茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

In addition to the owner of the tea shop, Guo Lin, were also his two old classmates, Chu Xiuwen and Xu Zhao. Xu Zhao worked at the Citong City Police Station and was currently chatting about work-related matters with the two.

“Old Xu, do you really not drink at all now? It’s a rare day off, and as old friends, we’re having a meal together, but you’re not drinking at all… ” Guo Lin complained about Xu Zhao refusing to drink during their dinner. As a result, Chu Xiuwen also refrained from drinking. Therefore, it was no fun drinking alone. In the end, he only had a small cup.

Xu Zhao, who was the same age as Guo Lin and Chu Xiuwen, had greying hair, a dusky complexion, and a craggy face. He touched his somewhat balding head and laughed, “I got used to not drinking, so I quit completely. ‘Pot’, you also should reduce your drinking. Alcohol harms the brain; you’re already quite foolish. If you get any sillier, we would not be able to communicate.”

“Hey! This is personal attack, you know. Be careful, or I’ll report you.” Guo Lin jokingly threatened. He knew that Xu Zhao gave up drinking due to his work.

Chu Xiuwen suggested, “How many days off do you have this time? If you aren’t busy, Guo Lin and I are planning to spend some time in Tongshi Town, why don’t you come with us? The last time you visited Tongshi Town was more than a decade ago.”

Xu Zhao picked up his teacup to take a sip and shook his head, “That wouldn’t work, I only have today off. I need to go back to work tomorrow. In fact, if anything urgent comes up in the station today, I would have to rush back immediately. That’s the nature of our line of work; there are no real days off.”

Chu Xiuwen asked, surprised, “The Lantern Festival is over, isn’t it supposed to get more relaxed?”

Xu Zhao laughed, “More relaxed? Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. You probably don’t know this, but every Valentine’s Day, all sorts of cases pop up with strange troubles in all shapes and kinds, nothing too major, but all needing us to handle. There are breakups, quarrels, or discovery of cheatings among couples, all of which would result in 911 calls.”

Guo Lin refilled tea for him and said, “Old Xu, our Citong’s public security has been pretty good in recent years, hasn’t it? There wasn’t much for you to deal with during the Spring Festival, was there?”

Xu Zhao said, “Compared to when I first started out, it has indeed improved a lot, but that doesn’t mean it’s relaxing.”

“Oh, Old Xu, I heard that someone hired henchmen to attack doctors at the Third Hospital on New Year’s Eve, and then those doctors managed to kill them in self-defense. And it was said that among those doctors was even a female? Can that female doctor really fight that well? Two against one? Did she use any anti-wolf spray, electric shock device, or maybe she always carries a scalpel?” Guo Lin asked curiously.

Xu Zhao laughed, “That incident? Our office has already issued an official statement. Why don’t you look at the official information, and only listen to hearsay instead? That wasn’t a contract killing. For the detailed circumstances, you can look it up online. There’s news about it. It started when someone wanted to influence the forensic identification, and threatened a female doctor from the Third Hospital who might stand in their way. These thugs broke into the female doctor’s rented house to install a hidden camera. But when they were leaving, they were caught by the returning female doctor. When she didn’t let them leave, they tried to beat her but ended up getting beaten by the person who sent her home. We received a police report, brought the offenders in for questioning, and dug out the mastermind behind them.”

“So you mean it’s the female doctor and her boyfriend, a man and woman against the two other men? That’s quite impressive,” Guo Lin nodded, identifying the ‘companion’ in Xu Zhao’s words as the female doctor’s boyfriend.

“Actually, it was the female doctor’s companion fighting against the two thugs single-handedly, a complete beatdown.” Xu Zhao said.

“Has the boyfriend of the female doctor trained before?” Guo Lin asked, curious.

“When we questioned him, he claimed he had no prior training. But seeing his body shape, we suspected he had some training. Speaking of which, one of our young colleagues, freshly graduated and not long on the job – you’ve met him before, Pot – Zhao Feng, felt there was something unusual about the female doctor’s companion, so he took the initiative to investigate it.”

