Chapter 010 I'll Take Your Last Name

"Why are you so ruthless?" Murong said in amazement.

Ye Fei looked at the shooter's dislocated wrist and smiled, "We’re not that different."

Murong made a phone call to the Director General to tell him the shooter was caught.

Because of the high-profile nature of the shooting case, several leaders of the public security system had become involved. Zhou Hongtao was in a meeting in the bureau when his phone rang. He saw it was Murong's phone number and sighed in annoyance. He just rejected the call and said, "Sorry, my wife is just wondering when I’m coming home."

"Director Zhou, according to the rules of the bureau, the phone must be turned off during meeting," a high-ranking director said gravely.

"Yes, yes, you are right."

Zhou Hongtao cursed Murong hundreds of times in his heart as he turned off his phone.

Murong felt helpless, "Ah, he turned off his phone… I will call Captain Zhang and ask him to send a police car over to bring the shooter back to the station."

"No, we worked hard to catch this guy. We can't let him steal all the credit. Call a taxi." Ye Fei had gotten a bad impression of Zhang Shuaipeng.

Murong nodded. She rode the small scooter out of the park, soon returning followed by a taxi cab. They put the shooter in the back seat. Ye Fei watched him while Murong rode the scooter behind the car.

There was a traffic jam on the way. Murong was faster than the car, so she went ahead to the bureau. As she parked the motorcycle outside, Captain Zhang Shuaipeng met her, followed by a crowd of police officers.

The police officers had been busy all day, but still did not find any useful clues. Now it was nearly 10 o'clock, they still hadn’t eaten and they were getting constantly scolded by Director Zhou. They were waiting for him to come out from his meeting.

Seeing Murong riding her small scooter with a smile on her face, they became angry, bitching about her as they smoked off to the side:

"Fuck, we’ve been working so hard, while this little girl rides around on her little scooter. She can't do anything useful at all."

"Yeah, but she looks hot. I bet she knows someone important who managed to get her on the force."

"Bah! She can't do anything to help us. She is just eye candy."

Zhang Shuaipeng looked pissed. He crushed his cigarette butt on the wall and walked toward Murong. "Miss Murong, where were you and your playmate? Why are you coming back so late? Don't you know that the Director General called for a meeting?" he sneered.

"Captain Zhang, what do you mean? You are working and so am I. Why would you think I’ve been playing around?" Murong was unhappy to be mocked in public like that.

"You’ve been working? You were supposed to bring a copy of the surveillance footage to the station, which should have taken no more than 10 minutes. How many hours were you gone? We were busy working all day. What about you?" Zhang Shuaipeng said coldly.

"I went to catch the shooter," Murong winked.

"Hah hah!" Her words provoked a burst of laughter from the surrounding men.

All they had was a few bullet shells, which forensics had not sent back the results as of yet. The 100 hours of surveillance footage required at least four days to scrutinize – and even then, it might not be enough to find the shooter. They didn’t think it was possible for her to have gotten very far.

"Just you? Miss Murong, if you can catch the shooter, no, if you can find any clues that lead to the shooter at all - I will change my last name to yours." Zhang Shuaipeng's tone was dripping with sarcasm.

"I’ll remember you said that," Murong snickered.

At that moment the directors finished their meeting and Director Zhou came out with a depressed look. When he saw the commotion outside, his mood became worse.

"What is all this yelling about?” he barked, “Isn’t there any sense of discipline around here? You are the people's police, not a bunch of street peddlers!”

"Director Zhou... Here’s what’s going on: Murong left work without permission; I am disciplining her." Zhang Shuaipeng hurriedly said.

When Zhou Hongtao heard that, he thought of the phone call from Murong earlier. She must have called him to ask for time off.

This was an emergency and everyone had to work together, it seemed Murong was too unreliable. Zhou Hongtao was fuming.

"Murong, write a report of what you did today." Zhou Hongtao maintained considerable restraint. If Murong hadn’t had a high-ranked backer, the fiery Zhou Hongtao would have already been screaming at her in public.

"Write a review? I went to catch the shooter! Why should I write a review?!" Murong bit her lip, her eyes tearing up a little. She hated being mistreated like this.

On another day, Zhou Hongtao might have let Murong get away with it, but today the leaders of the public security system were looking over his shoulder. At the meeting, the leaders had criticized Zhou Hongtao’s incompetence. His detectives were too inefficient - such a big shooting case and they hadn’t picked up any good clues all day.

If Zhou Hongtao covered for Murong now, his superiors would have an even worse impression of him.

"Murong, you dare talk back to me? If you caught the shooter, where is he?" Zhou Hongtao wanted to show his incorruptible character in front of his superiors.

Seeing everyone was waiting to call her bluff, Murong looked toward the gate and cried out, "What's wrong with Ye Fei?"

Just then, a taxi drove in and stopped in front of everyone.

Ye Fei opened the car door and pulled out the shooter. Looking up to see so many policemen, he smiled and said, "So many people! Is this my welcoming committee?"

Murong trotted over and dragged the shooter to Zhou Hongtao. "Director General, this is the shooter. I caught him about half an hour ago."

The whole audience went silent.

Everyone looked at Murong with surprise.

There were no leads. How had Murong catch the shooter?

This had to be a joke!

"Officer Murong... This man must be wrongly accused. Is he really the shooter?" Zhang Shuaipeng sneered.

Ye Fei threw out a big bag from the car. The barrel of a rifle was sticking out of it. "A Soviet SVD sniper rifle, see for yourself. There is also a pistol, a German-made military utility knife, and ammunition."

Everyone was stunned into silence yet again.

"Murong… did you really catch the shooter?" Zhou Hongtao's voice trembled.

He was happy - his superiors had asked him to solve the case within 72 hours. He was so worried about the case that his hair was beginning to turn gray. Now here was Officer Murong, not only with the shooter, but caught with irrefutable evidence.

Zhou Hongtao was elated.

"Take the shooter to the interrogation room immediately!" he commanded.

The policemen went to work as if just waking up from a dream.

Zhang Shuaipeng had originally wanted to ridicule Murong, but in the end he was the one who had looked foolish. He felt like he’d been mercilessly slapped in the face. Blushing profusely, he just wanted to get away from this situation.

Murong smiled, walked over, and patted Zhang Shuaipeng's shoulder. "Captain Zhang... Oh, I mean Captain Mu - how did I do?"

"Perfect…" Zhang Shuaipeng's face was as red as a ripe tomato. He desperately wanted to find a hole to crawl into.