One day before the Spring Festival of 2025, a ride-hailing car left the hometown of She Zhijiang (also known as "She Lun Kai"), and during the return trip, after driving five or six kilometers, the driver said, "My hands are still trembling..."

The driver was worried about retaliation because a reporter from "Isobath" rented his car to "dig out" She Zhijiang's hometown in Hunan. He had seen some information about "Asia-Pacific New Town" and "KK Park" online, while She Zhijiang was the owner of two Miaowadi telecom fraud parks.

The reporter tried to comfort him: No matter how recklessly She Zhijiang behaves abroad, domestically, he is destined to be a key target for crackdowns.

"Look at She Zhijiang's house, it's blatantly blocked by a dilapidated house of a villager in front, She Zhijiang can't do anything about it, and besides, the person has been arrested, the trend is over, he dares not come back to the country to mess around." After emphasizing this detail, the driver's nervous mood eased.

Not only the driver was afraid, but during the process of searching for She Zhijiang's hometown within a 10 square kilometer area, at least half of the dozens of villagers visited avoided eye contact and showed fear, only answering with "I don't know" or "I'm not aware."

Other villagers, due to their relatives or friends being more or less related to She Zhijiang, and even some who went abroad with him to make a fortune and profit, were unwilling to mention anything about She Zhijiang's family.

Currently, She Zhijiang is detained in Thailand, undergoing extradition procedures back to his home country.

She Zhijiang's old home next to a primary school in Hunan has windows welded with dense protective square steel tubes, like a prison.

She's "Old House"

"She Zhijiang's house? I don't know!"

On a day close to the Spring Festival, a middle-aged woman, while watching short videos on her phone, answered in a very unfriendly tone.

And in fact, 100 meters away, is the home of She Zhijiang, the notorious chairman of the Asia-Pacific International Holdings Group and owner of the "KK Park."

The reporter asked again: "Is She Lun Kai (one of the public names used by She Zhijiang in recent years)’s old house here?" The lady's eyes were full of hostility and dissatisfaction, she whispered: "I don’t know!"

When asked again, she ignored further inquiries and continued watching short videos on her phone.

"This is the place." The reporter said to the driver.

"How do you know it's here?" the driver asked, puzzled.

"I asked about a dozen people before, none of them showed such strong aversion, but she did, which means she is either very familiar or a relative, so She Zhijiang's old house must be here," the reporter replied.

Sure enough, after driving another 50 meters, they encountered a villager in his 70s. Upon asking again, She Zhijiang's old home was just 50 meters ahead.

Finding the exact location of She Zhijiang's old home was mainly thanks to the help of a local friend in Hunan, who said that online sources all mentioned She Zhijiang's old home was in Shetianqiao Town, but in fact, it was in Gaotang Village of the town. Locals generally don't mention Shetianqiao Town but directly refer to Gaotang.

However, when the reporter rented a car to search, it turned out that the actual location was about 4 kilometers northwest of Shetianqiao Town, and the more frequently mentioned Gaotang was located about 7 kilometers east of She Zhijiang's old home, even further away.

This led the reporter to spend a lot of time in the extensive village road network of Shetianqiao Town and Gaotang Village, constantly asking around, repeatedly circling, and checking one by one, until they discovered the "Gaotang Primary School" mentioned by the friend but not shown on satellite maps, narrowing down the search area, and after encountering the aforementioned middle-aged woman, finally pinpointing the location of She Zhijiang's old home.

She Zhijiang's old home, with tightly locked copper doors, has a stone carving of double phoenixes pieced together from two stone slabs above the door, and a hanging Bagua. Most strikingly, the house is covered with dense square stainless steel protective and anti-theft nets.

She Zhijiang's old house is not old; it is a small villa that appears to have been built only a few years ago.

The villa is not large, facing north to south, and compared to the surrounding villagers' houses, this building has four main differences: first, there is a concrete dam about 130 square meters in front of the house, which is spacious and bright compared to the nearby villages. It also has a flower bed about 12 meters long, 0.7 meters wide, and 0.5 meters high, containing a 3-meter tall tree and a 6-meter tall street lamp pole—street lamp poles in front of rural houses are not common in Shaodong City.

Villagers said that these rural street lamps were donated by She Zhijiang. The reporter noticed that there is a street lamp pole on each side of the front of She Zhijiang's old house.

Second, although She Zhijiang's house is only 14 meters wide and 11 meters deep, with a single-story area of about 154 square meters and a double-story area of about 300 square meters, which is smaller compared to the surrounding villagers' houses, its exterior decoration is arguably the best in the village: the front porch and columns are respectively dry-hung with sesame yellow polished granite and white marble, the railings near the second-floor porch are made of sesame yellow granite round carved columns, and the staircase shapes and connections, as well as the door and window frames, are all decorated with white marble carvings.

