Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Xiao Ze drove the car over and saw Shen Dongqing staring blankly ahead, as if lost in thought.

The car pulled up, and Xiao Ze followed Shen Dongqing's gaze, seeing a group of streamers doing live broadcasts. He asked, puzzled, "What's wrong?"

Shen Dongqing instinctively wanted to point them out to Xiao Ze, but quickly caught himself, opened the car door, and sat inside. At the same time, he pulled out his phone, searched for Liang's father's account, and clicked into the live stream.

"This man might be a wanted criminal." Shen Dongqing dropped a bombshell outright.

Xiao Ze whipped his head around to look at the phone. On the screen, Liang's father's face was extremely clear, though the beauty filter was cranked up pretty high, softening the contours of his face.

"He's in that group of streamers?" Xiao Ze asked in a low voice.

Even though Shen Dongqing hadn't answered yet, Xiao Ze was already certain—otherwise, why else would Shen Dongqing have been staring over there?

"Yeah, counting from left to right, he's the sixth one." As Shen Dongqing spoke, he opened his notes document, typed in a name, and a wanted poster appeared on the screen.

Xiao Ze glanced at the wanted poster. The photo showed someone who looked under twenty and heavyset.

The man in the live stream, even with the beauty filter, looked to be around forty and was thin. The two faces barely seemed to have any similarities, but Xiao Ze didn't think Shen Dongqing would make something like this up.

"But he's going by Liang Xinghua now, not Xia Yong. He might be using a fake identity." Shen Dongqing added.

Xiao Ze drove the car near the small plaza, pretending to wait for other cars to pass before pulling over. He casually glanced over at Liang's father, acting as if he were just taking in the surroundings.

Xiao Ze had sharp eyes—one look was enough to etch Liang's father's current appearance into his memory.

Xiao Ze didn't linger, afraid of drawing attention. He quickly drove away and only stopped once the car was far off.

He took out his work phone, logged into the internal database, and soon, all the information on Xia Yong popped up.

Unlike Shen Dongqing, who could only see one photo, Xiao Ze could pull up several—all taken by the local police.

Xiao Ze carefully compared the face in his memory and found that the two did share similarities. It was just that one was fat and one thin, one young and one old. Without Shen Dongqing's tip-off, these similarities would have been easy to overlook. But once noticed, they became quite obvious.

Though these similarities weren't enough to serve as conclusive evidence for an arrest, they were enough for him to start looking into it.

Xiao Ze immediately contacted his colleague, informing him of the situation and asking him to look into Liang Xinghua's background.

After handling these matters, Xiao Ze turned to Shen Dongqing beside him and said apologetically, "Sorry to keep you waiting so long. I'll drive you home now."

"It's fine. If you're busy, I can just walk." Shen Dongqing shook his head. He could tell Xiao Ze had already switched into work mode and moved to open the car door.

"No need. For now, it's just checking up on Liang Xinghua's situation. I'll take you home first." Xiao Ze stopped Shen Dongqing and drove him straight to his apartment building.

"Don't worry. If we confirm that Liang Xinghua is Xia Yong, the reward money will be coming through soon." Xiao Ze said.

At the mention of the reward, Shen Dongqing's eyes lit up. Because Liang Xinghua had been on the run for a long time and his case was significant, the reward was a full two hundred thousand yuan. If he could get that money, his financial stress would be greatly reduced.

"He's definitely Xia Yong. Officer Xiao, you have to look into this thoroughly." Shen Dongqing couldn't help but emphasize. He was worried that if Liang Xinghua's cover was too good and the police couldn't find any leads, it would be a problem.

"How are you so sure?" Xiao Ze was a bit puzzled. He could indeed see similarities between Xia Yong and Liang Xinghua, but he couldn't be completely certain. How was Shen Dongqing so confident?

"Did you find any other clues?" Xiao Ze asked.

"I remember faces a bit differently." Shen Dongqing decided not to hide his facial recognition ability. After all, if he encountered another wanted criminal in the future, he'd still have to go through Xiao Ze. Not explaining would mean keeping it a secret, which would only make him look suspicious.

Most importantly, Shen Dongqing had given in to temptation and spun the wheel again in the past couple of days, and landed another facial recognition card. But since the previous card was still active, he stashed this one for emergencies. That gave him some confidence when he said this.

Of course, Shen Dongqing wasn't relying entirely on the skill. He'd found that after three days of memorizing faces, it was like constantly drilling practice problems—his ability to recognize faces had improved a lot.

Though this recognition ability still couldn't match the skill card, Shen Dongqing felt that with more practice, he might get to a similar level. The only issue was that he might not memorize as fast.

Shen Dongqing carefully explained how he read the facial data, then pointed out the corresponding features between Xia Yong and Liang Xinghua.

"There are no two faces in this world with identical features—not even identical twins. With cross-referencing of data features, I won't mistake anyone." Shen Dongqing said with certainty.

Xiao Ze looked at the points Shen Dongqing pointed out and caught his breath. Every similarity he'd noticed, Shen Dongqing had pointed out. And the features he hadn't noticed, Shen Dongqing had pointed those out too.

Finding similarities between two faces was kind of like a spot-the-difference game, except the game is about finding differences in similarities, while facial recognition is about finding similarities in differences. The difficulty was on a whole different level.

To be honest, identifying typical wanted criminals wasn't nearly as hard as identifying Xia Yong. Shen Dongqing identifying him was like a beginner picking the hardest problem and solving it on the first shot.

