1.

The Monday morning train at eight in Haizhou was always a sardine can.

Overpacked and bustling, people could stand without handholds and not worry about losing balance.

The train jostled, yet the standing girl didn't reach for a handle but delicately placed her hand behind her. Unnoticed, her face paled, subtly revealing her anxiety and fear.

She thought she had clearly refused.

But the hand resting on her hips paused and abruptly seized her right hand, intertwining their fingers like intimate lovers.

The humid contact startled the girl, making her utter a soft yelp. Too quiet to attract attention, she bit her lip and prayed for the train to reach the station quickly.

Why did such things happen to her...

"Ahh!"

The nauseating touch abruptly released, startling the girl. As she looked back, she saw a man of middling looks contorting in pain behind her. His right hand was firmly restrained by a girl with a cool expression, twisted almost 270 degrees.

It looked painful. The man grit his teeth, trying to withdraw his hand, but failed, "Who the hell are you!? Are you mental!?"

The younger girl faced her, voice void of emotion, "Know him?"

The older girl shook her head, "I don't know..."

After hearing her response, the younger girl arched her unruly thin eyebrows, looking at the distorted man. "Hey, she said she doesn't know you. Is your hand misbehaving or something? Where is it leading to?"

The man glanced at the mumbling crowd around him, forced back his shame and retorted, "I don't understand what you're saying, let me go!"

The little girl's eyes were not big, but the whites of her eyes were very clear. She didn't bother arguing who was right or wrong and just said succinctly, "Madam, you should call the police."

The lady was taken aback, unconsciously shrugging her shoulders and hugging her commuter bag tighter. She looked around; all the passengers in the carriage had their eyes on her which made her feel embarrassed. "I... I have to go to work..." she stuttered.

The little girl slowly blinked her eyes, "So?"

The lady: "Nothing really happened, let’s... let it go this time.”

The man, hearing this, immediately became agitated. "If she doesn't care, why are you bothering yourself? Why haven't you let go of me yet! You rude girl, I have given you face... Ah!"

The little girl rudely threw his hand aside. The carriage was crowded with passengers, and she even accidentally hit a bystander, an innocent bystander.

Ling Wuyou took out a wet wipe from her pocket, and calmly wiped her hands. With a slight lift of her chin, she appeared to be looking down on others.

She slowly enunciated two words to the man, "Trash."

Then she glanced at the girl beside her, who was half a head taller than her, and bluntly said, "Bad luck."

Both of them were stunned.

The carriage, at some unknown point, had already become utterly quiet. The passengers were watching this incident, which couldn’t be considered a drama, remembering the sound of the seemingly student-like girl in their ears.

"The train is about to arrive at Heisha Station..."

The train doors opened, and the noise from the outside world flooded into the previously isolated carriage. Ling Wuyou pushed past the stunned girl and walked out without looking back.

Five minutes east of the subway, is the Haizhou City Heisha Street Police Station.

Ling Wuyou first changed her clothes, had breakfast in the canteen, and packed a few buns into her backpack before slowly strolling over to her desk, sipping on soy milk.

Officer Chen walked up to her and noticed her tapping away at her keyboard. He casually asked, "Wuyou, didn't you go on patrol with your master?"

Ling Wuyou paused, glancing at the desk next door where an orange designer handbag lay. With no fluctuation in her mood, she replied, "Lin Ying went with him."

Lin Ying was another intern mentored by Officer Zhang. Officer Chen thought for a moment and scratched his head, "Ah."

Once he returned to his desk, Officer Xue, who had worked through the night and hadn't yet left, leaned in and whispered, "Lately, old Zhang doesn't take Ling Wuyou on patrols, didn't you know?"

Officer Chen hadn't regularly been in the precinct recently due to a burglary case he was busy handling, so naturally, he was unaware, "Why's that? Didn't the chief say Wuyou is performing really well?"

Officer Xue shook his head, "Yes, her grades are excellent, but that only matters at the police academy. In the real world, who cares about your scores? You wouldn’t believe it, but the last time old Zhang took her to resolve a divorce dispute between a husband and wife. Normally, these kinds of issues are talked through, preferring peace over conflict..."

Officer Xue glanced at Ling Wuyou's back before lowering his voice,

"The couple was shouting and scuffling, even Zhang couldn’t calm them down. But, once Ling Wuyou said a few words on the side, guess what happened?"

Officer Chen guessed, "Instant results? They stopped fighting and arguing?"

Officer Xue clapped his hands, "Wouldn't you call that instant results? The man got so mad he left his wife to go attack Ling Wuyou."

Officer Chen was baffled, "What?"

Officer Xue continued, “I don’t know what she said, but even the wife couldn’t stand it. She cried, ‘How could you talk about my husband like that?’ Ling Wuyou then stopped talking about her husband, and instead started on her. This had an even better effect: The couple let bygones be bygones and teamed up to attack Ling Wuyou!"

Officer Chen: ……

Officer Xue, recalling the expression Officer Zhang and himself had made while describing the situation, couldn't help but laugh, "In any case, the matter was resolved. The two people involved didn't pursue divorce, but joined forces to complain about Ling Wuyou. After all, Ling Wuyou is only an intern. In the end, it was Officer Zhang who got scolded."

Officer Chen queried: "Just for this matter, Officer Zhang doesn't carry her along anymore?"

Officer Xue corrected him: "It's not that he doesn’t take her along… it's about... dividing cases..."

As to how the cases were divided, only Officer Zhang knew.

During the lunch break, Ling Wuyou was going to her dormitory to sleep. She had been doing online translations all morning, and her continuous staring at the computer screen had tired her eyes. However, just a little while after laying down, someone knocked on her door to call her.

Ling Wuyou yawned and turned to look at the visitor, “Officer Chen?”

Officer Chen said, “Wuyou, if you are free this afternoon, I have a case here and I hope you could help. You don’t need to worry about your master. I’ve already talked to him about this.”

Ling Wuyou was originally planning to translate a few more articles in the afternoon, but she knew where her priorities were: “Sure, what’s the case?”

Officer Chen gave her a brief introduction, "There's a woman around your age who reported last week that she's being stalked. We've tailed her for two days and checked the surveillance cameras, but we didn't find any suspicious individuals. She also couldn't produce any evidence.

This matter would have ended there, but she called me again this morning, insisting that she's still being stalked. I hope you could help take a look. As a woman, you might be more meticulous and able to consider the situation from the victim's perspective."

Having said that, Officer Chen was a bit apprehensive, with a stiff but gentle smile on his face. After all, this case was murky without a single lead, and it was highly likely that the lady was merely being overly suspicious. He didn't wish to waste police resources, yet he couldn't ignore the pleas for help from the claimant. Therefore, he turned to Ling Wuyou, who was somewhat "abandoned" by her master and had "nothing to do."