In the end, the "flare" wasn't as fast as a four-wheeled product of modern technology. After showing off all morning, Comrade Luo Wenzhou had the misfortune of being gloriously late.
Though in this respect, Luo Wenzhou was a habitual offender; being fifteen or twenty minutes late wasn't enough to make him feel guilty. He swaggered into the office, very calmly accepting everyone's welcoming eyes on him. "Morning, children. Have you eaten?"
The welcoming eyes developed a film of expectant soft light, the starving masses looking at him with deep affection.
Empty handed, Luo Wenzhou laughed aloud, complacently proclaiming, "I've eaten."
The tender gazes immediately darkened, turning into hateful arrows, wanting nothing better than to pin Luo Wenzhou to the ground and step on him ten thousand times.
Soon after, however, the dining hall downstairs delivered some steamers of freshly made soup dumplings. Learning that Captain Luo had put these on his card, the mood of the masses stabilized once more, and Captain Luo once again became everyone's good captain.
As she handed out dumplings, Lang Qiao asked, "Boss, did you get up late again?"
"I didn't," said Luo Wenzhou in a seemingly very casual tone. "I gave someone my car to drive this morning, so I biked over."
Luo Wenzhou didn't have the bad habit of treating his car like a wife. In this respect, he was rather generous. When he was making visits in civilian clothing and couldn't conveniently drive a service car, he'd often use his private vehicle for public work, and he'd occasionally lend it to his wretchedly poor colleagues to use for going on dates. But the important point in what he'd said wasn't "lending the car," it was "this morning."
A charitable colleague probingly asked, "Who's driving your car so early in the morning, Captain Luo? You must have had someone over last night?"
Luo Wenzhou smiled in an obvious attempt at a cover-up, not saying yes and not saying no, enjoying the special treatment of "all rising to applaud." Afterwards, he still had to preen, showing off while pretending to complain. "What are you all making such a fuss about? I've drunk a bellyful of a northwest wind that I haven't finished digesting yet. Ah, times like this I think that being single has its good points."
Hearing this, everyone felt that the dumplings in their mouths had lost their flavor somewhat. While their stomachs were full, they still rather wanted to rise in rebellion and kill this slut.
Luo Wenzhou harvested their death glares in perfect contentment, turned on his computer, and logged into the City Bureau's Mobile Officing System.
Since the identities of the criminal police officers tailing Yang Bo had been leaked, he'd developed a habit of logging in when he had nothing else to do.
"Right, boss," said Lang Qiao, "Director Wang from admin said yesterday that the end of the year is coming up, and the bureau is planning to put together a general safety propaganda campaign to hang up in buses and subways. He wants our team to send a few people. The one's who'll make a better impression."
"Tell Lao Wang that my people are this city's public security authorities' foremost troupe of folk dancers…no, of fashion models. Tell him to come over and pick. He can take whoever he likes. We sell our bodies but not our talents…" Luo Wenzhou stretched, then scrolled down the page. "Hey, what is this? How did a trifle like some brats running away from home end up in front of me?"
The Mobile Officing System's full name was too long, so everyone had picked out a nickname for it, calling it the "card-puncher." The system's design concept was actually very advanced; it was an internal network spanning the whole city. But it hadn't been extended by being made compulsory, and its functions coincided in many places with Public Security's pre-existing internal network, creating many redundancies. Therefore, like many activities of no clear purpose that the City Bureau undertook every year—like this propaganda campaign that no one was going to see, for example—it had become an "image project."
Apart from those needing to think about the little bureaucratic burden of the "card-puncher" when going out into the field, others only swarmed like bees to log in to inquire into their work records when it came time to write year-end summaries.
Luo Wenzhou's privileges were fairly high. Apart from being able to inquire into the City Bureau's Criminal Investigation Team's fieldwork status, he could also see what each district's sub-bureau's criminal investigation department was up to. If the sub-bureaus or the local police stations encountered something relatively complicated and needed to send it up, they'd first do a simple write-up and have the program push it up to the appropriate department's head.
But the case that had shown up in front of him now was really something of a triviality—a group of middle school students running away together.
