Chapter 39 Applying for a Service Pistol for Lu Xingzhou

Not long after, this alluring fragrance drifted along the corridor and permeated the interior of the police station's administrative building. One by one, the police officers rushed to the cafeteria, their eyes gleaming with curiosity as they peered into the back kitchen.

"Master Chef, is the cafeteria serving any new dishes tonight?"

"This smell is incredible! It's not even time for dinner yet, and I'm already starving. Can I have a bite early?"

"Master Chef, what are you making? It smells so good! Over in the reception hall, the two guys who were fighting just said they'd reconcile instantly if they could take even one bite of this."

The officers inside the administrative building all abandoned their offices to check out the situation in the cafeteria, to say nothing of those who were already inside.

Had Lu Jiangying not held her back, Xu Hui’s head would have plunged right into Lu Xingzhou’s cooking pot.

The resident chef, who was usually in charge of cooking, could not fathom why mere steam could smell so divine, but he had already eaten two large bowls of leftover rice from lunch just to accompany this aroma.

All of this madness reached its absolute climax the moment Lu Xingzhou finished assembling the buns and tossed them into the steamer.

The chaos in the reception hall had spirally gone completely out of control.

Suspect Number One: "Off-… Officer, let me take one bite! Just let me take one bite, and I'll confess to everything you ask!"

Suspect Number Two: *Hiss…* "Officer, *hiss…* I can't take it anymore, I really can't take it… I'm begging you, can you let me finish eating first before asking your questions?"

In the reception hall, the suspects looked pale and trembled all over, endlessly muttering things like, "Let me take a bite, just let me take a bite."

As for the officers in the administrative building, they were acting like a horde of zombies, pressing their faces against the kitchen windows with wide eyes, finding every second agonizingly long.

Song Xiangchen and Zhou Shuwu returned to their temporary base at the Lingyuan Road Police Station with expressions of utter dejection.

They had already gathered a complete chain of evidence for the current case, but the whole thing sounded like absolute nonsense.

As soon as they stepped into the administrative building, they were hit by a soul-snatching aroma.

"What is this smell? Why do I feel instantly starved?"

"The chef at the Lingyuan Road Police Station is exceptionally skilled for the food to smell this amazing."

The two men jogged toward the source of the fragrance, only to see a crowd of officers pressed against the cafeteria windows from afar, gazing longingly inside with eyes that could truly be described as filled with yearning.

Out of curiosity, Song Xiangchen and Zhou Shuwu peered into the kitchen as well, just in time to see Lu Xingzhou wearing an apron, plastic gloves, and a face mask as he wrapped steamed buns.

Xu Hui, standing nearby, wanted to sneak a taste, but the moment she leaned even slightly closer to the filling, she was met with a collective glare of deterrence from her colleagues outside the window.

constrained by the silent threat of her peers, Xu Hui could only squat down in a corner, smacking her lips while plotting how to trick Lu Xingzhou into marrying her.

Ancient sages once said: Food and sex are the greatest human desires.

Testing Xu Hui with steamed buns?

Who—who on earth could possibly withstand such a test? Her willpower had long since melted away in the aroma of fish-fragrant pork.

Song Xiangchen and Zhou Shuwu exchanged glances. At that moment, they finally understood the behavior of the drug dealers to a certain extent.

Didn’t they see how every single officer had been hooked by this scent until their noses twitched?

If you used this to test drug dealers, of course they would end up getting themselves tied up.

***

Time ticked away second by second. When Lu Xingzhou lifted the lid of the steamer, the fragrance reached its absolute peak, and Xu Hui, standing closest, felt as though her very soul had been thoroughly saturated by the scent.

At that moment, two little figures appeared in her mind.

One little figure said: "Hurry up and grab them! There's only one batch, and if you don't grab them now, they'll be gone!"

The other little figure chimed in: "She's right!"

Without another word, Xu Hui picked up a pair of chopsticks and transferred three buns directly into her bowl.

It wasn't that Xu Hui didn't want to take more; it was simply that the protests from her colleagues outside the window were too loud, and taking any more might have provoked them into storming the room to beat her to death.

The buns were finally done, and the chef scooped them all up into a woven bamboo tray, carrying them out to the cafeteria serving window.

"There's only one batch of buns, and we're not steaming any more. That's all there is, so everyone share!"

Hearing that this was the entire supply and that no more would be made, the officers rushed forward to snatch them up.

"With just this few buns, how could you have the nerve to take a whole one? Break it in half!"

