Different People, Different Treatment

"Detective Lin... is Detective Lin here?" a woman called.

Lin Xiaosu came down from the second floor. "What is it?"

Thud! The woman dropped to her knees. "Detective Lin, please, hurry and help me find my son. My son is missing..."

"Ma'am, get up!" Lin Xiaosu quickly reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders.

Tears streamed down the woman's face. "My son didn't come home last night. I thought he'd gone to his grandmother's, but when I called my mother, I found out he hadn't gone there. I reported it to the police last night, but they searched all night and couldn't find him... I heard people say Detective Lin was the best at finding people, so I came straight here! Detective Lin, please help me just this once. I know your rates. It's fine, I'll pay! Here's a ten-thousand-yuan deposit..."

Miao Ruolan stood frozen in the doorway.

This time, it was a real son!

In this rainy weather, could they find him?

If they could, the police had already searched all night...

"Put your money away first!" Lin Xiaosu said. "Let me see a picture of your son!"

The woman hurriedly stuffed the money back into her bag, took out her phone, and showed Lin Xiaosu a photo of her son.

He looked about ten years old and a little thin. In the photo, he was with several classmates. Their faces were bright with youthful energy, their smiles carefree, while he alone hid in a corner, biting his finger and looking at the others with envious eyes. He seemed to want to join them, yet did not dare to, his embarrassment plain to see.

Right, his clothes were very old.

"He disappeared after leaving the school gates yesterday?" Lin Xiaosu asked.

"Yes!"

"Did anything unusual happen before he left yesterday?"

"Before he left yesterday, he... he said the school was buying uniforms and asked me for two hundred and seventy yuan. I didn't have any money on hand then, so I scolded him a little. The old uniform could still be worn, so why did he have to buy a new one? He wiped away his tears and went to school..."

Miao Ruolan's heart gave a slight jolt. Could the child have been dealt a blow and then gone down a path he should not have?

"Take me to the school gates!"

At the entrance of Fengcheng No. 2 Elementary School, Lin Xiaosu traced back to the scene after school yesterday. He saw the child as well.

The child had left the school gates alone and walked to Yishui Bund.

Most of the Bund had already been renovated into something beautiful, but no matter how lovely a park was, there would always be dark corners. The child had walked into one such scar, farther and farther away.

"He came here? This is the shortcut to my mother's house, but why didn't my mother..." The woman was both heartbroken and terrified.

She knew some children had strong pride. The poorer they were, the more fiercely they clung to their dignity. Everyone else had bought new uniforms, while he had not. If his classmates mocked him and he could not get over it, he might really jump into the river. Please, no. Anything but that.

Mom was wrong. Mom shouldn't have complained. Mom shouldn't have laid the family's hardships before you. Mom only begged you not to do anything foolish...

Lin Xiaosu, walking ahead, suddenly stopped and looked toward the deep ditch below. Tall grass sprawled across the ditch, and beneath its cover, a boy lay silently, his face deathly pale. It was the missing boy.

Miao Ruolan's heart lurched. "He's here!"

The ditch was over two meters deep. She jumped down in one step. The moment she landed, the wind stirred above, and the woman jumped down too, letting out a heart-rending cry. "Huai'er!"

Miao Ruolan's trembling fingers reached beneath the child's nose. "He's still breathing!"

The mother reached out fiercely, gathered the child into her arms, and cried out again and again.

The child gave no response. His breathing was faint to the point of vanishing.

Lin Xiaosu climbed down into the ditch as well. His fingers landed on the child's leg and lightly tugged up his pant leg. The calf was swollen, red, and burning hot.

"Snakebite!" Lin Xiaosu said. "Get him to the hospital immediately!"

"Go!"

Miao Ruolan sprang up, carried the child, and went straight up the ditch. It was the first time she had displayed her skills.

Lin Xiaosu reached out, grabbed the mother below, whose whole body had gone limp, and pulled her up.

The group hurried toward the hospital.

In the emergency room, the doctors moved swiftly. About ten minutes later, a doctor came out with a smile on his face. "Luckily, you got here early. Half an hour later, and he truly couldn't have been saved!"

"Huai'er... Huai'er, he... he's all right?" the mother asked tremulously.

"Don't worry. The snake venom, combined with the cold and hunger, made him pass out. The antivenom has already taken effect. He's awake now..."

The mother rushed toward the emergency room, but just as she reached the door, she came back. Thud! She knelt before Lin Xiaosu and held out the ten thousand yuan. "Detective Lin, thank you for saving Huai'er's life. I only brought ten thousand yuan with me. The remaining twenty thousand, I... I'll definitely bring it to the detective agency tomorrow."

Several doctors and nurses all froze.

A detective?

What an obscure term...

A reward of thirty thousand yuan was pretty tempting, too.

"Forget the money. Why talk about money over something that took no effort..." Lin Xiaosu helped her up, slipped the ten thousand yuan back into her bag, and turned to leave.

The sun sank in the west.

Yishui shimmered with light.

The crowds on the streets gradually thinned, while the lights of the commercial district came on.

A black sedan stopped outside the detective agency. A beautiful woman opened the door and walked over.

It was Zhou Mei.

