Feng Si left. As his figure was swallowed by the night, Ouyang Wen emerged from the shadows.
"How much credibility do you think his words have?" Lü Qingqing asked.
"At least ninety percent," Ouyang Wen replied.
"I think so too. A cold case of ten years, a police officer sacrificed. It's impossible to say there was no trickery involved," Lü Qingqing handed the epaulet in her hand to Ou Yang. "What is this? What kind of uniform needs shoulder boards sewn on? Why haven't I seen it?"
Ouyang Wen looked at the item in his hand. "I have an impression of this. It's a police uniform epaulet."
A police uniform epaulet?
Lü Qingqing instinctively glanced at her own shoulder, even though she was now wearing the trainee uniform of the institute. "That's not right? I remember police uniform epaulets weren't like this."
"That's because you joined too late and haven't seen them," Ouyang Wen said with a smile.
It turned out that on May 15, 1913, Yuan Shikai issued the "Police Uniform Order," marking the existence of the first set of police uniforms in the Republic of China.
However, this first set of police uniforms only lasted for five years. In 1918, all police officers switched to the second set of uniforms. It wasn't until 1927 that they switched to the uniforms that Lü Qingqing and her colleagues were wearing.
Over 24 years, the entire police system changed uniforms three times, no wonder Lü Qingqing didn't recognize it.
But for Ouyang Wen, he had already become a police officer ten years ago, so he still remembered the uniforms from that era.
At that time, police uniforms were divided into dress uniforms, service uniforms, and overcoats, primarily based on dress and service uniforms.
The dress uniform will not be elaborated on here; we will focus on the service uniform.
In the service uniform, epaulets worn by officers of inspector rank and above were distinguished by golden five-pointed stars. The highest police rank was five stars, and the lowest was two stars.
However, the epaulets for patrol officers were different. The right epaulet of a patrol leader and patrol officer indicated their police number, while the left epaulet indicated the police station they belonged to.
From the epaulet handed over by Feng Si, the patrol officer's police number was "Two Nine Six."
However, the difficulty lay in not knowing the police station to which this epaulet belonged. Moreover, police numbers had been constantly changing over the years, so identifying the police number from that year would also depend on luck.
"I will find a way to retrieve the personnel records of all police stations from that year." This was Ouyang Wen's promise before he left.
...
Lü Qingqing tiptoed upstairs. Just now, she had burst out of the door in a panic, but now she was treading carefully, afraid of disturbing Hu Jia opposite.
The key was gently inserted into the lock. Holding her breath, she slowly turned it.
Click!
It opened.
Lü Qingqing, bent low, slowly pushed the door open.
Hahaha! Finally inside.
Lü Qingqing straightened her back, her face radiant.
As the light flicked on, Hu Jia was right there.
Uh.
Awkward!
"Um, hehe..." Lü Qingqing's heart was racing. My goodness, was he going to talk about marriage with me tonight?
"You took quite a long time," Hu Jia wanted to say that Lü Qingqing had run out for nearly two hours after getting shy.
But Lü Qingqing didn't know that. He thought Hu Jia was laughing at her for hiding for two hours.
"Hehe, I wanted to come back long ago, but I was delayed." Lü Qingqing couldn't admit she was avoiding him; that would be too embarrassing.
"What happened? Did something come up?" Hu Jia still thought Lü Qingqing was being stubborn.
"No, I was just talking with Ouyang..." Alright, Lü Qingqing wanted to scold herself again. Just when Hu Jia wasn't mentioning marriage, she brought it up herself.
As expected, upon hearing Ouyang, Hu Jia's interest was piqued. "Did my brother rush you again? What did he say? Oh, no, what he said doesn't matter, what did you say?"
What did I say? Can I call myself a complete idiot?
Lü Qingqing's head ached.
"Did you give him a definite answer? Should I start preparing anything?" Hu Jia was very excited.
