Animal Detective-Chapter 82: The Arguing Parrot

Yangpeng New Village.

Shen Xin and Ding Yuwei walked together, carrying a bag of fruit as they knocked on the door of Apartment 301, Unit 2.

An elderly man with graying hair opened the door and asked them uncertainly who they were looking for.

Shen Xin quickly introduced himself.

The old man was none other than Qin Chuanwang. As soon as he heard they were colleagues from the branch bureau, his face lit up with a smile, and he pulled them inside.

"Honey, we have guests! Quick, find that caddy of tea I have."

He shouted to the inner room, then invited the two to sit, saying he had a pot of fine tea they absolutely had to try.

His wife was also very kind. She smiled as she cut slices of watermelon for them, saying it was rare for his colleagues to visit, so they shouldn’t leave for lunch. They must stay and eat, and she would go buy groceries.

Shen Xin quickly refused.

But Qin Chuanwang wouldn’t hear of it and told his wife to go buy groceries right away.

You could tell he was very happy to have colleagues visit.

Shen Xin quickly scanned the room’s furnishings.

It was a very ordinary two-bedroom apartment with a small living room. A certificate of merit hung on the wall.

Third-Class Merit.

Qin Chuanwang noticed Shen Xin’s gaze. He proudly held up his left hand to show Shen Xin his badge of honor.

He explained that during a hostage situation, they seized an opportunity to rush in and intervene. With his quick reflexes, he grabbed the blade of the knife an assailant was using to stab a hostage, and his fingers were almost severed.

"Amazing!"

Shen Xin gave him a thumbs-up.

Qin Chuanwang let out a hearty laugh, his smile growing even brighter. He urged them to eat some watermelon while asking what they had come to see him about.

"You wouldn’t come here for no reason. If there’s anything this old man can help with, just say the word."

Far from being annoyed, Qin Chuanwang seemed excited.

Shen Xin nodded and began to talk about Liu Laibin’s case.

"Liu Laibin?"

Qin Chuanwang’s brow furrowed at once. His expression grew serious, and after a moment of contemplation, he asked why they were suddenly looking into this old case again.

Upon hearing that the bureau was reopening some cold cases, Qin Chuanwang sighed quietly and said, "As it should be. If some cases are put off any longer, there might never be a chance to solve them."

He then added, "I remember not long ago, our branch bureau solved a seven-year-old cold case. It was all over the news. That just goes to show there’s still hope."

He then casually asked how the seven-year-old case was solved, wondering if some new technology was used.

"No."

Shen Xin shook his head and briefly explained the situation.

"You solved it?"

Qin Chuanwang’s eyes widened. Only then did he realize Shen Xin had helped solve the Wu Jiawang case.

And to think, the suspect was located with the help of a dog.

"The younger generation is truly impressive."

Qin Chuanwang looked at Shen Xin in disbelief.

Shen Xin quickly said he was flattering him and that he still had much to learn from a senior officer like Qin Chuanwang.

Qin Chuanwang waved his hand dismissively and recalled, "The Liu Laibin case... how should I put it? It was a strange one. We had leads and immediately identified a suspect, that guy Sun Kai."

"But, you know, a goose leaves a trace wherever it flies. We’re talking about a living person. We put in so much effort; you’d think it would be impossible not to find him."

"But who would have thought we’d get stuck on the very last step? We just couldn’t find Sun Kai, no matter what. We even put out a reward at the time, thinking we’d rely on old-fashioned public outreach, but the result was the same. It was like he never existed."

"All we can say is that this Sun Kai is very clever and has strong counter-surveillance skills."

"The problem is, a highly intelligent criminal like that wouldn’t just do it once, right? Even if he left Nanjiang, he would surely commit similar crimes elsewhere."

"You know how it is. Once these criminals get away with it the first time, there’s never a last time. Once they succeed, they’ll just keep doing it until they’re caught."

"But afterward, we kept checking for similar cases nationwide. There were some, but none of them were the work of Sun Kai and his crew."

Shen Xin nodded thoughtfully.

Indeed.

A person’s greed is limitless. The idea of someone earning thirty million and then just stopping is something that would never happen in reality.

So, just as Qin Chuanwang said, it was indeed strange.

Seeing that the old man had opened up, Shen Xin decided to ask a few more questions.

For example, he asked about the source of the money Liu Laibin used to make his fortune, something Ding Yuwei had brought up.

