Animal Detective

Chapter 353: Chapter 289: I Asked You for a Surprise, Not a Scare

At the police station command center.

On the large screen, the red dot representing Ace was moving quickly, having already reached the middle of the pedestrian street.

On the surveillance feed, Li Yanfei was leading Ace on a leash, drawing a bit of a crowd.

However, Li Yanfei was well-trained and remained completely unaffected. He also employed numerous techniques throughout the tracking process.

For instance, he would observe the police dog’s search speed. If it slowed down, he knew the scent source was fading.

He would then turn back and retrace their steps to reinforce the dog’s memory of the scent.

When the scent trail went cold, he wouldn’t panic. Instead, he would proactively expand the search area, using a leapfrog pattern.

When it came to tracking, both Ace and Li Yanfei were very experienced.

Wan Chao said with a look of gratification, "Ace’s performance is as solid as ever."

Lin Weinian and Wang Peidong nodded in agreement.

He was a meritorious dog, after all.

Lin Weinian added, "But the difficult part is coming up."

It was designed to simulate a real-world scenario, after all.

When designing the assessment, Wan Chao and the others had set a trap for Shen Xin, as well as for everyone else.

The target had been to the pedestrian street last night, but after strolling around for a while, he had left.

Then, this morning, he had returned to the pedestrian street before anyone else, creating a new scent trail.

This meant there was a break in the trail.

If a dog followed the scent from the plaza all the way to the end, the trail would go cold, and they wouldn’t find the target.

Therefore, the next step required the police dog to remember the scent and then conduct a wide-area search of the pedestrian street to proactively find the target.

Everyone felt this setup was more reflective of a real-life situation.

Scent trails can go cold, and a suspect’s movements can be highly unpredictable. Only under these conditions could a police dog’s tracking ability be truly tested.

Wan Chao nodded, glanced at all the red dots, and chuckled. "Looks like Shen Xin hasn’t figured it out yet."

The red dot showed that Shen Xin was still wandering around Charming Street, showing no intention of returning to the starting point.

Lin Weinian glanced at Wang Peidong and smiled. "He’s still a bit young, after all, and things have been going too smoothly for him. He’s overconfident in his own judgment. In situations like this, you have to fail a few times before you can learn your lesson and grow."

In Lin Weinian’s opinion, Shen Xin hadn’t been an officer for long. After completing his probation and joining the criminal investigation team, he had continuously distinguished himself. His career had been nothing but smooth sailing.

Only by experiencing setbacks would he stop blindly trusting his own judgment and learn to think more rationally.

Wang Peidong said nothing.

Wan Chao said, "Everyone has to grow up sometime."

As the three of them were talking, a notification abruptly popped up on the large screen.

It was a police alert dispatched directly from the emergency response platform, containing a brief text description and a professional code.

Most importantly, it was a red alert.

The country’s emergency response platforms used a tiered response system.

Red represented the highest level, reserved for extreme situations involving weapons, explosives, hostage-taking, and the like.

In a place like Ningshan, it required the nearest police units to arrive on the scene within three to five minutes.

The next level down was yellow, for common theft, disputes, and so on, which required a response and arrival on site within fifteen minutes.

The final level was blue, for incidents that could be resolved with guidance over the phone.

A local police station mostly dealt with yellow and blue alerts; red alerts were extremely rare.

In addition, there was a professional classification code that designated the type of case.

So when Lin Weinian glanced at the code, his heart leaped and his face paled.

The code was a string of numbers.

The code began with 02, which represented robbery. The next part, 12, indicated the presence of explosives. And the final part, 24, specified that the crime scene was a bank.

At a glance, it was an alert for a bank robbery involving explosives.

"Is this... a bank robbery?"

Behind them, a middle-aged man exclaimed and shot to his feet.

He was Sun Yichuan, the chief of the Old Street Police Station. With his superiors visiting the station, he naturally had to accompany them the entire time.

Throughout the process, he had tried his best to remain inconspicuous.

But Sun Yichuan never dreamed that an alert like this would pop up at this very moment.

He hadn’t encountered a situation like this in many, many years.

Wang Peidong, who was normally stern and unsmiling, now had a gaze that was instantly sharp as a blade. He barked, "What are you standing around for? Contact the nearest patrol officers immediately! Get them to the scene to evacuate the public!"

Seeing the officer in charge of the monitors also frozen in a daze, he quickly clapped him on the shoulder, signaling for him to pull up the relevant surveillance footage.

Sun Yichuan scrambled out of the room.

The surveillance feed was pulled up immediately.

Important locations like banks have internal alarm systems for emergencies, similar to the hidden panic buttons under the counters in movies and TV shows.

With one press, the bank’s internal system would automatically respond and contact the emergency platform to report the incident.

At the same time, the bank’s internal surveillance cameras were equipped with a reserved Skynet interface. This port wasn’t normally active, but in an emergency, it would immediately open to the police.

This allowed the police to instantly access the bank’s internal surveillance, assess the situation, and determine how to respond.

And just like that, the lobby surveillance footage from the Old Street branch of Ningshan Commercial Bank appeared on the screen.

The moment they saw the image clearly, Wang Peidong and the other two men cried out in shock at the same time.

Lin Weinian’s eyes went wide. "That’s... Shen Xin!"

He saw Tian Kui, so it was obviously Shen Xin.

Wan Chao exclaimed, "What is he doing there?"

The red dot only showed that Shen Xin was still in the Charming Street area, but he hadn’t looked at the map closely enough to notice that Shen Xin’s red dot was right inside the bank.

Wang Peidong’s gaze sharpened.

The camera was in the bank lobby. Shen Xin was pinning Li Kun firmly to the floor while Tian Kui prowled nearby, poised to attack.

