CYCGS 09

Chapter – 09

Owner and Pet

Cao Yiman and several of his team members were positioned scattered around, forming an encirclement about seven or eight meters away from the center.

At the heart of the open circle, at the foot of a tall wall at the end of the alley, a middle-aged woman in her forties sat crouched on the ground, her face streaked with tears. A military knife pressed tightly against her throat glinted coldly, and a trace of blood was already trickling down her neck from the wound.

Behind her crouched a figure in a black lace jumpsuit, legs spread and back against the wall, holding the woman firmly in their embrace. Their face was completely hidden, not a single feature visible—only long wavy hair spilled over their shoulders, occasionally swaying slightly in the night breeze.

Cao Yiman shot Yan Tuo a look and shook his head, indicating no progress whatsoever.

Zhao Ge, having sized up the best entry point, quickly slipped into his role. Picking up a loudspeaker, he began his psychological offensive.

He started speaking in the dialect of the neighboring province, adopting the tone of an elder scolding a foolish nephew:

“Zhang Yansheng, you blockhead! You can’t get away yourself, so you want to drag someone down with you? Sister Wang here has a family—a kid in middle school. She’s worked for you all these years—even if she has no great merits, she’s put in her share of hard work! What did she ever do to you… you heartless bastard…”

The person trapped against the wall showed no reaction whatsoever.

Yan Tuo received a report through his earpiece: behind the wall was a large open area with no high ground. The two snipers had managed to find relatively suitable positions on the rooftops flanking the alley, but the angles were poor, and the suspect was completely hidden behind the hostage. The situation was extremely difficult.

Yan Tuo’s mind raced furiously, his face betraying nothing as he listened to Zhao Ge’s relentless broadcast.

Time ticked by minute by minute. The standoff had now dragged on for nearly four hours. Zhao Ge had thrown everything he had at it—every rhetorical skill he possessed, repeating the same points two or three times over—yet still couldn’t extract a single word from the other side.

Reason didn’t work. Emotion didn’t work. Provocation didn’t work. He decided to take a tactical break.

His voice already hoarse, he said to Yan Tuo in a low, weary tone: “This isn’t good. I’d even take her screaming and cursing at me—at least that’d be something. But this total silence… she’s probably resigned to death. No will to live at all. I’m going out for a smoke to clear my head.”

The word “desire” brushed past Yan Tuo’s ear. He grabbed Zhao Ge’s arm as he was about to walk away and quickly responded: “Smoke here.”

Zhao Ge was puzzled. Yan Tuo didn’t smoke or drink and usually disliked others smoking in public spaces. Why was he being so accommodating today?0

He didn’t have time to think it over, though. Anxiety and mental exhaustion were pressing down on him, and he desperately needed that nicotine fix to soothe his frayed nerves.

He reached for his pocket—and came up empty. Embarrassed, he called over to Cao Yiman: “Old Cao, got a light?”

As the saying goes, when one person scratches, everyone itches. Cao Yiman was feeling an itch in his mouth and his heart right now.

After a couple of clicks from the lighter, both old smokers were puffing away on the spot.

When their cigarettes were about half-smoked, the hostage by the wall suddenly stirred.

It seemed her captor had instructed her to do something. The cashier, Sister Wang, her face etched with misery, hands trembling, picked up the handbag that had fallen by her feet and began rummaging through it.

She muttered something indistinct in a low voice, then called out clearly: “I… I want a pack of cigarettes. Tea Blossom brand—women’s cigarettes.”

Zhao Ge’s hand, holding his cigarette, froze. He glanced at Yan Tuo without changing expression. This guy—a single cigarette had actually drawn out a glimmer of a breakthrough. Such sharp intuition—he was truly born for criminal investigation.

Without lingering to enjoy his smoke any longer, Zhao Ge stubbed out his cigarette on the ground and readily took the task: “I’ll go buy them.”

It was a busy commercial district after all. In less than five minutes, Zhao Ge was back with the requested cigarettes.

