Two traffic police motorcycles honked the horns to clear the way, and the S450 swiftly slammed through more than ten red lights with the momentum of an F1 car, which caused countless passers-by to take pictures along the way.
"Drive steadily!" Jiang Ting shouted in the midst of countless flashing lights along the way, "200 million ransom doesn't quite make it seem like a kidnapping, don't be in such a hurry!"
Yan Xie whizzed through the intersection of the downtown area: "I can't slow down! What if there is an idiot who really dares to ask for 200 millions?
The engine roared like a beast, and the speakers were broadcasting traffic announcements. Jiang Ting got up and leaned into Yan Xie's ear, and said loudly: "It's impossible, they wouldn't scare people with animal blood then!"
The S450 leapt into the slowly opening security gates of the city bureau, like a blue lightning bolt, and then came to a standstill in front of the criminal investigation building.
Jiang Ting's upper body lurched forward, but fortunately it was stopped by Yan Xie reaching out before he could die of strangulation by the seat belt.
"You knew it was animal blood just by looking at the picture?" Yan Xie stared at him intently.
The two were almost face to face in the small car salon, with Yan Xie's strong hand still wrapped around Jiang Ting's body, but the latter didn't pay much attention to these details.
"..." Jiang Ting finally let out a breath and said, "is just a logical speculation of behaviour, there's no solid evidence for now."
Yan Xie took his hat out of the glove box and put it on Jiang Ting's head with his backhand, opened a bag of anti-haze masks and put it on Jiang Ting's face with his own hands, hanging it on each ear.
"You, go to my office and wait. Snacks are in the bottom drawer on the left."
Yan Xie warned him in a low voice: "Don't go outside if you don't have anything to do. If someone sees you, I won't be able to save you."
With that, Yan Xie turned to get out of the car and slammed the door cleanly.
Bang!
"..." Jiang Ting murmured, "can't you just let me go back?"
.
"Hello, Deputy Chief Yan!" "Yan-Ge!"
When Yan Xie was striding off down the corridor Ma Xiang galloped towards him. Before he could stop, his mouth already went off like a barrage of bullets: "The ones who made the report are a couple: male, Shen De, forty-three years old; female, Yin Jindi, forty-one years old. The missing person is their only son, Shen Xiaoqi, who graduated from junior high school at the age of fifteen this year. He had gone out for an outing with his classmates after the high school entrance examination. Last night was the last time his parents heard from him. At twelve o'clock this morning, the Shen couple received an anonymous phone call from the kidnappers, saying that Shen Xiaoqi was in their hands and demanding a ransom of 200 million."
Ma Xiang had also arrived at the City Bureau on short notice, wearing a graffiti T-shirt, torn jeans and a couple of blackened silver skull crosses around his neck. While walking Yan Xie couldn't help but glance at him and asked, "What are you doing?"
"Although you don't know what I'm doing, I know what you've just done." Ma Xiang chuckled, "Congratulations on collecting the 108th "I Only Think of You as a Brother" card, Yan-Ge. You can summon the divine dragon tonight."
"Stop joking around!" Yan Xie chided him in a low voice, "Did you locate the mobile phone number?"
"Needless to say, Director Huang is personally leading someone to trace the IP location of the deal-up network."
"Is there a recording of the kidnapper's phone call?"
"According to the parents of the missing person, they thought it was a scam when they received the call from the kidnappers and when they recovered they almost suffered a heart attack afterwards, so who would have thought to record it?"
"It's only human," Yan Xie said, his tone was slightly sullen: "Are you sure it wasn't a prank on the parents or some new scam ring?"
"Scam or not, it's too hard to say." Ma Xiang grimaced and shook his head, "According to Shen De, he called his son immediately after receiving the blackmail call, but Shen Xiaoqi's phone was switched off and he hasn't heard anything until now."
"- Two hundred million." Yan Xie whispered, not knowing whether he was speaking to Ma Xiang or to himself, "The kidnappers called, and it just happened that the missing person's phone had been switched off."
"Deputy Chief Yan! Deputy Chief Yan-!" A technical police officer came running wildly from the distance, panting, "Director Huang's results are in, the missing person's phone is on and in use! He's on the phone!"
Yan Xie's footsteps came to a stop.
"Huh?" Ma Xiang blurted out, "He's on the phone?"
·
"The battery just died, what died, why didn't you bring a charger!? Do you know how anxious mum and dad were? Do you know how bad people are these days? Huh?! ..."
The door of the large conference room was closed, but it couldn't stop the voice of father Shen who was loudly shouting.
