Police officer Chen Shu

Chapter 348 Your head is not to be photographed.
If you walk north along Dongming Road from the entrance of the Special Police Brigade until you reach the end, you'll find a river flowing from west to east, which locals call the Oujiang River. The river is vast and misty, surrounded by green mountains on both banks, with small boats gliding across its surface – a truly beautiful sight.

At night, the high-rise buildings along the river light up with red, yellow, blue, and green light strips on their river-facing facades, creating a dazzling and magnificent spectacle.

After their meals, many locals choose to stroll along the newly renovated riverside promenade to enjoy the pleasant scenery. The elderly sing and dance, while children jump and play, creating a lively atmosphere.

Over here, a group of teenagers, holding up glow sticks, followed a line of special police officers on foot, laughing and reluctant to leave.

They arrived at a small square by the river. Because it was far from the most bustling part of the city center, there weren't many people around. At this point, only two children remained, stubbornly following behind the group.

One was about ten years old, probably the older brother, and the other was about six or seven. The two children looked quite alike, so Chen Shu guessed they were brothers.

After calling a halt to the line for a short rest, Chen Shu and Chen Chuan each lit a cigarette and chatted, while Zhang Qing and several auxiliary police officers took out their phones to play. The small, thin SWAT officer at the very back of the line squatted down and played with two children. He seemed like a very gentle person.

"Chen Chuan, I'm telling you, are you rich people just bored out of your minds? Why don't you go home to rest at night and instead rush to work? I really don't understand," Chen Shu said, shaking his head.

"Going home? What's the point of being home all alone? I'll just have to order takeout for dinner anyway. I might as well stay at the office and eat with my buddies in the cafeteria." Chen Chuan said with some melancholy.

Having been classmates for so many years, Chen Shu roughly knew his situation. His parents were business owners, always busy and rarely saw him.

After chatting with him for a while, Chen Shu noticed the immense loneliness in his words and, seeing Chen Chuan's dejected expression, suddenly said, "Want to go out for a late-night snack together later?"

"Absolutely! What should we eat?" Chen Chuan perked up immediately at the mention of a late-night snack.

"Hmm, the fish we had for dinner tonight wasn't very common. The last time I had it, it was still tiny."

Chen Shu continued to ramble on, "Well, it must have been on my ninth birthday. My family was quite poor when I was little, and we rarely saw meat. That day, my mom took me out to eat for the first time ever. By the way, that was the first time in my life I ever ate out."

"Then we ordered a fish dish. When the dish arrived, my mom immediately picked up half of the fish head with her chopsticks. I was so young then, and I asked my mom, 'Why are you eating the fish head?' I'll never forget my mom's smile at that moment. She said, 'Silly child, Mom likes to eat fish heads.'"

Chen Chuan, who had been left behind in his hometown by his parents since childhood, listened intently, becoming quite absorbed in the story. He remarked with emotion, "Your mother must have loved you very much. Sometimes, material wealth doesn't mean anything; family love is what truly matters."

Before he could finish speaking, Chen Shu blurted out another sentence:
"That day we ate fish head with chopped chili peppers."

"."

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"Chen Shu, I'd like to send my greetings to your family, is that alright?"

"Just kidding, I was just teasing you when I saw that. Haha!"

"Get lost! How can you toy with other people's feelings like this?"

The two were chatting enthusiastically when they suddenly heard a commotion behind them. Chen Shu followed the sound and saw a woman in her thirties pointing at a short SWAT officer and yelling at him.

The short SWAT officer kept bowing and apologizing.

Chen Shu went over and asked, only to find out that the woman was the mother of the two boys who had been following their group. The two children were patrolling on foot with the special police, while the mother followed behind them, playing on her phone and watching them.

Later, during a break, the two kids asked to touch the gun on the smaller boy's body. Little did they know, they were actually after the pepper spray, not the gun.

However, the shorter man politely declined. Pepper spray on the face is quite unpleasant. Even adults can't stand it, let alone a child. The child, ignoring him, snuggled into the shorter man's arms, eager to play with the pepper spray. The shorter man accidentally knocked the child over, causing him to fall to the ground and cry. His mother, who had been following behind and playing on her phone, saw this.

The mother felt sorry for her child and thought the short man had deliberately dropped her child, so she got angry and started cursing.

Chen Shu patted the short man and told him to go wait for Chen Chuan at the front, while he stayed behind to talk to the child's mother. "Talk" was really just him getting yelled at; once the woman got tired of yelling, the matter would be over.

This woman was no pushover either; she berated Chen Shu for a full half hour before angrily pulling her two children away. As the three of them turned their backs and left, the child who had been crying uncontrollably turned back and said to Chen Shu, "Goodbye, police officer."

Chen Shu smiled wryly, but still gave the child a small salute as a token of his appreciation.

The child kept giggling, and then his mother dragged him away.

After this matter was settled, everyone lost interest in patrolling. Chen Shu waved his hand and told everyone to wait by the roadside for the troop transport vehicle to pick them up and take them back to their unit.

As a result, the short, absent-minded man couldn't keep up and stood far away when he was bumped into by a middle-aged man riding a bicycle wobbling by.

The two of them fell to the ground at the same time.

The middle-aged man had just finished drinking and was reeking of alcohol. He got up from the ground and saw the short man still sitting in front of his car. He slapped the man on the head.

He started cursing in the local dialect: "What the hell are you doing! Are you blind? Why aren't you standing anywhere, you damn security guard!"

Just as he was about to raise his hand again, someone grabbed his wrist from behind, causing him great pain.

"You dare hit a police officer?"

The middle-aged man turned around and saw five or six policemen following behind him. He immediately sobered up and quickly said with a forced smile, "Misunderstanding, misunderstanding. Officers, look, I fell down too, didn't I?"

Chen Shu ignored him and told Chen Chuan to call the command center via walkie-talkie.

When the middle-aged man saw that the policeman holding his wrist was unmoved and clearly intended to take him to the police station, his expression immediately changed. He shouted "The police are beating people!" in the street, attracting passersby to gather around and take pictures.

At this moment, the troop transport vehicle arrived, and Chen Shu forcibly put the man into the vehicle and took him directly to the local police station. Oujiang Road is entirely covered by video surveillance, and the incident was clearly captured; it was treated as assault.

On the way back, Chen Shu noticed that the short man was hanging his head, so he pulled him over and told him with a smile that he shouldn't think too much about such things. For people like them in the police station, being pointed at and cursed by the public was a common occurrence.

“Especially traffic police, they stand on the main road issuing tickets and get yelled at a lot. People call them bandits and robbers without hesitation. We police officers have to get used to letting it go in one ear and out the other,” Chen Shu advised.

The shorter man nodded gratefully, then asked, "Brother Chen, why did you tolerate that woman's insults and even physical assault? But why did you insist on taking that man to the police station? Those onlookers were all filming with their phones; weren't you afraid?"

Chen Shu chuckled and said, "You think you can just get your head patted for nothing? I don't care what they do to me. I'm used to being in the police station anyway. By the way, I was a minor internet celebrity back then."

Recalling the unfortunate incident at the Zhongshan Police Station, Chen Shu immediately laughed: "By the way, what's your name?"

The short man lowered his head and said shyly, "Brother Chen, my name is Yan Song."

Chen Shu reached out and grasped Yan Song's hanging arm, smiling, "Yan Song, it's a pleasure to meet you."

(End of this chapter)