He started to move closer to toss the pack over, but as he passed his deputy captain, Yan Tuo stopped him.

Yan Tuo took the cigarettes and walked forward, both hands raised high to show he posed no threat. When he was about three meters away, he stopped, flicked his wrist, and tossed the pack precisely to the spot beside the person at the wall.

Still holding his hands up, Yan Tuo made a show of slowly backing away.

Sister Wang, following orders, had already opened the cigarette pack. Trembling, she lit one and handed it back over her shoulder.

Now.

As Sister Wang extended the cigarette over her shoulder, her head naturally turned slightly to the side. Half of a face emerged—delicately arched brows, red lips slightly parting to receive…

Yan Tuo’s body reacted even faster than his mind. In less than two seconds, he planted his feet, drew his sidearm, aimed, and fired.

Bang.

One gunshot.

And it was like a sigh.

….

Bai Yiyi had hidden in his nest for a while to calm down. When he emerged again, his owner was gone. Listening carefully, there wasn’t a sound from the outer hall either—it was as if the world had suddenly become just him, a lone bird, in a silence so deep it was almost eerie.

Did they all get off work and forget about him? Or did they all go out on some operation?

He dawdled around, wandering aimlessly for a few laps, killing time until nearly midnight. He was so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open, but still, not a single person came back.

He dozed off in a daze, not knowing how long he’d been asleep, when he was suddenly startled awake by a creaking sound. He poked his head out to look—it turned out his owner had flopped sideways onto the unfolded camp bed, and that portable folding cot let out a groan under the weight.

In no time at all, soft snoring sounded from inside the room.

Bai Yiyi had been living with his owner for a while now, but this was the first time he’d ever heard the man snore. He must have been exhausted—he’d left all the lights on, forgotten to cover himself with a blanket, and passed out the moment he hit the bed.

Bai Yiyi gauged the temperature of the air conditioning at the moment. Uneasy, he flew over to the remote control to confirm—24 degrees Celsius was actually a bit chilly for the human body, especially for someone fast asleep.

This guy was way too careless. Not even washing up was one thing, but wasn’t he afraid of catching a cold, or getting arthritis down the line?

Bai Yiyi tried pressing the air conditioner buttons with his bird claws, but he couldn’t hold the remote up and point it at the unit, so the AC didn’t receive the signal at all. He flew over and stepped on Yan Tuo’s arm, but the man was dead to the world and didn’t react in the slightest.

Gazing at that face with its stubble of blue-black whiskers—exhaustion written all over it, yet still handsome enough to stop your heart—Bai Yiyi felt a tiny pang in his chest, and a wave of tenderness welled up.

There was a light blanket draped over the nearby sofa, probably tossed aside when the camp bed was unfolded. Bai Yiyi flew over, clamped his beak tightly on it, and tried to drag it over to cover his owner.

*Thump.*

He couldn’t budge it. In fact, he pulled too hard and the blanket yanked him face-first onto the sofa, where he landed sprawled on his back in an undignified bird-in-the-mud crash.

Sorry to bother you. He actually thought he could drag a blanket. This white little fluffball simply wasn’t worthy.

Bai Yiyi sulked on the sofa, his eyelids drooping with sleep, but he kept glancing around restlessly, unwilling to give up. If he’d had a mirror right then, he’d have been amazed to find that the name his mother had given him perfectly matched his current state—the two “ones” forming a pair of emoji-like expressions, which was exactly the look on his face.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up. The short-sleeved shirt draped over the office chair was nice and light—seemed like something he could actually manage to drag.

He immediately flew over and gave it a try.

It was tough. He couldn’t fly with it, but he could slowly drag it along by moving on foot.

The shirt had been worn and carried a faint hint of sweat, but it didn’t smell bad. In fact, to Bai Yiyi, it even gave off a faintly stimulating hint of pheromones.

Bai Yiyi pressed a wing to his fluttering little heart, mustered his courage, and began the long, arduous relocation process.