Shen Xiaoqi's aggrieved voice came over the mobile phone: "Why don't you ask my classmates, we are all together, when have we been kidnapped? Dad, how can you take someone's blackmail for 200 million yuan seriously when our family can't even get one-twentieth of 200 million yuan? Even if they wanted to kidnap me, they couldn't!
"You turn off your phone at will and yet you are still talking back to me?" Father Shen growled.
Mother Shen was crying with joy, wiping her tears as she took Deputy Wei's hand and explained, "The kid said that after the exams, they would be organizing an outing, so we told him to go! We are usually busy with business so we aren't familiar with his classmates so we only thought of hurrying to the police ..."
"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, ah - don't cry don't cry." Deputy director Wei was wearing beach trousers and flip-flops, and his fishing tackle was piled up around the corner of the conference room. Old Wei probably had ten thousand grass-mud horses in his heart, but on the surface he was still amiable and dignified: "the masses trust our people's public security and their first action is to call the police. This is a reflection of trust in our work!" Come on, you guys, help this lady to the office to make a statement, sign it and you'll be fine..."
The two policemen went out with father Shen, who still was angry, and the uncontrollably thankful mother Shen, and just as the door closed, everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.
"Two hundred million, a minor, kidnapping and murder." Deputy Director Wei sighed in disbelief, "I thought that the collective first-class merit was already secured this year."
The atmosphere livened up as the crowd relaxed and chatted, cracking jokes with each other. Only Yan Xie cupped his chin with one hand, his tightly furrowed brows haven't relaxed since the moment he stepped inside the city bureau.
"What's wrong with you," deputy director Wei patted him on the shoulder, he was obviously in a good mood, "putting on airs and being dressed so flamboyantly?"
Yan Xie said, "I still don't think it's right."
"What's wrong?"
"... can't say, but everything feels weird. Hey, did you see that Shen De calling his son with your own eyes just now?"
Deputy director "hey" Wei: "How could that have been fake? I've been working as a criminal investigator for so many years, do I need you to teach me this kind of trickery?"
Yan Xie's doubts didn't seem to be alleviated as he muttered, "... two hundred million."
"I think you look just like two hundred million!" Instead of nagging him, Deputy director Wei waved his hand to indicate the crowd to disperse, and then giggled and went to the office door to pick up his fishing tackle: "Not having a case is a good thing, don't be so paranoid. My wife said that this is the bad thing about criminal police work, after handling the cases for so long, you have to ponder even when you see cats and dogs fighting. Everyone looks like a wanted criminal-- Oh, yes, I heard Lao Fang say that you suddenly acted without permission on the night of your operation last month. You raced dozens of kilometers all the way from the scene, and you even went hand-to-hand with criminals? "
-- Fang Zhenghong, the chief of the anti-drug branch next door, and Qin Chuan's immediate superior.
Yan Xie snapped out of his thoughts and was a little dissatisfied: "Why is Chief Fang always snitching on me, does he not find me pleasing to the eye or something."
Without explaining much, Deputy Wei casually scolded him, "as long as you are stroking your hair coquettishly all day and spraying perfume on your body, what can be there pleasing to the eye!"
The two of them went out of the conference room side by side, and Yan Xie walked while sniffing his left and right cuffs, feeling a bit wronged by the unfounded accusations he had suffered: "I was about to go on a blind date, when a call came from the city bureau. The real estate boss's daughter that I had been talking to so nicely was successfully blown off. You also said I was wearing perfume, and I did not even complain about the City Bureau ruining my very real chance of getting out of singledom....."
Before the rest of the words fell, Deputy Director Wei raised his foot and landed a kick, and Yan Xie spurted blood on the ground.
"Brat, do you think you can play with us, seniors?" Deputy Director Wei took out his cell phone, opened Wechat and showed it to Yan Xie.
Every case will be solved by Wei Lao Yao: "Sister-in-law, the city bureau has an urgent big case, I have to call Xiao Yan back ah."
Old and beautiful Zeng Cui Cui: "Call him back! The real estate group's daughter rejected him again today.
Every case will be solved by Wei Lao Yao: [Like] [Like] [Like]
"-Your mother is really your birth mother," sighed Deputy Director Wei heartily, patted him on the buttocks with his beloved fishing rod and left.
·
The criminal police officers, who had been off duty for the day, rushed to the city bureau from all directions, and like a swarm of birds and animals dispersed again. The tense atmosphere in the corridor, which had just been so hostile, soon disappeared.