"You have a younger brother, and I have an older brother. One is impetuous, and the other is mature and meddlesome. Marriage is such a big event; discussing it with them is bound to be troublesome."
Hu Jia muttered to himself, "We're like those whose families are all gone, with nowhere to go for a proposal."
Lü Qingqing: "..."
Your family is all gone!
Get lost!
Oh, sorry, your family is indeed all gone.
Hu Jia, completely oblivious to Lü Qingqing's darkening face, continued to fantasize about a beautiful future. "There are only two days left this week. Judging by the time, it's probably too late. Next week, oh, no, the week after next. I'll take half a month to prepare."
Saying that, Hu Jia got up as if to leave. "Where are you going?" Lü Qingqing asked him.
"To write it down in my notebook, so I don't forget next week."
Lü Qingqing: "No!"
It was a joke. If you really wrote this down in your notebook, I wouldn't be able to live for the next few months.
"What's wrong?" Hu Jia looked at Lü Qingqing. Suddenly, he seemed to have an idea. "Don't worry, I'm not just acting on impulse or out of obligation. I genuinely think we're compatible."
"Hehe!" Lü Qingqing gave a dry laugh. "I'm still a student, you know."
Lü Qingqing tried to act as coy as possible.
Huh?
Hu Jia then remembered Lü Qingqing's other identity. "But the institute doesn't prohibit dating or marriage."
"But I still feel it's not right," Lü Qingqing thought for a moment. "If we get married now, should we have a banquet? Invite teachers and tutors? Invite classmates? Accept gifts? We've only known each other for a little over a month, and asking them to spend a lot of money... it sounds nice to say 'sharing joy,' but it sounds bad to say 'profiting from gifts'."
"But..."
"No buts. If you want me to marry you, at least you have to be an obedient good man."
"But..."
"No buts. Just tell me, are you obedient or not."
"Obedient!"
"Then if you're obedient, we won't get married."
Looking at Hu Jia's dejected eyes, "Also, you're not allowed to write this in your notebook."
Lü Qingqing sternly warned Hu Jia, "What I want is a surprise. If you write it in your notebook, doesn't that mean you're telling me in advance when you're going to propose? I won't agree to a proposal without any novelty."
Hu Jia looked at Lü Qingqing again, his lips moving. After a long pause, he said, "I'm realizing now, you seem a bit of a nag!"
"Get lost!"
...
Meanwhile, this fake couple was flirting.
Over there, the miserable Ouyang Wen was working overtime all night.
He had searched for ten years, and the case had no leads. Now, a witness suddenly appeared, and the witness even brought an exhibit.
How could Ouyang Wen not be excited? That night, he found Qiao Huali.
"You're saying a witness named Feng Si appeared, and he's holding an epaulet?"
"Yes, Uncle Qiao, so I'm applying to reopen the shooting case."
Qiao Huali looked troubled. "Xiao Wen, you should know very well that this case has become a cold case and will not be revisited."
"But the situation is different now. We had no clues before, but now that we have a clue, how can we give up?"
Over the past ten years, Ouyang Wen had applied to reopen the shooting case many times, but all were rejected by his superiors.
The reason was simple: it was an old case, and a convoluted one at that. Reopening the investigation would require a significant amount of police manpower and resources.
The government did not want to undertake such a thankless task.
This was why Hu Jia had been injured and lost his memory while secretly investigating the case back then.
"Xiao Wen, I know you want to find the murderer of your adoptive father. But ten years have passed, and you should let it go." Qiao Huali was afraid that Ouyang Wen, like Hu Jia, would get hurt due to his obsession.
"Uncle Qiao, I know you mean well. But my adoptive father died, he was murdered, how can we forget about it?" Ouyang Wen desperately controlled his emotions.
"I admit that I have selfish motives for repeatedly applying to reinvestigate this case. However, I am not only the son of the Hu family but also the son of a police officer."
"Solving old cases and catching criminals is what I should be doing, regardless of who the deceased was."