Decstemic

5

Another voice!

“Again?!” Liam was caught off-guard. He had wanted to listen more carefully, but the voice disappeared as suddenly as it came, returning to silence.

“Reward?!” The man only remembered the word reward. Reward, reward, where are you?

Just as he was thinking of the word, his mind suddenly displayed a virtual image. There was a small, round black ball displayed on the image in 3D.

Liam clicked on the black ball using his thoughts, and a voice suddenly rang out in his head, “Invisibility Eavesdropper device. One time use. After usage, allows for invisible eavesdropping, completely undetectable. Lasts forty-eight hours.”

“What? What?” Liam was puzzled by the sudden introduction, and hurriedly clicked on the ball again, causing the voice in his head to replay the description of the Invisibility Eavesdropper device.

“Officer Liam, I put two bags of sugar in this cup of coffee again!” Li Beini watched Liam’s spacey expression, and assumed he was simply enjoying the coffee too much.

Liam was instantly pulled back to reality, and was dismayed by the crowded noise around him. He wanted to find a quieter place and ponder this new development. Ignoring Stephen? unpleasantry, and Sharon, he stood up and left the office.

Yet, as he exited the room, he came face to face with Captain Ortega. Liam had never been close with the captain, so he lowered his head and tried to walk past him.

Unexpectedly, Captain Ortega blocked him from leaving and asked, “Liam, didn’t you say you wanted to take the day off? How come you caught the criminal instead?” The captain asked very seriously, “I don’t understand. How did you know that the culprit would appear in that place tonight?”

“Cap’n Ortega, I really do not feel well today. Can I tell you some other time?”

Liam spoke quickly and tried to leave again, but Captain Jing suddenly patted him on the shoulder and spoke wisely, “Little Liam, no matter what, if you can catch the criminal, then you’re worthy of the uniforms we wear! Good job! Keep up the good work!”

Captain Ortega’s words shocked Liam. In his memory, the stern and strict captain rarely praised anyone.

What was wrong with him today?

Captain Ortega walked into the office after he finished talking to Liam. As soon as he entered the room, Stephen’s ill-intentioned complaints started up yet again.

Liam did not care to argue anymore, and headed straight for his own dorm.

While it was technically a dorm, the room was more like a small office behind the main building. The living space was tiny and shared among three people, and there was not even a private bathroom.

Liam’s roommates were two of his coworkers from the patrol section. The younger roommate was alright, but the older one had a thunderous snoring issue–every night was quite a headache.

Luckily, the snoring one had night shift tonight; otherwise, Liam was sure to have a sleepless night.

It was already four in the morning now, nearly dawn. Liam returned to his dorm, but went to bed without washing up. He climbed on his bed right after taking off his shoes, ready to hit the hay.

Yet the night of this magical adventure had already doomed him to sleeplessness. First, executed by lethal injection, then crossing over to a different world, swapping his identity completely, and obtaining the mysterious System and item reward. All these strange encounters swirled in his mind endlessly, preventing him from sleeping.

Especially this weird Miracle System. Liam had a feeling that his amazing luck today, catching the Taser Rapist, was not some strange coincidence, but was set up by the Miracle System.

Maybe when the Miracle System was engaged, something was changed, allowing Liam to coincidentally capture the criminal?

After the case was closed, the system even told him his completion rate was seventy-something percent. This completion rate probably referred to the completion rate of the quest given by the Miracle System. Back when he was at the bar, had he not chosen to chase down the man in the windbreaker? If he had not chased him, could his completion rate have been drastically lower?

Then that meant, no matter how many opportunities the Miracle System set up for him, in the end, it was up to him to take those opportunities in order to succeed?

Thinking up to this point, Liam could not help but feel somewhat excited. By having this Miracle System, if he met similar cases in the future, could he also solve them magically like he did today?

“Wow! If this was really the case, then won’t I end up being a Master Detective? The reward for that is massive…”

Only after that thought, did he finally start falling asleep…

——

In truth, being a policeman was not an easy job. Despite most of the Key Case Investigation Unit working practically overnight yesterday, most people still came to work today–nobody would take a day off so easily.

This was because new cases could happen at any moment, and they must be prepared for them, always.

Of course, that did not apply to Liam. The next day, Liam was barely waking up at 10:30am.

In the end, he was awoken by the thunderous snoring; otherwise, he would have slept even longer. The elder roommate had come back from his night shift, and was happily snoring away.

Liam really wanted to pummel the snoring man. He scratched his messy bed hair and looked around. The room was messy, not to mention smelly–definitely not a suitable place to live.

Seeing this, Liam suddenly had an idea–living like this was just depressing, so why not rent a different house starting today?

Because he lived in the police dorm, the old Liam was often assigned extra work from the senior investigators. If he left, then naturally he could avoid this type of problem.

Besides, the current Liam still was not used his new identity. Going to work was still tolerable, but if he had to live in the police station too, that would just be too awkward.

First the bathroom, then washing up, Liam did not feel much like cleaning up. After combing his bed hair, the man headed straight for the police station. He did not go in order to do work; but only wanting to use the computer at the office to find a good house to rent.

As he climbed the stairs, he ran into a few officers smoking along the way. The smell of the smoke aroused his own old addiction.

Stopping by a corner at the stairs, Liam took out the cigarettes he had confiscated from the cab driver, dangling one in his mouth as he lit it.

The result was as expected, with just one breath, he started coughing violently again.

But between the violent coughs, a clear voice rang out in his head again, “Miracle System engaged, currently randomizing…”

‘My God!’ This time Liam was more prepared. As soon as he heard the voice start, he focused on the words, carefully trying to remember each of them.

“Dui Xun Hexagram. ‘Dui’ for lake, and ‘xun’ for wind. Wind on the lake makes small waves. Smooth sailing regardless of your choice of way.”

The voice stopped as soon as it finished the line. Even though Liam tried his hardest to remember, he still failed to remember much. The only thing he remembered was “wind,” and “smooth sailing.”

The last word especially made Liam feel much better. It looked like this game of roulette treated him well. Even though he could not quite understand it, he still connected it to roulette.

Could it be, that this Miracle System made use of some sort of roulette wheel? If so, then he must be sure to research it well, so he would be well prepared when his luck failed him.