"Officer, be careful with your gun," Ye Xiong whispered, pointing at the barrel.
Luo Weiwei glanced at the man in his tattered clothes. She could tell he was a construction worker just by looking at him, and she was inwardly puzzled.
When ordinary people see a police officer, don't they all tremble like mice seeing a cat? This guy doesn't seem the least bit nervous.
"Hands on your head. Squat down and stay put," Luo Weiwei commanded.
Ye Xiong obediently squatted.
"Why did you drive your motorcycle over someone's car? Were you trying to show off?"
"Officer..."
"Squat down! Who told you to stand up?" Luo Weiwei shouted angrily.
What's with this hot-tempered woman?
Ye Xiong squatted down again. When he looked up, he was treated to the sight of a perfect half-moon.
"Officer, you didn't hear how viciously that woman was cursing at me. She called me a worthless construction worker and said that even if she sold me, it wouldn't be enough to pay for her car. I got scared, so I had to run away."
"Honestly, I don't mind her cursing me out; I'm just an ordinary guy, after all. But then she started cursing you police officers. She said the police station was her family's backyard and that with one phone call, she could have dozens of officers here in minutes to crush me like an ant. Tell me, how could I not run?"
Ye Xiong put on a pitiful expression, his voice heavy as if he were about to burst into tears.
"Did she really say that?"
"If I'm lying, may heaven punish me by having my wife run off with another man," Ye Xiong swore, raising a hand to the sky. It wasn't much of a risk, since he didn't have a wife.
"Even if she said that, there was no reason to run over her car. Think of the bad example you set," Luo Weiwei's voice softened slightly.
"I was wrong. I resent the rich, and my baser instincts got the better of me. Please, Officer, just let me go this once!" Ye Xiong looked up at her, his face a mask of sincerity.
"ID card and driver's license."
"I don't have them with me."
"You don't have either of them?"
"In our line of work, we basically don't carry anything. We get soaked to the bone on the job, even our underwear..."
"Shut up! Who asked for your life story?"
Facing such a humble-acting guy, Luo Weiwei couldn't be bothered with him. She directly phoned her colleagues in the traffic police department to let them handle it.
"This is Luo Weiwei. I have someone here for a traffic violation. Send an officer to take him and his vehicle away."
After the call, Luo Weiwei stood waiting quietly. Someone like her, who worked in criminal investigation, wouldn't bother with such minor matters.
Just then, her phone rang. Luo Weiwei answered it.
"Sister Wei, that woman confessed. She admitted to trafficking children..." The voice on the other end was loud.
"That's great! What about that scumbag?"
"His lawyer just bailed him out. The woman refuses to say who she was working for."
"I'm on my way back."
Luo Weiwei hung up. She pulled out a pair of handcuffs, dragged Ye Xiong over to a billboard, and cuffed him to a high point on the sign.
"Stay put. My colleagues will be here soon." Luo Weiwei placed the key on the front of Ye Xiong's motorcycle, then sped away in her car. As she drove, she spoke into her radio, "Xiao Zhang, something's come up and I have to head back to the station. I've already cuffed the guy. The key is on the front of his bike."
After Luo Weiwei was gone, a smirk crept onto Ye Xiong's lips. He let his body go limp, his feet swinging free as he hung by the handcuffs.
A thin piece of wire slipped from his pocket and fell to the ground. He deftly clamped it between the toes of his right foot, then flicked it up into his hand.
In less than a minute, the handcuffs clicked open.
"Ah, late again. Auntie Bao is probably going to raise hell."
「...」
The moment Luo Weiwei got back to the station, her phone rang.
"Sister Wei, the guy escaped," Xiao Zhang said over the phone.
"How? I cuffed him myself. Did someone give him the key?" Luo Weiwei asked, surprised.
"I asked an eyewitness. He said he used a piece of wire to pick the lock."
Luo Weiwei was stunned. She thought it was already impressive that he could ride a motorcycle over the back of a luxury car, but now he could even pick a lock with a wire? Who on earth was this guy?
"After I deal with things here, I'll bring him in," Luo Weiwei said before hanging up.
It was nearly nine o'clock when Ye Xiong got back to the construction site. He was trying to sneak in when a furious roar stopped him.
"Ye Xiong! You stop right there!"
Auntie Bao, the forty-year-old supervisor, stood with her hands on her barrel-like waist. With the ferocity of a movie landlady, she pointed at Ye Xiong and started yelling, "Look at the time! Do you even want this job anymore?"
Ye Xiong turned around, his face instantly blooming into a radiant smile.
"Don't you try that with me," Auntie Bao declared, having been fooled too many times before. "Whatever you say today, I'm not falling for it."
Colds and fevers, traffic jams, car accidents, a broken alarm clock—he had used every excuse in the book, and she was long past believing any of them.
