Animal Detective

Chapter 350: Chapter 286: A Few More Surprises Like This

Outside the clubhouse, Wan Chao, Li Yinjiang, and the others came up to greet them.

Wan Chao shot them an inquisitive look.

Tang Youkun just gave a slight nod, not explaining the specifics.

But reading the mood, Wan Chao could tell from Tang Youkun’s expression that it was a serious matter.

"Xiaoshen, not bad at all!"

Wan Chao looked toward Shen Xin.

In the morning’s second event, Shen Xin had been able to anticipate the enemy and find the target in advance.

Now he was even more impressive.

There wasn’t even supposed to be a target, but he had somehow managed to produce one.

Shen Xin quickly said humbly that it was an accident, that he just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Li Yinjiang had already gotten the gist of the situation from Wan Chao and took the opportunity to ask Lv Yuan how the score should be calculated under these circumstances.

Lv Yuan shot Li Yinjiang a speechless glance and asked if a perfect score was enough.

’Listening to you, it sounds like you want 150 points out of 100,’ he thought to himself.

The main thing was, Shen Xin had basically created his own challenge on a higher difficulty. Not giving him first place would be unjustifiable.

Li Yinjiang quickly said it was enough, his face already blooming into a wide smile.

Wan Chao glanced at his watch. It was getting late, so he told everyone to head back for now. That was it for today; the competition would continue tomorrow.

Xin Zifeng stayed behind, and the three of them got in the car to return to the hotel.

As soon as the car door closed, Li Yinjiang was so excited he looked like he wanted to grab Shen Xin and plant a couple of kisses on him.

Barring any surprises, they already had two first-place finishes in individual events. Nanjiang was really going to take off this time.

Amidst his excitement, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret. He mumbled to Shen Xin that he had chosen the wrong major back in the day; he should have specialized in police dogs.

Yuan Mingtao nodded in agreement, saying that Shen Xin might not have noticed, but he saw it.

When the target was found, Xin Zifeng and the judge were both completely dumbfounded.

Shen Xin said the double-blind test was pretty nasty and reminded Yuan Mingtao to be careful not to fall for any tricks in tomorrow’s competition.

Yuan Mingtao nodded quickly, making a mental note. A wave of fear washed over him in hindsight.

’It’s a good thing I decided to scout things out for Shen Xin first. If I had been the one to go second and search Meigao, I probably wouldn’t have found anything.’

Because of the unexpected discovery, they were delayed a bit, so the other teams should have all been back by the time they returned to the hotel.

However, while waiting for the elevator, they ran into Shi Xianbo and Yang Lichuan leading a Labrador into the hotel lobby.

"Fuck."

Shi Xianbo let out a curse as soon as he saw them, then began complaining to Shen Xin’s group with a look of exasperation, saying the organizing committee was inhumane.

"You guys know? The place we went to, there just weren’t any drugs at all."

They went to a bar with over a hundred people on site. Yang Lichuan searched over and over again. The security detail was about to leave, and he still hadn’t found anything.

Yang Lichuan’s face was full of frustration. "I was so anxious I was drenched in sweat."

Shen Xin chuckled to himself.

’When you assume there’s a target and still come up empty, you’d definitely start to question your existence.’

"What happened to your clothes?" Shen Xin asked, pointing at his jacket.

At the mention of this, Yang Lichuan grew even more depressed. "Some drunkard threw up all over me."

Seeing Shi Xianbo was still fuming, Li Yinjiang consoled him, "Alright, don’t be so down. We also went to a place with no drugs. Xiaoshen searched for a long time, too."

With that, he led the way into the elevator.

Shi Xianbo was startled and quickly asked what had happened.

But they were counting on Nanjiang to take down Ningshan.

If Shen Xin ran into such an unlucky situation, wasn’t it all over?

The corners of Li Yinjiang’s mouth were already turning up uncontrollably. "What else? Of course he found it. And got a perfect score."

"Found it?"

Shi Xianbo’s eyes widened. ’Didn’t you say there was no target?’

