Li Zhiyuan hung up the phone and asked the owner, "How much?"
The owner swallowed his saliva with some difficulty. He still thought that the kid was just being mischievously playful, but to be safe, he pressed the speakerphone button and then the redial button.
The brief ringback tone made the owner’s eyebrows twitch. When the call connected, the voice of a dispatcher came through:
"Hello, this is the Tongzhou Police Station..."
The owner immediately hung up the phone. He couldn’t believe his eyes as he stared at Li Zhiyuan; he hadn’t expected the kid to actually make a real emergency call!
"What the hell are you doing, kid!"
The owner, seemingly out of his mind, left the cashier and ran next door; he had to tip off the video rental shop so they wouldn’t get caught red-handed when the police arrived.
Li Zhiyuan glanced at the phone. He had thought the owner would tell the police "It was just a kid messing around, sorry for bothering you."
Instead, as soon as the owner confirmed it was a real police call, he panicked and hung up immediately, not anticipating this at all.
However, Li Zhiyuan still left the phone fee on the counter and took two pieces of candy from a jar as his change.
At that time, candy often had a second layer of coating after unwrapping, which could be enjoyed by sucking on it. But Li Zhiyuan preferred to pick it off.
By the time he had cleaned off the coating and started eating the candy, a good while had passed, and the store owner had not come out of the video rental shop.
Li Zhiyuan guessed that something must have happened inside.
He sighed silently and decided to keep his distance.
After waiting for the traffic to pass, he crossed the street and reached the opposite side. However, feeling it was still too close, he walked a good distance further west and stopped in front of a bicycle repair shop.
From here, he could view the video rental shop across the street and see the police when they arrived on the scene.
It wasn’t long before Li Zhiyuan saw a police motorcycle arrive, followed by a police car.
The two vehicles stopped in front of the video rental shop, and six uniformed officers got out, four entering through the front door while two circled to the back.
The arrival of the police vehicles drew the attention of many nearby observers, who crowded around to watch the commotion.
Li Zhiyuan did not move any closer, instead standing still and quietly awaiting the outcome.
In less than two minutes, a policeman emerged from the video rental shop, running out with a look of disbelief on his face.
Li Zhiyuan was taken aback: Could it be that even the officer had run into trouble?
However, once he saw the policeman grab a walkie-talkie from the police car to speak, and another officer walked out of the video rental shop, he realized...
Something was definitely amiss.
The "Righteous Demon Extermination Records" details "miasma" in a special volume, referring to a unique environment that forms when corpses settle in a certain area.
That volume contains many methods for investigation, analysis, and resolution.
However, clearly, Wei Zhengdao’s era did not have telephones or people’s police.
Shortly afterward, waves of police reinforcements arrived, including a middle-aged plainclothes officer with stubble on his chin. Upon getting out of the car, his gaze swept swiftly around the area.
Though it may be inappropriate to describe an officer this way, this one gave Li Zhiyuan the impression he was under a hawk’s scrutiny for his gaze was too sharp.
What surprised Li Zhiyuan even more was that the man didn’t go into the video rental shop, but instead made his way through the crowd in front of him, seemingly heading in his direction.
However, his action was interrupted by the shouts of his colleagues from behind, and he had no choice but to turn around.
At this point, the people from the video shop were being led out one by one.
Their bodies looked limp, they stumbled as if about to fall at any moment while walking, yet their faces were flushed and they were shaking their heads vigorously.
The middle-aged officer approached one, grabbed his arm, and pushed up on the forearm, a motion much like the classic massage technique for the forearms.
Then, he let go of that arm and grabbed the second, then the third, performing the same action.
"Captain Tan, what’s going on?"
Tan Yunlong shook his head: "It doesn’t seem like they’re high."
This remark left many of the surrounding policemen with astonished expressions.
To be honest, at first, it was suspected to be a simple case involving the crackdown on illegal sexually explicit content. However, as the responding officers arrived on the scene for inspection, they immediately made an excited report.
Then, the whole station was abuzz.
Who would have thought that in this rural area, a group implicated in drug use could be caught unexpectedly?
Tan Yunlong knew what his colleagues were thinking, but could only say, "This is just my personal judgment. First, bring them back to the station, then ask the community health center to send a medical team to examine them."
Actually, even Tan Yunlong wasn’t entirely sure, because the group’s behavior was extremely suggestive.
Soon after, everyone from the video rental shop was brought outside.
Among them, Li Zhiyuan saw Leizi and Panzi, who, astonishingly, were not afraid of the police but were talking to each other, occasionally high-fiving.
The two part-time workers in the video rental shop did the same, even proactively chatting and laughing with the police beside them.
Such behavior was obviously suspicious, even to an untrained eye.
Additionally, Li Zhiyuan noticed that Brother Leopard, who was behind that woman, was missing.
But where Brother Leopard had gone, Li Zhiyuan did not know and couldn’t find out.
They were then taken to the police cars one by one, while the video rental shop and the adjacent convenience store were cordoned off by the police officers.