Chapter 39: System mission triggered.

The investigation into Xixi’s suspicious boyfriend did not get a chance to begin because Liwu’s first day as an officer of the SOB kicked in. It started with a call to the new precinct that was still being decorated. The case was a theft in a hotel right there in Jingwan district.

By the time Liwu arrived, other officers of the SOB were already at the crime scene. Two of them were negotiating whose right it was to investigate with the ordinary police that was also present. As it turned out, the victim had called the SOB and the hotel manager called the police.

Liwu was not surprised to meet Xia Linlin at the scene. Half of her co-workers had been transferred to this new precinct, including the chief himself, Abby Chung.

Linlin was talking to a man on the bed who was sobbing loudly like his whole world had just been destroyed.

Detective Ye Xu Ning leaned towards Liwu and said, “We were called in for a lost cat. Can you imagine it? He called us ranting about a major theft and it turned out to be a lost cat! If this is why we were transferred her, I suggest we haul it back to Beijing.”

Liwu snorted. For her, every case was a serious one until proven to be a nuisance. For all they knew, this was a special cat like Majesty. “What do we know so far?” she asked, in the series voice of a senior detective.

Ye Xu Ning, sighed. He could already see the paperwork piling for a nuisance case. “His name is Chen Batian, fifty one years old and a resident of Chongqing. He came to eat his way through Flame district, do some lame meditation, fly on a sword…”

“Seriously?” Liwu questioned Xu Ning.

Xu Ning shifted his lanky form and smiled. “He came for the tour package with his cat and it went missing from his hotel room when he was taking a bath. Hotel staff swear that no one went into the room after him. Surveillance footage suggests so as well. Mr. Batian decided that this was a system host related crime and called us in.”

Liwu nodded. Immediately, she went to take a look at the footage for herself. Indeed, nobody had gone into the room after Mr. Batian. So, had the cat vanished into the air?

After watching the footage, she took a walk around the room while another officer scanned it for traces of system host activity. They had special equipment to help them with such work.

She was just about to step out of the room when she heard a notification in her mind.

[Bad Luck triggered:

Mission: Slip into trouble.

Objective: Survive the fallout.

Reward +50 chaos points.]

She had long learned to familiarize herself with her system through different triggers. Chaos points and Bad luck points were different. Chaos points were a rare reward and they allowed her to create chaos and reap points from the damage which followed.

As a detective that sometimes needed to evade observation, she appreciated and desired them.

She groaned, but smile. “Of course I accept the mission.”

As soon as she finished saying those words, she stepped on a rug and it slipped, sending her crashing towards a cleaning cart that was packed in the hotel hallway. Her dress snagged on the edge of the cart. As she tugged on it, she accidentally sent everything falling.

A bucket fell open, revealing an unconscious grey cat and a red pouch which split open, scattering shiny stones across the tiled floor.

Diamonds. Real ones, in different colors.

The janitor, who had been talking to police officers innocently just moments before, froze. His face drained of color. “You shouldn’t have touched that,” he muttered, his voice low and dangerous.

The next sound that was heard was a shriek loud enough to shatter glass and then Mr. Batian slipped on the same rug Liwu had slipped on. Even as he fell, he shouted for his cat.

“Hold him.” Liwu reminded the startled officers.

But it was a tad bit too late. The janitor was holding a mop and not like he wanted to clean. He was holding it like a weapon. Liwu scrambled to her feet, clutching some of the diamonds.

Before the janitor could reach her, an officer attacked his eyes with paper spray and he was taken away.

“He has a snake head tattoo.” One shouted.

[System Update: Mission Expanded!

New Mission: Expose the Snake head smuggling head. Bonus Bad Luck points. The greater the chaos, the higher the pay out.]

Liwu did not need the system to assign her the mission. The snake head gang had been giving the Bureau trouble for many years now. They were key players in smuggling illegal system host devices and inventions across the country. They also smuggled other illegal things from weapons to stolen gold and diamonds.

She would never pass up a chance to capture any or all of them. First, she bent down and collected all the spilled diamonds, placing them back in the pouch where they had been.

An elevator stopped on that very floor and opened. Another janitor stepped out. As soon as he saw his colleague in handcuffs, he bolted for the emergency stairs.

“Arrest him.” Liwu bellowed.

Liwu took off after him, diamonds rattling in her fist. The janitor went through a door leading to the kitchen and Liwu followed. They weaved through chefs, foods were thrown in the air, pans were turned over and workers in the kitchen shrieked.

The system sang like a bird in Liwu’s mind..

[Survived oil spill” +55 points.]

[Survived cabbage leaves +10 points.]

The janitor slipped on frosting and collided with the kitchen entrance door that swung outwards. Liwu jumped over the frosted and lunged for the door.

[Survived frosting +20 points.]

Liwu did not meet the janitor at the door. Beyond it was a mass migration of guests arriving for a fan meeting with their favorite actor. The noise was loud, everything was chaos and the janitor was somewhere in the crowd.

Liwu stopped at the door, clutching the pouch tightly, her heart pounding. She had missed him.

“Fruit!” she kicked the ground. She touched her smart watch, requesting for a drone assisted facial search of the crowd. If it came quickly, she did not mind squeezing into the crowd to continue the chase.

Her phone rung and she answered it immediately. “Where is he?” she yelled.

“Outside,” A voice replied. “Getting into a car. You can’t catch up and you are not allowed to leave the hotel with the diamonds. You know how these things work. If even one goes missing, you will be accused of stealing or misappropriating evidence. Return to the crime scene.”

Liwu cursed again. She gave the crowd one last scathing look, as if she had the greatest grudge against them. Then, she turned around, snatched a macaron from a tray and made her way back to the crime scene.

[Mission Progress: Smuggling ring exposed–Partial.

Bad Luck points: 105

Chaos Points: 135.]

For Liwu, her thoughts were not on the points but her mistake. If she had thrown the bad luck baton, it was highly likely that she would have taken down the culprit.

By the time she reached the crime scene, Chief Abby was there, along with her husband whose scowl could have reached the heavens.

“Bad Luck Tai,” Chief Abby laughed. “How the hell did you slip and fall into a Snake head gang smuggling operation?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep