Police officer Chen Shu

Chapter 438 Police Academy Student (Part 1)
Wednesday evening at 9:30 pm, a male dormitory at the police academy.

Two bunk beds were placed on the right side of the room, with four green quilts folded into neat squares on each bed.

"Jiang Hai! The open house is the day after tomorrow, will your parents be coming?"

A young man with short hair pushed open the door and walked in, ignoring the dust stuck to his pants from training, and plopped down on the lower bunk by the door.

He patted Jiang Hai, who was lying on the bed staring blankly at the floorboards of the upper bunk, and asked, "Are your parents coming?"

Short hair is standard at the police academy for both male and female students. According to unspoken rules, freshmen's hair must not exceed 3mm, sophomores' must be 6mm, juniors' must be 9mm, and senior interns can do whatever they want, as long as it's not messy.

In the past, the standard for girls was simply not to wear their hair down, but now it's so short it looks like a tomboy's.

Jiang Hai didn't speak. A man sitting not far away, casually flipping through a book, with a body as thin as a bamboo pole, closed the book, turned around, and gave him the answer: "With Jiang Hai's temper, would he tell his parents about this open house? I'm sure only his sister will be coming the day after tomorrow."

Upon hearing the person mention "sister," Jiang Hai couldn't help but smile.

With a creak, a short, stout man closed the toilet door by the balcony, pulled up his belt, and walked to the sink on the balcony with a satisfied look on his face. He turned on the tap, washed his hands, and said, "Hey, when our sister comes over, the four of us brothers have to treat her well! We'll take her to the garbage street next door for a good meal! By the way, will your sister bring her best friend?"

Calling me short and chubby is relative to the other three in my dorm. According to the police academy's recruitment requirements, a height of at least 1.7 meters is a strict requirement. Chubby? I'll probably become muscular in a while.

His small eyes widened as he anxiously awaited Jiang Hai's reply.

Jiang Hai pulled a pillow from under his head and threw it at the short, fat man, laughing and cursing, "Get lost! What 'our sister'? That's my sister! Fatty, it's your turn to clean the toilet tonight, why are you going to the toilet by yourself?"

Jiang Hai has been at the police academy for just over a month since the college entrance examination ended, but he has already become quite familiar with his three roommates, and they can even be said to be able to talk about anything.

Even though Jiang Hai's parents were divorced, a family scandal, one of them didn't try to hide it, and the others talked about it naturally. This kind of closeness is truly rare.

This kind of camaraderie from their student days will be extremely precious in their later police careers.

The short, fat man finished washing his hands, shook off the water, and said righteously, "Who knows if you guys will get up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night? Let me wash them more thoroughly tomorrow morning."

"Everyone agreed that we all have to go to the public toilet in the building if we get up in the middle of the night, but that's up to you. Anyway, the inspector is coming to check tomorrow, so you have to make sure nothing goes wrong." The three-inch man wiped the desk with his bare hands and said seriously.

"Alright, mind your own business. Remember to put on gloves and wipe it again at the end, so you don't lose points for the dorm and make us stand on the playground as punishment in the middle of the night!" The short, fat guy retorted without backing down.

The first step in the brigade inspectors' standard inspection of dormitory hygiene is to run their gloved fingers across the table from the inside to the outside. The standard for passing the inspection is that there should be no dust on the gloved fingers.

Where there's a policy, there's a countermeasure. During their month-long police training, the new recruits devised their own methods. One such method was to wipe their new gloves clean before the brigade inspectors' checks.

Generally speaking, a pair of gloves consists of two gloves, and one glove can only be used for one day.

"Alright, I'm mopping the floor, I'll have to do that tomorrow. I'm going for a run now, guys keep up the good work."

Thinking about seeing his sister soon, Jiang Hai felt a surge of joy. He sat up with a jolt, humming a song as he put on the new rubber-soled shoes issued by the police academy, preparing to go to the training ground and give himself a little extra practice.

"Jiang Hai, the police training is about to end, is there any need to continue? You're not going to meet someone secretly, are you?" Knowing that Jiang Hai was going to night training, the gossipy, short, fat man projected his own experience onto him.

Jiang Hai put on his shoes and straightened up. Although he had a slight smile, his thick eyebrows and big eyes made him look seven parts like his sister Yan Chenxi. If it weren't for the short but deep scar on his left cheek that ruined his handsomeness, coupled with his height of over 1.8 meters, he would definitely be the team's heartthrob.

