Chapter 366: Don't Let Chao Zi Die On Me...

“A 10,000-yuan reward.”

“Yeah, your Brother Huo said you don’t get much love at home, and you want to stay in Jiangsan City this year… Fine, stay. Take this and you’ll have something to show your parents.”

An honorary… advisor!?

Not an honorary police dog certificate!?

He, Wang Chao, had evolved from an honorary police dog into an honorary advisor!

Wang Chao froze. The next second, a wave of warmth spread through his heart.

“Director Chu, your pen fell on the floor just now. It’s my fault—my breathing was a little too loud.”

“Here, let me get that for you!”

Wang Chao immediately sidled up to him with a shameless grin, excitedly cradling his medal and certificate.

Chu Linhai chuckled, but when he noticed Wang Chao’s expression, his own face immediately turned stern.

“What are you looking at?”

“It’s an unpaid position!”

“Did you think the police department would pay you for nothing?”

“Hehe, I don’t need a salary, I don’t need a salary.”

Wang Chao chuckled, cradling the medal and certificate as if they were priceless treasures.

He looked like he wanted to give Chu Linhai a shoulder massage, but Chu Linhai couldn’t take it anymore.

“Get lost, get lost! I get annoyed just looking at you.”

“Go, go, go!”

Wang Chao wasn’t offended. He knew that the advisor title wouldn’t have been possible without Chu Linhai’s approval.

He knew that while the old man in front of him talked tough, he had a good heart.

After all, even someone as formidable as Xu Huo got roasted by this old man every day.

But out in the world, if anyone dared to speak ill of them… the old man would protect his own like a mother bear.

“Going, going, I’m going!”

Wang Chao ducked out of the room with a bow.

The door closed with a CLICK.

Chu Linhai let out a breath. His stern expression relaxed, revealing a faint smile.

“Tsk, that little rascal.”

To be honest, he had rather complicated feelings about Wang Chao, and the same went for Xu Huo.

If Xu Huo had properly joined the system, his future accomplishments would have been at least a rank higher than his own. At that point, even if Chu Linhai had Parkinson’s, he’d be nodding his head ‘yes,’ not shaking it ‘no’.

And Wang Chao?

The people in charge of the economy had seen Wang Chao’s notebooks and were awestruck, hailing him as a genius—and that was based on only one or two pages.

To put it simply, if that kid could just catch a favorable wind, he would undoubtedly soar.

And wherever his company established its headquarters, that place would be guaranteed to become a second-tier city. A city with even a modicum of ambition and a decent location could at least make it to the lower end of the second-tier rankings. This was no exaggeration.

The annual taxes it would pay and the economic ripple effects it would generate could revitalize an entire city district.

One could have risen through the system to the Capital City.

The other could have soared to the top of the business world.

Individually, they were the kind of talent that any organization would fight to recruit. But…

As fate would have it, they had found each other.

And when those two got together, it was a recipe for disaster.

“Tsk. I just hope nothing goes wrong over the New Year.”

As Chu Linhai thought this, a wistful expression crossed his face.

“Let’s just have a peaceful New Year.”

…

…

Wang Chao left.

But had he really left?

Well, he’d left in a sense.

He had, in fact, walked out of the office, but he was still inside the police station.

With the medal pinned to his chest and the red certificate cradled in his hands, Wang Chao paced round and round the municipal bureau.

A few rookie Police Officers who had just been made official watched his retreating back with puzzled expressions.

“What’s with him?”

“What’s he pacing for?”

The few of them pondered for a long time but couldn’t figure it out.

Not until he pushed open the door to the cafeteria.

It was lunchtime, and many in the police station were still having their meal.

The cafeteria lady glanced at him and asked out of habit.

“The usual?”

“The usual!”

Wang Chao declared with a grand wave of his hand.

The lady was already used to him. She calmly dished up his food, but then she suddenly spotted a pile of loose change.

The lady was stunned, looking at Wang Chao in disbelief.

“I’m in a good mood today!”

Wang Chao waved his hand again, indicating that she could keep the change, then picked up his tray and walked away.

He usually ate for free—a special privilege granted by Chu Linhai himself, with the director footing the bill. This made Wang Chao something of a king in the cafeteria.

However… the lady held the money and watched his retreating back, looking like she wanted to say something but couldn’t, then wanted to again.

“This isn’t enough money…”

Wang Chao, however, didn’t hear her.

He scanned the cafeteria, and upon spotting a few familiar faces, he quickly jogged over to them.

…

「Meanwhile, at another table.」

“How’s the cleanup work on the cases we had before the New Year?”

Xu Huo asked as he chewed his rice, looking up at the other members of the special task force at the table.

There were six people in total: Xu Huo, Zhang Liang, Sun Jian, Su Cheng, Zhao Gang, and Li Jianye, who wasn’t an official member of the group.

“The ‘Human Skin Case’ in the Capital City is nearly wrapped up,” Zhang Liang reported. “We’ve caught most of the domestic suspects. The rest we’re leaving at large to bait the bigger fish. With the Capital City going all-out for the last twenty days, the whole network is now clear.”

“What about the Ghost Messenger case?” Xu Huo asked, looking at Li Jianye.

The others were used to him calling the case that by now, so no one objected.

“Your task force took over the case. Why are you, the team leader, asking me?”

Li Jianye rolled his eyes and went back to eating his meal.

Xu Huo turned to Su Cheng.

Su Cheng, from National Security, paused, his brow furrowed. “There’s good news and there’s bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”

“The good news.”

“The good news is, this case may have foreign connections. And, well, a number of Chinese nationals are involved.”

“If we keep investigating, we might make a major breakthrough.”

“And the bad news?”

Xu Huo asked again.

“The bad news is…”

Su Cheng paused before continuing:

“The bad news is that the diary from the lab… its fundamental reason for existing may not be to be a ‘diary’…”

Xu Huo paused, his brow knitting in thought.

‘The diary is definitely suspicious.’

‘But what was the issue?’

‘The diary was left out on a shelf.’

‘Who in their right mind leaves their diary out on a shelf?’

‘After you finish writing in a diary, do you just leave it in a library for anyone to read!?’

‘Of course not. But the people we’re after aren’t fools, which can only mean…’

“We investigated the other researchers,” Su Cheng continued. “They were indeed conducting human experiments.”