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墨書 Inktalez
Provincial Public Security Department
After the Ministry of Public Security issued a document confirming that Shaoshilin would lead the establishment of a task force, the files on Li Minister's desk had not ceased to flow in, all containing recommendations for candidates from various regions. A week ago, Li Minister distributed a written examination, and from the returned papers, he selected the top one hundred performers.
Today, these one hundred individuals finally arrived at the Provincial Public Security Department to prepare for their interviews. Among them was Jiang He.
The roads were slick with rain as Wang Chao continued to drive Jiang He along the way.
The criminal police who passed the written exam were already seated in a large conference room.
According to the notice, the interviews should have been underway for half an hour by now; however, not only was there no sign of Old Shao, but not a single staff member from the Provincial Public Security Department could be seen. The criminal police sitting in the conference room exchanged puzzled glances, unsure of what was happening and why the examination had yet to commence.
“Teacher,” Director Wen said, glancing at Old Shao, who had already consumed three cups of tea. “Isn't today supposed to be the selection of the task force members? Everyone sitting in this conference room is among the best criminal police in the country. When are we starting? We’ve already exceeded the scheduled time by half an hour.”
Old Shao patted Director Wen on the shoulder and replied, “The exam has already begun.”
“The exam has started?” Director Wen looked through the surveillance at the criminal police in the conference room.
Inside, some were quietly sitting at their seats, waiting for the exam to begin; others had taken out their phones to play games or jot down notes; and some were walking around the room, seemingly observing something.
In any case, there was a variety of activities among these criminal police, but Director Wen could not discern how this constituted an examination.
Time ticked away, and as it approached the end of the scheduled exam time, Old Shao still had not appeared.
“This is a bit arrogant,” one criminal police officer remarked. “Making us wait here for so long.”
Others chimed in, “Exactly! We’re not just sitting around doing nothing.”
Yet some countered, “Just wait. Old Shao solved cases before we were even born; he might have something important delaying him.”
Some people were calmly observing the crowd.
At that moment, the front door of the conference room was pushed open, and everyone turned to look. However, the much-anticipated Old Shao did not appear at the entrance; instead, a frail man stepped in. His hair was wet and plastered to his scalp, his clothes soaked through by the rain, and mud splattered all over his shoes and pants.
The peculiar appearance of Jiang He immediately drew the attention of those present, who began to whisper among themselves.
It should be noted that none of the criminal police attending the exam were wearing uniforms. Many were from out of town, and several cities had regulations prohibiting officers from wearing their uniforms outside of official duties. For criminal police, wearing a full uniform could be too conspicuous and sometimes even counterproductive to solving cases.
In fact, seasoned officers generally preferred not to wear uniforms. Most of those in uniform were newly appointed officers. This situation could be divided into two types:
For some individuals, being a police officer was just a job, no different from repairing bicycles or selling spicy skewers. They didn’t want to risk their lives for this work; if they wore uniforms and encountered a fight between gangs, everyone would notice them. Would they intervene? If they didn’t, they could lose their job; if they did, they might even lose their life. They had wives and children too, just like ordinary people.
For others, however, they genuinely loved this profession. But when wearing a uniform, criminals would naturally keep their distance; the enemy remained hidden while they were exposed, losing the initiative. The best detectives would never let you know they were police officers; it was only when you prepared to commit a crime that you would realize they had been watching you all along.
Despite not wearing uniforms, everyone in the conference room appeared neat and presentable, while Jiang He looked disheveled. The crowd was reluctant to engage with him. Yet, despite their reluctance, curiosity about Jiang He lingered among them. Many clever individuals began to speculate whether Jiang He might be part of the exam content.
Some knew that the selection process for project team members was often unpredictable and illogical; it was common to receive notification of elimination before fully understanding what had happened.
Jiang He walked into the conference room alongside Wang Chao. Although Wang Chao knew his abilities were far from exceptional, he still wanted to give it a try.
Jiang He surveyed the entire conference room and noticed a whiteboard where someone had written in large letters: "Project Team Member Selection Exam, Exam Time: 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM."
It was already 2:45 PM, meaning there were only fifteen minutes left until the exam ended.
Jiang He observed that these people had no exam papers, and Old Shao had yet to appear.
"Isn't this an exam? Why is there no proctor?" Wang Chao looked around curiously.
Jiang He did not respond to Wang Chao's words but continued to observe.