The main support columns of the house are dry-hung white marble, and the walls are fully covered with ceramic tiles. The color of the tiles is hard to name accurately, but it is very close to the skin tone of young women.

Third, although the building is a villa made of exquisite materials, the most prominent and even somewhat glaring feature of the entire building is that all the windows are like prison cells, equipped with about 2.5 cm thick stainless steel anti-theft grilles, with a horizontal spacing of 25 cm and a vertical spacing of about 8 cm. To optimize the visual effect, the horizontal grilles are uniformly dark gray, making the "prison cell feel" not so intense.

Even the horizontal ventilation windows on the second floor are all sealed with dark gray aluminum alloy blinds.

Fourth, under the eaves of the second floor in front of the building, there is a surveillance camera facing the front of the building. After being reminded by the ride-hailing driver, the reporter noticed that there are also cameras in front of the houses of villagers on both sides of She Zhijiang's house, facing the dam in front of She Zhijiang's house. She Zhijiang's electrical box has two main switches, one separated and closed, and the other already turned on. This means that if She Zhijiang installed network cameras, he could monitor the surroundings of his old home from anywhere in the world.

Due to the extremely dark interior lighting, when the reporter pressed his phone against the window glass to take pictures of the interior, he could only capture the outdoor scenery reflected in the glass.

She Zhijiang's second uncle said that She Zhijiang has not returned to his old home for many years, and his mother has also moved to Thailand for many years.

The Prequel of She Zhijiang

However, due to the local villagers' dialect being difficult to understand, and the ride-hailing driver being too scared to approach, only observing from a distance, the communication between the reporter and She Zhijiang's second uncle was extremely difficult, with very little effective information.

When the reporter asked She Zhijiang's second uncle questions, the aforementioned middle-aged woman encountered 100 meters away was always holding her phone, seemingly watching short videos, repeatedly pacing back and forth about 10 meters away from the reporter to "eavesdrop." After a few more questions, She Zhijiang's second uncle stopped answering.

When the reporter turned around and approached the woman to ask about She Zhijiang's situation, the woman counter-questioned: "Where are you from? Show me your ID!"

Several political, business, and nearby villagers in Shaodong City restored the "prequel" of She Zhijiang to the "Isobath" reporter.

She Zhijiang was born on January 26, 1982, and his parents were both honest local farmers. He attended primary school at Gaotang Primary School, located about 400 meters southeast of his home. Gaotang Primary School is very small, and in its annual report disclosed in 2023, it only had 6 staff members. She Zhijiang attended junior high school at Shetianqiao Town Middle School. When he was 14 years old and in the second year of junior high, due to poor grades and his own unwillingness to continue, he dropped out and stayed at home.

Several nearby villagers said that She Zhijiang had a cousin (note by the reporter: other public sources show that Huang Youlong was born in 1976, actually 6 years older), surnamed Huang, named Youlong, who also dropped out in the second year of junior high and went to Shaodong County, 25 kilometers to the northwest, to "mix with society," following a local gang leader Zhao Shihe.

Huang Youlong's home is adjacent to the east side of Balao Road, located about 500 meters east of She Zhijiang's home.

After dropping out, She Zhijiang had no money to spend, and his cousin Huang Youlong occasionally gave him some pocket money. Later, She Zhijiang's father, seeing that staying at home was not a solution, agreed for him to follow his cousin to Shaodong County to "see the world" and find a way out.

Zhao Shihe, a native of Lianqiao Town, Shaodong County, was originally a worker at Niuma Coal Mine, with a low education level, known for his loyalty among brothers, and was called "Brother Zhao" in the underworld.

In the few years before 1996, Zhao Shihe was the "top card" among the dozen or so underworld bosses in Shaodong County and was also a well-known "private entrepreneur" locally. At its peak, he had up to 500 people under him (including workers from his factories). These brothers mainly profited from some gray industries.

Lianqiao Town, known as the "Medicine Capital" of China, is famous for its medicinal materials. One of Zhao Shihe's logistics companies was accused of forcibly taking over the logistics business of the local medicinal material wholesale market. Of course, "its price was 20% to 30% higher than other logistics companies." If someone did not give the logistics service to Zhao Shihe, they could not do business in this market.

"At that time, people from our Lianqiao Town walked with their heads held high when they went out, no one dared to provoke us," a related person from Shaoyang City told the reporter, "At that time, pickpockets would get off the bus early when they saw they were approaching Lianqiao Town, not daring to enter."

Lianqiao Town is 13 kilometers east of Shaodong County, and these two places, along with She Zhijiang's home, form an inverted triangle.

