Chapter 13: Traces Are Always Left Behind
When it ca to explaining why humans eat junk food while cats get fancy cat food, Xu Qing struggled to find a good answer and ended up brushing it off with a vague "You'll understand later."
Happiness, after all, is sothing felt, not easily explained.
As the evening grew darker, Xu Qing left his small Penguin account running on the computer, opened the chat window, and reminded himself repeatedly that he wouldn't just talk through the screen; he'd use the Thousand-Mile Voice feature. He then left ho alone, taking the bus to et Qin Hao at their agreed spot.
"Hey, Haozi, where are you?"
"Over here! Over here!"
Qin Hao, who had arrived first, was already sitting in a corner of the food stall, munching on edama and waving him over.
“Hey, you’re looking darker! It’s so late, I almost didn’t see you.”
Spotting Qin Hao, Xu Qing laughed as he walked over. "Officer Qin, hard at work, I see."
"Oh, you know it’s hard work," Qin Hao said, waving him to sit down. "Here, have a drink."
"Can police officers drink alcohol?"
"Of course we can! I’m off-duty; what's stopping ?" Qin Hao tugged at his clothes. "See, plain clothes."
"Alright, let's order."
They ordered twenty skewers each of beef and lamb, ten skewers of leeks, four skewers of kidneys, two grilled eggplants, and a case of beer—a perfect spread.
Neither of them liked the fancier dishes; they preferred the basics of barbecue. If they weren’t full, they’d just order more until they were satisfied.
"So, how's the job going? Any noble thoughts about being a glorious officer?"
"Noble my a**! It’s nothing like I imagined."
Qin Hao’s face filled with exasperation. "I dread of grappling with criminals, maybe taking a hit, or heroically saving a damsel… None of that happened! Every day, it’s just trivial stuff you wouldn’t believe…”
He continued, “People calling about breakups, neighborhood squabbles I have to diate, two old ladies screaming insults at each other through their doors while I stand between them… ugh! I haven’t even seen a thief; it’s just diation, diation, diation. I can’t understand where all these problems co from.”
"Hey, that just ans people are living in peace. Isn’t that good?" Xu Qing chuckled. "Does every community officer have a 'hero dream' like yours?"
This buddy of his had dread of becoming a cop since they were kids, though he had bawled his eyes out when he found out the height requirent was at least 1.7 ters, which he just missed. Back in middle school, already taller than 1.7 ters, Xu Qing comforted him, suggesting that if he bulked up, he might get in on an exception. That started Qin Hao’s lifelong journey with muscles.
Luckily, the height requirent was eventually removed in favor of a jump height test, which had Qin Hao training high jumps day and night. Now, he’d finally made it.
"You know, I’m getting paranoid. Just before you got here, I was watching the street over there,” Qin Hao said, lowering his voice and pointing to the road. "I was picturing so criminal coming out with a knife, and leaping across the table to fight him—I've got the whole scene in my head."
"Stop dreaming." Xu Qing couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty. A knife-wielding criminal... wasn’t that pretty much how Jiang He appeared when she first arrived?
Wait, she had a sword... Thankfully, it had been pouring rain that day, so the streets were nearly empty.
They bantered for a while, and soon, the forty at skewers arrived. They clinked their beer bottles together and dug in.
"I’ve got a question for you, actually. Not sure if you’d know, though." Xu Qing asked casually, having already downed seven or eight skewers.
"Shoot, what is it?" Qin Hao kept his head down, battling his food.
"Well… hypothetically, if a holess person had lost their mory and wanted to get an ID to work, but had no proof of identity, what would they do?"
"Um..."
Gulp, gulp...
Qin Hao downed half his bottle, took a deep breath, and replied, "They can’t. It’s impossible."
"Impossible? Why?"
"Because they’d be a ‘black household.’ What can you do?"
"They need an ID because they’re undocunted, not the other way around," Xu Qing retorted.
"Is this for a friend of yours? A black household?" Qin Hao asked, suddenly curious.
"My great-uncle’s neighbor’s nephew asked . His friend’s got a complicated situation…”
"Get outta here."
Qin Hao laughed and swore. "Unless they can provide proof, like finding their parents or doing a DNA test, it’s impossible. There's no way you can just pop up out of nowhere and ask for an ID.”
Xu Qing quietly chewed on his skewer, gazing at the street, and after a while, asked, "So if you guys find soone without an ID—like a holess person—what do you do with them?"
"What would we do? Unless they’re suspicious, we just question and investigate a bit to see if they're a wanted criminal."
“What kind of questioning?”
“It’s… wait, are you hiding sothing?” Qin Hao’s brow furrowed, suspecting sothing unusual.
"What would I be hiding? You’ve barely started, and you’re already paranoid… Do you think I’m hiding a fugitive and asking you, an officer, to help them fake an identity?"
Xu Qing shot him a look of disdain.
"…Guess you’re right."
Qin Hao thought about it and figured Xu Qing probably wasn’t serious.
He clinked bottles with Xu Qing again, drank, then grabbed another skewer. "So, we’d start by asking basic info to see if they can explain their identity. If they play dumb, then we run the Three Checks."
"Three Checks? What are they?"
"Check for missing persons, DNA to check against missing children databases, or see if they’re wanted."
"And if they pass all three?"
"If they pass… hey, why all the questions?" Qin Hao looked at him, puzzled.
"Just keeping the conversation going. We’re two guys; what else are we supposed to talk about? Romance?" Xu Qing mocked. "Forget it, if I ask you any more, you’ll probably cuff …”
He placed his hands on the table, joking, "Want to run a check on ? I might just be a missing person that my parents picked up."
"Yeah, right. I bet you're from South Mountain ntal Hospital…” Qin Hao scoffed. "If the Three Checks don’t flag them, we then check foreign entrants or ntal health records. You, my friend, are definitely in the ntal health category."
"What if they still don’t match?"
"No match, we let them go. What else would we do? They haven’t committed a cri.”
“…”
Xu Qing felt sothing was off. "But what about an ID? Aren’t you supposed to help them with that?"
"They need proof to apply."
"No proof."
"Then it’s not possible."
“…”
Xu Qing was getting a headache. “They’re not criminals. Why can’t they get one?”
“Because they don’t have proof.”
Qin Hao burped, poking the table with a skewer as he explained, “Look, say, hypothetically, I grab a knife and stab you…”
“Don’t stab . Go stab soone else,” Xu Qing scowled.
“Fine, let’s say you took a knife and stabbed soone else, then you got plastic surgery in Korea, returned to Jiang City or wherever, claid mory loss, no history, no identity, and tried to start fresh—is that okay?”
Xu Qing fell silent, so Qin Hao laughed, holding the skewer like a sage. “Anyone who exists leaves a trace. No one appears out of thin air. And if soone does—it ans there’s a problem.”
He waggled his head, tossed the skewer aside, and took another. “Every step leaves a trace... that’s the golden rule, said by Edmond Locard, the father of forensics.”
“Wake up; you’re just a community cop handling bickering old ladies.”
“...S**t.”
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