coupled with several points of overreaction, I don't mind finding a doctor to examine you. Who knows, after leaving the police station, you might have to stay in a mental hospital for a few days. I can't guarantee how many days you'll have to stay there; after all, mental health is not my specialty."

"This..." Du Mao was frightened, perhaps recalling some exaggerated depictions of psychiatric patients' lives in TV dramas and movies. "Wait a minute!"

Shao Zi raised an eyebrow: "Do you want to tell the truth?"

"No." Du Mao lowered his head, his voice sounding sullen.

Just as Shao Zi was amazed that this kid could be so stubborn yet so honest at the same time, truly a talent, and was preparing to add more fuel to the fire, he heard the person inside the door speak again.

"...But I want to go out, so I'll talk. But you can't... you can't call me stupid, and you can't laugh at me."

Actually, Du Mao was not a particularly difficult interrogation subject. Since there were ways to pacify his abnormal mental state, prying things out of his mouth didn't cost Shao Zi too much time.

But the conclusion reached was highly unexpected.

The air conditioning in the office was freezing cold, and fortunately, the area directly facing the air vent was unoccupied most of the time; otherwise, a member of the team might have caught a severe cold the next day. This place was originally left empty on purpose, but after Jiang Qiu joined as a consultant, they symbolically left the only vacant seat to him.

Although they said so and did so, Jiang Qiu didn't actually come often. This desk was used long-term to pile up some materials, with only some copied documents placed in the drawers, and no one knew what they were for.

Shao Zi also frequently had doubts. Although Jiang Qiu was a super-scholar who knew a bit of everything, his presence didn't seem irreplaceable, much like the uncertainty of the cases Liang An assigned to the Third Detachment; the pattern of Jiang Qiu's visits and his primary role could not be fully understood.

"You mean, Du Mao felt very early on that there was a mole in the team, and found a way to tell Li Chunsheng this news?"

Liu Che felt considerably shocked.

His career as an undercover agent wasn't long, but the level of danger was sky-high. After all, not everyone could rationally accept that "metaphysical constitution" theory, and he had not been without his share of suspicion.

Even the tattoo design on Liu Che's shoulder was inked during the test by the boss at that time—of course, the dangerous part was not having an extra pattern on his body, but the other things that happened during the process.

That was Liu Che ignoring his own pain to focus on responding to others' doubts; it was clear that this kind of hurdle was not easy to pass. Most veterans in the underworld were cunning and devious, and even those who lacked some wits had a few unique tricks up their sleeves. If one wasn't careful, they would be led into a trap; Liu Che understood this, having witnessed it before.

But if a nineteen-year-old silly kid felt he could see through a mole's disguise, then Liu Che had some doubts.

"But those arrested thugs didn't seem to know this happened. The ones pretending to search for clues and mentioning Old Yang to them only thought Old Yang was lucky to escape and was running away outside." Shao Zi pursed his lips. "None of them had that feeling, but Du Mao also said he didn't know who the mole was. He just found a way to follow one of Li Chunsheng's trusted aides to find his residence, and under the cover of a dark and windy night, went to the door to say this was the case."

"...That is truly bold." Liu Che imagined such a scene and couldn't help but be amazed. "Not to mention where a marginal character like him got the courage, why on earth was he so sure there was a mole?"

"He made a list for me." Speaking of this, Shao Zi's expression was also a bit strange. "Here. He felt these things could prove that someone wanted to trip up Li Chunsheng and was hiding in their stronghold."

Shao Zi took out a piece of paper. The handwriting on it was crooked, clearly not written by him, with three items in total.

The numbers and letters, aside from having "sharp-edged" strokes, had no other flaws, but the shape of the numbers really looked more like a crookedly written capital "M," which indeed proved that this Du Xiaosi hadn't touched pen and paper for a very long time, and his skills in this area had completely degenerated. His math teacher probably wouldn't be able to resist deducting some presentation marks.

Taking the paper, Liu Che narrowed his eyes and tried to decipher it, finally distinguishing the main content from among the black ink and numerous scribbled-out corrections.

[1. The boxes in the warehouse have problems; the position of the sealing tape was moved at night.

2. There are black marks on the wall -> someone climbed the wall to spy.

3. There is a camera signal nearby.]

The layout was chaotic but the content was a simple description, stating all of Du Mao's doubts from beginning to end, which was the reason he believed there was a mole in the team.

"He said the third item was found through the online tip of 'checking if your hotel room has hidden cameras,' using the network speed test function built into a game. The name was a bunch of random characters, which he didn't remember, but he firmly insisted there was a problem." Shao Zi really didn't know what to say. "He even hitched onto the WiFi password of the boss's private room. I really don't know whether to say the boss and his crew are too close to the people, or this little brother's persistence moved heaven and earth, with luck good enough to casually obtain these clues."

Speaking of luck, Liu Che couldn't help but speak up.

"Old Yang wouldn't make this kind of low-level mistake." Liu Che frowned. "Senior Brother, did you ask..."

If he could make this kind of mistake and let it be completely collected by someone, in a place where hands and feet were chopped off at the slightest provocation, he definitely wouldn't have survived to see the next day.

"Coincidentally, Old Yang also said that at those specific times, he didn't even go out the door." Shao Zi placed his hand on the table.

If that was the case, then who on earth did it?