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

His eyes suddenly lit up, the kind of light that only someone who has suddenly seen a glimmer of hope in the midst of despair would have. He stepped forward, grabbed Luo Fei's coat sleeve, and grabbed him so hard that Luo Fei's shoulder swayed.

"Are you a police officer from the National Security Bureau?"

Wen Junjie's voice was very low, but the excitement in his tone was impossible to suppress, "Then can you help me get justice? Brother, please, I have a huge injustice!"

Luo Fei frowned. He looked down at Wen Junjie's hand gripping his sleeve—the hand was trembling, but the trembling was different from before. Before, it trembled because of fear; now it trembled because of excitement.

"Seeking justice?"

Luo Fei repeated the word.

Wen Junjie released his grip, pushed his glasses up his nose, and took a deep breath. His next words seemed to have been bottled up for far too long; once the floodgates were opened, they couldn't be held back.

"My name is Wen Junjie, I am 24 years old and from Guicheng. I was originally an archaeology student at a university in Daxia. In my junior year, I was framed at school and accused of raping and murdering my roommate's girlfriend."

The forensic examiner found my DNA in the victim's body, and my fingerprints were found everywhere at the crime scene. All the evidence was against me. I was sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance, but I appealed, and the second instance upheld the original verdict.

He paused here, his fists clenched tightly, and a layer of tears welled up in his eyes behind his glasses, but he forcefully suppressed those tears. Although his voice trembled slightly, he didn't pause for a single word.

“I have been wronged. I have no evidence to prove my innocence, but I swear on my life that I did not do it.”

That girl was my roommate's girlfriend. How could I possibly touch her? I was out all day on the day of the incident, and when I came back in the evening, I found her lying on the living room sofa. She was gone.

I was terrified and was about to call the police when my roommate came back. He saw the scene and immediately accused me of killing the person.

Later I found out that my roommate was breaking up with her, and the girl threatened to expose something about him, and then she died. The whole thing was a setup from the beginning—the DNA was probably taken from the cup I used, not to mention the fingerprints; that room was shared with him, so it's normal to have my fingerprints everywhere, isn't it?

As Luo Fei listened to Wen Junjie's account, his expression remained unchanged, but his gaze swept over Wen Junjie from head to toe between sentences.

He noticed that Wen Junjie had calluses on his hands, on his fingertips and palms. These were the kind of calluses that would develop from long-term use of tools to dig things, which matched his identity as an archaeology student.

He would unconsciously bite his lip when he spoke, biting it so hard that the skin on his lower lip broke. This detail shows that he was indeed in a state of long-term anxiety and depression.

But these outward signs weren't enough for Luo Fei to determine whether the person was telling the truth or lying. He was a policeman; he had seen too many suspects with incredible acting skills, and too many innocent people who were wrongly accused and unable to defend themselves.

In this apocalyptic chaos, he was unable to investigate Wen Junjie's background, verify his statements, or retrieve the case files from that year as he would normally do when handling cases.

He used another method.

A genius's eye.

Luo Fei focused his attention on his eyes, and the world in his field of vision began to change subtly, as if a very thin and faint filter had been placed over his pupils.

He began to see the light above everyone's head, a light imperceptible to the naked eye—an ability bestowed upon him by the Eye of Genius, capable of judging whether a person is lying and seeing the secrets buried deep within their heart.

He himself couldn't explain the principle behind this ability, but after using it a few times, the only thing he was certain of was that it never made a mistake.

He looked up at the top of Wen Junjie's head.

Nothing at all.

The gray mist that should have appeared did not materialize, and the symbol representing lies and concealment did not light up.

The light above Wen Junjie's head was clear and bright. Although it was tinged with a layer of darkness caused by being wronged for a long time, the light beneath that darkness was clean and pure, without any trace of pretense.

This person is telling the truth. He was framed.

Luo Fei withdrew his gaze; the effect of the Genius Eye dissipated after he closed and reopened his eyes.

He looked again at Wen Junjie's face, which was covered in volcanic ash and sweat. During the few seconds of his silence, the young man in his twenties had been standing there with his fists clenched, his eyes filled with expectation, trepidation, and a vulnerability that was afraid of being rejected.