"Auntie, I'm not making any excuses today. Go ahead and dock my pay. But there is something I've been wanting to tell you for a long time."
Ye Xiong walked closer and said with unusual seriousness, "I don't think you need to work so hard. You have money, your son is grown up... why don't you enjoy life for a change? Look at your skin; it's so much worse than before. Aren't you worried your husband will get tired of you one day and cheat?"
"Are you cursing me? I'll beat you to death, you brat!" Fuming, Auntie Bao charged at him, swinging her fists.
Ye Xiong yelped and fled like a wisp of smoke.
"Have I... really gotten uglier?" Auntie Bao mumbled, touching her face with a worried expression.
Arriving at the worksite, she put on her hard hat and started another day of work.
"Brother Xiong, are you okay?" Wang Tong asked as he walked over.
He had been so worried last night that he couldn't sleep, afraid something had happened to Ye Xiong, especially since he couldn't get through to his phone.
"Your Brother Xiong has nine lives. It's not so easy for me to get into trouble," Ye Xiong said with a smile.
"So what happened last night?"
"It's off. The wedding didn't happen."
"Really?"
"If you don't believe me, check today's newspaper."
"Brother Xiong, please don't do something so risky for my sake again. Eating one big meal isn't going to make you fat," Wang Tong said.
"I was happy to do it!" Ye Xiong laughed, revealing a row of pearly white teeth.
The two chatted as they moved bricks, beginning a new day's work.
「Three days later, in a villa in the city district.」
"Useless!"
He Haodong slapped his subordinate across the face. "You've been searching for days and you can't even find the guy!" he roared. "What good are you to me?"
The man who was slapped was named Lu Bao. He was the leader of a gang in Jiangnan City called the XiBei Guild, with over thirty men under his command and informants in various sectors. Most of these groups served large corporations, and Lu Bao's survival depended primarily on his attachment to the He Family Clan.
"Young Master He, we've searched every corner of the city. No one has seen this guy," Lu Bao said.
"Keep looking! Find him at any cost," He Haodong snarled, slamming his fist on the table. He gritted his teeth in hatred. "I won't be able to rest until I've skinned him alive."
"What about that woman, Xiao Fangfang? Should I have my men deal with her?" Lu Bao asked.
"Don't touch her for now. If something happens to her, Yang Xinyi will definitely suspect me. Then the situation will be impossible to salvage."
"Young Master He, do you really think Yang Xinyi will change her mind?"
"As long as I insist that video was a fake, there's a chance. That's why the most important thing right now is to find that guy and make him confess."
"Young Master He, just give me a few more days. I swear I'll find him."
"Tell your men to get it done. If they can't handle this, they can all crawl back to the Northwest."
「Jiangnan City Public Security Bureau, Criminal Investigation Division office.」
Luo Weiwei sat in her office, flipping through a stack of files.
Just then, a tall figure walked in.
"Good afternoon, Deputy Chief," an officer next to Luo Weiwei quickly stood up. "Let me pour you a glass of water."
Luo Weiwei glanced over at the deputy chief, then looked away as if she hadn't seen him.
"Who authorized you to return to the Criminal Investigation Division?" Luo Guozhong demanded angrily.
"Su Yue'e changed her testimony. She admitted to child trafficking, and Wang Jianjun is now a prime suspect."
"So what if he's a suspect? With high-IQ criminals like him, you can't get a conviction without concrete evidence."
"So we're just supposed to let him get away with it?" Luo Weiwei said indignantly.
Luo Guozhong tossed a file onto the desk in front of her. "A child's body was found in the South City, organs missing. This is likely a major organ trafficking case. The child trafficking was probably just a smokescreen to divert our attention."
Luo Weiwei picked up the file and read it, her face filled with shock.
"If this involves the organ trade, we're looking at a huge syndicate with dozens of ruthless members. You're out. Drop this case and stop investigating."
"This is my case. Absolutely not."
"I've already submitted your application. In a few days, you're being sent to the provincial police academy for further training."
Luo Weiwei stared intently at her father. "Luo Guozhong," she said coldly, "I refuse to be a coward who hides when things get serious. I don't want to live my life being looked down upon by everyone."
"That's an order."
"Even if it costs me my job as a police officer, I will see this case through to the end."
With that, she stormed out of the office, leaving Luo Guozhong behind, his face ashen with rage.
After leaving the police station, Luo Weiwei immediately called her colleague, Xiao Zhao, at the Transportation Bureau. "Xiao Zhao, what did you find on that motorcycle license plate I asked you to check?"
"Sister Wei, I checked. It's a fake plate."
"That bastard is slick!" Luo Weiwei hung up and muttered to herself, "I refuse to believe I can't find you. You're working at the Future New City site. Do you take me for a fool?"
She started up her sports motorcycle and roared away.