Villain? No, I'll catch up with the protagonist after passing the civil service exam.

The alley behind the East Street vegetable market.

The air was thick with the stench of dead fish and rotten shrimp mixed with rotten cabbage leaves. The late summer sun was scorching, and the dirty water on the ground was bubbling.

Lu Jingyan held the case file clipboard in one hand.

The old black leather shoes made a dull thud as they stepped on the sticky cement floor.

Old Wang, the fishmonger, was still wearing that waterproof rubber skirt stained with dark red fish blood. He hunched his shoulders and stole a glance at the young policeman in front of him.

The plump woman selling vegetables next to me was still clutching half a crushed cucumber in her hand, muttering something offensive.

"Press your fingerprint."

Lu Jingyan pushed a box of red inkpads over. His voice was calm and steady, drowning out the distant loudspeaker hawking.

"If you intentionally damage someone else's property, you pay him thirty yuan for the bucket. He pays you fifteen yuan for the vegetables."

He tapped the mediation agreement twice with his pen, the wooden pen barrel making a clicking sound against the metal clip.

"Once you sign, this matter is considered closed. If you lay a hand on me again, you'll be coming back to the station with me for two days."

Old Wang and the old lady exchanged a glance, neither daring to argue. They obediently dipped their thumbs in ink and pressed two red stamps onto the paper.

After dealing with this mess, Lu Jingyan handed the clipboard to the tall newcomer behind him.

He turned and walked out of the alley.

As soon as I stepped out of the market, a gust of hot wind blew over.

The old police chief was standing next to the Santana police car with its paint chipped off. He was holding a tattered palm-leaf fan, which he was fanning himself with, making a loud whirring sound.

His light blue short-sleeved police uniform was soaked with sweat on the back, clinging to his skin.

"Oh my god, my goodness!"

As soon as the old director saw Lu Jingyan come out, he rushed over to greet him. He grabbed Lu's arm and dragged him towards the shade of a tree.

The cicadas chirping in the trees were really annoying.

"Why...why are you doing this to yourself?" The old director wiped his sweat with the towel around his neck, stamping his feet in frustration.

He looked at Lu Jingyan's faded epaulets and frowned deeply.

"That old couple, Mr. and Mrs. Wang, are arguing over a stall. A local police officer from the local station could handle it. Why did you have to get involved personally?"

Lu Jingyan stopped in his tracks.

He took a tissue out of his pocket and slowly wiped the red ink that had accidentally gotten on his fingers.

"I'm the local police officer. When someone calls the police, I have to go out on duty." He crumpled the tissue into a ball and threw it into the green trash can next to him.

The old director slapped his thigh with a sharp crack.

"How can that be the same!"

He was so anxious that his voice cracked, which attracted the attention of several middle-aged women passing by.

"You're the god who sent the Sirius fleet to work on sewing machines! Those alien overlords in the Milky Way get their legs trembling at the mere mention of your name."

The old director lowered his voice and leaned closer. The breeze from the palm-leaf fan ruffled the stray hairs on Lu Jingyan's forehead.

"The higher-ups have spoken. If you really don't want to be that ballistics captain, our city bureau will arrange a lifetime honorary advisor position for you."

He gestured with his hand to form a spacious square.

"We'll provide you with a large office with a genuine leather sofa. You can drink tea and read the newspaper every day. Wouldn't that be a wonderful retirement? Why bother coming with us roughnecks and smelling the fishy odor of the market?"

Several newly assigned interns stood next to the police car.

The tall boy listened intently, his palms sticking out the mediation agreement.

He couldn't figure it out either.

Having once possessed the power to trample the universe underfoot, how can one possibly settle down to deal with such a mess as two bunches of scallions and a fish?

Lu Jingyan did not respond.

He walked straight to a public handwashing station next to the curb and turned on the rusty faucet.

"Splash—"

Lukewarm tap water cascaded over slender fingers. Water droplets splashed into the terrazzo sink.

"Chief."

Lu Jingyan shook the water droplets off his hands and turned off the tap. A dull, hollow sound came from the pipe.

"The higher-dimensional alien monsters are gone. But the people are still here."

He turned around. His deep black eyes appeared exceptionally clear and transparent in the blinding sunlight.

Gone is the cold, oppressive feeling that takes lives and dies; instead, there is a sense of stability rooted in the soil.

"Greed, selfishness, and pettiness. These are the human weaknesses of carbon-based life forms, and they can't be completely eradicated with an antimatter cannon."

Lu Jingyan took out a dry tissue and pressed it into his damp palm.

"Old Wang smashed someone's stall today because he wanted to take advantage of them. If no one does anything about it, he might dare to stab someone with a knife tomorrow over a few hundred yuan."

He folded the tissue he had used to dry his hands.

"Evil has no distinction of degree. There is only the difference between breaking the law and abiding by the law."

