hotmtlnovel Chapter 13: Traces Are Always Left Behind
Chapter 13: Traces Are Always Left Behind
Chapter 13: Traces Are Always Left Behind
When it came to explaining why humans eat junk food while cats get fancy cat food, Xu Qing struggled to find a good answer and ended up brushing it off with a vague "You'll understand later."
Happiness, after all, is something felt, not easily explained.
As the evening grew darker, Xu Qing left his small Penguin account running on the computer, opened the chat window, and reminded himself repeatedly that he wouldn't just talk through the screen; he'd use the Thousand-Mile Voice feature. He then left home alone, taking the bus to meet Qin Hao at their agreed spot.
"Hey, Haozi, where are you?"
"Over here! Over here!"
Qin Hao, who had arrived first, was already sitting in a corner of the food stall, munching on edamame and waving him over.
“Hey, you’re looking darker! It’s so late, I almost didn’t see you.”
Spotting Qin Hao, Xu Qing laughed as he walked over. "Officer Qin, hard at work, I see."
"Oh, you know it’s hard work," Qin Hao said, waving him to sit down. "Here, have a drink."
"Can police officers drink alcohol?"
"Of course we can! I’m off-duty; what's stopping me?" Qin Hao tugged at his clothes. "See, plain clothes."
"Alright, let's order."
They ordered twenty skewers each of beef and lamb, ten skewers of leeks, four skewers of kidneys, two grilled eggplants, and a case of beer—a perfect spread.
Neither of them liked the fancier dishes; they preferred the basics of barbecue. If they weren’t full, they’d just order more until they were satisfied.
"So, how's the job going? Any noble thoughts about being a glorious officer?"
"Noble my a**! It’s nothing like I imagined."
Qin Hao’s face filled with exasperation. "I dreamed of grappling with criminals, maybe taking a hit, or heroically saving a damsel... None of that happened! Every day, it’s just trivial stuff you wouldn’t believe...”
He continued, “People calling about breakups, neighborhood squabbles I have to mediate, two old ladies screaming insults at each other through their doors while I stand between them... ugh! I haven’t even seen a thief; it’s just mediation, mediation, mediation. I can’t understand where all these problems come from.”
"Hey, that just means people are living in peace. Isn’t that good?" Xu Qing chuckled. "Does every community officer have a 'hero dream' like yours?"@@@@
This buddy of his had dreamed of becoming a cop since they were kids, though he had bawled his eyes out when he found out the height requirement was at least 1.7 meters, which he just missed. Back in middle school, already taller than 1.7 meters, Xu Qing comforted him, suggesting that if he bulked up, he might get in on an exception. That started Qin Hao’s lifelong journey with muscles.
Luckily, the height requirement was eventually removed in favor of a jump height test, which had Qin Hao training high jumps day and night. Now, he’d finally made it.
"You know, I’m getting paranoid. Just before you got here, I was watching the street over there,” Qin Hao said, lowering his voice and pointing to the road. "I was picturing some criminal coming out with a knife, and me leaping across the table to fight him—I've got the whole scene in my head."
"Stop dreaming." Xu Qing couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty. A knife-wielding criminal... wasn’t that pretty much how Jiang He appeared when she first arrived?
"Three Checks? What are they?"
"Check for missing persons, DNA to check against missing children databases, or see if they’re wanted."
"And if they pass all three?"
"If they pass... hey, why all the questions?" Qin Hao looked at him, puzzled.
"Just keeping the conversation going. We’re two guys; what else are we supposed to talk about? Romance?" Xu Qing mocked. "Forget it, if I ask you any more, you’ll probably cuff me...”
He placed his hands on the table, joking, "Want to run a check on me? I might just be a missing person that my parents picked up."
"Yeah, right. I bet you're from South Mountain Mental Hospital...” Qin Hao scoffed. "If the Three Checks don’t flag them, we then check foreign entrants or mental health records. You, my friend, are definitely in the mental health category."
"What if they still don’t match?"
"No match, we let them go. What else would we do? They haven’t committed a crime.”
“...”
Xu Qing felt something was off. "But what about an ID? Aren’t you supposed to help them with that?"
"They need proof to apply."
"No proof."
"Then it’s not possible."
“...”
Xu Qing was getting a headache. “They’re not criminals. Why can’t they get one?”
“Because they don’t have proof.”
Qin Hao burped, poking the table with a skewer as he explained, “Look, say, hypothetically, I grab a knife and stab you...”
“Don’t stab me. Go stab someone else,” Xu Qing scowled.
“Fine, let’s say you took a knife and stabbed someone else, then you got plastic surgery in Korea, returned to Jiang City or wherever, claimed memory loss, no history, no identity, and tried to start fresh—is that okay?”
Xu Qing fell silent, so Qin Hao laughed, holding the skewer like a sage. “Anyone who exists leaves a trace. No one appears out of thin air. And if someone does—it means there’s a problem.”
He waggled his head, tossed the skewer aside, and took another. “Every step leaves a trace... that’s the golden rule, said by Edmond Locard, the father of forensics.”
“Wake up; you’re just a community cop handling bickering old ladies.”
“...S**t.”