As soon as Zhou Mei entered the detective agency, she accepted the tea Miao Ruolan handed her and smiled at Lin Xiaosu. "You've only been open for two days, but I've heard two versions of your pricing policy. Both are quite shocking."

"Is that so?" Lin Xiaosu looked up from the book in front of him.

"Yesterday, someone came looking for a fake son, and you charged him real money without mercy. You actually had the nerve to ask for thirty thousand yuan! Today, someone came looking for her real son and handed you genuine cash, yet you did the job for free!" Zhou Mei said. "Buddy, is your pricing policy just whatever you feel like?"

Lin Xiaosu sighed. "You think I wanted to do it for free? The problem is, she couldn't even afford the two hundred and seventy yuan her child needed for a school uniform. How could I have the nerve to squeeze her dry?"

"You know shame and still have a bit of conscience. That's not bad..." Zhou Mei's eyes turned lightly. "Looks like if I need your help with something in the future, I won't need to worry about money. I helped you get your license, I helped you rent this place, and you'd be too embarrassed to charge me..."

Lin Xiaosu's eyes slowly widened. "Cut it out! We keep accounts separate. I traded my help last time for the license and the shop. If you want me to take a case later, I'll carry on your provincial department leader family's fine tradition—starting at ten thousand!"

"You heartless bastard. I was just praising you for staying true to yourself and being kind at heart."

"If you're trying to tie me up, at least use a different line. I'm running a business, and you're talking to me about staying true to myself? Even my mom knows my original aspiration is making money..."

While they bickered, Miao Ruolan laughed beside them...

Zhou Mei noticed her amusement and shot her a glance. "Don't laugh. He's making things difficult for you! How are you supposed to quote clients in the future? There's no standard at all."

That was true. When the boss had no standards, the employees had no idea what to do. Lin Xiaosu's prices were completely unpredictable, based entirely on his mood. How was Miao Ruolan supposed to run the business?

Lin Xiaosu took over. "On the contrary, I'm setting Ruolan free. If I can do whatever I want, then naturally she can do whatever she wants too. Ruolan, from now on, set whatever price you like when taking cases. If you like the client, do it for free. If you don't, squeeze them dry!"

Miao Ruolan was dumbfounded. "Are you serious? Let me warn you, I'm not very clever. Sometimes I can't understand when people are joking..."

The three were around the same age. As they sat together and chatted through the night, they grew more and more relaxed.

Late at night, Zhou Mei finally got up. Lin Xiaosu and Miao Ruolan walked her to the door. Before getting into her car, Zhou Mei crooked a finger lightly, and Lin Xiaosu leaned close.

A fragrant breath brushed into his ear. "Be careful. Watch out for someone making a move against you!"

Then she got into the car and drove away.

Lin Xiaosu swept his gaze across the street ahead, then returned to the detective agency.

It was already late. The door was shut and locked from the inside.

After they went upstairs, Miao Ruolan entered his room. "When Zhou Mei said you should watch out for someone making a move against you, who was she referring to?"

Zhou Mei had curled her finger and beckoned Lin Xiaosu over. It had looked rather intimate. If Miao Ruolan had been his girlfriend, she might have interrogated him closely about what Zhou Mei had whispered in his ear.

But Miao Ruolan was an inheritor of ancient martial arts, and her six senses were extraordinary. She had heard those words clearly.

Lin Xiaosu said, "She was probably referring to those drug dealers and the people behind them."

"I looked into it. The man who dropped the package back then was named Huang San. After the police caught him, they arrested another six people. I never expected such a large drug trafficking ring in little Fengcheng."

"Fengcheng may be small, but it connects the three rivers!" Lin Xiaosu said. "There are signs that this is a distribution hub for drugs in the central region."

Miao Ruolan gazed out the window. "Do we need to get involved?"

Lin Xiaosu said, "Who would want to get involved with an organization this filthy when there's no reason to? But sometimes, even when the tree wants peace, the wind will not stop. If we don't go after them, they'll still see us as thorns in their side. It's time to pull out this tumor!"

"Fine! What do you need me to do?" Miao Ruolan asked.

"For now, we'll keep taking cases and investigating them as usual. We'll wait for an opportunity..."

Miao Ruolan left, and the door closed behind her.

Lin Xiaosu sat cross-legged and entered his usual nightly routine.

He was practicing martial arts.

Strangely enough, back when he studied, he had always felt like someone needed to crack a whip behind him before he could pick up a book.

But now, with no one forcing him, he was actually very diligent.

Perhaps it was because martial arts gave him more passion than studying ever had.

Ever since the Spring Return Skill had been unlocked, he had not missed a single day, meditating and cultivating every day.

The Spring Return Skill was unlike ordinary martial arts. In most martial arts, the route along which true qi circulated was fixed. Daily meditation was dull and tasteless, and all it trained was the strength of one's true qi.

But the Spring Return Skill's true qi routes were not fixed.

Every day, he could try a new approach and let his true qi travel along a completely new route. It was like opening a blind box in a game. He never knew what changes a route would bring once opened. Even the sect's founding ancestor had not known, because the meridians within the human body were nearly infinite, and their possible combinations even more so.

Lin Xiaosu had tried one route before. It was the original configuration set by the founding ancestor.