“What… What… What are you saying?! I can’t understand what you’re saying at all!” Tan Dongbang brandished his fists angrily, “I already stated that I committed no election fraud, so that means I didn’t do it! Who the hell knows why your dumb system would act like that! In fact, no, there’s nothing wrong with the system! You were the ones who deliberately framed me!”
Huo Shaoheng shook his head with a sigh. “Were you taught by the same teacher as Hong Kangquan? Or were you trained by the same agency? You both use the same excuses.”
Both of them continued to claim to have been framed, maintaining complete innocence, acting like righteous people who knew nothing thing about the crimes they were accused of.
“I’ve spoken the truth.” In his fear, Tan Dongbang was so tense that his leg was starting to cramp. He never imagined that Huo Shaoheng would somehow hit upon the fact that there was an incredibly powerful mastermind behind everything.
If Huo Shaoheng knew about the mastermind, then could there possibly be anything in the world that he didn’t know about?!
Tan Dongbang felt despair fill his world and his emotions were on the brink of collapse.
Huo Shaoheng continued to observe Tan Dongbang’s reactions to adjust his approach.
When he realized that Tan Dongbang was on the cusp of breaking down, Huo Shaoheng pushed harder. “This person was the same one who helped you the last time. Except for the previous time they used Hong Kangquan to help you.”
Tan Dongbang was utterly flabbergasted and his eyes stared blankly at Huo Shaoheng. The red veins in his eyes were visible.
Huo Shaoheng’s tone grew stern. “There is no salvation for Hong Kangquan, he worked with the Japanese. He has disrupted the national order, intervened in the election to commit fraud, murdered a civil servant, and betrayed our national secrets. Any of the crimes he has committed would be enough to earn him several death sentences! Tan Dongbang, you continue to work with someone like that? To protect him? Do you want to die with him?!”
“If it weren’t for Hong Kangquan, the worst outcome would be a charge of election fraud. That does not merit a death sentence. However, if you work with Hong Kangquan to betray this nation to other countries, then that will undoubtedly earn you an execution!”
In any country, treason was a death sentence.
Tan Dongbang finally broke down and a small sound emerged from deep in his throat. He abruptly wrapped his arms around his head shouting, “No! No! I didn’t commit treason! I didn’t collude with other countries! I don’t want to die!”
Huo Shaoheng quietly observed Tan Dongbang as he screamed out to the room. After waiting for a while, he swiftly changed tack, speaking in a far softer tone.
“As long as you tell me the truth and completely distance yourself from Hong Kangquan, I will plead to the military court on your behalf to allow you to turn state’s evidence.” Huo Shaoheng inclined his body forward, and said quietly, “You can avoid the death sentence.”
He didn’t add that he would, however, not escape other forms of punishment.
With the crimes committed by Tan Dongbang, he would be locked up for life even if he was spared from execution.
Right then, however, Tan Dongbang only cared about avoiding capital punishment. Whether or not Hong Kangquan lived or died, it was hardly his problem.
He would rather the other man die instead of himself. Tan Dongbang was going to act out of self-preservation!
Tan Dongbang gulped for air in short, rapid intakes. “Are you telling me the truth? You can make this guarantee this to me? You’ll save me from death, as long as I tell you the truth?”
Huo Shaoheng pointed to the camera’s location, “Everything has been recorded in here, both the audio and visual. If I go back on my word, you can expose me to a military court. We don’t allow lying here.”
Tan Dongbang slowly came back to his senses after being given assurances he would not have to die. Bracing his arms against the table, he straightened his back, nodding as he spoke. “Ok, I’ll tell you. But you must come through on your promise to me!”
He then spat out angrily, “Little Darling is completely devoted to you, how can you treat her parents like this?!”
Huo Shaoheng absorbed this silently.
Was he trying to goad Huo Shaoheng in revenge, for his earlier implication that Hong Kangquan was infatuated with Tan Dongbang?
Even with Huo Shaoheng’s excellent manners and self-restraint, he had cracked from being associated with their idiot daughter over and again.
Huo Shaoheng’s expression grew stony.
His gaze shot over to the other ma like an arrow dipped in poison.
Sitting straight in his chair, he enunciated each word carefully. “Don’t reject a favor when it’s presented to you. Do you have any idea what kind of person one would have to be to like someone like your daughter?”
