He was the first to pull a waist token from his blue cotton undershirt. It was basically the same as Master Tiger's, except for an extra silver border.
Following his lead, the man and woman behind him also showed their waist tokens. Both were plain black iron tokens like Master Tiger's, without decorative borders.
Master Tiger took out his own waist token, flashed it, and put it away again.
The young man called Hong Zhu looked a little more relaxed. Seeing that Master Tiger's waist token was only the most ordinary black iron kind, he knew this was a Ghost Constable of the lowest rank.
Cui Jiuyang could hear nothing. He only saw the people opposite and Master Tiger flash their waist tokens at each other, whipping them out and putting them away. It felt just like the ICAC and police showing each other their identification in a Hong Kong film.
Kind of cool.
Then the three looked at him and said something. Master Tiger offered a few words of explanation. The young man seemed unwilling, but the old man stopped him with a few words.
In Cui Jiuyang's mind, that whole exchange had already become a grand scene dubbed in Hong Kong movie accents.
(Hong Kong movie dubbing voices)
Young man (in an exaggerated, accusing tone): "Ghost Constables are handling a case! How can you bring bystanders along? You're a rookie, mate, and you've already brought an unauthorized person?!"
Master Tiger (retorting with sound reasoning): "This is my brother. Wherever we go in this world, we brothers stand shoulder to shoulder. We've never drawn a line between us."
Young woman (in a fault-finding tone): "Then why did the higher-ups only issue you a token? Because they didn't fancy that potato of a brother of yours, obviously!"
Master Tiger (angry