Tong Haojing was taken to a small room on the ground floor of West City Police Station. Officers Lan and Lu arranged for auxiliary police officers at the station to watch Tong Haojing and not allow him to move about freely.
Tong Haojing immediately flared up. He rose to charge outside, but the two auxiliary officers reacted swiftly, grabbing his arms head-on and shouting, "Sit down, sit down! Don't act impulsively, or you'll suffer for it!"
At that moment, Ke Qian, a young female officer in a police uniform, came out of the Household Registration Office and shouted, "What's going on? What's going on!"
The Household Registration Office was right beside the small room. Ke Qian had heard the auxiliary officers' shouts and come out to see what was happening.
Ke Qian was twenty-two and had graduated with a bachelor's degree from Hexi Police Academy. She had just been assigned to West City Police Station as the household registration and internal affairs officer. Standing 1.7 meters tall, she spoke fluent standard Mandarin that commanded respect. Her fair face and short ponytail conveyed a female officer's clean elegance.
"Miss, go get your director. I haven't done anything illegal!"
Ke Qian glanced at Tong Haojing. Thinking that this tall young man, with his somewhat mischievous and endearing face and mellow voice, hardly looked like someone who would break the law, she shook her head regretfully and said without any dislike, "Wait a moment!"
"I want to see your director! What right do you have to keep me in this little room?" Tong Haojing had already realized that the police station had treated him as a lawbreaker. Catching a robber had somehow become a mistake—something he had never expected. He paced restlessly around the room, unable to suppress the rage in his heart, muttering to himself in fury.
"How could this happen? How could this happen?"
"The director is in a meeting. He'll be here shortly!" A police officer who looked like a regular officer came downstairs and tried to reassure Tong Haojing.
"Oh no, this is going to delay things," Tong Haojing said abruptly. Only then did he suddenly remember that, before he had left home, his mother had told him to go to the Civil Affairs Bureau to learn about his placement assignment.
There were quite a few people at West City Police Station to handle business.
"Officer, if you have anything to ask, please hurry. I still need to go to the Civil Affairs Bureau to handle something important!" Tong Haojing pleaded anxiously.
No one in the small room answered him. A few citizens there on business merely peeked curiously through the doorway, and some could not resist lecturing the children beside them. "See? If you don't behave, you'll be locked in a dark room!" The little children were frightened into tears, while their parents kept consoling them. "What a coward. It's fake!" Laughter followed.
Tong Haojing felt as though he had truly become an utterly heinous criminal, the people outside looking at him with disdainful curiosity.
Officers Lan and Lu had already gone up to the third floor to report the case to the director and discuss the next steps.
Tong Haojing urged the police once again to question him. The young man beside him, who had been playing a game on his phone, slowly raised his head and gave Tong Haojing a cold look. "What are you yelling for? The director is calling the officers into a meeting! Someone died. Do you think it's that simple?" The young man roared impatiently, clearly telling Tong Haojing to shut up.
"Did someone really die?" Tong Haojing wanted confirmation and repeated the question twice, but no one answered. In fact, the hospital had already called to report that the short injured man had died after a severed artery in his leg caused excessive blood loss and resuscitation failed. They asked the police station to deal with the aftermath.
The two men guarding him were auxiliary officers. He seemed to realize that he had said something wrong, or perhaps something he should not have said. The young man stood and paced back and forth beside Tong Haojing, muttering, "I'm going to get criticized again!"
Only then did Tong Haojing realize that the matter was far from as simple as he had imagined. There was not enough evidence to prove that Scarface was a criminal. What if there was no evidence in the end? Scarface had jumped into the river during his fight with Tong Haojing. What if Scarface's family refused to let it go? Tong Haojing's head buzzed, his vision went black, and it felt as if the sky had collapsed. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Suddenly, he sensed the gravity of the situation—if Scarface could not be found, if Shorty's injury had been caused by Scarface, if no one else had witnessed it, if... wouldn't he be unable to clear himself even if he jumped into the Yellow River?