Yan Xie was filled with anger at socialism and was about to find someone to complain to when he pushed open the door to his office and froze: "Ooh!"
Jiang Ting was sitting in a swivel chair behind a large desk, which was full with all kinds of snacks. Yan Xie had sent someone downstairs to purchase a variety of biscuits, plums, cupcakes and puffed food from the canteen, but unfortunately they were basically untouched, only half of a packet of Oreo strawberry sandwich biscuits had been eaten, leaving the rest where it all lay.
"Are you having afternoon tea with me here?" Yan Xie staffed the remaining half of the strawberry biscuit into his mouth, mumbling, "You're too picky. It seems that even the highest level of reception at the Jianning Public Security Bureau's canteen can't satisfy you, tsk."
Jiang Ting swiped his phone, not even looking up, "How's the kidnapping case going?"
"Fuck, I don't know which fool is playing tricks here." Yan Xie gave a brief account of what had happened, and said angrily, "The case has been returned to the sub-bureau, so that the technical investigation branch could continue to trace the IP of the blackmailer's call and the source of the bloody clothes picture, and see if we can catch that grandson and put him in jail for two months to relieve everyone's hatred."
Jiang Ting's fingers paused and he suddenly said, "This is a bit weird."
Standing behind the desk, Yan Xie looked at the top of his dark hair, the expression in his eyes slightly changed: "... Tell me what's weird?"
"If it were a scam, firstly the ransom is too big, and secondly Shen Xiaoqi quickly contacted his family, the scam was too easy to uncover. But if it's just a prank, it feels overly elaborate."
Jiang Ting finally put the phone on the table and leaned back into his chair: "Even if you were kidnapped, the ransom would be 20 million at most, any more than that would firstly be difficult to take away, and secondly the family would definitely report the crime. For a family like Shen Xiaoqi's, who runs their own business, extorting two million is a relatively easy figure to get, and as long as the safety of the hostage is ensured, the likelihood of the parents choosing to deliver the ransom rather than reporting the kidnapping to the police is almost 100 percent."
Yan Xie crossed his arms, "So what do you think?"
The fingertips of Jiang Ting's hands collided gently and regularly. After a long time, he said slowly: "two hundred million... It feels a bit like deliberately trying to attract the attention of the police."
The analysis he just made was something that Yan Xie had already gone over in his head, but he didn't want to show his approval in front of Jiang Ting, so he just hummed and didn't say anything, but the last sentence was a bit of a surprise to him: "Draw the attention of the police? Why?"
·
"It's just a speculation, I'm not a kidnapper." Jiang Ting said lazily, picking up his phone from the table.
Yan Xie: "..."
Suddenly Yan Xie's hawk-like eyesight caught something and grabbed Jiang Ting's wrist: "Wait! What are you swiping?"
The corners of Jiang Ting's lips, which had never been naturally relaxed, suddenly broke free of gravity and showed a subtle, almost invisible upturn: "Weibo."
"This is obviously..."
"Congratulations," said Jiang Ting, showing the phone screen to him, "you're popular."
Real-time hot search - Shocking! Jianning street traffic police is clearing the way for luxury cars, downtown racing, and even running more than ten red lights!
Hot comments: "It is neither a military plate nor it belongs to a government agency. "Jianning tycoons are awesome." "Which small government official is this, the firetruck does not drive as fast as it, right?" "If you have the money to drive, how good it is to drive a Bugatti Veyron around the provincial government." "Maybe the car owner is from the provincial government?"
Yan Xie: "........."
"Don't pay attention to them, your car is not broken," Jiang Ting reassured him, he took back his mobile phone and turned on the online "Go" game which he would would usually play if he had nothing to do: "You don't really have a Bugatti, do you?"
"..." Yan Xie said smoothly: "Do you want it, you can have it, ah I'll give it to you as a betrothal gift."
Jiang Ting used the horse to hit the car, concentrating: "Save the money to clear the hot search."
.
"Hey, hey, okay, okay, I'll find someone to delete it for you. Such a grown man acts so recklessly and doesn't think about his own safety at all. Having you is better than having a piece of barbecued pork..."
Mother Yan - old and beautiful Zeng Cui Cui - hung up the phone, rushed to find someone to ask for help, and after being busy for half a day she finally got to rest. She let out a deep sigh and a myriad of feelings arose from the bottom of her heart.
"Truly not as good as a piece of barbecue pork, barbecue pork can at least be cut up and eaten, you can also make hibiscus rice by adding eggs!"
