Police officer Chen Shu

Chapter 30: Taking on a Case
Late summer, early morning, Jiefang Street, Chanyun Commercial Building, second floor, room 201.

Since being injured during the last kidnapping case, Chen Shu has been resting at home for several dozen days. As for the exact length of time, he's been resting for too long to bother calculating.

Being a grassroots police officer is really not easy. They have to fight crime and punish evildoers, mediate disputes and maintain stability, and in between, they also have to constantly ensure fire safety and accident liability in their jurisdiction.

Especially with the outbreak of the epidemic this year, most police officers are unable to go home. If they are unmarried police officers, they really treat their workplace as their home.

Besides, police officers deal with the darker side of society most of the people and things they encounter every day, which can easily shatter the worldview of new recruits. Those who can persevere generally have exceptionally strong mental resilience.

There are also KPIs. Sometimes everyone barely completes the monthly targets, and when they go back to their shifts, the public brings in a few more cases, or the leaders assign a few more cases, and the bureaucrats arrange several autumn operations every now and then.

Compared to the widely circulated "blessing" of the 996 work schedule, this is absolutely even worse, and that's no exaggeration.

As police officers whose job is to serve the people at all times, there is one good thing about them: no matter how hard they work, if something really happens, whether it's a public or private matter, their unit will always protect them to some extent.

So when Chen Shu fractured his bone, the police station directly approved a minimum of three months of recovery leave, with his salary and bonuses paid as usual. However, generally speaking, no police officer would actually take three months off.

After all, the police station's duty shifts are staffed by multiple officers. If one officer is missing, a duty cycle will immediately have one less day, which is quite obvious. The quotas won't decrease, and the number of calls received each day won't drop just because one officer is missing.

Especially for small police stations with insufficient manpower, where officers are on duty every three or four days, losing even one officer can have a significant impact.

When Chen Shu was examined at the local hospital, the doctor informed him of his injuries.

Three ribs are broken and there is internal contusion, but the problem is not particularly serious. Conservative treatment is recommended.

The recommended conservative treatment is to rest and recuperate at home.

So Chen Shu went back to Dongzhou with the rest of the group. He stayed in the inpatient department of Dongyi Hospital for a month, but couldn't stand the loneliness and went home.

The next day, he rushed to the station to report for duty, insisting that he couldn't let the brothers on duty suffer and that he had to take an extra shift. Unfortunately, the instructor immediately sent him home, telling him to stay home and wait for further notice.

Zeng Hong's original words were: "The Zhongshan Institute can still function without you, Chen Shu. In fact, it will be quieter and more stable."

Zeng Hong was joking, but given Chen Shu's personality, his words, though rough, were not without merit.

Zhongshan Police Station is located north of the center of Dongzhou City. It is a level-two police station. In addition to three station leaders (the station chief position is vacant, there is one instructor and two deputy station chiefs) and one administrative officer, there are 23 police officers on staff and countless auxiliary police officers. The jurisdiction covers an area of ​​more than four square kilometers.

It's not a large area, but because it has the most bustling riverside road in Dongzhou, bars, KTVs and other entertainment venues are all concentrated in one place, making it the most complex place in Dongzhou in terms of population.

Therefore, Chen Shu's suggestion to return to the station as soon as possible to share the pressure of on-duty police calls was not wrong. However, Zeng Hong's insistence was not without reason either; a broken bone takes a hundred days to heal, which is an ancestral saying passed down from ancient times.

Chen Shu couldn't persuade Zeng Hong, so he obediently lay at home basking in the sun, picked up Honor of Kings, which he hadn't played in a long time, and reached the "Honorary King" rank for the first time.

Today, as usual, he was lounging lazily on the sofa, playing Honor of Kings on his phone, controlling Arthur to charge into battle, when he received a WeChat message from someone whose contact name was "Citizen - Huang Siqian".

"Officer Chen, are you there?"

Huh? Who is this Huang Siqian? She asked again if he was there, and said to get to the point. During ranked matches, she was always unavailable. While his hands continued to operate the game, Chen Shu's mind was already racing.

"Double Kill!" Arthur, who was charging into battle, was killed by Double Kill.

Chen Shu glanced at the resurrection time, switched to his phone, and typed rapidly with two fingers to reply: "Yes. Think about it, edit the language, and send it to me with the time, place, people, and events."

Since the municipal government began implementing grid-based management last year, the contact cards of grid police chiefs bearing Chen Shu's image have been plastered all over the buildings and businesses in his jurisdiction.

Therefore, his WeChat account is now filled with hundreds or even thousands of contacts.

The other party's business card was marked as "citizen," and Chen Shu took it for granted that it was a local resident from the police station's jurisdiction who needed his help. In order to facilitate communication and improve the timeliness of the work, he sent the four elements of the inquiry as usual.

After sending the WeChat message, he switched back to the game interface.

"Stay calm! We can win!"

He tapped the shortcut phrase and continued his battle in the Grand Canyon.

After a short while, the game was over, but the other party still hadn't replied on WeChat. Chen Shu felt that his previous replies might have been too formal and felt a little guilty, so he sent two more WeChat messages.

"Hmm? Have you encountered some difficult problem?"

"If it's difficult to express in words, you can send me a voice message."

Just as he sent two text messages, Chen Shu received a long message from the other party.

"Officer Chen, hello. This is Huang Siqian. I don't know if you remember me. I was the one who received you when you came to my company to review the security footage a little over a month ago. I'm not specifically troubling you this time; I really have no other choice. I'm sending this to you using a colleague's WeChat account logged in on their phone because my phone might have been stolen. I've reported it to the police, but they just told me to go home and wait for further notice."

The lengthy text occupied several phone screens.

No wonder they had been waiting for so long. Chen Shu glanced at it briefly and understood the gist of it.

It turns out that the girl forgot her phone on the windowsill of the dormitory bathroom after taking a shower that morning. When she returned half an hour later, she found that her phone was gone.

The case is simple; it's highly likely that the theft was committed by someone living with the victim.

Without giving it much thought, Chen Shu grabbed his police ID, put on his civilian clothes, and rushed to the scene of the incident.

Yeah, this is a good opportunity to stretch my legs. I feel like my brain and body have become rusty from lying down all this time.

Huang Sisi? Could she be that big-eyed clerk we encountered during the kidnapping case last time?
"Okay, I'll be right there. First, contact your family and tell them your phone has been stolen, then notify the carrier to report the SIM card as lost."

"Yes, yes, it's China Mobile and China Unicom."

He replied as he walked.

(End of this chapter)