From the audio feed, Li Kun’s squeal, like a stuck pig, came through clearly. "My hand! It hurts!"

Wang Peidong could clearly see a pipe bomb lying on the floor.

At the same time, Shen Xin freed a hand to rip open Li Kun’s jacket, revealing another set of pipe bombs wrapped around his body.

"That kid..."

Wang Peidong muttered under his breath and quickly ordered the surveillance footage to be rewound to see what had happened.

The surveillance footage began to rewind.

"Start from here," Wang Peidong commanded.

Li Kun had rushed into the bank and immediately gotten into an argument with the security guard and the lobby manager.

And at that moment, Shen Xin had followed him in, leading Tian Kui.

Lin Weinian said in a low voice, "Don’t tell me this kid discovered the situation early on and followed the suspect all the way to the bank."

He thought about it over and over. It was the only possibility.

How else could it be such a coincidence that Shen Xin was right there on the scene?

Shen Xin wouldn’t have gone into a bank to search for the assessment’s target.

There was only one explanation: while searching for the target, he had spotted a suspect with abnormal behavior and started tailing him.

After saying this, he drew in a sharp breath, finding it somewhat unbelievable.

During the previous anti-drug assessment, Shen Xin had accidentally stumbled upon a real drug case.

He had read the relevant reports; the case was progressing well and had led to a major discovery.

He himself had later called it a surprise and hoped for more surprises like it.

But he never expected Shen Xin to actually give him another surprise.

Or perhaps, a scare!

Wang Peidong didn’t speak, his eyes glued to the monitor.

The footage showed that after entering, Shen Xin had been watching Li Kun.

There was audio, so Wang Peidong also heard the content of the argument.

He also noticed that Shen Xin had taken out his phone, only to put it away again.

He breathed a small sigh of relief.

He had come to the same conclusion as Lin Weinian: Shen Xin must have spotted a suspicious individual and decided to follow him.

Since Shen Xin had his phone out, he was probably preparing to report it.

This meant the kid wasn’t planning to act rashly on his own.

That was what Wang Peidong had been most worried about.

In an emergency, police officers needed to be on the front lines, but they had to rush in intelligently and rationally.

After all, an officer’s life is still a life.

The fact that he put his phone away probably meant he heard the argument and judged it to be a common dispute.

But in the next moment, Li Kun pulled out a fruit knife—and explosives.

The scene erupted into chaos.

People started running for the exit. Li Kun ignored them and ran to viciously kick the security door.

This was a security door, not a prop from a movie.

In reality, even a wooden door isn’t that easy to kick open, let alone a professional security door like this. It was impossible for a person to kick it down easily.

In an instant, the customers and the security guard had all fled the bank, leaving only the lobby manager and Shen Xin behind.

Shen Xin didn’t rush forward rashly. He told the lobby manager to leave and simultaneously gestured to the tellers behind the counter, signaling for them to get out as well.

Wang Peidong nodded slightly.

Shen Xin’s handling of the situation was excellent. In an emergency like this, the first priority was always to evacuate civilians.

But at that moment, Li Kun, unable to kick down the door, saw the tellers about to leave. He then turned and saw the lobby manager also trying to escape. He immediately charged over with his knife, attempting to stop them.

In that split second, Shen Xin acted.

He dropped the leash, and Tian Kui shot out like a rocket, precisely sinking his teeth into Li Kun’s right hand, which was holding the explosives.

Shen Xin immediately closed the distance, executing a flying takedown to control Li Kun’s left hand, which held the knife.

In an instant, man and dog, in perfect coordination, tackled Li Kun to the ground.

While yelling for the stunned lobby manager to run, Shen Xin twisted Li Kun’s wrist, knocking the fruit knife away.

Meanwhile, Tian Kui kept his teeth sunk into Li Kun’s other wrist, making him scream in agony.

The bomb had been knocked loose during the initial lunge and had fallen to the floor.

What followed was the scene from the beginning, with Shen Xin restraining Li Kun and searching his body.

"Good kid!"

Wan Chao slapped the table in excitement.

The coordination between Shen Xin and Tian Kui was decisive and sharp.

Lin Weinian also nodded to himself. No matter what, he found it impressive that Shen Xin could be so decisive in the heat of the moment.

As Wang Peidong’s brow unfurrowed, his tense heart finally settled a bit.

Judging by the current situation, Shen Xin had made the right choice.

The lobby manager had been between Li Kun and Shen Xin.

When Li Kun charged, he was clearly trying to take a hostage.

In that situation, if Shen Xin hadn’t acted, the lobby manager could have been harmed, and the situation could have become much more complicated.

So, he had no choice but to act.

This was exactly what he meant by rushing in rationally.

The surveillance feed returned to the live view.

Shen Xin was out for a competition and didn’t have handcuffs on him. He pulled off his own belt and used it to tightly bind Li Kun’s arms to his body.

Then he had Tian Kui watch him.

Now, Shen Xin was crouching down to inspect the bomb.

The moment he touched it, Shen Xin knew. It was a fake, just as he’d suspected.

Earlier, Shen Xin had felt that something was off about the explosive Li Kun was holding. The circuit board attached to the outside was too complex; it even seemed to have indicator lights.

A real bomb wouldn’t need such a complicated circuit board. Frankly, a single push-button switch would be enough.

Or, even simpler, a direct fuse.

A complex circuit board could perform many functions, but in reality, there’s only one requirement: make it go boom.

Most importantly, Tian Kui hadn’t detected the scent of any hazardous materials on him.

In the previous competition, Tian Kui had been able to accurately detect hazardous materials under extremely harsh and complex conditions.

If he didn’t detect anything, then there was nothing to detect.

Shen Xin had trained Tian Kui himself. He trusted his dog’s judgment.