There was a private school in the city that included junior and senior middle school, called Yufen Middle School. Yufen Middle School was sealed off, its students all boarding at the school and going home only once a week. But this week, some senior middle Year 1 students had hopped the school's walls during the night and run off. One of the students had left a letter for his teachers and parents, explaining the reasons he'd left. It came to nothing more than "too much stress," "loneliness," that sort of thing.
When Luo Wenzhou had read this, he was baffled. "Listen, are we going to be responsible for tracking down lost golden retrievers next?"
This was how Yan City's Public Security System operated normally: cases of suicide, accident, missing persons, and so on would be handled by the low-level local police stations' civil police. If, after the civil police got involved, they found that the case was rather complicated and required the cooperation of specialized criminal investigation techniques, they would report it to the criminal investigation team of the sub-bureau whose jurisdiction they were in.
Usually, only major cases that crossed jurisdictions or that were particularly ugly would disturb the City Bureau.
Lang Qiao strolled into his office and looked over. "Oh, that! I know about that. First, it crosses jurisdictions, and I hear they've asked the internet police to assist. It's not something a local police station or two can resolve. There are rather a lot of departments cooperating on it, so maybe when they were sending it out they accidentally ticked off the City Bureau, too."
Tao Ran asked in surprise, "Why do they need the internet police to find missing persons? Did that crowd of brats run away to an internet cafe?"
"No, it's because the letter that the kid who led them left behind has become popular online." Lang Qiao opened her social media on her phone and showed it to them. "A lot of people reposted it. Kids these days can't leave the internet for a moment. If they see this somewhere, they might not be able to resist replying out of vanity, so we'll be able to fix their location."
Luo Wenzhou swept his eye over it. "It's been three days already. They haven't been found yet?"
Teenagers running away from home wasn't the same as small children going missing, and the students who had gone missing were in senior middle school, fourteen or fifteen years old, both male and female. Because they'd left on their own, the probability that they would run into danger wasn't high; and then, they were still young, so they would be relatively easy to find; ordinarily they'd be snatched up very quickly.
Of course, it was even more common for the brats to obediently come running home when their money ran out before anyone could find them. It was really rather unusual for them not to have been found after three days.
"Who knows where they've gone?" Lang Qiao shrugged. "When I was their age, I was too busy dating to make that kind of mischief and upset my teachers and parents…"
"Right, and you definitely didn't have time to study, either." Luo Wenzhou rolled his eyes, interrupting her. "The mind of a three-year-old, and you've still made some progress.—Stop playing humble, get ready for the meeting!"
Since the City Bureau was having some idle days following the inhuman workload of the last half-year, Luo Wenzhou indolently hosted a plenary session on playing games…no, on ideological education. The main contents of the meeting were Deputy-Captain Tao reading out soporific study materials in a flat voice while their middle-aged and elderly colleagues whispered in each others' ears, complaining that the children couldn't study properly, and the youngsters, with Captain Luo himself leading the charge, teamed up to defeat a boss.
It would be better if every day could be like this—all of Yan City wrapped up in cold and snow, everyone yawning as they went to work and school, the Public Security System hibernating in a quiet conference room, the biggest case at hand a matter of some senior middle school students running away.
The boss in the cell phone game was knocked out. Luo Wenzhou winked at everyone around him, exchanging high-fives under the table. At the same time, he couldn't help letting his mind wander, thinking, "What did Fei Du do when he was at school?"
His mother had just died, and he'd had that dubious father. A fifteen-year-old child, unwilling to say a single superfluous sentence to anyone, so loaded down with worries that a hoisting jack couldn't have lifted them. Had he heard his teachers' lessons? Had he been like other children, worrying about what university he would test into? Could he have had the leisure to lose himself in an early romance?
"Boss, we're doing another round, hurry up and join."
Luo Wenzhou pulled himself together and once again picked up his overheated phone, feeling that perhaps Fei Du was poisonous, slipping into his mind to harass him at every opportunity; it really was irritating.
Fei Du, more wronged than Dou E, currently had no knowledge of his "crime"; he was driving familiarly towards Yan Security Uni.
There were three knocks on the door of Pan Yunteng's office. He looked up and called, "Come in."
When the City Bureau had restarted the Picture Album Project, Dr. Bai's husband Pan Yunteng had been the person in charge of it at the Yan Security Uni end, and he was also Fei Du's temporary academic advisor—before school had started, Fei Du's originally determined-upon advisor had received a rare opportunity, so he'd gone through his school contacts and settled Fei Du on Pan Yunteng, letting him "by chance coincidence" start in on the Picture Album project.
