Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Shen Dongqing was awakened by the sound of his phone ringing. Half-asleep, he fumbled for the phone and answered it, only to hear Zhang Feiyu's voice on the other end.

"You blew up!" His voice was excited, with a hint of envy.

Blown up?

Shen Dongqing was still not fully awake, but Zhang Feiyu was already chattering away nonstop.

Both of Shen Dongqing's livestreams from yesterday had gone viral. The beautiful shots from the evening stream had been shared around, drawing likes from tons of fans of his face, but that was only a small-scale buzz within a niche circle.

The biggest hit was the daytime stream. The topic of catching a thief was super compelling, and someone had even gone ahead and edited clips of him catching the thief and how he'd spotted him. Once those two clips were posted, they instantly got a ton of attention.

If it had stopped there, the buzz would've been manageable. But when he was catching the thief, other people had been filming him too. Several videos were combined, and someone cut them into an anti-theft warning video.

A lot of people thought it was an official police anti-theft PSA, and they shared it everywhere to learn from it, saying they'd be more careful.

Wait...

"Anti-theft PSA?" Shen Dongqing snapped awake. He quickly opened a short-video app, searched for it, and immediately found the anti-theft warning video.

In the video, his eyes were sharp, sweeping through the crowd before locking onto a thief. The moment the thief made his move, Shen Dongqing grabbed him on the spot.

Shen Dongqing's mouth twitched. That editor was a real genius. He remembered staring at that thief for a long time yesterday—there was nothing quick or decisive about it.

Wait—was that really how he'd looked at the thief yesterday? Getting mistaken for a cop almost made sense...

Shen Dongqing shook his head hard. Even if it was a misunderstanding, what if someone thought he was trying to mislead people on purpose? Was there any legal trouble? Could the platform ban him? After all, platforms are super sensitive.

He was starting to break out in a cold sweat. Shen Dongqing frantically opened a search engine and searched for it, but maybe his situation was too rare—he searched around and found nothing at all.

Shen Dongqing thought for a moment, sent a message to Xiao Ze, and then prepared to ask the AI. Although the AI might make things up, it was better than nothing.

But before Shen Dongqing could even ask, Xiao Ze called him.

"What did you do?" Xiao Ze's voice sounded confused.

Xiao Ze had just wrapped up a case and was feeling sleepy, but the second he saw Shen Dongqing's message, he was wide awake. What did he mean, mistaken for a cop?

Shen Dongqing quickly explained everything. The more Xiao Ze listened, the more awake he got. He'd just seen Shen Dongqing the day before yesterday—how could so much have happened in one day?

"How did you get mistaken for a police officer?" Xiao Ze asked after a long pause. Everything else was small stuff; this was the main thing.

Shen Dongqing quietly sent the anti-theft warning video to Xiao Ze.

Xiao Ze opened the video. The cover showed Shen Dongqing staring sharply ahead.

The video was short, but the visuals and music were put together really well. If Xiao Ze hadn't known for sure that Shen Dongqing wasn't a cop, he would have thought this was an official anti-theft PSA from their department. No wonder so many people got fooled.

Xiao Ze checked the online buzz and got why Shen Dongqing was nervous.

Even though Shen Dongqing hadn't meant for any of this and someone else edited the video, the situation blowing up would definitely have some effect on him, especially since his job was so tied to the internet.

"I've watched the video. You didn't do anything to suggest that, and this misunderstanding is just a pure accident. You're fine," Xiao Ze said. "But you could also post a video to clear things up. Explaining things would be a good idea."

With Xiao Ze's clear answer, Shen Dongqing felt relieved.

As for the clarification video—after hanging up, Shen Dongqing quickly recorded a video and posted it.

Xiao Ze was still watching the replay of Shen Dongqing's stream from yesterday and noticed that Shen Dongqing's instincts were really sharp.

He caught thieves like a cat catching mice. People didn't even notice the mouse moving, but the cat had already sensed it and locked on.

That very move felt strangely familiar to Xiao Ze.

"This technique—Brother Xiao, when did you take on an apprentice?" A colleague poked his head over when he heard Xiao Ze's voice and said.

Shen Dongqing's way of grabbing people was copying him!

"He's not my apprentice. He probably saw how I catch thieves and learned it himself," Xiao Ze explained. Although Shen Dongqing's movements were very similar to his, at certain key points, they were clearly rougher—obviously he taught himself.

"Hey, this—oh, it's him." The colleague stared at the video for a moment, then it clicked.

"What?" Xiao Ze was puzzled.

"You haven't checked the group chat, have you? This kid caught seven or eight thieves yesterday, like he was stocking up. The West Street police station spent the whole day dealing with it."

Seven or eight?

Xiao Ze looked at the length of the livestream. Shen Dongqing had told him he'd caught a few thieves, and he hadn't thought much of it—assumed it was two or three. But seven or eight? How could he catch that many?

"I thought he was a plainclothes officer before, but turns out he isn't. This guy must have walked right into a thieves' den yesterday," the colleague remarked.

Thieves were common enough. After being a cop for a long time, you could spot suspicious behavior in thieves, but catching seven or eight in one day was beyond even him. It took not just skill, but luck too.

Hearing his colleague's remark, Xiao Ze nodded inwardly. Shen Dongqing's luck was really... he didn't even know how to put it.

It was like the guy was destined to cross paths with criminal incidents.

Xiao Ze had looked at Shen Dongqing's police reports before. There might be a day or two of calm, but otherwise, Shen Dongqing would end up at the police station at least once, like clocking in for work.

