Half an hour later, the husky squatted beside Chen Shi's car and drank the water Chen Shi fed him. Chen Shi called the bureau and found the identity of the owner through her mobile phone number. Her name was Lin Hui. She was an accountant of a foreign design company. Lin Hui worked at the branch in Long'an.

The police and the traffic police rushed to search for Lin Hui's traces around the area, but found nothing. Chen Shi, as an important witness, had to be questioned by each group of police that arrived. He was about to die from annoyance.

Chen Shi repeatedly emphasized that he didn’t see suspicious vehicles or personnel and that there were no other vehicles that appeared between him and this vehicle. He also said that he didn’t hear any strange sounds.

The more he said this, the more the police looked at him with suspicion. Although it was a professional habit of the police to suspect everything, the taste of being doubted wasn’t pleasant.

With this delay, he didn't know how long it would take before he could get home. He called Tao Yueyue and informed her. Tao Yueyue said, "Was that aunty abducted by aliens?"

"Fortunately not. Otherwise, this group of policemen would suspect that I’m crazy... I will come back later. Go to bed first!"

"Stay safe."

After hanging up the phone, Captain Zhang said to go to the gas station to look at the surveillance footage. The husky had been following Chen Shi, so he could only put it on a leash.

There were four security cameras at the gas station. All of them showed Chen Shi entering the station and refueling from multiple angles. Chen Shi thought that this should be regarded as favorable evidence for himself.

However, no Mercedes-Benz was captured. The security camera at the intersection only captured a part of the car’s body passing by quickly. The time was eight minutes before Chen Shi refueled and there were no particularly noteworthy scenes captured afterwards.

Looking at the time, it was almost 10:00. Chen Shi wondered what was going on. He said to Captain Zhang, "I'll take my leave first."

"Why don’t you come back with us later and file a case?"

"I see it like this. I’ll talk to Captain Lin about this matter later and file it directly at the head office. The car should be sent directly to the head office. There should still be someone on duty right now. I will call them and let them know."

"Okay, then we’ll be troubling you."

Chen Shi glanced at the husky squatting next to him and had a headache. He was worried about leaving it with the police, so he could only bring it back with him.

When he made it back home at 11:00PM, the husky was very excited as it entered the house, sniffing everything. It licked up all the leftover cat food in the bowl in one fell swoop. Maoqiu was so scared that all its fur stood up as it crawled up the pole quickly along the curtain. It made a threatening noise.

Tao Yueyue asked, "Uncle Chen, why did you bring a dog back?"

"There was no other way. Its owner mysteriously disappeared so it can only stay at home with us for now."

"What about Maoqiu?"

"It’ll have to compromise. Look at how stupid it looks. You won’t know who’ll bully who!” Chen Shi poked the dog's head and the dog stuck out its tongue with a dumb look.

Chen Shi said, "Bring it to the kitchen."

When it got into the kitchen, Tao Yueyue tempted it with a ham sausage. Chen Shi opened the dog's mouth to check it. There was still some blood on the dog's mouth. It may have licked the blood of its owner. He took a cotton swab to sample it and kept it in the refrigerator.

Tao Yueyue gave the sausage to the dog. She looked at the dog with interest. "Are we going to raise it?"

"Your attitude has changed too quickly. You just rejected it, but now you want to raise it?" Then, Chen Shi used a piece of cotton dipped in iodophor and wiped it on the dog’s stomach where it was injured by the glass.

"Who says I want to raise it? I'm asking if you want to raise it."

"Um... No. It’s too much trouble. I don't have time to walk the dog."

"Do you think it bit the owner?"

Chen Shi glanced at the stupid dog. "I don’t think so. Look at how dumb it looks. How can it hurt someone?”

"You usually suspect anyone who has the ability to commit the crime when you solve cases. Why don't you suspect the dog which has the ability to commit crimes? Maybe something happened at that time. The dog bit the owner so the owner got out of the car and ran away."

Chen Shi thought about it carefully. What Tao Yueyue said had some reason to it. He argued, "But there was a lot of money in the car. The owner had the ability to lock the dog in the car, so why did they leave the money behind?"

"Maybe it's a sudden case of life and death."

"Mm... This issue will be considered tomorrow. The case hasn’t been officially filed yet. This dog..."

"Put it in the bathroom and make an area for it."

That night, this husky stayed overnight in the bathroom. It scratched the door for several hours before finally accepting reality. When Chen Shi saw it the next morning, it had turned over all the waste paper in the trash basket. When it saw Chen Shi, it pounced over to greet him. Chen Shi thought it was disgusting and tried pushing it away. He tried for some time but was unable to get the dog off of him. Early in the morning, the house was already a mess.

Of course, the dog couldn’t be left at home, so Chen Shi took it to the car and went to the bureau with it. Lin Qiupu asked, "Why did you bring the dog into the bureau?! Do we still have to work here?"

"This dog’s a party inv- No, it’s a dog involved[1]. Do you think it needs to be interrogated or detained?"

"Did you deliberately do this to retaliate against me? We really had something going on last night..."

"Has the missing person been found?"

"The branch office called in the morning and said she hasn’t been found yet. The car is now in our garage and all the money is put in the safe." Lin Qiupu frowned. "We can't file a case in less than 24 hours!"

"Do you have anything else going on today? If not, we should start investigating as soon as possible. I don't think this case is that simple."

After saying so, Chen Shi left the dog behind and went to eat breakfast. Lin Qiupu shouted from the office, "Hey, don't leave the dog here!"

Afterwards, Lin Qiupu summoned a few people in the team and had a brief meeting. After listening to Chen Shi's remarks, everyone was quite surprised and had lots of questions they wanted to ask. Old Zhang took the lead and asked, "Little Chen, are you sure-"

Chen Shi interrupted him. "I have already retold what I witnessed no less than ten times. I’ve mentioned all the minor details. There are no omissions and I can’t lie to you. The situation is that strange.”

Everyone glanced at the dog squatting on the ground and drinking water. Lin Dongxue said, "I feel that the first thing we need to find out about is the money. The missing person is an accountant. Will the money be related to the company?"

Lin Qiupu said, "Let's start with the company then. The family of the missing person also needs to be visited. Also, the person who saw her last-"

Chen Shi pointed to himself. "That's me!"

"I mean, the people who met her before. Figure out where she’s been, who she’s met, and what she’s done!"

Everyone disbanded just like that. Chen Shi and Lin Dongxue went to Lin Hui’s company. The company said that Lin Hui took three days of sick leave on September 8th. As for money, the company hasn’t lost a lot of money. There are security monitors around, so if it really did happen, it would have been discovered long ago.

Chen Shi wasn’t at ease and played the footage of Lin Hui leaving the company on September 8th. That night, she worked overtime in her work unit and left at about 9:00. There was no suspicious behavior.

None of the drawers in her station were locked. When they opened it, there were only some personal items. The reason for her leave was a gynecological examination...

1. The pinyin for ”Parties involved” is Dangshiren. Ren means human. So Chen Shi substituted the last character from human to dog as a joke.