On April 20, 1994, Zhao Shihe was returning from Guangzhou by car and encountered a traffic jam on the highway section of Jinlan City, Hengyang County. A local official, Wang, got out of his car to direct traffic, and Zhao Shihe's driver did not follow instructions and argued with Wang. Seeing his trusted subordinate being bullied, Zhao Shihe, in a fit of rage, took out a pig-killing knife from the front of the car, rushed to Wang's face, and cursed. Wang retorted, and Zhao Shihe suddenly swung the knife at Wang's head, then returned to his car.

Wang, bleeding profusely and in pain, tried to snatch the pig-killing knife from Zhao Shihe, who then stabbed Wang two more times, killing him on the spot.

After the incident, Zhao Shihe claimed to be responsible for his actions and did not flee, ordering all his subordinates to retreat. On December 17, 1994, the Hengyang Intermediate People's Court sentenced Zhao Shihe to death with a two-year reprieve for intentional homicide, depriving him of political rights for life.

Despite She Zhijiang's shocking actions abroad, he was unable to level the old house of the neighbor blocking his view at home: local villagers said that when She Zhijiang built the small villa, he had conflicts with the surrounding neighbors.

However, Zhao Shihe's fate took another turn in September 1996: one of his close brothers, facing compulsory drug rehabilitation due to drug addiction, perhaps also to avoid forced rehabilitation, confessed to a murder involving Zhao Shihe in 1992.

The cause of this case was that Zhao Shihe's sworn brother Tang Shoufu had a dispute with Li Zhilong over a dance partner at a dance hall in Shaodong County, and Li Zhilong slapped Tang Shoufu in public. After learning about this, Zhao Shihe decided to stand up for his brother. On May 30, 1992, Zhao Shihe lured Li Zhilong to a quarry in Lianqiao Town under the pretext of partnering in a cigarette business, shot Li Zhilong several times with a Type 54 pistol he had purchased, and hid the body. The next night, Zhao Shihe and three others dismembered Li Zhilong's body, packed it into four sacks, and burned it to ashes in a factory furnace.

After this shooting case was exposed, adding to the previous case, Zhao Shihe was executed.

"Actually, in the Hengyang traffic jam murder case, Zhao Shihe should have been sentenced to immediate execution, but because Zhao Shihe had his subordinates find relevant officials in Hengyang to obtain a 'death exemption card,'" several officials and lawyers in Shaodong County told the reporter, one of the officials later became the mayor of Shenzhen, Xu Zongheng (note by the reporter: fell from power in June 2009, sentenced to death with a reprieve on May 9, 2011), "The person who ran various official relationships for Zhao Shihe was 'Brother Long'."

However, upon verification by the reporter, there are doubts about the above statement: Xu Zongheng had already been transferred from the position of Standing Committee Member (deputy department level) and Organization Department Director of Hengyang City, Hunan Province, to the position of Director of Cadre Training at the Organization Department of Shenzhen Municipal Committee in January 1993, earlier than the Zhao Shihe case.

The aforementioned information also shows that She Zhijiang was 14 years old in the second year of junior high, i.e., he dropped out in 1996. Zhao Shihe had already been sentenced to death with a reprieve in 1994 and was executed after September 1996, so at least in terms of timing, She Zhijiang was perhaps not directly one of Zhao Shihe's underlings.

This is also why there is almost no information about She Zhijiang in the "underworld" before and around 1996 in Shaodong.

Made a Fortune Through Online Gambling?

As the tree falls, the monkeys scatter. After Zhao Shihe was executed, his hundreds of underlings each went their separate ways.

In the winter of 1991, another underworld boss in Shaodong County was sentenced to death for murder. Before his execution, he sent a message to his gang members: "If you want to stand firm in Shaodong, you must join Zhao Shihe." Little did they know that five years later, Zhao Shihe would also be executed.

Several local political and business figures said that after Zhao Shihe was executed, "Brother Long" gained Xu Zongheng's favor due to his cleverness and understanding during interactions with Xu, and later followed Xu to Shenzhen to become Xu's driver.

However, on January 17, 2017, Huang Youlong stated in his Weibo post "Dreamer's Dragon Traveling the World": "I have never been anyone's driver, please check properly, and those who talk nonsense should shut (note by the reporter: should be 'shut') up, we live in a society governed by law (note by the reporter: should have a comma here) that is fair (note by the reporter: missing the word 'de')."

Another investigative journalist, Zhou Yuanzheng, previously investigated and confirmed that Huang Youlong had never been Xu Zongheng's driver. On April 13, 2017, "Isobath" published the article "Zhao Wei and Huang Youlong's Capital Route Map in Hong Kong Island," which confirmed