(Quick Transmigration) Even If You Become an Animal, You Still Have to Serve an Iron Rice Bowl - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: 

During the day, the bar kept most of its lights dimmed, making it look even gloomier than it was at night.

As soon as Qin Yan and Yang Yue entered in their police uniforms, the bar manager hurried up to them with a polite smile on his face.

“Officers, what brings you here? Is there news about Xiao Su?”

Xiao Su was the victim, whose full name was Su Hui.

Yang Yue stepped forward. “Hello, we’d like to take another look at Su Hui’s locker. Also, could you take a look at this person and see if you recognize him?”

She showed the manager a photo of the man.

To be honest, Shen Qiu had seen that photo before but the man was waterlogged and pale from the water, which caused his face to be completely distorted. Even if the manager really had seen him, he probably wouldn’t recognize him right away.

The manager rubbed his balding head with a sigh, clearly startled by the picture, then shook his head.

“With him swollen up like this, even if I’d seen him before, I wouldn’t be able to recognize him. Officers, does this man have something to do with Xiao Su’s disappearance?”

The manager seemed like he was trying to pry information out of the police, but Yang Yue raised her eyebrows and shot him a fierce glare while berating him in a stern voice.  

“Don’t probe into case details!”

The manager flinched and didn’t dare to say anything else. He quickly led the two officers and the cat toward the staff lounge.

On the way, he couldn’t help sneaking glances at Shen Qiu, probably thinking about how strange it was for the police to handle a case with a cat in tow. 

“Here is Xiao Sui’s locker. She usually just kept her own clothes and things in it. The officers who came yesterday already checked it and found nothing wrong. 

Qin Yan waved his hand to signal him to leave.

Once the lounge door shut, Qin Yan unclipped the leash and signaled Shen Qiu to start searching.

Shen Qiu twitched his nose. The locker reeked of Su Hui’s scent, but there was no trace of drugs.

He sniffed around the area in a circle, then flicked his tail at Qin Yan.

That meant there was nothing here.

Both Qin Yan and Yang Yue’s faces darkened. 

“What about the surveillance? Has all of it been checked?”

Yang Yue nodded. “Lao San already went through it yesterday. Everything was normal. There was only regular movement with nothing unusual.” 

Hearing this, Shen Qiu grew anxious. Was this going to be another dead end?

Just then, someone knocked on the door. 

“Officers, I suddenly remembered something. I think I’ve seen that man before.”

Qin Yan’s head shot up, and Yang Yue immediately darted over to open the door.

“What do you mean?”

The manager frowned. “I’m not sure, that photo is really… But I do remember the man had a rather distinctive mole between his brows.”

He rambled on for a while, and the two officers plus the cat began to grow impatient.

“Get to the point.”

“Right, right. Could I trouble the two officers to come with me to the monitoring room? If I’m not mistaken, that man came to our bar the night Xiao Su disappeared.”

Qin Yan and Yang Yue exchanged a glance, quickly urging the manager to lead the way. Shen Qiu followed along on all fours.

The bar’s surveillance footage was only overwritten every half month, so the footage from nine days ago was still intact. After the security guard pulled up the recordings from that day, starting from the afternoon and onward, the manager thought for a bit.

“Around 8 o’clock, Xiao Hui went to deliver drinks… the location was… Right, it was by the stage in one of the booth. Lao Wu, switch screens.”

The guard quickly operated the console, jumping to the right time.

Due to time constraints, they fast-forwarded the video, which tested their eyesight.

Shen Qiu leapt onto the control panel, staring unblinking at the footage.

The bar staff was frequently approached by customers looking for trouble, especially since some people tended to be overly energetic after drinking too much. 

In one night, Su Hui was harassed more than ten times. If it weren’t for the concrete clues, it would have been hard to tell who the man in the photo was. 

“Wait! Rewind, go back!” the manager suddenly shouted.

The guard rewound the footage back to the dance floor.

 “Officers, take a look. Is that him?”

The man’s face zoomed in. The mole between his brows stood out clearly.

It was him! Shen Qiu recognized him at a glance. He looked at Qin Yan, who also recognized him. 

They let the guard play the video at normal speed. 

The footage showed the man attempting to touch Su Hui while she was working. She dodged, and the unhappy man was about to stir up trouble when a male staff member came over. The manager himself was then called over. 

While watching the video, the manager slowly recalled the incident. 

“Now that I think of it, that guy was a bit strange.

Seeing Qin Yan frown, he quickly waved his hands. “I’m not just saying that because of the photo! Back then, he demanded that Su Hui apologize and drink with him, or else the bar would have to pay him 1,000 yuan in compensation.”

“To deal with such unreasonable people, we usually have the staff apologize to them.” His voice faltered as he gave Qin Yan a guilty glance. 

Yang Yue rolled her eyes.

“In other words, you guys just want to avoid trouble. There’s no issue as long as the staff is willing to accompany him for drinks, right? If they’re not willing, then they have to cover the compensation themselves, is that it?”

The manager awkwardly fell silent. 

Qin Yan motioned for him to go on.

“Well, they were quarreling, but then the man suddenly said to just forget it. He’d been staring at Su Hui for a while before that. At the time, I thought he was interested in her and didn’t want to lose face in front of a woman. But thinking back, Su Hui’s avoidant expression…made it seem like she knew him.”