“I promise you,” Luo Fei said, his voice not loud but steady. “You will lead me to where I need to go. After this matter is over, I will help you investigate your case and seek justice for you.”

Wen Junjie loosened his fist. He opened his mouth, wanting to say thank you, but before he could speak, he was interrupted by a sudden, violent tremor.

It was an aftershock more violent than any of the previous tremors. The glass curtain wall of the commercial building creaked and shattered, and a large piece of glass fell from a height of more than ten stories, shattering into countless fragments on the ground.

Another muffled explosion came from afar, this time from a closer direction, accompanied by a towering dark red flame—a small mountain near Kyoto was also erupting.

"make a deal!"

Amidst the deafening roar, Wen Junjie shouted at the top of his lungs, bending down to pull his bicycle up from the ground and throw it to the side of the road, "Brother, where do you think we're going?"

Luo Fei had already turned and walked towards his off-road motorcycle, straddled it, and twisted the throttle to make the engine roar again. He glanced back at Wen Junjie and tilted his chin towards the back seat.

"Get in the car. To the Kamikaze Bureau."

The off-road motorcycle raced along the cracked concrete road for more than half an hour. Wen Junjie sat on the back seat, his hands gripping the hem of Luo Fei's jacket tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.

His glasses were covered in a layer of mud mixed with volcanic ash and sweat, making his vision extremely blurry, but he didn't dare to let go and wipe them—Luo Fei's riding style was wilder than anyone he had ever seen. His riding style, which completely disregarded the angle of the bike's tilt and the cracks in the road, made him feel several times that he was about to be thrown off at any moment.

The scenery along the road gradually changed from commercial buildings in the city to farmland and low-rise houses in the suburbs, and then transitioned from farmland to mountainous areas.

The trees here were shaken violently by the earthquake, some as thick as a bowl snapped in half, their white woody fibers sticking out jaggedly from the breaks. The cracks in the ground were more numerous than in the city, and the concrete pavement was torn open in countless places, with chunks of concrete sticking out from the edges of the cracks like the fangs of some giant creature.

Luo Fei stopped in front of an iron gate.

He turned off the motorcycle, took off his helmet and hung it on the handlebars, then stood there looking at the door in front of him.

The iron gate is about 2.5 meters high. The gate is made of heavy cast iron and the surface is painted with a layer of dark green anti-rust paint, but it has developed dense rust spots due to years of disrepair.

There was an old-fashioned iron lock hanging on the door. The lock itself was as big as an adult's fist and was more rusty than the door.

Extending out from both sides of the iron gate are tall barbed wire fences, with a ring of rusty barbed wire wrapped around the top of the wire mesh, completely enclosing the area.

Wen Junjie climbed off the back of the motorcycle. His legs were a little weak from being tense for so long. He bent over and rubbed his knees a couple of times before straightening up to look at the iron gate in front of him.

"This is a restricted area."

Wen Junjie pointed to a faded notice board hanging next to the iron gate. The notice board had red backgrounds and white characters in Japanese, and although most of the paint had peeled off, the meaning was still legible.

Wen Junjie translated for Luo Fei: "It says above—Military Control Zone, Entry Strictly Prohibited Without Permission. Brother, are you sure the address you mentioned is here?"

Luo Fei didn't answer. He walked to the iron gate and tugged at the lock. The lock was heavy, and the corrosion was much worse than he had expected. Several layers of rust had bulged around the keyhole, and even with a key, it might not be possible to pry it in.

He flipped the lock over to look at the back, then gripped the lock body with his right hand and the lock beam with his left, and pulled it outwards with a sudden burst of strength.

A crisp "snap" sounded.

The lock wasn't opened; it was simply ripped off. The lock bar broke off at the base of the lock body, revealing dark gray metal slag on the fracture surface. To Luo Fei's strength, that layer of rust was no different from a layer of dried mud.

He removed the broken padlock from the doorknob and tossed it into the roadside bushes, then grabbed the edge of the iron gate with both hands and pushed hard. The hinges screeched as the gate opened.