Li Yinjiang clapped him on the shoulder. "There wasn’t one, no, but that’s just because the judges’ panel didn’t know about it. Our Xiaoshen is just that good. He actually found something—a whole half-kilo. The narcotics squad even showed up."

Half a kilo?

Shi Xianbo’s eyes bulged like brass bells.

And it was the same situation, where even the judge didn’t know, but Shen Xin had somehow managed to find it anyway.

"Xiaoshen, you’re the man!"

Shi Xianbo immediately gave him a thumbs-up.

Yang Lichuan was just as flabbergasted.

Once Shi Xianbo calmed down, he immediately asked, "So this event is in the bag?"

Li Yinjiang nodded.

After all that, if Lv Yuan and the others didn’t give Celestial Skill first place, they’d be too embarrassed to show their faces.

Shi Xianbo nodded repeatedly, then said with annoyance that Meng Fuqiang and his group weren’t around.

Meng Fuqiang’s team was local, so of course they weren’t staying at the hotel.

"Didn’t you see the group chat? Old Meng is gloating, saying something like, ’Sorry, we finished first.’ So shameless. They must have practiced on the site beforehand."

"But it’s no problem now. Wait till we see them tomorrow and the scores are announced. Let’s see what they have to say then."

Shi Xianbo couldn’t help but look forward to seeing the expression on Meng Fuqiang’s face tomorrow.

Losing to Shen Xin even with an open-book test... that would be more than just a little embarrassing.

Li Yinjiang thought, ’I saw that ages ago. Why else do you think I was pacing around in circles after getting out of the car?’

But now, Li Yinjiang just wanted to laugh out loud three times.

With everyone staying in the same hotel, news was impossible to contain.

One by one, representatives from the various teams came over to ask about the situation. First, they cursed the organizing committee for being inhumane, then cursed Ningshan for being shameless, and finally, they praised Celestial Skill for being awesome.

The commotion didn’t die down until late at night.

Li Jiahui was the last to leave, her gaze a little resentful.

She wasn’t worried about the scores; she knew what Shen Xin and Celestial Skill were capable of. Even without this unexpected turn of events, they would have certainly taken first.

She was just annoyed that what could have been a date with Shen Xin was completely ruined by the organizing committee.

"You should get some rest. You still have the competition tomorrow," Li Jiahui reminded him.

Shen Xin grunted in acknowledgment and shut the door with a CLICK.

After showering, he lay in bed and carefully recalled the situation at the Meigao Clubhouse and the people he had encountered.

He had searched the place up and down several times and had a very deep impression of it.

’I really didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.’

’Or was it just hidden that well?’

’But this case should be easy to investigate. Now that we know the channel, we can trace it upstream. Following the clues should unravel the whole network.’

「The next day」

A notice was sent out: today’s competitions would all be held at the police dog base.

After a quick breakfast, everyone set off in a hurry.

Li Yinjiang and the others had already agreed not to say anything and just let Meng Fuqiang and his team run their mouths. They would wait and watch him make a fool of himself in the end.

Unexpectedly, when they met, Meng Fuqiang wasn’t gloating at all.

Instead, he started complaining about Li Yinjiang’s group.

"Look at you all, what’s with the act? If you want to laugh at me, just laugh. Holding it in like that, you’ll make yourselves sick."

He grumbled, making it obvious he already knew what had happened last night.

It was normal. Competing on home turf, his information network was bound to be good.

Only then did the group break character and burst out laughing.

Fang Weijie’s teasing was a bit harsh. "Old Meng, your little scheme didn’t quite work out, did it? You actually lost to a newcomer. Seriously, if I had known the test questions in advance, I definitely wouldn’t have ended up like you."

Meng Fuqiang’s eyebrow twitched. He was not pleased.

’Have you forgotten? Before this, you were the public enemy.’

’What’s this about a newcomer? Looking down on Shen Xin, are we?’

’So what if he’s a newcomer? If you’ve got the skills, you should respect that. But you guys... you act as if he didn’t beat you too.’

