Solving the case: Combining the police dog's olfactory genes at the beginning

The motocross's suspension system groaned under him, the shock absorbers compressed to their limit and then bounced back, leaving two deep ruts on the ground.

Those who were still anxiously waiting in their cars saw a person riding a motorcycle fly over their heads. Their expressions changed from astonishment to bewilderment, and from bewilderment to despair. They had cars, and his cars were ten or twenty times more expensive than the motorcycle, but in this situation, four wheels were not as useful as two wheels.

An hour later, Luo Fei entered the city of Kyoto.

If he had to describe his first impression of the city in one word, it would be—apocalypse. Not the kind of computer-generated apocalypse seen in movies, but a real, living apocalypse unfolding right before his eyes.

Indeed, there was no large-scale collapse of buildings in Kyoto. The magnitude 8 earthquake only collapsed a few old wooden structures. Most of the modern reinforced concrete buildings were still standing, but their surfaces were covered with cracks. Some buildings had large pieces of exterior wall tiles peel off and shatter into sharp fragments on the sidewalk.

But what truly plunged the city into chaos was not the earthquake itself, but the panic.

The rumors circulating online that "the Japanese archipelago is about to sink" have caused a huge uproar.

It's unclear from which link the news originated—perhaps internal data from a geological research institution was leaked, or perhaps someone analyzed the data on the eruption of Mount Fuji and the chain reaction of surrounding volcanoes and came to a terrifying conclusion. In any case, during the hour Luo Fei rode his motorcycle, the news spread like wildfire on social networks in Japan.

Screenshots, videos, and various "expert analyses" and "insider information" were forwarded one after another, each saying the same thing in a different way—this is not just a volcanic eruption and an earthquake, but an irreversible collapse of the geological structure of the entire Japanese archipelago.

The once impeccable order that amazed the world on the streets of Kyoto has vanished.

The road was completely blocked by all kinds of vehicles: cars, buses, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and some people pushing supermarket shopping carts, which were filled with bottled water and convenience food.

The convenience store's glass door was smashed, and the goods on the shelves inside were looted and scattered. Stomped potato chip bags and broken sake bottles were strewn on the floor. Some people were squatting in the corner, desperately stuffing things into their backpacks, while others were fighting over the last case of bottled water. The store clerks were cowering behind the cash register, their hands covering their heads, not even having the courage to call the police.

The sidewalks were packed with people. Some were dragging suitcases toward the outskirts of the city, some were running and crying while holding their pet dogs, some were standing in the middle of the road holding their phones up to the sky looking for a signal, and some were sitting on the ground groaning while clutching their injured ankles.

The sky was mostly obscured by volcanic ash, and the sunlight turned into a dim, murky yellow, as if someone had covered the sky with a dirty veil.

The air was thick with the stench of sulfur; the smell was everywhere, and once it entered the nasal cavity, it made one want to cough uncontrollably.

Luo Fei struggled to navigate the chaos on his motorcycle. He slowed down, partly because there were too many obstacles in the city to speed through, and partly because he needed to find his way.

He remembered the address of the Kamikaze Bureau that Sato had given him very clearly—in the mountains northwest of Kyoto, specifically behind an inconspicuous temple, with the entrance hidden in a natural cave in the mountain.

The problem is that his phone couldn't use navigation in Japan. The reason is unknown; perhaps the network operator's signal towers were severely damaged in the earthquake, preventing the base stations from switching over, or perhaps it's something else entirely.

In short, after he opened the map application, the location cursor could indeed show his current location, but the navigation route planning function was completely paralyzed. After entering the destination address, only an error message "Unable to connect to the server" would pop up.

He can't speak Mandarin.

This wouldn't normally be a big problem; mobile translation apps with English are generally sufficient for most parts of the world. However, at this critical juncture, the cloud servers of these translation apps have most likely been affected by both the earthquake and volcanic ash, as they remained unresponsive after spinning for a long time.

He had no way to ask for directions.

The Japanese citizens who ran past him spoke a language he couldn't understand at all. Even if he forced himself to stop them, their first reaction upon seeing his foreign face covered in volcanic ash, wearing a helmet, and riding an off-road motorcycle of unknown origin would definitely be to turn around and run away.