Wen Junjie stood behind Luo Fei, his mouth agape, wide enough to fit an egg. His gaze darted back and forth between Luo Fei's hand and the iron door that had been violently pushed open, before he stammered, "You... how did you do that? That lock is cast iron, not plastic!"

Luo Fei had already gotten back on his motorcycle and twisted the throttle to make the engine roar again.

He glanced back at Wen Junjie, but didn't answer the question about the iron lock. He simply tilted his chin toward the back seat, his tone as indifferent as if he had just unscrewed a water bottle cap: "Get in, hold on tight."

Wen Junjie swallowed hard, forcing back the string of questions that were on the tip of his tongue. He climbed back onto the back seat and gripped Luo Fei's coat even tighter than before.

Behind the iron gate was a cement road, which was much smoother than the road outside, indicating that it was regularly maintained.

The road was lined with dense forests, with pine and fir trees intertwined. Their canopies blocked the yellowish sky that had been filled with volcanic ash, with only scattered slivers of light filtering through the gaps in the branches and leaves.

The smell of sulfur in the air had lessened, probably because the trees had acted as a filter, but the vibrations on the ground had not decreased. When the motorcycle was traveling on this road, Luo Fei could clearly feel the road surface under the wheels trembling continuously with a very small amplitude.

After riding along the paved road for about ten minutes, the woods suddenly parted to both sides, and the view opened up dramatically. What appeared before them was a large building complex, or more accurately, a group of buildings.

The main building is a three-story wooden pavilion with upturned eaves and a roof covered with dark blue tiles. Faded vermilion lanterns hang under the eaves.

The architecture has a unique style, combining the symmetrical beauty of ancient Xia architecture with the simple lines of Japanese architecture. The two styles blend together without being jarring, but rather revealing a strange harmony.

Scattered around the main building are several smaller, also wooden structures. The entire complex is enclosed by a low white wall topped with the same dark blue-green roof tiles as the main building.

In front of the main gate stands a stone tablet about half a person's height. The surface of the tablet is polished very smooth, and a line of Japanese characters is engraved on it.

Wen Junjie leaned out from the back of the motorcycle, squinting to decipher the inscription on the stone tablet. His glasses were covered in mud, forcing him to squint to see.

After looking at it for a few seconds, he translated: "Kyoto Royal Museum."

"museum?"

Luo Fei repeated those three words.

“Yes, the Royal Museum,” Wen Junjie nodded, then added, “but I’ve never heard of this name before.”

In my archaeology class at Kyoto University, the professor listed all the museums in the Kansai region of Japan, and there was no such thing as the Kyoto Royal Museum on it.

"It's either newly opened, or a private institution not open to the public, or—" He paused, glancing at the surrounding barbed wire and the direction of the iron gate whose lock Luo Fei had just torn off, "—the kind of institution connected to the military."

Luo Fei parked his motorcycle next to the stone tablet, turned off the engine, and got off. He stood in front of the stone tablet, his gaze slowly sweeping over the so-called royal museum complex.

Sato gave him a very clear address—about two kilometers northwest of Jingoji Temple, next to the third utility pole on the right at the entrance of the old forest road, there is a hidden gravel road, just follow the road to the end.

The location of the museum in front of him matched the address he remembered perfectly. The only thing that didn't match was that Sato had said it was at the end of a hidden gravel road, not a proper museum with stone tablets and plaques.

Either the Kamikaze Bureau's secret base is disguised as this museum, or the Kamikaze Bureau's entrance is hidden within the museum's grounds.

Neither of these two possibilities is contradictory, and both are reasonable—using a museum to disguise a secret base of an intelligence agency is not unusual in the eyes of the Great Xia State Security Bureau.

Wen Junjie got off the motorcycle and walked to the other side of the stone tablet. He had been attracted by the architectural style of the museum, but now, after getting closer and examining it carefully, the expression on his face changed from confusion to excitement.

He adjusted his glasses and pointed to the eaves of the main building, saying to Luo Fei, "Brother, look at those brackets on the eaves. That's a typical Tang Dynasty style. After the architectural techniques of the Xia Dynasty were introduced to Japan during the Tang and Song Dynasties, the craftsmen here made localized improvements." (End of Chapter)