Unqualified Onlooker

"What is this?" Cheng Yun asked in confusion.

Zhou Jiaxing was wearing his police uniform while the other two were in plain clothes. Without missing a beat, he smiled and said, "Boss Cheng, mind if we sit at your place for a while?"

"Of course not," Cheng Yun replied immediately, quickly putting the pieces together. "Did you find him?"

"Found him, right in this neighborhood," Zhou Jiaxing said. "We owe it to the information you provided. We checked nearby surveillance footage and spotted him after a quick comparison."

"So what's the plan now?" Cheng Yun was a bit lost.

"We wait," Zhou Jiaxing sat down on the sofa, checked his watch, and said, "We'll stake out here first and make the move once the night gets quiet and deep."

"I thought only cops in TV shows waited until night to make arrests," Cheng Yun said awkwardly.

"Whenever a case or suspect is a bit tricky, we pretty much always make arrests at night. There are fewer people around at night, and much less social interference. Otherwise, if the target goes crazy, starts running around swinging a weapon, or drops to the ground screaming that the police are beating him, it'll be all over the news tomorrow," Zhou Jiaxing shook his head and said. "That guy falls into the tricky category all around—his identity, the case, and the guy himself."

"Mhm," Cheng Yun nodded.

He had seen that Black man twice, and the guy was seriously built like an ox. Standing over one meter ninety tall and weighing well over a hundred kilograms, three guys like Zhou Jiaxing probably couldn't pin him down.

Besides, the topics of "foreigners committing crimes" and even "Black men committing crimes" were becoming increasingly sensitive on the internet these days.

At that moment, a plainclothes policeman beside them chimed in with indignant frustration: "If you ask me, we should just charge straight in. If that bastard tries to fight back, blow his head off on the spot!"

"Blow his head off?" Zhou Jiaxing slanted a glance at him, patted his own waist, and said, "Higher-ups already know some people think that way—didn't you notice I didn't even bring my gun? How would you report it to the superiors if you fired a shot? Plus, once someone records it and the media swarms in, boom, it'll be front-page news tomorrow!"

"Damn!" that plainclothes cop cursed.

"What on earth did that Black guy do? It sounds pretty serious," Cheng Yun couldn't help asking.

"You'd better not ask about that," Zhou Jiaxing said, casting an intentional or accidental glance outside.

Cheng Yun didn't mind. He poured each of the three a cup of glass of water before saying, "In that case, you guys are going to need to dispatch a lot more people to catch him. Once he decides to run, it won't be easy to chase or block him off."

Zhou Jiaxing's gaze turned somewhat cold. "Tell me about it! If he really starts roaming the streets, darting through alleys, we won't be able to catch up if we chase together, and one or two people won't be able to cut him off if we split up. That's why we're trying our luck tonight to see if we can trap him straight inside a building! To top it all off, a whole bunch of other things came up recently; we're this close to borrowing personnel from the traffic police. Look at these two—they were just borrowed from the local police station!"

"Manpower is that tight?"

Zhou Jiaxing nodded and said, "It's fine though. Once he's pinned down, he won't be able to run. Out of all the work we do, catching people is actually the easiest part."

Cheng Yun had a rough idea of the situation now.

Just then, Zhou Jiaxing received a phone call. Not long after, a Volkswagen parked outside the hotel, and a sturdy-looking fellow stepped out, pushing the glass door open and walking straight in.

"Manggou!" the man stared straight at Zhou Jiaxing.

"Captain Liang!" Zhou Jiaxing nodded in greeting.

"We might have to make our move after midnight later, so take turns on the stakeout. You can rest first if you're sleepy. I've set up a new WeChat group—watch for notifications in there later and make sure you don't miss the messages. Everyone must move together; heaven only knows if that kid has any weapons on him!" The man addressed as Captain Liang stopped in front of Zhou Jiaxing, glanced at Cheng Yun, Cheng Yan, and Heroine Yin watching a movie at the front desk, and continued, "I borrowed two guys from the SWAT team, they're with Old Chen, and they'll team up with you guys when the time comes."