Luo Fei parked his motorcycle downstairs in a commercial building, took off his helmet and hung it on the handlebars, then took out his phone from his jacket pocket. He scrolled to the address information Sato had sent him earlier and stared at the text on the screen for a few seconds.

The address is very detailed: Oharano-cho, Otokun-gun, Kyoto Prefecture, about two kilometers northwest of Jingoji Temple. There is a hidden gravel road next to the third utility pole on the right at the entrance of the old forest road. Follow the road to the end and you will find it.

When Sato gave him the address, Luo Fei made him repeat it to confirm that he remembered it correctly. Now he was glad that he had asked that question, because based on the address description alone, the place was indeed so well hidden that it was not a place that an ordinary person could find.

Knowing the address and being able to find the address are two different things.

He doesn't even know which direction Jingoji is in. He doesn't have any usable navigation tools. His phone map can only show the map, not navigate. There are road signs on the surrounding buildings, but they are all written in Japanese characters. The winding kana and kanji are mixed together, and he can only recognize a few characters by guessing.

Just as Luo Fei was standing there frowning and trying to figure out a solution, he heard a familiar curse.

"You fucking bastard—are you in such a hurry to be reborn?!"

The voice came from across the street. It was a young man's voice, not particularly loud, but in the noisy background of cherry blossoms and Mandarin, that pure Mandarin of Great Xia stood out like a lamp suddenly lit in the dark.

Luo Fei's ears perked up immediately, and he turned his head sharply in the direction from which the sound came.

A young man on a bicycle was getting up from the ground. His bicycle was tilted to one side, the front wheel was deformed from the impact, and the chain had fallen off, leaving a black oil stain on the ground.

The young man looked to be in his early twenties, wearing a dark gray hooded sweatshirt, carrying a backpack that looked quite full, his face covered in a mixture of volcanic ash and sweat, and wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses with a strong prescription.

The first thing he did after getting up wasn't to check if he was injured, but to wave his fists and curse at a white sedan in front of him that was desperately trying to squeeze forward.

"You hit someone and ran away without even uttering a sound! Is this all the quality you people have? Is this all? Weren't you usually so diligent in bowing and scraping? Now that the volcano hasn't even burned you to death, you're already acting like a complete idiot, huh?"

The driver of the white sedan clearly didn't hear his cursing, or even if he did, he didn't care. The car weaved in and out of traffic, scraping off the right-side mirror without stopping, and soon disappeared into a cacophony of horns.

The young man, cursing, squatted down to pick up his bicycle. Seeing the terrible state of the front wheel, he couldn't help but utter an even more offensive curse before standing up and kicking the bicycle hard. Luo Fei parked his motorcycle and walked towards the young man. He stopped three or four steps away and asked in as unobtrusive a tone as possible, "Are you from Great Xia?"

The young man was in a fit of anger. When he heard someone speaking to him, he looked up and glanced at Luo Fei.

He was stunned for a moment upon seeing this – the man in front of him looked to be in his thirties, with a scar on his face that had not yet fully healed, extending from his cheekbone to near his chin, which looked particularly ferocious in the dim light.

His hair was a mess, pressed down by his helmet, and his coat was covered in volcanic ash, making him look like a survivor who had just crawled out of a battlefield. But he spoke Daxia language, and his accent had a distinct Jianghan Plain flavor.

"Yes," the young man nodded, his tone still carrying the lingering anger from before, "from the esteemed city of Great Xia. Brother, you're also from Great Xia?"

Luo Fei's lips twitched slightly when he heard the words "Guicheng". Guicheng and Jiangcheng are not far apart, just over an hour away by high-speed rail, so they are practically fellow townsmen.

Before he could answer, the young man started talking to himself, brushing the volcanic ash off his clothes: "I've had the worst luck imaginable. I finally managed to escape from Kyoto University, and then I got hit by someone while riding my bicycle. Look at the state of the wheels! This piece of junk is definitely unrideable now. Brother, you know, you seem so polite most of the time, but when it comes to life-threatening situations, you all turn into this?"