The surrounding air was silent for two seconds. Only on the adjacent road did a few large trucks occasionally rumble by.

"As long as there are people in this world who don't follow the rules."

Lu Jingyan put his hands back into the pockets of his old police trousers. His back was as straight as a steel nail driven into the mud.

"I can't retire. I can't stand that kind of life of just loafing around and waiting to die."

His tone was neither high nor low. There was no dramatic inflection, it was as if he were stating something as ordinary as having to eat breakfast in the morning.

But to those around him, these words sounded as heavy as lead.

Old Li was leaning against the car door smoking.

Upon hearing this, his fingers, which were holding the cigarette, trembled violently. A stray ash fell onto his old leather shoe.

He instinctively threw the cigarette butt on the ground and stubbed it out with the sole of his shoe. His back straightened involuntarily.

The tall newcomer standing next to him suddenly felt a lump in his throat.

He looked at the tattered mediation agreement in his hand, bearing a red handprint. Suddenly, he felt that this piece of paper was heavier than any of the transnational cases he had read about in his police academy textbooks.

This is what a police officer should be like.

It's not about flying around in the sky to show off, but about making this fishy-smelling street a place where businesses can open peacefully.

The old director opened his mouth, but all the words of persuasion he wanted to say were stuck in his throat.

He looked at the young man in front of him.

The faded police uniform he wore was more conspicuous than any gold-plated or silver-embellished interstellar suit.

"Alright...alright then." The old director sighed.

He tucked the palm-leaf fan into his lower back. He raised his hand and vigorously rubbed the corners of his eyes, which were feeling a bit sore.

"You little rascal. You're as stubborn as a donkey; not even ten mechanical oxen could pull you back."

The old bureau chief was cursing, but he couldn't help but smile. His wrinkled face radiated an undisguised pride.

"With you in charge of our special investigation team, this old man doesn't even need to lock the door at night."

The atmosphere had just relaxed.

Lu Jingyan turned to look at the tall newcomer.

"Let's go. The command center just dispatched a report that the battery of an electric scooter was stolen in an old residential area on South Street. Let's go to the scene and check the surveillance footage."

He took a long stride, ready to open the passenger door of the Santana.

"Boom!"

A deep, deafening roar of engines suddenly pressed down from directly overhead.

The sound was ridiculously loud.

The leaves of the plane trees lining the roadside rustled loudly in the turbulent air currents. Dust and withered leaves swirled and flew into the sky.

The watermelon vendors at the entrance of the market were startled and quickly covered their heads, crouching under their tricycles.

Zhao Tiezhu was squatting on the curb eating a watermelon when the gust of wind blew his mouth full of sand.

"Ptooey! What's all that noise?!"

He wiped his mouth and looked up at the sky.

A heavy-duty vertical takeoff and landing special plane, completely black and without any civil aviation markings, is breaking through the clouds and descending steadily.

The fuselage is coated with a stealth coating that absorbs radar waves.

However, on the side of the spaceship was a bright red national emblem representing the highest power in China.

"Buzz—"

The special plane's plasma deceleration engine emitted a high-frequency ringing sound. The blast wave dried up all the dirty water on the ground.

It completely disregards air traffic control.

It landed directly, forcefully, and precisely on the internal helipad of the Jinghai City Branch, less than 100 meters from the vegetable market.

The landing gear slammed onto the concrete ground with a heavy thud.

The old director's palm-leaf fan, which was tucked behind his waist, fell to the ground with a "thud".

His eyes widened as he stared at the red private jet. His lips began to tremble, and his teeth chattered.

"This...this is the number one special plane from the capital? What earth-shattering event has occurred?"

The air pressure door on the side of the cabin slid open with a "whoosh".

White cooling gas gushed out.

A figure strode down the automatically extending alloy gangway.

He was a middle-aged man wearing a sharp, dark gray Zhongshan suit. His hair was neatly combed, and his leather shoes were polished to a shine.

He wore a special pass badge made of pure gold on his chest.

The man ignored the astonished city bureau leaders around him.

He scanned the area sharply, his gaze landing precisely on Lu Jingyan, who was about to get into the car.

The middle-aged man quickened his pace, his military boots clanging loudly on the asphalt.

He walked up to Lu Jingyan.

Legs together. Back straight.

With a crisp "snap," he gave a perfectly standard military salute.

The surrounding air was deathly silent.

Only the leaves of the sycamore trees were still rustling in the wind.

The man lowered his hand. From his black, confidential briefcase, he solemnly pulled out a document.

It was a transfer order stamped with the bright red national emblem. The paper gleamed with a cold, hard sheen in the sunlight.

Lu Jingyan stopped by the car door.

He showed no surprise, his deep black eyes quietly watching the document that was handed to him.

"Mr. Lu, this is an urgent transfer order from the highest authority. Please take up your post as commander-in-chief immediately."