Another lead.

Qin Yan personally zoomed in on Su Hui’s facial expressions. Though the resolution wasn’t good, it was evident there was indeed some kind of prior interaction between the two. 

The two knew each other, so why put on such a show at the bar?

Both the two officers and the cat fell into thought until the manager suddenly clapped his hands with a look of enlightenment. 

“They couldn’t have planned this in advance, could they?

Seeing the police look at him, the manager explained that this had happened before. An employee had colluded with a customer to cause trouble, so the bar was forced to compensate them with 5,000 yuan. 

“The next day, the employee quit. Thinking about it now, it’s very similar to Su Hui’s case!”

Convinced he had uncovered the truth, the manager angrily scolded Su Hui.

But Shen Qiu felt like something was off. 

He continued watching the surveillance footage. On the monitor, Su Hui toasted the man with a drink, then walked away.

A Drink? Wait!

“Meow!”

He leapt in front of Qin Yan, pawing at his hand and yowling at the screen.

“Qiuqiu? What did you find?”

“Meow, meow!” Back up! Zoom in on the wine glass!

Qin Yan tentatively rewound the footage, and Shen Qiu flicked his tail in affirmation.

Thankfully, since they were both police officers, their thought processes were aligned. Watching Su Hui toast the man again, Qin Yan spotted it too.

Traces of drugs had been found in Su Hui’s vomit. She had worked all day and left straight after her shift, staying under surveillance until she reached the alley. So when could she have taken drugs?

When analyzing it, this was the only possible moment.

Qin Yan’s expression hardened as he zoomed in on the man’s action of holding a wine glass, and slowed the footage to half speed.

Immediately, he clearly noticed the man slip something into the glass.

“So Su Hui had no idea what she…at all.” Upon realizing the manager was still present, Yang Yue swallowed the rest of her words. 

Qin Yan drew a deep breath.

 “Back to the station. We need to have a meeting.”

They copied the surveillance footage and left the bar.

As soon as they returned to the precinct, Lao San rushed over with a report.

“The corpses have softened. Both were holding a bag of drugs. Forensics confirmed the cause of death was drowning and suffocation. Moreover, they fought fiercely beforehand. Su Hui had been slapped several times, and the man’s groin was violently struck.”

Upon hearing this, Shen Qiu pieced together a speculated chain of events.

The two were most likely in an intimate relationship.

Regardless of the man’s intent at the bar, he had clearly gotten Su Hui unknowingly involved with drugs. Afterwards, she might have tried to confront him, but he lured her to the riverside. 

He might have taken out the drugs at that moment, trying to use them to control or threaten Su Hui. An enraged Su Hui accused and cursed him. Then, the man might have slapped her a few times or maybe tried to do something worse. Enraged or terrified, she tried to escape and struck back, hitting his groin.

Unexpectedly, he still dragged her down, and in the struggle, they both fell into the river.

Shen Qiu let out a heavy sigh.

These drug addicts… they have already ruined themselves and still want to drag someone else down with them.

The case was immediately sent to the new narcotics task force.

After the team members finished the meetings, they began to investigate the man according to the bar’s surveillance footage. This job was very time-consuming, and it took them two days to finally locate the man’s residence, a shared rental home on Wuyi Alley in the southern part of the city. 

When he heard the address, Shen Qiu froze for a moment while putting on his shoulder strap. 

Yang Yue gently stroked him. “What is it, Qiuqiu? You remember that place?”

The name was too familiar. Wasn’t his previous owner arrested back there?

Seeing the big cat’s thoughtful expression, Yang Yue sighed again. “Your IQ is really ridiculously high. We should give you an IQ test one day.”

Shen Qiu turned his rear to her in disdain, indicating that he wasn’t interested. Once the test results came out, he was afraid of being taken for breeding.  

Shen Qiu followed the police to Wuyi Alley, an area with many old-style residential complexes which had been turned into shared rental homes by the landlords. 

Posing as officers inspecting for illegal rental properties, they easily entered the man’s unit. The room had been converted from a storage room in the far corner.

The moment the door opened, the stench hit them. Shen Qiu didn’t need to sniff closely since he recognized the familiar scent. He lay down to signal. 

As soon as Yang Yue saw this, she immediately took the landlord outside for a lecture.

Inside, Shen Qiu searched the room thoroughly, uncovering nearly a pound of drugs hidden under the bed and in a suitcase, with around fifty grams of the new drug. 

“Impressive, really impressive!”

“Young people these days are really bold. With such a big stash, he might as well report straight to the King of Hell.”

Lao San’s nose flared with anger as he packed everything up in gloves.

Meanwhile, Shen Qiu padded around the area and stopped at the doorway of another room. 

He sniffed at the crack in the door, then turned his head and called out to Qin Yan.

“Meow!” There’s also something here!

Author’s note:

Qiuqiu: Happy New Year to all of the big brothers and sisters! Have you eaten dumplings yet?

~~~

T/N: Looks like the plot is picking up! This chapter was also relatively straightforward, though it’s a bit longer than the last chapter. 

3.0k characters to 1.9k words | Translation Time: 1.5 hours