"Two SWAT officers?"

"Yeah, I practically talked my mouth dry just to squeeze two guys out of them, those little bastards," Captain Liang said.

"What equipment are they carrying?"

"Riot forks and shields, what else!?" Captain Liang glanced at Zhou Jiaxing. "The higher-ups want us to snatch that little bastard quietly and then quietly push through the paperwork without making a fuss. Otherwise, it'll be hard to clean up if it blows up."

"Understood."

"Understood my ass!" A fierce edge flickered across Captain Liang's face. "Anyway, superiors want you guys to keep things quiet, but there's no need for you to be cowardly either. That little bastard is built strong enough to flip an ox, so don't hold back when it's time to lay into him. Don't be timid and end up getting yourselves hurt instead."

"Got it." Zhou Jiaxing nodded fiercely as well, a trace of ferocity flashing in his eyes.

"I'm heading out then."

"Alright!"

Once Captain Liang left, Zhou Jiaxing looked over at Cheng Yun and smiled, "Boss, what time do you close up shop tonight?"

"Pretty late," Cheng Yun said, pointing toward the car driving away outside and asking, "Was that your detachment captain?"

"Squadron, his name is Liang Bo."

"Oh," Cheng Yun nodded.

The clock steadily ticked closer to ten, and the night grew deep.

Zhou Jiaxing looked at the two police officers beside him and said, "You guys catch some shut-eye for a bit, I'll wake you up when it's time."

"We're fine."

"Don't lose your focus later on, though!"

"The college entrance exams just wrapped up these past few days, and summer vacation is starting up, so there's tons of stuff going on. We usually sleep late anyway."

"Fine then!" Zhou Jiaxing didn't ask any further.

Cheng Yun also glanced at Cheng Yan beside him and said, "What about you? Don't you usually go upstairs to sleep around this time?"

Hearing this, several of the police officers looked over at Cheng Yan.

This young woman was truly drop-dead gorgeous.

"Not yet," Cheng Yan shook her head, her expression blank and her voice chilly. "It's rare to get a chance to watch the show, so I'll stay right here and watch it with you."

"Uh, alright then."

Time ticked away drop by drop, and Zhou Jiaxing and the two officers inevitably grew a bit drowsy; Cheng Yun alone saw them rub their eyes multiple times. Yet Zhou Jiaxing kept his eyes glued either to the street outside or his phone screen, occasionally sending out voice messages.

From this, Cheng Yun gathered that the Black man seemed to have already grown suspicious because the police hadn't been overly stealthy. However, the Black man was still trapped inside a building and had no way to sprout wings and fly off. Meanwhile, the police had long since gone door-to-door warning residents not to open up if strangers knocked.

Around one-thirty in the morning, the pedestrians outside finally thinned out. Even the barbecue stand grew quiet, the owner sitting around playing on his phone and getting ready to close up.

Right then, a voice message played from Zhou Jiaxing's phone: "Manggou, get ready. We start the arrest in five minutes."

Zhou Jiaxing replied, "Copy that."

With that, he cast an apologetic look at Cheng Yun, stood up to stretch his body, and said, "Manggou is my childhood nickname, given by my mom. Because I got sick when I was little and almost died, people said cheap names make it easier to raise a kid, so she gave me that name! By the way, do you have any handy tools around here? Something small and convenient would be best—these two bozos didn't even tuck a single police baton into their belts."

Right then, Heroine Yin slapped the spacebar with a clack and said, "I have a shor—whoa!"

"Whoa what?" Zhou Jiaxing stared at her.

Heroine Yin blinked twice, her face flushing red, and she hurriedly waved her hands. "N-nothing at all."

"Huh?"

"I'll go find something for you guys," Cheng Yun said, shooting Heroine Yin a fierce glare before heading upstairs.

Heroine Yin wore a wronged expression, then quickly squatted down and furiously patted the dust off her shoes—getting stepped on wasn't a big deal, but these were her newly bought shoes!

Before long, Cheng Yun came back down holding a rolling pin. "I just opened this place up, so this is all I've got."

"Make do with it, sigh, these two blockheads." Zhou Jiaxing sighed.

The two police officers looked at each other in dismay. "Didn't Captain Liang tell us to come empty-handed?"

"He told you to wear plain clothes, but you should've at least tucked a telescopic baton and a high-intensity flashlight into your belts!" Zhou Jiaxing rolled his eyes. Although he was also young, he was still two or three years older than the two officers.

"..."

At that moment, a voice sounded from the phone: "Is every unit in position?"

Zhou Jiaxing hurriedly answered, "In position."

"Initiate the operation!"

Hearing that, Zhou Jiaxing didn't hesitate a second. He whipped a telescopic baton from his waist, flicked it open with a sharp snap, and tossed a high-intensity flashlight to the empty-handed officer, saying, "Use it carefully, the quality is top-notch, don't flash it in friendly eyes!"

"Rest assured!"

"And don't break it for me, it costs several hundred bucks!"

"Hehe!"

The three of them immediately dashed out.

Cheng Yun and Heroine Yin also hurriedly rushed out the door, stopping right on the sidewalk to watch the direction the men had left.

Only then did Cheng Yun realize that the spot they were heading to was directly across the street!

No wonder Zhou Jiaxing kept looking across the way; Cheng Yun had been wondering at the time what they would do if the Black man hailed a car and fled, since sitting here wouldn't let them see a thing!

So that was it!

On the other hand, Cheng Yan, who had earlier declared she wanted to watch the excitement, sat quite calmly inside the front desk, continuing to flip through her book. She merely glanced at Cheng Yun and said lightly, "Watch right here, don't run off far."

"Oh," Cheng Yun nodded in response.

The two of them walked a bit closer to the roadside, and Heroine Yin softly asked, "So the government runners in your world are like this?"

"Yeah, what did you expect?"

"The government runners in our world all carry sabers, look scrawny enough that a single kick could flip over a few of them, have blade edges so dull they'd struggle to chop vegetables, and still have the guts to stick out their hands and demand money from you." Heroine Yin said somewhat indignantly, clearly having been swindled plenty of times. "I used to think nobody broke the law in your world; I didn't expect there are still government runners specifically in charge of handling these things."

"If we didn't have rules and law enforcers, our world probably wouldn't be much better off," Cheng Yun said, watching as Zhou Jiaxing, the two officers, Old Chen, and the two SWAT officers carrying shields and long forks converged. Zhou Jiaxing, Old Chen, and the two SWAT officers went straight into the building, leaving the two sturdier-looking police officers behind to guard the outside, one on each side.

Cheng Yun and Heroine Yin stared from the hotel entrance. Aside from them, there were two other spectators: a middle-aged barbecue stand owner and a young man who looked like he had just stepped out of an internet cafe to grab some barbecue to fill his stomach.

Scarcely two minutes after Zhou Jiaxing and the others went up, a tall, dark shadow suddenly slid down the drainage pipe of the old building. Moving with lightning speed, in the blink of an eye it dropped from the fourth floor to the third, then flashed to the second floor, and next thing they knew, the figure jumped directly down from the second floor.

Bang!

A dull thud echoed as the figure hit the ground.

Zhou Jiaxing and the others had been waiting for the dead of night, but it was clear the opponent had been waiting for them too.

Fortunately, Zhou Jiaxing's group likely had experience with this and anticipated such a possibility, so they had prepared preventive measures down below—

There were still two tall police officers stationed right on the ground!

Though the two officers were standing close by, they noticed the dark shadow almost ahead of Cheng Yun. Shouting sharply, they closed in and lunged fiercely at the figure the very instant he landed.

