“Captain Lin, please give us a chance to survive! It took millions of yuan to open up the sales channels in the city for us. With this Weibo post out, hundreds of agents have called to cancel their cooperation with us and return the products. We’ve lost close to a million yuan!”

In the reception room of the Public Security Bureau, the legal representative and the sales manager sent by the company, said tearfully.

Lin Qiupu said, “There is really no other way. Some criminals are using your plant's beverages to commit crimes. In emergency situations, we must put the personal safety of citizens as the first priority.”

The legal representative said, “Isn't it a matter of life for the thousands of people in our company? Today, the entire plant was shut down. I don’t know when we’ll resume production. The workers asked us why we stopped production and we couldn’t answer. Only four people died. Just how many thousands of people do you want to starve to death?”

The sales manager said, “Yeah, what you police are doing now is most likely the trap that the criminal set up. He is trying to harm our company and bankrupt us!”

Lin Qiupu looked helpless, and the other party thought that he was unmoved, so they even kneeled on the spot. Lin Qiupu hurriedly said, “Sorry, I have to do this right now. I promise you that I will be on Weibo to clarify things after all this is over to restore your factory's reputation.”

“It would be too late.”

“It's too late even now.” The two looked mournful.

After finally sending the two delegates away, Lin Qiupu felt stressed. He returned to the conference room. It was already past noon. Many police officers came back one after another. Lin Dongxue and Chen Shi also came back. Lin Dongxue laughed as she shook her wrists, “My hands are so sore from unscrewing bottle caps all morning.”

Lin Qiupu sighed secretly. If I could, I would prefer to unscrew bottle caps.

“Let's summarize the findings!” Lin Qiupu said.

“Three bottles were found in the new department store and at the Fumanjia Supermarket... This is the invoice.”

“Jialefu on Zhonglian Road had a bottle as well... This is the invoice.”

Lin Qiupu marked them on the map one by one and looked at the final result. He said, “It seems that the suspect is not hiding a lot of 'bombs' all over the city. He only operates in these two districts.”

Chen Shi said, “The Public Security Bureau is also in this district. He’s pretty brave!”

Lin Qiupu glared at him, “Do you have more constructive opinions?”

Chen Shi walked over to the map and said, “Look here and here... These are highways, and the distance is very near, but if you drive, you have to go around quite a bit. From the places that the 'bombs' were placed, we can speculate that he walks rather than drives. According to standard criminal profiling, his hiding place may be around here...” Chen Shi used his hand to draw a circle as if it was a compass, and then took a pin to mark the center of the circle.

“Okay, let's search there now!” Lin Qiupu said.

The police officers immediately set off and went to the streets to search door to door, focusing on some private rental houses. The search lasted three hours. At dusk, Xu Xiaodong said on the radio, “Hey, hey, I found it!”

“Xiaodong, pay attention to our radio procedures!” Lin Qiupu shouted.

“I'm Xu Xiaodong. I found a suspicious house at 31 Chunhua Street. There are many bottles inside... Fuck!” Suddenly, Xu Xiaodong's voice was drowned by the sound of an explosion. It took about a second before they heard an explosion in the distance. Then there was smoke coming out of a building in that area.

The dispersed police officers rushed there immediately, and Lin Dongxue and Chen Shi, who were closer to him, took the lead to find the building unit. People who didn’t know what was going on crowded around below.

Lin Dongxue rushed into the building and slammed the elevator buttons a few times, but the elevator wouldn’t come down. She had to climb up the stairs with Chen Shi.

Climbing up the 20th floor in a single breath, Lin Dongxue shouted, “Xiaodong, Xiaodong.”

“I'm here...” Xu Xiaodong called out before coughing.

The corridor was full of smoke and soot, and the visibility was extremely low. Chen Shi took out a handkerchief and covered Lin Dongxue’s nose and mouth. After they rushed in, they found Xu Xiaodong sitting outside an apartment with a darkened face. The security door next to him was deformed and boiling hot.

“What's going on?” Chen Shi asked.

“As soon as I went through the door, I found a cardboard box and accidentally touched it. I heard a ‘beep’ sound, so I rushed out and closed the door. Then it exploded.”

Lin Dongxue breathed a sigh of relief. “You reacted really fast.”

Xu Xiaodong patted his ears. “My ears are almost deaf. Can you pull me up?”

Then the other policemen came up and waited for the door to cool down. They pushed the door in. The room was black and burnt. Many places were still burning. There was a smell of burning plastic. Chen Shi saw several identical bottles.

Chen Shi picked up a bottle of carbonated beverage that hadn't been burned and unscrewed it. There was indeed a ‘prize’ inside.

He blocked the mouth of the bottle with his fingers and shook it hard, preparing to use it as a makeshift fire extinguisher. Lin Qiupu said, “Aiya, don't mess around!”

“It's already like this.”

Chen Shi removed his fingers blocking the mouth of the bottle a little, and the sprayed liquid put out the surrounding small flames. Lin Qiupu sniffed and said, “The smell of gasoline. It was a bomb made of gasoline. The purpose was to destroy evidence.”

“If he was lucky, he could even get rid of some of the police.” Chen Shi looked at Xu Xiaodong. “Was the door closed when you came?”

“It was closed, but as soon as I stepped on the doormat, I found something sticking out. I lifted the mat up and it turned out to be a key.”

Lin Qiupu scolded, “You should have informed us.”

“If I didn’t open the door, how would I know that something was wrong inside?”

Xu Xiaodong’s argument had some logic to it. If he contacted him for every door that couldn’t be opened and they called an explosion detection expert to check it out, then the search wouldn’t be completed even in three days.

This was an unexpected situation. Fortunately, Xu Xiaodong was smart and agile, so no casualties occurred.

The police officers cleared the scene and found acrylic ink that was used to draw on the caps, a large number of the beverages, maps, and simple household items. The front page of a burnt book had words that read “A word from the owner to the ‘visitors’: Your justice is unable to withstand a single blow.”

“That's really crazy!” Lin Qiupu said.

A police officer came up and said, “I asked the landlord. The house was rented out two days ago. The money has been paid, but the contract has not been signed yet, so we don’t know the ID number. I showed the landlord a photo and the landlord confirmed that it was Wang Sunxu.”

Chen Shi picked up a piece of paper from the trash can and opened it up for a look. He said, “I saw these fire-fighting passage cleaning notices posted on the outside of each unit. From the time printed below, they were put up today. Wang Sunxu was still here today.”

Lin Qiupu said, “Perhaps he was still here just now and evacuated after we searched the place. We need to immediately block all nearby intersections!”