Animal Detective

Chapter 121: Leader, That Dog Is Extraordinary

It wasn’t a huge issue that Zhou Zhongyi had fired his gun.

But failing to apprehend the suspect immediately after the assault, and then allowing him to take a hostage...

Most importantly, the hostage was slashed and injured—an innocent civilian had been harmed.

That blew the whole thing wide open.

Lv Youwei rushed to the scene as soon as he heard the news.

Even Tang Changhong, the director of the K9 base, was alarmed and made a special trip over.

The report he received said the suspect was dangerously unhinged, that shots had been fired, and that the search was taking place on a mountain—the harshest kind of working environment. If one of his own K9s got injured, the loss would be significant.

By the time he arrived, Sun Zhao and Chen Chao were already getting an earful.

"Chen Guo, is Knight all right?" Tang Changhong was a man in his forties with a large nose. Like Lv Youwei, he also wore the insignia of a First-Class Superintendent.

The police rank itself wasn’t the most important thing; you could get that just by putting in the years.

What mattered was that the man was a legitimate Deputy Division Chief, a full rank higher than Lv Youwei, who was a Section Chief.

This was because the Nanjiang K9 Base was a provincial-level demonstration base. Normally, a prefecture-level city wouldn’t have a facility on this scale—37 dogs was far too extravagant.

Therefore, Tang Changhong was "over-assigned" for the position, holding a rank that was nothing to scoff at.

"Director, what are you doing here?" Chen Guo asked, surprised.

He thought it was a big deal that his captain had shown up, but he never expected his top boss to come in person. He quickly reported that Knight was fine.

After saying it, he couldn’t help but feel a little dejected.

’He didn’t even ask how I was. The first thing he asked about was the dog.’

Tang Changhong saw Knight sitting obediently and finally relaxed. He glanced at Chen Guo and said, "What about you? Are you okay?"

Chen Guo quickly shook his head.

In truth, he had twisted his ankle, but it wasn’t serious.

Tang Changhong nodded and asked for the details of what had happened.

The reason he’d rushed over was that he lived nearby. He was on his way home from work when he heard about the incident and came right away.

"That sounds really dangerous."

After hearing the story, Tang Changhong turned to look at Lv Youwei, who was losing his temper a short distance away.

An injured civilian was always the most troublesome complication.

"All right, if you’re fine, you should head back," Tang Changhong said with a wave of his hand, preparing to leave.

Just then, Chen Guo suddenly called out to him.

"Director, what if—and I’m just speaking hypothetically here. If we just picked up a couple of stray dogs, could we train them to be professional K9s in a month?"

Setting the case aside for a moment, Chen Guo had been truly stunned by Dou Dou’s performance today.

A crucial point was that at the first spot where Wang Yuansheng had stopped, Knight had paused.

But Dou Dou had bypassed that spot completely and tracked in the correct direction.

From that point on, Dou Dou had been the one leading the way.

At the same time, Chen Guo noticed something else.

When Wang Yuansheng returned to the mountain with the hostage, Dou Dou had started barking to alert them from a great distance away.

That meant Dou Dou had already detected Wang Yuansheng at that moment.

Based on its performance throughout the entire track, Chen Guo felt Dou Dou had actually done better than Knight.

It was unbelievable.

Knight was over two years old, a meritorious K9 selected through round after round of eliminations, with over a year of experience on police missions.

A dog that had truly earned its commendations.

Tang Changhong frowned. "Chen Guo, what nonsense are you talking about? And you a top student from the National Police University for Criminal Justice, no less. A stray dog, trained for one month, becoming a police dog? Do you think that’s possible?"

’It’s not even a month,’ Chen Guo thought.

"Director, please don’t be angry," Chen Guo said, leaning closer and swearing, "I’m telling the truth."

He explained the situation with Shen Xin and Dou Dou.

"Throughout the entire track, I honestly felt Dou Dou’s performance was a little better than Knight’s. It was incredibly steady."

On a mountain search like this, there were many distracting scents, making long-distance tracking extremely difficult. Yet Dou Dou had barely paused, heading straight for the target the entire way. That level of stability was frighteningly good.

"You’re not joking?" Tang Changhong was taken aback.

Chen Guo shook his head repeatedly and even raised his hand as if taking an oath. "It’s true, I’m not lying in the slightest. It really is a stray dog, an adult, that he just picked up. He wouldn’t say how long he’d been training it himself, but Captain Chen let it slip, and that’s how I found out. I specifically asked people from their division—he’s only been training it for a little over half a month."

Tang Changhong’s eyes went wide, and he scratched his hair fiercely.

If this was true, it would completely shatter his understanding of the world.

"Where’s the man—no, I mean, where’s the dog?" Tang Changhong asked hastily.

"It went back with the suspect."

Shen Xin hadn’t stayed long; he took the two dogs and Wang Yuansheng back to the branch bureau.

Chen Guo added, "Director, the main reason I’m bringing this up is... look at all the effort we put in. We analyze bloodlines and do selective breeding, but what’s the result? The elimination rate is still frighteningly high, and the cost is immense."

"Take German Shepherds, for example. We usually import breeding dogs from abroad, and they can easily cost one or two hundred thousand yuan."

"Then we breed them."

"And when the pups are born, we have to raise them, right?"

"The food budget for a K9 isn’t cheap—50 yuan a day, almost as much as a person."

"The food costs alone are nearly twenty thousand a year."

"The key is that we go through all the trouble of raising some of them, only for them to be eliminated in the end. That means all the initial investment goes down the drain."

"But if even stray dogs can be trained into K9s, our costs would be incredibly low."

"There are strays everywhere. What cost is there?"

"I think he might have some special training method. Director, maybe we could go ask for his advice?" Chen Guo concluded.