At this thought, Meng Fuqiang’s eyes darted, and he decided to switch sides.

He really couldn’t stand Fang Weijie’s smug face.

’It’s not like you’re the one in the spotlight.’

If Li Yinjiang had said it, Meng Fuqiang wouldn’t have retorted, but who the hell was Peng An to be riding on someone else’s coattails like this?

Meng Fuqiang directly waved Li Yinjiang and the others over, signaling for a private word on the side.

Fang Weijie subconsciously started to follow but was stopped by a wave of Meng Fuqiang’s hand.

"This doesn’t concern you."

Meng Fuqiang snorted, led Li Yinjiang’s group aside, first admitted his mistake and apologized, then decisively switched sides and revealed everything he knew.

He asked for their forgiveness and proposed they focus their fire on Peng An.

"I can’t stand that look on Old Fang’s face anymore," Meng Fuqiang huffed.

The group looked at each other, then nodded one after another.

If Ningshan hadn’t been so shameless, they would never have cooperated with Fang Weijie in the first place.

Most importantly, now that they had Shen Xin, who needed Peng An?

It was about time to settle the grudges from previous years.

Seeing the group kick him out and then repeatedly glance back at him, clearly cooking up some malicious plan, Fang Weijie broke out in a cold sweat. ’Have I become the public enemy again?’

The situation had changed, but it didn’t have much of an impact on Shen Xin.

He would face whatever came his way. He was strong enough and had the confidence to back it up.

Having learned the test questions, Li Yinjiang pulled everyone together to discuss, his expression serious.

"There are still six events, but the difficulty has been upgraded for all of them. They’re double-blind, and we have to simulate extreme environments."

"For example, during the drug search later, we’ll have to search a shipping container in high-temperature conditions."

The explosives search was similar.

For example, finding explosives in a trash can overflowing with garbage.

To sum it up in one sentence, they were trying every possible way to increase the difficulty and test the police dogs’ performance under various extreme conditions.

Li Yinjiang crossed his arms. "According to Old Meng, the hardest part is still the tracking. It’s designed to be realistic. Hard-surface tracking might be in the city, and the same goes for the mountains. They’re simulating real-world situations as much as possible."

"Shen Xin, you’re our hope. You can’t let your guard down."

He had already witnessed how cunning and scheming the organizing committee could be.

Shen Xin nodded, but inwardly, he felt it would be fine.

In a real combat environment, Tian Kui and Celestial Skill should have no problem.

As for mountainous terrain, they had real combat experience from the hunt for Fan Lei.

As for the city, they were originally stray dogs. They had survived for so long in the hustle and bustle of traffic that they wouldn’t be easily distracted.

Just as they were speaking, the leaders arrived.

Just like yesterday, pretty much all of them were there.

After all, it was an important technical competition, so the leaders would definitely make time to watch.

Lin Weinian came up and asked everyone, almost jokingly, if they had panicked during last night’s surprise event.

Seeing their reactions, he knew the answer.

After all, a competition had never been held this way before.

"Comrades, this is real combat. Criminals will never give us time to prepare in advance. This is the original intention behind these events—to be based on real-world scenarios."

"And I heard there was an unexpected bonus during last night’s competition."

He was beaming.

Seeing from everyone’s reaction that they all knew, he called out in a clear voice, "Xiaoshen!"

Shen Xin, who was in the crowd, was taken aback for a moment before quickly responding.

"Come to the front." Lin Weinian beckoned to Shen Xin. When Shen Xin came forward, he said with a smile, "Comrades, how about we first give Xiaoshen a round of applause?"

As he spoke, he began to clap, leading the applause.

Thunderous applause erupted, making it feel like a victory celebration.

Shen Xin had not expected this part of the program at all. Fortunately, it didn’t last long.

Lin Weinian continued, "Comrades, the upcoming events will also be based on real combat. So, I truly hope we can have a few more surprises like the one from last night."

Shen Xin was secretly speechless. ’Director, you can’t just jinx it like that.’