"Take a bite first—whoever gets it in their mouth first wins!"

"Wait, are you guys really this crazy? I haven't even squeezed my way in, and the buns are already gone!"

Lu Xingzhou’s original purpose in steaming the buns had never been to provide dinner for the police station; he purely wanted to show off his skills to his older sister. With only a single batch, there was simply not enough to go around for the station's personnel.

Some officers who missed out on the buns turned their attention to the unwashed wok, where a bit of sauce still lingered at the bottom.

Anyone who had ever tasted fish-fragrant shredded pork knew that the remaining sauce was the ultimate accompaniment for rice.

For many people, a lunch of rice topped with fish-fragrant pork meant a dinner of rice soaked in the leftover fish-fragrant pork sauce.

A single plate of sauce was enough to devour a bowl of rice, let alone the ultra-flavorful sauce left behind by Lu Xingzhou’s batch of buns.

Someone among the crowd piped up: "Master Chef, get me a bowl of white rice and ladle some of that pan sauce over it!"

Immediatley, copycats followed suit: "Master Chef, I want some too!"

"Master Chef, go easy on his portion! It's turning into soup! Just enough to give it some flavor is fine!"

Fortunately, unauthorized personnel were barred from the back kitchen; otherwise, someone surely would have rushed in to lick the bottom of the wok until it shone like a mirror.

Xu Hui hugged her exclusive three buns with an expression of pure bliss. "Xiaozhou, your cooking is amazing! Have you ever thought about coming to work as the head chef at the police station cafeteria?"

Naturally, Lu Xingzhou rejected the offer. Leaving aside the fact that the system only taught him how to make fish-fragrant pork buns and shiitake mushroom beef buns, he still had to livestream to complete his challenge tasks and unlock more rewards. There was no way he could settle down as a cafeteria cook at a police precinct.

"No way. A single bun of mine sells for eight yuan outside; your meal allowance is so low it's only fit for police dogs."

*Thwack!*

Lu Jiangying delivered a swift smack to the back of Lu Xingzhou’s head. "All day long, the only thing that comes out of your mouth is nonsense!"

Although the entire incident sounded utterly bizarre and carried a strong flavor of dark comedy, Song Xiangchen and Zhou Shuwu had successfully unraveled the full sequence of events.

The drug dealers, having woken up in the hospital with their nervous systems somewhat scrambled, still vividly remembered one thing: "Let me take a bite, I can't take it anymore, just let me have one bite of the bun."

***

At the Police Headquarters, the Chief’s Office.

Miao Hui looked over the rather absurd report, feeling as though it had been drafted by someone who was thoroughly intoxicated and typing with their feet.

However, the evidence from beginning to end was complete, the witness testimonies were thorough, the statements gathered from various interviews mutually corroborated one another, and the progression of the case was clear and distinct.

Putting aside the possibility that the drug dealers might have had severely deranged minds, the rest of the report had zero flaws.

Miao Hui set the report aside and picked up another document.

"Tianzhong, you want to apply for a firearm permit for Lu Xingzhou?"

Lin Tianzhong nodded. "Yes. The criminal activities he encounters are highly dangerous and unpredictable. I believe it is quite necessary to apply for a firearm for him."

Miao Hui rubbed her forehead. "If we want to issue him a firearm, we first have to develop him as one of our criminal investigation informants."

Informants, also known as sources or assets, generally fell into three categories.

The first category consisted of ordinary citizens.

The second category comprised individuals with criminal records who had undergone corrective processing and demonstrated clear remorse.

The third category included suspects who were currently in the middle of criminal activities.

Lin Tianzhong explained, "I know this is a last resort. It's impossible for our personnel to monitor Lu Xingzhou twenty-four hours a day, yet the probability of him stumbling upon criminal cases is simply too high, putting him at severe risk of danger. Therefore, we hope to provide him with targeted training. However, much of that specialized training—and issuing a firearm—can only be done after converting him into an informant."

Miao Hui pondered for a moment. "What about his livestreaming career? Have you figured out how to handle that?"

Lin Tianzhong replied, "Let him continue. Livestreaming is part of his daily life, and it also serves as his best cover. Because he runs into cases so frequently, even criminal suspects will simply write Lu Xingzhou off as exceptionally unlucky, without ever suspecting any connection between him and the police."

Miao Hui nodded. "Very well. Let Lu Jiangying be his sole handler; that will make maintaining confidentiality much easier."

Lin Tianzhong picked up the paperwork. "I'll go process the informant files and the firearm application."