“That’s normal,” Luo Fei said. “When you’re about to lose your life, what’s the point of being polite?”

The young man gave a bitter laugh, pulled his backpack strap up, and looked up at the still-expanding column of volcanic ash in the distance. His expression shifted from anger to something that was hard to define—a mixture of despair and fear. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing, and his voice dropped several octaves lower than before: "Brother, do you think that news circulating online is true? Is Little Life Island really going to sink?"

Luo Fei glanced at him but did not answer directly.

The young man added, "I am an international student from Kyoto University. I have been studying archaeology here for two years."

This afternoon, the school suspended classes and we were evacuated. While I was packing my things in the dormitory, I was scrolling through my phone and saw that the internet was full of videos of some volcanic eruption—my God, Mount Fuji actually erupted, and it wasn't just Mount Fuji, many mountains were smoking.

Then someone in the group sent a message saying that the tectonic plates beneath the Japanese archipelago were fracturing, and that the entire island would sink after all one hundred-plus volcanoes erupted.

He spoke very quickly, as if he was using words to alleviate his inner fear.

As he finished speaking, his voice began to tremble again, and his eyes behind his glasses were filled with the bewilderment and helplessness typical of a young man in his twenties facing a disaster of this magnitude.

Luo Fei looked at him, already considering something else. This young man was an international student at Kyoto University, and had lived in Kyoto for two years, so he was certainly familiar with the city's terrain and roads.

What he needed most right now was someone to guide him, and the young man in front of him happened to meet all the requirements—he could speak the Great Xia language, was familiar with Kyoto, and although he seemed flustered, he was still relatively clear-headed.

"Where did you say you were going?"

Luo Fei asked him.

The young man was taken aback by the question, then scratched his head and gave a bitter look: "To be honest, I don't know where to go either."

The school told us to go home and wait, but my apartment is only three kilometers from the school. If I really sink, I'll just die in my apartment. I wanted to go to the train station to see if there were any trains to Osaka, but my bicycle got hit on the way there.

“There’s no need to go to the train station,” Luo Fei said. “There are more people than roads there now, and even if there were a train, you wouldn’t be able to squeeze on.”

The young man's shoulders slumped: "Where else can I go? I can't just stand here and wait to die."

"What's your name?"

Luo Fei suddenly asked a question.

“Wen Junjie,” the young man replied, then asked in return, “And you, brother?”

Luo Fei did not answer his question, but instead took out his identification from the inside pocket of his coat.

The cover of the police officer's ID card was black, with the national emblem of the Great Xia Kingdom and the three gold-embossed characters "Police Officer's ID Card" printed on it. Inside was his photo, his police number, and a line of identification that he found somewhat ironic every time he saw it.

He handed the document to Wen Junjie so that the other party could see the contents clearly.

When Wen Junjie took it, his hands were still trembling, whether from the cold or fear, he didn't know. He lowered his head and carefully examined every word on the document, his lips moving silently, as if he were deciphering each word and sentence.

When he saw the words "National Security Department", his eyes widened involuntarily, and his gaze towards Luo Fei changed from "This person is a bit scary" to "Just who is this person?"

"National Security Department?"

Wen Junjie examined the identification document twice, turning it over and over, his tone clearly showing skepticism. "How could a police officer from the National Security Bureau appear on the streets of Kyoto, a place I live in? And alone at that? And with his face covered in injuries? Brother, is this identification document real or fake?"

Luo Fei snatched the ID back from Wen Junjie's hand and stuffed it back into the inside pocket of his coat. He looked Wen Junjie in the eye, his tone as calm as if he were talking about something that had nothing to do with him: "Genuine, no doubt about it."

I infiltrated Japan to observe the volcanoes, and my mission is complete. I haven't had time to return yet. Now I need to get to a place in the mountains northwest of Kyoto, but my phone can't use GPS, and I don't speak Japanese, so I can't find my way.

After hearing these words, Wen Junjie opened his mouth, then closed it again. His expression shifted rapidly within seconds, from surprise to doubt, and then to a strange excitement. (End of Chapter)