Yes, his motivational slogan was: *Care for your owner, starting with me.*

He had no idea how long it took—in any case, after an enormous effort, Bai Yiyi finally managed to drag the shirt onto Yan Tuo’s body. He carefully arranged it to cover the man’s undershirt, then let out a long sigh of relief.

His beak was completely numb from the excessive strain, but Bai Yiyi felt a distinct sense of accomplishment. Ha! With the power of one bird, he’d rewritten the script into the hottest trend of the moment—a mutually doting sweet romance, right? He was practically a candidate for “Most Touching Pet in China.”

Hehehe.

Morning sunlight streamed in through the window, falling across the eyelids of the tall man on the camp bed.

Yan Tuo rubbed his eyes as if sensing the light, then sat up.

The shirt on him slid to the floor. Who had draped that over him?

Probably Sun Lei. The other guys who’d come back with him, like Old Cao and the rest, were rougher than he was—none of them would have that kind of thoughtful consideration.

Yan Tuo didn’t dwell on the minor detail. He just stepped out, spotted the policewoman with the dimples at her workstation, and gave her a slight nod with a smile, by way of thanks.

He ignored the girl’s slightly dazed expression, quickly took care of his personal business, and was about to hold a brief debriefing meeting in the conference room. But when he pushed the door open, the few team members who’d handled the wrap-up last night were still sprawled out sleeping in all directions, snoring like thunder.

Yan Tuo couldn’t bear to wake them, so he called Cao Yiman, Zhao Ge, and Fang Ping over to his office instead.

“The hostage is fine, right?”

Zhao Ge replied, “She’s fine. Two female officers from the Nanmen police station accompanied her to the hospital. The wound wasn’t deep—didn’t even need stitches—but she was pretty shaken up.”

Yan Tuo nodded. “The suspect was shot dead, which means more trouble down the line. There’s no testimony now, so we have to make sure the chain of evidence is rock-solid and thorough.”

Fang Ping, the technical team leader, signaled that he understood. Yan Tuo then turned to the First Squad captain: “Old Cao, I’ll need you to put in the extra work—trace back through the previous cases and get a clear picture. As for the beauty salon, I suspect it was the primary crime scene in the Yu case. Make that a priority.”

Cao Yiman replied crisply, “Got it. I figured the same thing. Before we came back last night, I already coordinated with the Nanmen station—they’ve temporarily sealed it off. Fang Ping and I will head over shortly. We won’t leave a single trace.”

Yan Tuo: “Good. You two get on that. As for me, I fired my weapon, so I need to write a report and give Chief Li a thorough briefing.”

With the official business out of the way, and the tension of the previous day finally eased, Cao Yiman—driven by admiration—couldn’t help but ask curiously, “Captain Yan, who exactly drew that beauty graffiti? That was seriously incredible. Long wavy hair, red lips—I spotted that guy from a mile away through the glass door, and it was spot on.”

Yan Tuo had no answer either.

Finding the suspect so quickly was certainly a stroke of luck, but that graffiti had definitely been a major contributor. As for who the contributor was—he had absolutely no clue.

Since it was a contributor, they couldn’t treat it like a criminal investigation and start interrogating everyone. And if they did somehow force the person out, they’d have to—on the surface, at least—charge them with trespassing in a leadership office and defacing property.

Yan Tuo could only brush it off: “It was just a random doodle by Dr. Zhao’s kid. Don’t worry about it—consider it our lucky break.”

Huddled at the entrance of his nest, eavesdropping with his ears pricked up, Bai Yiyi’s mind filled with a string of question marks???

A kid?

“You’re comparing my work—the work of a soulful sketch artist, a master of aesthetics—to some kid’s random doodle?”

“And after I felt sorry for you last night, after I cared about you.”

“Yan Tuo, you have no heart!”

But then the system’s delighted voice suddenly rang out: “Yiyi, how did you suddenly gain 20 points?”