The high-intensity flashlight cut through the dark with a blinding glare!

Yet the dark shadow was wearing polarized sunglasses and abruptly twisted his body, unleashing an explosive burst of force that directly flung the officer holding the flashlight through the air. He then rolled on the ground, narrowly dodging the second officer. Instead of panicking and fleeing, he charged straight at the nearby officer, shielding his head with one arm while violently swinging a punch with the other, striking the officer right in the face.

With a heavy thud, the officer collapsed on the spot.

Just watching from the sidelines, Cheng Yun could easily imagine how terrifying that punch's force must have been! Standing over one meter ninety tall and weighing well over a hundred kilograms, knocking down a slender, tall man of around one meter eighty was absolute child's play for him!

Forget regular cops; even special forces soldiers would drop to their knees!

Perhaps Zhou Jiaxing and the others hadn't factored in the Black man's stamina, or perhaps they had, but the police force was simply too strapped for manpower.

During Cheng Yun's brief moment of daze, the Black man had already broken into a sprint toward a dark alley, moving at incredible speed.

The other officer who had been thrown aside scrambled up quickly. Picking up the dropped flashlight from the ground, he shouted at the top of his lungs and charged after him: "Stop right there! Don't run! Freeze, police!"

The two individuals at the barbecue stand paused for a moment, only reacting when they heard that final word: police.

The moment the barbecue owner saw the Black man's build, he knew it wasn't someone he could afford to mess with, so he stood frozen and didn't dare make a move. The young man, however, showed a bit more grit. As the Black man bolted past him, he casually snatched up a folding plastic stool and hurled it forward.

Bang!

The stool slammed into the Black man, causing him to stumble in his high-speed run, though he didn't fall.

The young man froze, seeming to hesitate. It wasn't until the pursuing police officer raced past him that he gritted his teeth and took off after them.

Seeing this, Cheng Yun's heart began racing. He hurried over toward the opposite side where the fallen officer lay motionless, planning to check on his injuries, while turning his head to ask Heroine Yin, "Should we chase after them too?"

"When it's time to be cowardly, you've got to be cowardly." Cheng Yan's chilly voice came from behind. She followed right behind Cheng Yun and said, "The officer lying on the ground comes first. I won't look down on you for this."

Heroine Yin, however, crossed her arms and held the opposite view: "Cowardly? What's there to be afraid of with a little scum like that? I could take a hundred of them!"

Cheng Yun fell silent.

The hard truth was that the Black man was running in the complete opposite direction from him. Unlike the barbecue-eating fellow, he didn't hold a geographical advantage, and he didn't even own an electric scooter. Chasing after them on foot like this looked utterly foolish—unless he exposed Heroine Yin's heaven-defying physical stats.

In just a fraction of a second, he grabbed Heroine Yin and bolted after them, warning at the same time, "Remember what I told you."

He left Cheng Yan standing by the police officer with a sigh.

By this time, the Black man had already ducked into a dark alley, his figure nearly swallowed by the shadows.

In less than a minute, the police officer and the barbecue youth stood staring in a daze as Cheng Yun sped past them, maintaining a full-on sprint speed even after running a few hundred meters. Right behind him came a short yet perfectly proportioned girl who looked like an underage youth; her stride frequency wasn't fast, but every step covered an enormous distance, as gracefully executed as a ballet dance.

"What the hell!" The barbecue youth slowly ground to a halt. He simply couldn't run any further and figured he might as well go back and settle his barbecue tab.

The narrow alley was illuminated only by dim, yellowish streetlights. In the distance, the Black man's figure could barely be seen making a sharp left turn into yet another alley, seemingly out of reach.

Yet Heroine Yin remained completely calm. She cast an inquiring look at Cheng Yun, and upon receiving a nod of approval, she bent her knees and sprang upward, her entire form vanishing from the alley as if swallowed by the dark.