Chapter 125: Catching a Turtle in a Jar

Yu Dazhang then walked around the shop.

Excluding the bathroom and kitchen, there was one main hall and four rooms in total, covering roughly five hundred square meters.

A storefront this big — the rent definitely wouldn't come cheap.

A ten-year lease, paid in one lump sum… Yu Dazhang could easily imagine how the landlord must have felt back then.

With such a big moneybags, even if the landlord really noticed something off, he'd still turn a blind eye.

Fine wine reddens a man's face; gold and silver move the human heart.

Not many people can resist the lure of money.

After carefully inspecting every room, Yu Dazhang was a bit stumped.

He hadn't found anything suspicious at all.

If even his sharp eyes couldn't spot the problem, no one else would have a chance of finding it.

The floorboards were all intact — no possibility of passage between floors.

The only place someone could be hidden was underground.

But where was the entrance?

He thought again of the hospital's pediatric emergency room.

Looking for a flaw on the surface was basically impossible — the other side had designed every seam to be airtight, leaving no opening to exploit.

Since eyesight alone wouldn't cut it, then…

"Go put in a request for a police dog," Yu Dazhang said to Ye Lin.

After a pause, feeling it wasn't quite solid enough, he added:

"The kind of specialized police dog with an especially keen sense of smell."

"I'll check on it." Ye Lin immediately took out her phone and stepped aside.

About two minutes later, she walked back and said to Yu Dazhang:

"Songhai's police dog base doesn't have any specialized dogs on hand right now — they'll need to be transferred from a neighboring city, and the earliest they can arrive is tomorrow morning."

After saying that, she opened her mouth again, as if she still had something to say.

Seeing her hesitate, Yu Dazhang guessed what she wanted to say.

"Regular police dogs won't do — it has to be specialized dogs. This isn't something we can cut corners on."

If a regular police dog could do it, I'd have found where they're hiding long ago… he added silently to himself.

Yu Dazhang's own sense of smell was also very keen.

Though it couldn't compare to a real police dog's, the difference was negligible.

Back in Shuishouyingzi Village, he could pick out the smell of human blood right away — in terms of sensitivity, it was about on par with an ordinary dog's nose.

If he really had to get down on the ground and sniff inch by inch like a police dog, he might actually pick up a lead.

But doing that would completely destroy his image.

He couldn't really go and be a human-shaped police dog.

Even if he did it for the sake of the case, if he turned up nothing, that would be a real joke.

#Ace detective Yu Dazhang mimics a police dog on-site, crawling on the ground sniffing around, and comes up empty#

If word got out, people would laugh their heads off.

"Alright, I'll go arrange it now." Seeing he was insistent, Ye Lin took out her phone again and made the call.

Yu Dazhang walked another lap around the main hall, then opened all the room doors.

Then he went to the entrance and called the two officers inside.

"Do me a favor — open all the windows and keep the place ventilated."

Though the two officers didn't know why, they cooperated and did as asked.

Yu Dazhang, meanwhile, walked to the entrance and pushed open the front door.

In no time at all, Ye Lin finished her call and came over.

"I've reserved two specialized dogs. If you're in a hurry, I can apply for a helicopter…"

Before she could finish, Yu Dazhang cut in:

"No need — just follow the normal procedure. Make sure the dogs are kept in peak condition."

As he spoke, he glanced again at the two officers, feeling that only two people guarding the place wasn't quite secure enough.

"Request more officers — at least four more. The windows at the back also need someone posted there."

"Six officers guarding an empty room?" Ye Lin felt Yu Dazhang was making a mountain out of a molehill.

They hadn't even confirmed there was a problem here, and he was already mobilizing police forces — that was far too rash. "This is what you call catching a turtle in a jar."

Yu Dazhang appeared very relaxed.

Every place he could think of had basically been ruled out.

If this place wasn't their hideout either, then there was nothing more he could do — within the short term, there was definitely no way forward.

He was a man, not a god — not every problem could be solved the moment it reached him.

This was also one of the reasons Yu Dazhang had asked Li Mingzhao for a guarantee.

If even your State Security can't handle it, it's perfectly normal for a small-town criminal cop like me not to find anything.

For the next hour, Yu Dazhang, Ye Lin, and the two officers stood guard at the front door.

When the four reinforcement officers arrived, he stopped them outside as well.

"From now on, no one enters the building. In a bit, you four go around to the back and close the windows, then just stay posted there by the windows."

Please... collect... 6... 9... book.... bar....!

After saying that, Yu Dazhang gave instructions to the other two officers as well:

"You two stay at the front door and don't go back inside."

"Understood." The six officers heard this and nodded in unison.

Judging by his shoulder insignia, Yu Dazhang was only a first-level officer, but no one at the scene dared look down on him.

Lately word had spread through the system about a fatty who kept cracking major cases.

They heard that the Sanjia Hospital case that had turned Songhai upside down this time was also cracked by him alone.

Although they hadn't met Yu Dazhang before, the identifying features were obvious.

You couldn't find anyone fatter than him in the entire Songhai police force.

After waiting a while longer, Yu Dazhang figured the time — it had been ventilated for over an hour.

"Alright, close the door and the windows."

At his command, those four officers circled to the back of the building and shut the windows from outside.

Seeing the front door was also closed, Yu Dazhang left the place with Ye Lin.

"Take me home. Come pick me up tomorrow morning."

"You're going home to sleep?" Ye Lin looked at him in disbelief.

"What else?" Yu Dazhang found her question strange and asked back:

"Do you people from the National Security Bureau never sleep at night?"

He'd stayed up late last night; if he kept going today, his condition tomorrow would definitely suffer.

Besides, cracking cases doesn't come from working overtime.

If you could crack cases without eating or sleeping, there wouldn't be a single cold case in the country — guaranteed one hundred percent solve rate.

Apart from some necessary overtime, the vast majority of overtime is just for the leaders to see.

"I thought you'd keep investigating." Ye Lin looked full of energy, clearly in an excited state:

"Even if you need to sleep, this time is way too early."

"It's already past eight in the evening!" Yu Dazhang felt his irritability flaring, his tone involuntarily hardening:

"If you want to work hard, stay here tonight and keep watch with them. Until then, take me home first."

He was now both hungry and exhausted; the continuous mental strain had pushed him to his limit.

If it were necessary, Yu Dazhang would definitely have kept investigating.

But right now there was no need for him to keep watch here — no reason to put on a show of working himself to death.

"Also, please get your identity straight." Yu Dazhang stared at her and said:

"You are my gun — you follow my orders, not the other way around!"

Once the words left his mouth, he suddenly realized he might have gone too far.

No matter what, Ye Lin was a woman; losing his temper at a woman was never appropriate.

But his emotions had gotten the better of him, and combined with his poor state, Yu Dazhang really couldn't hold back.

He'd expected Ye Lin to argue with him, maybe even yell at him — but instead she laughed.

"I didn't say anything, why are you getting worked up?" Ye Lin wore a gentle smile, soothing his emotions in a soft voice, as if coaxing a child:

"Fine, fine, fine, I'll take you home right now. Only with proper rest can you have abundant energy to throw into the follow-up work."

Why do I suddenly feel guilty… Yu Dazhang was left feeling very uneasy by Ye Lin's attitude.

National Security really is different — even their women know when to yield and when to stand firm!

(End of chapter)