Tang Changhong immediately turned his head.

But he didn’t see any sign of Lv Youwei.

He asked around and found out that in the time they’d been talking, Lv Youwei had gone to the hospital to see the injured hostage.

"Let’s go. To their branch bureau!"

After what Chen Guo said, how could Tang Changhong possibly hold back? He wanted to go to the branch bureau immediately to meet Shen Xin and the two dogs.

"What about Knight?" Chen Guo asked.

He had just completed a mission and needed to rest.

Tang Changhong glanced at Knight, then at the busy officers across the way, and thought for a moment. "Forget it, let’s not go just yet. Their branch bureau is going to have a chaotic day. Let’s not add to their troubles. You take Knight back to the base, and I’ll be on my way. I have things to do tonight."

’The guy is at the branch bureau. It’s not like he can run away.’

"Shen Xin!"

Murmuring the name, Tang Changhong got in his car and left.

Far away at the branch bureau, in the small conference room of the Criminal Investigation Division, Shen Xin suddenly sneezed.

"Are you catching a cold?"

asked Ding Yuwei, who was holding a cotton swab beside him.

"No."

Shen Xin rubbed his nose, glanced down at his arm, and asked Ding Yuwei if she was done.

The mountain was covered in scrub and small trees. In his haste, he had been whipped by branches, leaving many red marks on his body.

Then, some kind of thorny tree must have snagged his arm. He was so focused on the chase that he didn’t notice until he was back in the car. A gash nearly ten centimeters long ran up from his elbow.

He hadn’t felt any pain at the time.

Now, Ding Yuwei was disinfecting it for him with iodine.

"All done," Ding Yuwei said, sitting down next to him and rubbing her own ankle.

She had twisted hers, too.

Just then, Zhao Tianxing opened the door and came in.

He was carrying a cup of instant noodles for each of them.

"Wang Yuansheng’s wife is dead. They couldn’t save her," Zhao Tianxing said, delivering the latest news.

Ding Yuwei gasped.

Shen Xin frowned. ’Then Wang Yuansheng is finished.’

Intentional homicide, taking a hostage, and intentional injury. With the combined charges, he was a dead man.

"Women..."

Zhao Tianxing sighed deeply.

Shen Xin sighed as well.

The cause of the incident was actually very simple. Wang Yuansheng’s wife, Fang Meng, had an affair with her boss, and Wang Yuansheng found out.

According to a neighbor, the two had a huge fight.

The neighbor had been eavesdropping at the wall and heard everything clearly.

At first, Fang Meng adamantly denied it. But when Wang Yuansheng produced evidence—photos taken by a friend—she finally confessed. The argument then escalated, with Fang Meng screaming at Wang Yuansheng, calling him a good-for-nothing who worked a dead-end job, couldn’t earn any money, and had no ambition. She said she must have been blind to marry him.

At that point, the child came up.

Apparently, the affair with her boss wasn’t Fang Meng’s first. She had previously been carrying on with an old classmate.

Wang Yuansheng began to suspect he’d been a cuckold for a long time. He started shouting, asking if the child was even his, saying its personality was nothing like his own.

In the heat of the argument, Fang Meng shot back that the child wasn’t his.

She then accused Wang Yuansheng of not taking care of the child, saying they didn’t even have money for the kid to attend an after-school class.

At that, Wang Yuansheng’s rage boiled over. He turned, went to the kitchen, grabbed a cleaver, and without a moment’s hesitation, slashed Fang Meng across the neck.

Luckily, it was a Friday, and his son had gone to his grandfather’s house to play after school. Otherwise, he might have gone after his son as well.

"What are you two sighing for?" Ding Yuwei said irritably, pinching Shen Xin’s arm. "Women like that are a minority, you know. You can’t just condemn all of us with one broad stroke."

Shen Xin winced in pain and asked why she only pinched him when Zhao Tianxing was the one who started it.

Seeing Ding Yuwei look his way, Zhao Tianxing quickly backed off. "Don’t be mad, everything’s fine."

After a few perfunctory bites of his noodles, Shen Xin went to check on Wang Yuansheng again.

With the cold handcuffs on, he was much more subdued now.

He hadn’t been interrogated yet; they were waiting for Sun Zhao and the others to get back.

In reality, the interrogation was just a formality. In a case like this, he was as good as dead.

Sun Zhao and the others didn’t return until almost nine o’clock that night.

The first thing they did upon returning was hold a meeting, where the chewing out continued.

Lv Youwei’s spit flew as he raged.

Sun Zhao kept his head down, not saying a word.

Shen Xin noticed a red scratch mark on his face that hadn’t been there before.

He figured Sun Zhao got it at the hospital, scratched by the family of the middle-aged female hostage.

That was what made this whole thing so troublesome.

But as Shen Xin replayed the entire incident in his mind, he felt that Sun Zhao and his team’s handling of the situation hadn’t been wrong.

Securing the perimeter immediately and then calling in the K9 unit to search the mountain—that was all standard procedure.

Who could have predicted that a guy like Wang Yuansheng would be so vicious?

Lv Youwei yelled until his mouth was dry.

Chen Chao quickly handed him a cup of water.

Lv Youwei took it, shot him a fierce glare, and was about to start yelling again when he suddenly noticed Shen Xin in the corner.

Instantly, a smile appeared on Lv Youwei’s face.

"Xiaoshen, you did great today! I heard all about it. That dog of yours, Dou Dou, runs faster than the K9s from the official base, and it actually tracked the guy down."

"I’ll have to give you a reward for this."

Lv Youwei beamed.

Everyone in the room turned in unison to look at Shen Xin.

"What are you looking at? Xiaoshen here worked his tail off training a police dog and got immediate results. And what about you lot?"

Another shower of spit filled the room.