The exam had already begun, yet there were no clear questions displayed on the whiteboard. Jiang He noticed that most people were idle, lacking any sense of urgency typical of an examination. His mind formulated a hypothesis: there was a ninety percent chance that the exam had started, and the questions needed to be discovered by the participants themselves.
What Jiang He needed to do now was to figure out what the exam questions were.
What is the most important ability for becoming a detective? Jiang He pondered, employing reverse thinking to deduce the answer.
Keen observational skills, calm reasoning abilities, and strong learning capacity.
Detectives must possess sharper observational skills than the average person, able to identify the most subtle yet potentially crucial clues at a crime scene. They need to maintain a calm reasoning ability, capable of deriving leads from simple observations and extracting more information from those leads. Additionally, detectives require a strong capacity for learning; criminals come from various backgrounds and employ diverse methods, so detectives must learn any knowledge or skills that could aid in solving cases while they work.
Thus, his brain transmitted a straightforward execution strategy to Jiang He: carefully observe everything in the room.
For Jiang He, observation meant memorization.
He positioned himself at the front of the conference room, allowing him to commit everyone's appearances and attire to memory. The detectives varied in height and build, dressed in an array of clothing styles, with ages ranging from their twenties to their forties.
Among these individuals, Jiang He quickly zeroed in on one person.
This individual appeared to be around thirty years old, dressed entirely in black, and was constantly checking his watch. While many detectives glanced at their watches, this particular person gave Jiang He an odd impression. Others checked their watches casually and sporadically, but this man seemed almost obsessive; he pulled out his watch at regular intervals and did nothing else.
He neither chatted with others nor played on his phone; he also didn’t sleep.
Jiang He scrutinized this man closely, specifically observing his shoes. Everyone else had entered from the rain-soaked outdoors, with nearly all shoes splattered with mud and most pants dampened at the cuffs. However, this man stood out. He wore a pair of white shoes that were remarkably clean, and his pants were dry.
This indicated that he had arrived at the conference room before the rain began.
The rain began to fall around ten in the morning, and this conference room was specifically designated for large meetings. It was not located within the Provincial Public Security Department building but rather in a separate structure some distance away. Given that distance, no matter how carefully one tried, it would be impossible to keep their shoes this clean.
Thus, Jiang He had an eighty percent chance of believing that, regardless of what the exam questions were, they were definitely related to this person.
Jiang He lifted his head and noticed the red lights of several cameras in the corner of the room blinking intermittently. This indicated that the cameras were operational, meaning someone was watching the many detectives in the conference room. Jiang He felt eighty percent certain that all the detectives' performances were being observed by someone sitting in the monitoring room.
These cameras did not have audio recording capabilities, which meant that those watching the footage could not hear the conversations happening inside the conference room.
Action, regardless of what the answer to this question might be, would certainly be completed through action rather than words.
So what kind of action would it be?
As Jiang He pondered this, he watched the movements of that person. Just five minutes before the exam was set to end, the man dressed in black stood up from his seat and headed toward the door. As he made his way out, he would inevitably pass by Jiang He.
"What are you doing?" Jiang He asked suddenly.
The man turned back to glance at Jiang He and replied, "Oh, just going to the restroom."
"I want to go too," Jiang He said.
"Let's go." The man in black pushed open the door and turned left as he walked out.
Jiang He noticed that before leaving through the front door, the man glanced back once more.
"I don't know what kind of nonsense is going on; I've been sitting here for forty minutes," Jiang He muttered.
"Yes," the man in black nodded. "I've been here longer than you, so I might be playing us."
"You should go to the restroom first." Jiang He stopped in his tracks.
The man in black nodded but ignored Jiang He.
In that brief exchange, Jiang He noticed that the man's answers didn't match his observations. First, there were no signs indicating the location of the restroom outside, yet the man in black headed straight to the left, suggesting he was quite familiar with the place.
Secondly, when Jiang He entered, he made a loud noise that caused everyone to instinctively turn to look at him. However, this man in black didn't glance his way; otherwise, he would have known that Jiang He had only just arrived fifteen minutes ago.
Jiang He raised a big question mark in his mind about someone who kept checking his watch and seemed oblivious to everything around him.
He stood where the man in black had been before leaving and turned to look back. His gaze fell on a trash can in the far corner, filled with garbage that was clearly household waste. In this conference room, it was normal to see tissues and water bottles, but finding snack wrappers or delivery packaging would be quite unusual.
Jiang He walked straight over.
"The exam time is almost up," Director Wen said as he watched the surveillance. "What are the results?"
Old Shao set down his cup. "Look, we already have some answers."
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