"Fei Du?" Pan Yunteng stared when he saw him. "Are you out the hospital? Sit down."
While Fei Du had been in the hospital, Pan Yunteng and Dr. Bai had of course gone to visit him. He still clearly looked unwell. His cheeks were pale, and he was more heavily dressed than usual. On going downstairs, he'd had a taste of Yan City's bitter winter, and sitting in the car with the heating blowing on him the whole way hadn't warmed him up. His hands were still stiff.
He said thank you and accepted a hot drink from Pan Yunteng. He held it in his hands for a while, and his reddened fingers finally returned to life somewhat.
"I don't need any follow-up treatment. There's no point in staying at the hospital. Anyway, it was uncomfortable there. I'd rather go home and recover," said Fei Du. "Also, I was worried that if I stayed any longer, the whole semester would have passed. What would I do if you made me repeat a year?"
"Let's be serious with each other." Pan Yunteng didn't respond to his joke, gravely saying, "I can understand a criminal policeman on the front lines sometimes encountering danger, but this is my first time hearing of a student who'd gone over to examine some documents getting involved in this kind of thing!"
"Just coincidence. The City Bureau didn't have enough service cars, and I lent them my car." Fei Du leaned back easily in his chair. "I've heard that the self-examination Captain Luo wrote on my account could have been assembled for publication? So it must be clear enough.—Teacher, have you read the homework I handed in?"
Pan Yunteng glared at him, then opened the paper he'd handed in on his computer. There was a TV in his office. Teacher Pan was devoted to his studies and of a serious disposition. Even when he occasionally relaxed, what he watched was the legal channel—since Fei Du had come in, the TV had been broadcasting "Rural Police Stories," describing a woman who'd died by the side of the road after leaving her home. There had been skid marks next to her, and the local police had quickly found the responsible car. The responsible driver had admitted that he'd been driving drunk in the middle of the night and had run over the victim.
But the victim's body hadn't shown signs of having died from being struck; there seemed to be some other hidden circumstances behind her death.
Presumably because he minded the noise, Pan Yunteng turned off the TV. Fei Du turned in the swivel chair. "It must be very easy for the medical examiners to distinguish whether a person died of being hit by a car or was run over after they were already dead. What's the point of that kind of 'plot?'"
"If you'd carefully read those files you arranged before, you'd have found that in fact the majority of criminals don't have sufficient common sense or intelligence." Pan Yunteng reviewed Fei Du's paper at a glance. Without looking up, he said, "Some kill entirely in the heat of the moment, and some are very stupid. Murderers will even believe wild rumors and attempt to mislead modern criminal investigation techniques. Truly difficult to trace criminals are very rare.—Yes, communal trends. You've used the word 'trends' very delicately. Why did you want to write about this subject?"
"Because you're right. Aside from in a few rather remote regions, it's very difficult to avoid modern criminal investigation techniques, and it's often even more challenging for a person's psychological endurance. But communal crimes are another thing. Sometimes members may not think they're participating in criminal activity at all," said Fei Du. "The more sealed-off the surroundings, the easier it is to create an abnormal group. Prisons, for example, or human trafficking in remote mountain regions, and so on. Of course, the same possibility exists in a developed region, but the cost will be comparatively high."
Pan Yunteng looked at him.
Fei Du's scarf was still around his neck, half hiding his smile. He explained why he'd come. "Teacher, these three recent major cases have all been communal matters. Can we make it a special topic in the Picture Album?"
Pan Yunteng's eyebrows rose up very high. If he hadn't chosen this contact person himself, Pan Yunteng almost would have suspected that Fei Du had other intentions.
Fei Du quietly explained, "I don't like leaving things unfinished."
"I'll consider it." Pan Yunteng waved a hand at him.
Fei Du didn't pester him. He nodded, stood, and bid him farewell. At the same time, he wasn't very concerned about Pan Yunteng not agreeing—if he really didn't, he could also make the current contact person withdraw due to some unforeseen event.
He hoped that his luck would be good and his paper would convince Pan Yunteng. Having to use unconventional methods would be a burden on an injured person.