Touching the scar on his cheek from a slip on the parallel bars during night training, Jiang Hai laughed, "Meeting with whom? Those three policewomen from our squad? They're being watched by over fifty brothers in the squad, I wouldn't dare." Due to the special nature of the police academy's major, generally speaking, a squad of over fifty students is predominantly male. The number of female students is extremely small, around three or four.

"Fatty, police training is almost over, but we still have a long way to go at the police academy. It's definitely good to get some exercise now while we're not under the pressure of schoolwork. Once we get busy with our studies, we won't have time to exercise anymore."

The short, fat man was startled and said, "Jiang Hai, from what you're saying, you're still planning to study hard? Haven't you learned enough in three years of high school? We take the police academy entrance exam so we don't have to study anymore and can just wait to graduate and start working. Why are you making yourself so tired now? We'll have our share of hard work when we start working! Don't let the competition intensify now!"

Jiang Hai joked, "Haha, I'll scare you to death!"

According to the police academy's graduate placement plan over the past decade or so, students are sent back to their place of origin. After all, the local municipal public security bureau has already registered their identity information after their college entrance examination, and they are just waiting for them to return to their posts three or four years later.

It's not that the short, fat guy was really trying to be lazy, but given the police academy's employment rate of 99.6% last year and 99.4% the year before, there's no way he wouldn't graduate and become a policeman.

Listening to the instructors leading the group talk about job placements after graduation over the past few years, it's clear that the police academy teachers have spared no effort in helping students find employment. Even if a student fails the graduation exam, the teachers will use all their skills and resources to help them find jobs back home.

Last year, two graduates chose their own careers. One of them had an unexpected relationship with a female student from the neighboring art school, which resulted in the girl getting pregnant, leading to a dispute that reached the student affairs office of the police academy.

At the police academy, dating is strictly prohibited—it's a one-size-fits-all rule. But how can young people in their twenties, brimming with hormones, avoid it? The teachers generally turn a blind eye. It's just that this matter escalated to the point where it affected the reputation of the police academy, so in the end, they had no choice but to follow the rules.

The other one is interesting.

It is said that he was returning to school from his hometown after summer vacation. He was starving when he came out of the train station and bumped into a middle-aged woman. She very enthusiastically grabbed his hand and asked if he wanted to eat fast food.

The hungry, hot-blooded youth nodded decisively and followed the woman into a small inn in the alley, thus beginning a completely new phase of his life. Still not satisfied, the young man was eventually caught red-handed one day while climbing over the school wall to have some fun outside.

They brought this upon themselves, so they can't blame the police academy.

"Alright, Fatty, I know." Jiang Hai patted the short, fat man's shoulder, knowing he couldn't convince the people around him in one go.

However, Jiang Hai himself went from being a marginal student who was ignored and unknown in class, and even bullied by the school bullies, to being admitted to this place that he never dared to dream of before through several months of hard study.

During the summer vacation after the college entrance examination, the news of a prospective policeman caused a stir in the high school class group. Classmates and teachers looked at him with new respect, and even Brother Zhang, who used to walk with his head held high in school, asked someone to come and curry favor with him. Jiang Hai found it hard to believe that Brother Zhang was so humble.

Although Jiang Hai scoffed at all of this, he became convinced that learning could change a person's destiny, no matter when.

The skinny guy who had been reading earlier pulled another book from his small bookshelf, slowly turned to the first few pages, and said, "Jiang Hai, do you remember when I sneaked out on the second night after we reported for duty? Do you know what I went to do?"

"What were you doing?" The short, fat man suddenly stood up from his lower bunk, staring wide-eyed at the skinny man. "A large group of new people arrived those days, and the management in the compound was the strictest. How dare you run out alone after lights out!"

At the time, the group had just met and weren't very familiar with each other, so although they were curious, they didn't ask directly. After a while, the group became more familiar with each other, and the short, fat guy, who was quite gossipy, asked a few times, but the skinny guy always made excuses to avoid it.

The skinny man got up, opened the private cabinet on the small bookshelf, pulled out an ordinary, not-so-large black travel bag, and threw it on the ground.

"Fatty, you're too curious and talkative. These are fatal flaws when you graduate and start working. You need to change them!"

The short, fat man, too lazy to listen to the skinny guy's lecture, glared at the travel bag on the ground and pounced on it without hesitation, eager to see what was inside.

The observant Jiang Hai knew that the contents of the skinny man's bag were not simple. He took a few steps to the door, locked it from the inside, and leaned against it. He and the short-haired man sitting on his bed looked at the short, fat man.

(One of the police academy's rules is that dormitory doors must not be locked at any time. Please note that this is "at any time".)
(End of this chapter)