So yesterday was like making up for all the missed days.

...

After posting the clarification video, Shen Dongqing decided not to livestream today and wait for the buzz to die down.

The main thing was that after catching so many thieves, Shen Dongqing realized he was also pretty tired. Yesterday he'd probably been too hyped up to feel fatigued, but now after a night's sleep, his body was starting to recover and complaining about it.

Feeling the soreness all over his body, Shen Dongqing winced. No, he needed to step up his training. He was this exhausted just from catching a few thieves who didn't even put up a fight. If he ever ran into a truly vicious criminal, he'd be taken down in no time.

After all, when it came to combat ability, strength was the foundation. Without physical stamina, technique alone meant nothing.

After breakfast, Shen Dongqing started searching for information on wanted criminals. He actually found a website that published wanted notices, complete with photos and details of their crimes.

Shen Dongqing skimmed through it. The higher the bounty, the greater the crime, and the more dangerous the criminal.

Many of the photos clearly weren't recent. He saw one criminal whose ID age was over fifty, but the photo looked like he was under twenty—showing just how old the photo was.

Shen Dongqing looked at the criminal's information. It was a gang operation—highway robbery. A conflict arose with the victim, and they killed him before fleeing. Based on the time of the crime, the man had been on the run for nearly thirty years.

Shen Dongqing also found the official public security websites for Ningchuan Province and several neighboring provinces. These also had wanted notices for local fugitives.

After roughly reviewing the wanted notices from several provinces, Shen Dongqing fell silent. He felt like Ningchuan was a bit too rich in martial spirit—the fugitives here were even more vicious.

That wasn't to say fugitives from other provinces were weaker, but in comparison, Ningchuan had major cases occurring more frequently.

With his preparations complete, Shen Dongqing clicked on the skill card and confirmed its use. The skill card vanished instantly, and when Shen Dongqing looked at the wanted notices again, he suddenly felt like the world before his eyes was completely different.

The facial recognition card's description said it was about memorizing a person's facial features. Shen Dongqing took it at face value—thinking you'd need a superhuman memory to pull that off. But once he actually used it, he realized that couldn't be further from the truth.

The faces in front of him were now covered in literal, tangible numbers. A normal person would just get dizzy and confused staring at that mess of numbers, but he felt something weird—one glance and the string was burned into his memory. This was the other person's facial code.

Unless someone completely wrecked their face, erasing all that data, he could ID them with just a few strings of numbers.

What a crazy skill!

Even as he marveled at it, Shen Dongqing didn't forget to get down to business. He only had three days, and there were a ton of wanted posters to memorize. If he didn't hustle, he might not even finish.

Shen Dongqing figured that with his current face-memorizing speed, he could knock this out fast. But after a while, he hit a snag. The skill card let him lock in a face fast, but that wasn't enough—he still had to remember the name to go with it.

Otherwise, if he ran into a wanted criminal, how was he supposed to tell the cops? He couldn't just whip out a stack of wanted posters and flip through them one by one.

Shen Dongqing let out a long sigh. He'd thought this cheat code would let him memorize crooks in a flash, but turns out he still had to put in the work.

Outside of cramming ancient poems in middle and high school, Shen Dongqing had never worked this hard to memorize anything. As he went, he realized he'd need to use memory tricks—otherwise, pairing a name with a string of numbers was a real pain.

Shen Dongqing suddenly got curious—did cops memorize wanted criminals like this? After all, when cops caught a suspect, they must have other ways to confirm who they were, right?

Shen Dongqing wasn't sure, so he decided to ask Xiao Ze next time they grabbed a meal. Calling him up just for that would feel a bit pushy.

After a full day of memorizing, Shen Dongqing was wiped out, both mentally and physically. Scrounging up something simple at home wasn't going to cut it—he needed to go out and stuff himself.

Heading out of his apartment, Shen Dongqing didn't notice anything off as he came down the stairs. It wasn't until he hit the ground floor and saw people milling around that he realized he'd forgotten something.

The skill didn't just work on photos—it worked on real people too.

Compared to photos, real faces were sharper and full of expressions. As muscles moved, the numbers shifted, shoving themselves straight into his brain.

His brainpower was already running on fumes, and this extra hit was too much—Shen Dongqing dropped into a crouch, clutching his head.

No, he needed to take a moment to recover.

"Shen Dongqing?" A puzzled voice came from behind him.

Shen Dongqing looked up and saw a face covered in numbers. The voice sounded somewhat familiar—it should be someone he knew—but he couldn't recognize the face at all.

This skill seemed a bit of a trap!

Meeting Shen Dongqing's somewhat dazed gaze, Xiao Ze frowned deeply and reached out to touch his forehead. It felt a bit warm, and Xiao Ze immediately jumped to conclusions, thinking Shen Dongqing had a fever.

Seeing Shen Dongqing in this state, he probably couldn't even go to see a doctor by himself. Xiao Ze grabbed him and said, "You have a fever. I'll take you to the hospital."

Shen Dongqing was still waiting for the other person to say more so he could identify who it was, but after two sentences, the person went quiet.

Being so sparing with words, it definitely wasn't Zhang Feiyu.

Feeling the muscles on the other person's arm and the calluses on his palm, Shen Dongqing recognized who it was.

"Officer Xiao, I don't have a fever. I just overused my brain, so I'm feeling a bit dizzy. I just need to crouch here and rest for a moment," Shen Dongqing said, staring intently at the face before him, not daring to divert even a sliver of his attention to the passersby nearby.

He was terrified that one more look would fry his brain and knock him out cold.