Huo Shaoheng had to forcibly restrain his rage to stop himself from swearing out loud.
Tan Dongbang’s face instantly flushed red, and he looked even worse than when he broke down earlier.
He looked at Huo Shaoheng in complete shock and stuttered, “You… You… You don’t like my daughter? Then why did you personally go rescue her in New York?!”
Huo Shaoheng inhaled deeply, but his expression quickly calmed down, “I’m a soldier. Rescuing the nation’s citizens is my responsibility. However, that does not go so far as to include marriage. If you persist in bringing her up, your daughter might have to come here to assist us in this investigation.
After hearing that, Tan Dongbang finally ended the topic once and for all. He didn’t dare to mention Tan Guiren again.
He knew that perhaps Cai Songyin and himself had reaped what they had sown, but their daughter Tan Guiren was completely innocent.
Tan Dongbang sobbed with both hands splayed on the desk as he replied weakly, “Then I’ll tell you. But are you going to plead to the court on my behalf? Swear on it!”
Huo Shaoheng refused to do so. “It’s fine if you don’t trust me. If vows meant anything, you wouldn’t have cheated on your wife.”
How many cheaters ever thought about the holy vows made during the marriage ceremonies?
Tan Dongbang’s face slackened when he realized that Huo Shaoheng was someone that could never be forced into doing anything.
With Huo Shaoheng, Tan Dongbang could do nothing more than confess all truthfully to gain some measure of clemency.
“A person is helping Hong Kangquan. This is a person who has a lot of power. His collaboration with Hong Kangquan began seven years ago.” Tan Dongbang spoke very quickly in a hushed voice.
To gain Tan Dongban’s trust, that person had revealed things about Hong Kangquan to him.
However, the mastermind probably had never expected someone with the ambition to become Prime Minister to have such a weak psychological defense.
All cheaply packaged products possessed these same flaws.
Huo Shaoheng attention was caught by the words ‘seven years ago.’
From the given timeline, it coincided with Gu Nianzhi suddenly appearing in a car accident in C City seven years ago.
“What does that person look like? How did they get in contact with Hong Kangquan?” Any information about the mastermind was what Huo Shaoheng was most interested in.
Logically speaking, Hong Kangquan was the Director of the Secret Service. Every move he made came under intense scrutiny.
There were countless means of surveillance on him, both obvious and discrete.
How could someone overcome all the barriers, break away from his surveillance, and keep in contact with Hong Kangquan for seven years without being discovered?
Tan Dongang shook his head. “I don’t know what he looks like, I’ve never seen him before. I believe that Hong Kangquan has never seen him either. I always contacted him over the phone.”
“The phone?!” Huo Shaoheng frowned deeply, as he realized something was amiss.
Tan Dongbang and Hong Kangquan’s landlines were both being monitored by him.
If such a phone call had gone through, and if that person had only contacted Hong Kangquan and Tan Dongbang through the phone, surely it was impossible for him not to know about it?
Might there be an issue with the phone monitoring technology?
Perhaps there was a problem with the personnel monitoring the phone?
Huo Shaoheng was only able to come up with two possibilities, as he couldn’t yet imagine any alternative explanations.
The phone surveillance system was a program attached to the Central Control System. He remembered having gone in to check it in the past, and confirming the four-lined AI programming language had failed to breach it.
As for who was monitoring the phone lines, it was a randomly assigned rotating task to conduct said monitoring. If the leak had come from the staff who monitored the calls, then the enemy needed to buy out an entire group of people to subvert the surveillance.
Was either of these options possible?
Of course not.
Huo Shaoheng thus logically ruled out both options.
Of course, he would nevertheless send someone to investigate again.
He would also use Gu Nianzhi’s program to verify the phone monitoring set up one more time.
Her program had been able to detect the AI programming language that had breached the Central Control System. A simple phone monitoring program should be no challenge at all.
Huo Shaoheng would also have to send someone to conduct another round of background checks on the personnel monitoring the phones. All the same, before he could confirm they were innocent, he was inclined to believe they had nothing to do with it.
There must be other factors that had allowed the mastermind to evade his various layers of monitoring.
Huo Shaoheng looked at Tan Dongbang and asked coldly, “How were you able to contact him over the phone? Explain it clearly.”
…