"We looked into it, but we couldn’t find anything. Liu Laibin went to Jiaozhou back in ’05 and stayed there for several years. What he was doing, nobody knows."

"In any case, he came back with a lot of money. He claimed he was in business. Some of his relatives even asked him to bring them in on it, but he refused them all. He only said it was easy to make money in the South, but you had to strike out on your own and have the guts for it."

"Back then, a lot of people went to the South to do business and got rich, but we never found out exactly how he made his fortune. We suspect it probably wasn’t from a legitimate business."

If it had been a legitimate business, like opening a company, there would have been records.

The lack of records could only mean he was involved in a gray-market enterprise.

He then asked about the other people involved.

Qin Chuanwang couldn’t provide much more useful information.

Shen Xin could tell that anything he could think of, Qin Chuanwang had already investigated back in the day.

"By the way, Officer Qin, do you remember Liu Laibin’s parrot? What happened to it afterward?" Shen Xin asked.

"A parrot?"

Qin Chuanwang was stunned for a good while before slapping his forehead. "Right, there was a parrot. I think Liu Laibin had someone bring it back from abroad. He kept it in his office."

"Later, I remember we handed it over to the Forestry Bureau. Our city doesn’t have a forestry police division, so I think the Forestry Bureau sent the parrot to the city zoo. As for what happened after that, I’m not too clear."

As he spoke, he asked Shen Xin why he was asking about the parrot.

Shen Xin didn’t give specifics, just saying it was mentioned in the case file and he had noticed it, so he asked casually.

’Now that I know its whereabouts, things will be much easier.’

They had no choice but to stay for lunch. Afterward, the two immediately set off for the Nanjiang City Zoo.

Shen Xin was quite familiar with the place. When he was little, his parents often brought him here to play and watch the circus performances.

Later, a new wildlife park opened in Lishan District with more animals and an amusement park. Business here suffered, and it gradually fell into decline.

He remembered news stories breaking last year about how the animals were poorly fed, with tigers that were nothing but skin and bones, and how they had tried to pass off a dog as a Siberian wolf.

The zoo was in the New District.

This area used to be quite desolate, but now that it was designated as the New District, the environment had improved.

The zoo’s main gate, however, was still dilapidated, just as Shen Xin remembered it.

Seeing the gate, Ding Yuwei also stopped, a distant look in her eyes as if lost in a memory.

Shen Xin had a good idea why. Out of curiosity, he had asked Chen Chao about her later.

Ding Yuwei’s father had been in the narcotics division. He was a capable officer and was later transferred to work in the provincial capital, Ningshan City.

Then, he died heroically in the line of duty.

The blow was too much for her mother, who developed severe depression and is still recovering in a sanatorium.

’She’s probably remembering when her parents used to bring her to the zoo as a child.’

There wasn’t a single child in Nanjiang City who didn’t know about the city zoo’s bald gorilla.

They hurried to the park’s administrative office and identified themselves.

The office director actually knew about it. He chuckled and said, "You must mean Pipi. He can be a little brat, but he’s basically our zoo’s top star now. A lot of people buy tickets just to see him."

Shen Xin hadn’t been to the zoo in years. Relieved that the parrot was still alive, he curiously asked what the director meant by "brat" and "top star."

"You’ll see when you come with me."

Director Hong drove them to the aviary section in a shuttle cart.

Everything was just as he remembered—old, shabby enclosures.

Aside from the large free-flight area, the parrots had their own special smaller section. A viewing path circled around it with no wire mesh, and several large parrots were kept in the enclosure in the middle.

When they arrived, a number of visitors were gathered at the railing, teasing a Blue-and-yellow King Kong Parrot.

It was an adult, and quite large.

One of its feet was chained to a perch where it sat, tilting its head and staring blankly at the crowd.

Among the tourists, people kept trying to provoke it, shouting for it to curse.

And then, it suddenly flapped its wings and shrieked in a shrill voice, "Dumbass! Dumbass!"

It spoke very clearly.

But that wasn’t all. When the tourists roared with laughter and retorted, "No, you’re the dumbass!" the parrot got even more worked up, screeching, "I’m not the dumbass, you’re the dumbass!"

"See what I mean?"

Director Hong looked smug. "This is our zoo’s famous argumentative parrot."

Watching the tourists howl with laughter at the spectacle, Shen Xin couldn’t help but frown as the parrot hopped back and forth on its perch, bouncing around and screeching, "Dumbass, dumbass."

’Why does this parrot seem like it’s gone crazy?’