At the Yan family's dinner table, the atmosphere was unusually heavy, father Yan pushed the presbyopic glasses to close the small report in front of him, relieved and a little dissatisfied: "the KTV owner..."
Mother Yan coldly said: "According to your son's previous preferences, he can close his eyes and say that one hasn't had plastic surgery even if their cheekbones are shaved like those of snake spirits. If the legs are two meters long, he insists that it is genetic, and his aesthetic vision is inherently low. Should we blame you or blame me for that? And what's wrong with opening a KTV, she is called a business woman! Look at her taste in dresses, the next generation of genetic improvement depends on the daughter-in-law!"
The stern father could not save his son's honor and only weakly made an excuse in his defence: "The restaurant manager said that this girl had a husband ..."
"Although the flower has a master, I can loosen the soil." Mother Yan reached over, took a small report and looked at Yang Mei, who had been secretly photographed by the waiter, her eyes overflowing with love: "as soon as I saw this girl, I could tell she didn't shave her cheekbones, had no breast implants, and neither she had fillers in the nasal root." This daughter-in-law is so satisfying, if our son decides to go to loosen the soil, I will support him with a 24K gold-plated shovel!"
"I still think the real estate group girl he was on a date with today is good, she knows her roots...,``Father Yan's voice was getting lower and lower under his wife's glare.
"Lao Yan," mother Yan said coldly.
Father Yan raised his hands to surrender: "Hey."
"When your son was eighteen, I thought he was more than good enough for a princess. When he was twenty-five, I thought he would be able to find a girl from a good family to live with. By the time he was thirty, my pitiful requirements had been reduced to a female, alive, and just younger than me."
Mother Yan pulled a white book out of her bag and heaved it painfully toward father Yan, "And now? I've already started to teach myself the "A Study of the Legal Aspects of Gay Marriage"! What more can I ask for? What else do you think I can do but support his gold-plated shovel?"
The strict father said, "Well said!" Then clapped for his wife.
Mother Yan grunted bitterly, picked up the white book and went to the kitchen just to throw it into the trash, then she suddenly stopped, her mind recalled all her son's previous great achievements in the matchmaking war as if she had staged a whole song and a tearful landing in Normandy.
"... Nine times out of ten you'll still need it," said Mother Yan.
Then she went back to the study and carefully stuffed "A Study of the Legal Aspects of Gay Marriage" into the bookcase.
·
"A bowl of sweet porridge, two custard buns, take it-- Oh, isn't this Deputy chief Yan? You're here in person today?"
As the sun was setting, at the entrance of the Municipal Bureau, Yan Xie took the steam plastic bag from the owner of the steamed bun shop, and let out a chuckle.
"Isn't it your custom to have four meat buns and two plates of side dishes? Why has your taste changed today? Would you like to try something new? Or are you bringing it for the others? "
"... helping to bring it to the others."
"Ohh!" The owner of the steamed bun shop was sensitive to the smell of gossip, he came closer like a thief: "Who can make boss Yan work hard, it is a woman, right?"
Yan Xie said dryly, "Pretty much."
"Is she good-looking?" The boss looked like as if he was told more, he'd give the two buns away for free, but the next moment Yan Xie unfortunately pulled out the banknotes, slapped them on his chest, and said with a fake smile: "Especially good-looking, a police flower overlord."
The boss's mouth immediately opened into a round "oh-" shape, but before he had time to ask more, Yan Xie had already turned around and walked away.
It's obvious that Jiang Ting has a crush on me, so why should I be sent out to buy food for him?
Over the past few years, Deputy chief Yan, who had visited the bun store no more than ten times in person, was carrying a bag of sticky sweet porridge and two motherly custard buns. He entered the gates of the Municipal Bureau with a black face. As soon as he was about to raise his feet and go up the stairs, suddenly an urgent call came from behind: "Comrade policeman, comrade policeman!"
When Yan Xie turned his head, he saw a couple standing at the door of the mailroom. They were father Shen and mother Shen whom he had only met at noon. Father Shen was still holding a small cardboard box in his hand.
Is it not fashionable to send banners to the police this year, so is it time to send Taobao snacks? This is a trend that deserves popularity with the public.
With this in mind, he waved to the guard not to stop father Shen. He went forward and casually raised his chin: "You two, this is ..."
"Comrade policeman," for some reason father Shen's face seemed unusually pale as he handed the cardboard box to Yan Xie, his voice was obviously shaking: "This is, this is someone put in front of our company, we also do not know ... you you, you, you. Take a look."
In the box was a squarely folded T-shirt soaked in blood.