If Xiao Ze had only been thirty or forty percent sure of Shen Dongqing's judgment before, now he was sixty or seventy percent sure.

All that was left was finding evidence that proved Liang Xinghua was Xia Yong.

Xiao Ze didn't say anything more. He drove to the police station, only telling Shen Dongqing he'd notify him as soon as Xia Yong was caught.

Back home, Shen Dongqing couldn't help but check Liang Xinghua's live stream again. He found the man was still streaming from the same spot, clearly unaware anything was wrong.

Shen Dongqing watched the stream for a while—after all, once Liang Xinghua got locked up, this live stream would be a collector's item!

Especially seeing Liang Xinghua play the role of a wronged, devoted father, and then watching his fans pity him and comfort him—the entertainment value was through the roof.

But why did Liang Xinghua keep dragging Zhang Feiyu into things?

After listening for a while, Shen Dongqing found it strange and went to ask Zhang Feiyu about it. Zhang Feiyu ended up venting to him for a while.

"He used to have a little shame, but now that his popularity is dropping, he's picking fights with everyone. He can't easily mess with others, so he keeps coming after me. I'm honestly done with this guy—he's like a piece of sticky candy that won't come off."

Zhang Feiyu could fight back, but doing so would only give the other guy more attention. So for now, he had no choice but to hold it in.

"Oh, right, he's tried to ride your coattails too, but..." Zhang Feiyu's voice had a hint of suppressed laughter.

"But what?" Shen Dongqing asked curiously.

"But your fans are either into looks or into drama. Among the ones into looks, few actually like him. And as for the ones into drama, his stream has no drama to watch—he just keeps going on about Liang Xuan. He hasn't managed to leech off any of your popularity."

"Now that I think about it, he hasn't mentioned you in a few days. I figure he realized he can't get any buzz from you, so now he's just milking me for all I'm worth." Zhang Feiyu said casually.

If Shen Dongqing didn't know Liang Xinghua was a wanted criminal, he might have bought that explanation. But now, Shen Dongqing suspected Liang Xinghua was a little afraid of anything related to the police. After all, he was a fugitive—others might not know, but he sure did.

Still, knowing his identity and still daring to risk live streaming, Shen Dongqing figured Liang Xinghua had gotten complacent after years of evading capture.

And back then, he'd robbed people at gunpoint for money. Now he was streaming for money too. That greed of his had never changed.

...

Shen Dongqing mentioned Liang Xinghua, and at the police station, Xiao Ze was watching a live stream with his colleagues—Liang Xinghua's.

After getting Xiao Ze's message, Du Wei had looked into Liang Xinghua's background and found that his record was spotless. He'd never once had any run-ins with the police. His ID had expired a few years ago, but he hadn't renewed it.

By itself, this didn't prove anything. Many ordinary people never have run-ins with the police, and if an ID isn't used often, it might just sit there untouched.

But if Liang Xinghua was a fugitive who'd taken on a new identity, then all these behaviors started to look suspicious.

Just looking at the guy on the screen, and then at the few photos of Xia Yong, Du Wei couldn't help blurting out, "How... how can you tell this is the same person?"

To be honest, Du Wei considered himself to have pretty sharp eyes—he'd once spotted a wanted criminal on the street and caught him—but now, after staring for a long time, he still couldn't see any resemblance.

"Use these for comparison. The livestream has beauty filters on, so there's a big gap from reality." Xiao Ze pulled out a few photos he'd found online—they were from the debt-collecting mess from a while back, when someone at the scene had snapped some pictures and happened to capture Liang Xinghua.

He hadn't dared to take photos earlier—partly because he was too far away, and partly because he was afraid of tipping him off. He'd been thinking he'd need to find a chance to photograph Liang Xinghua, but then Shen Dongqing, after hearing him mention it, suggested checking online—and sure enough, they found some.

"This... do beauty filters really mess with things that much?" Du Wei looked at the middle-aged man in the photos. Despite the smile on his face, his features looked somewhat fierce—but who was this classy, easygoing middle-aged guy on the livestream?

Xiao Ze opened the camera function in the livestream app, cranked the beauty filter all the way up, took a photo of Du Wei, and sent it to him.

Before Du Wei could react, he saw the photo—himself with fair, smooth skin, big eyes, red lips, and a pointed chin—and jumped a foot in the air.

"Bro Xiao, why'd you take a pic like that of me? That's terrifying." Du Wei complained.

"This is how distorted it gets when the beauty filter's maxed out." Xiao Ze said casually.

Just as he spoke, Xiao Ze's phone buzzed. He looked down—the cops at the crime scene had gotten their info and immediately sent over evidence that could verify Xia Yong's identity.

It was a fingerprint pulled off the murder weapon.

Back then, ID cards didn't require fingerprint registration, so this was the only evidence that could prove Xia Yong's identity.

Watching Liang Xinghua still putting on the sob story on the livestream, watching some netizens tipping him, Xiao Ze narrowed his eyes slightly. The man had been on the run for a long time, but this time, he wouldn't let him escape again.

Liang Xinghua had no idea his identity had been exposed. Though his throat was dry from talking so much, seeing today's earnings perked him right back up.

"Uncle Liang, you really need to take care of yourself. Don't grieve too much over Liang Xuan—he's not worth it."

"Uncle Liang only has this one son, right? He's getting older now—what's he going to do about retirement?"

"Lonely elderly people get help from the government, I think. Someone like Uncle Liang probably has to rely on himself. It'd be nice if the government could help with retirement too."