“Oh? Did he uncover anything? Found out that he was a hidden bigwig?” Chu Xiuwen joked.

“We actually found him in our internal police database, there’s quite a lot of data.” Xu Zhao nodded earnestly, and when he saw that the attention of his two old classmates was focused on him, he couldn’t help but laugh: “That guy is a brave one, he’s subdued armed thugs bare-handed, caught a wanted killer in the street, even caught human traffickers, and won our police rewards.”

“Damn! I thought he was some ‘big shot’, turns out he’s a ‘hero’! But his experiences are indeed impressive.” Guo Lin exclaimed.

“Yeah, I told Zhao Feng, when we policemen investigate cases and judge people, experience and intuition are indeed important, but the most critical thing is the evidence. Just because someone is bald, strong, and good at fighting, doesn’t mean they are lying or problematic.” Xu Zhao said.

Upon hearing this, Chu Xiuwen was stunned for a moment, “Bald?”

“Yes, he’s bald, very tall and strong, but he wears glasses. His actual job is programming design. He’s educated, a decent person with courage and a sense of justice. I talked to his colleagues in the city where he previously worked, and they all speak highly of him.” Xu Zhao continued.

“Is he… is his surname Xiang?” Chu Xiuwen asked subconsciously.

“Uh, his surname seems to be Xiang, I don’t remember so clearly, his name should be two characters long, why, Xiuwen, do you know him?”

“Oh, if he’s a bald guy with the last name Xiang, I may know him. I saw him at a friend’s child’s wedding. He was a classmate of a collaborator of mine, a really good person…” Chu Xiuwen suddenly realized. If it was Xiang Kun, then taking on two wouldn’t be a problem for him. But it seemed that Xu Zhao and the other local cops in Citong didn’t know the deeper identity of Xiang Kun, while the cops in the city where Xiang Kun used to work should know some about him.

Xu Zhao had no doubts about Chu Xiuwen’s words, he continued to talk about his young colleague Zhao Feng: “These young guys fresh out of the police academy, they indeed have a lot of energy and brains. But reading too many books might make them a bit bookish, they are always thinking about cracking big cases. Even if a case is already ready to be handed over to the prosecution, they still want to go into the details.”

“Zhao Feng has a classmate from the police academy. On the first day of the year, he sent Zhao Feng a picture saying that some suspects in their area saw a monster during their crime, and they were scared stupid. Zhao Feng thought it was a bit strange, so he drew the monster according to the suspects’ description and came to me for discussion.”

“Then some time ago, some car thieves in the Yun Gang District Bureau surrendered, saying that they saw some kind of monster in the abandoned factory in the suburbs. Zhao Feng heard about the monster that these car thieves described from his colleagues in the Yun Gang District and thought it was similar to the monster picture his classmate sent him, so he came to me wanting to investigate this case.”

“After checking out the two cases, Zhao Feng’s classmate’s case was about three drug addicts with criminal records, and in the Yun Gang District case, the three car thieves were also mentally unstable. I suspected that both groups could’ve used the same illegal drugs. If this was established, then the two cases could indeed be linked together, it would’ve been a big case.”

“But after investigating, we found no connection between the two cases, no overlap at all. The three suspects in Yun Gang District had not used illegal drugs either. I think the hallucinations they saw… are just coincidentally similar. So no need to waste any more time.”

“However, I found out that Zhao Feng and his classmate from the police academy have been discussing this matter privately. I really don’t understand why. It’s as if they hope that such a monster indeed exists.”

Xu Zhao seemed a bit exasperated as he took out his phone, pulled up a picture and showed it to his two old classmates: “Look, this is the monster his classmate drew from the suspects’ description. Doesn’t it look like some monster from an anime or video game? This generation is too influenced by the Internet and anime.”

But as Xu Zhao continued, he found that Chu Xiuwen and Guo Lin, who were looking at the picture on his phone, both frowned deeply, their expressions rather grave.

He couldn’t help but feel puzzled. He was clearly telling this as a funny story, weren’t these two cases not that serious?