The more Tong Haojing thought about it, the more frightened he became. He even thought about compensation, losing his job, losing his freedom, and his mother... He began to wonder whether what he had done today had been wrong, whether he had acted impulsively without considering the consequences. No! He had been an officer in the military for years; he knew right from wrong well enough. There could never be anything wrong with justice defeating evil. The truth would come out eventually. He believed the police were the embodiment of justice. That was why, during this transfer and placement, he had made policing his first choice. He had thought it over carefully, and it could fulfill his dream as well.
Tong Haojing tried desperately to control his emotions and calmed down, but he found that the thoughts in his mind kept multiplying and spreading beyond his control. There were too many thoughts, too complicated...
After waiting for quite a while, Officers Lan and Lu finally came downstairs, called Tong Haojing out of the small room, and took him to the Criminal Investigation Squad office. At the same time, two other officers at the station were questioning Uncle Mumu.
Tong Haojing sat opposite Officers Lan and Lu. Their positions were relatively equal now, and his sense of grievance eased considerably. Only then did he let out a long breath.
"Whatever you want to ask, hurry up. I have other things to do!" Tong Haojing's eagerness to leave was obvious to Officers Lan and Lu. But how could he know that, before the matter was investigated clearly, leaving would be no easy matter? What awaited him was a prison sentence.
Officers Lan and Lu sat in the interrogation room and began questioning him solemnly. "We are officers from the West City Police Station of the Tangdu City Public Security Bureau. We need to ask you about someone jumping into the Tangdu River. You must answer our questions truthfully. You have the right to refuse to answer questions unrelated to the case... Do you understand?"
"I understand!" In truth, Tong Haojing had not listened at all. What he wanted to tell them was what had really happened at the scene.
"Name?"
"Tong Haojing."
"Education level?"
"Bachelor's degree!"
"Occupation?"
"A transferred reconnaissance soldier from a certain military unit's Special Operations Unit. I graduated in criminal psychology and am awaiting placement."
"How did you come into contact with the person who jumped into the river?"
"A woman shouted that someone had been robbed. A man with a scar on his face ran toward us, so I went forward and blocked his path."
"How did you determine that Scarface was the robber?"
"He looked vicious, and he had a knife in his hand."
"Where is the knife?"
"When you took me away, didn't I remind you about it?" Officers Lan and Lu looked at each other. Officer Lan suddenly remembered. He suddenly felt that Tong Haojing was rather professional when it came to police evidence collection. As expected of a soldier trained in special reconnaissance.
"That's right. There are two of them in our patrol car." Lu Tong remembered and whispered softly to Officer Lan.
"Why did Scarface jump into the river?"
"I wanted to escort him to the police station, but he panicked and jumped straight into the river. I even went into the river to save him, but I couldn't find him."
"How many people were on the other side?"
"Two—no, three!" Tong Haojing suddenly remembered that a Middle-parted Hair had appeared afterward. There had initially been two men, but for some reason another had shown up later. Tong Haojing added this, somewhat puzzled himself.
"How was Shorty injured?"
"Scarface stabbed him..."
"Middle-parted Hair said you killed him. How do you explain that?"
"You believe him? That man wasn't even at the scene!" Tong Haojing turned to Officer Lan, hoping the police would not easily believe the baseless words of a thug.
"Is that so?"
"Where is the woman? What did she look like?"
"I didn't see her chase after us. I don't know where she went. You'll have to investigate that yourselves!" Tong Haojing's aloof and arrogant manner angered Officers Lan and Lu.
Officer Lan continued questioning him for another half hour, while Lu Tong took extensive notes beside him. Tong Haojing examined every word carefully. What troubled him was that the officers' most frequent and detailed questions concerned how Shorty's injury had been caused. Yet Officer Lan did not tell him that Shorty was already dead.
Uneasily, Tong Haojing signed his name and pressed his fingerprint.
"Can I leave now?" Tong Haojing asked.
"Wait a moment. There are still some details that need verifying." Officer Lan gave him a few perfunctory answers, deliberately stalling for time. He was waiting for Director Tang Changan's instructions on what to do next.
Just then, Director Tang came downstairs, called Officer Lan over, and whispered a few words to him. Officers Lan and Lu put on their sidearms, got into the patrol car, and hurried out of the police station.
Before you continue