Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The news of Liang Xinghua's arrest was pretty big news. Considering the impact on public opinion, the Ningchuan police quickly issued an official statement after confirming Liang Xinghua's identity.

Netizens went in with a casual, gossipy mindset and came out stunned, clutching the wanted poster.

The news was too dramatic, and the announcement quickly went viral on the hot search list.

"Wait, what do you mean, a fugitive who's been on the run for over twenty years?"

"How dare a fugitive livestream?"

"Maybe after hiding that long without getting caught, he got bold."

"And yet, not long into his livestream, someone spotted him and reported him. He got caught fair and square."

"I just looked up his bounty—200,000 yuan. That's a ton of cash."

"Isn't this the streamer I've watched several times? He's actually a fugitive? How did I not notice before? That's enough for a down payment on a house."

"Makes sense you didn't notice. Who goes around looking at wanted posters?"

At this point, most netizens were shocked mainly by the fact that a fugitive had the nerve to stream.

In their minds, fugitives were always hiding and trying not to be noticed. This was the first time they'd seen such a bold fugitive.

Some people also regretted not paying attention to the police's wanted posters. In their view, if they'd just seen the photo on the wanted poster, how could they not recognize Liang Xinghua once he started streaming?

But soon, some netizens put the wanted photo and Liang Xinghua's actual photos side by side for comparison, saying that this bounty wasn't for just anyone. How did the person who turned him in even connect the dots?

"It's not that exaggerated. A person's appearance at twenty doesn't change that much over twenty-plus years... This is like he went through a full metamorphosis."

"It might have something to do with weight loss too. After losing weight, your face shape changes."

"Before seeing the comparison photos, I was regretting and feeling like I missed out on the bounty because I didn't look at the wanted poster. After seeing them, that money was earned by someone else."

"This is actually a special case. For normal people, appearance doesn't change much after adulthood, and normally a wanted poster doesn't stay up this long."

"I used to think this fugitive was kind of dumb, but now I see he was confident he wouldn't be caught. He just didn't expect to run into someone that good at recognizing faces."

"I watched his stream and tipped him over a hundred yuan. Can I get a refund?"

"Probably not."

Netizens were either mocking or shocked, but the ones most crushed were the fans in Liang Xinghua's livestream room.

They had genuinely believed in Liang Xinghua's loving-father persona, felt bad for him, and even tipped him.

But once Liang Xinghua's fugitive identity was exposed, the loving-father persona came crashing down.

Not to mention, some netizens analyzed his livestream strategy and found he was just blinded by money, deliberately playing the sympathy card to beg for tips. That made the fans who tipped look like total fools.

Many biggest tippers on the leaderboard chose to delete their accounts. Some people were so angry they tracked down Liang's mother and demanded she refund their money, even knowing it was futile, just to make a scene.

The biggest impact of this incident was that local police websites saw an increase in traffic, and the public accounts that share wanted posters also gained more followers.

Shen Dongqing also followed accounts like "Safe Ningchuan." He had committed quite a few wanted posters to memory, but new fugitives were always appearing. Shen Dongqing wanted to try relying on his memory to remember faces, as a way to practice.

Considering the difficulty of memorizing faces without any special skill, Shen Dongqing only followed local Ningchuan accounts and didn't want to overload himself with practice.

As it turned out, the local accounts apparently noticed the buzz and knew where it came from. They used to post wanted posters once every ten days, but now they posted three times a day, so Shen Dongqing's practice load shot up.

Shen Dongqing initially thought none of his friends followed these accounts other than him, but to his surprise, Zhang Feiyu also followed them.

"Why are you following these?" Shen Dongqing asked curiously.

"Just to stay safe. What if I run into a fugitive during a livestream? The stream would blow up." Zhang Feiyu said.

He hadn't had any ideas for content lately, and his stream wasn't getting much traction, so he had to find ways to boost the numbers.

"Fugitive photos are so hard to memorize. I can recognize them when I'm looking at the photo, but the second I look away, I can't remember." Zhang Feiyu complained.

"Try memorizing facial features. Memorizing the whole face is easy to confuse and makes your memory fuzzy." Shen Dongqing shared the memory technique he had figured out.

"I'll try that."

Zhang Feiyu eagerly went off to try the new method, but quickly gave up.

"Oh great. I used to think I just had mild face blindness, but now I'm starting to question my memory." Zhang Feiyu was frustrated. He thought it would be easy since Shen Dongqing made it sound so simple, but when he tried it himself, he realized it wasn't.

He could remember facial features, but as he memorized more faces, the features quickly got mixed up, and he remembered even less than before.

"Dongqing, you're still young with a good memory. I'm hopeless. I..." Zhang Feiyu was in the middle of feeling sorry for himself when an idea hit him. "If I can't memorize them by rote, I can just put all the fugitive photos into one picture. Then when I see someone familiar, I can just look it up."

Shen Dongqing thought about it and realized that method could work, but he warned him that fugitives should only be glanced at briefly—looking too long would make them wary and they'd run.

After hearing Shen Dongqing's reminder, Zhang Feiyu realized he had a point. He pounded his chest and promised to practice the one-glance recognition skill, aiming to catch a fugitive within a year, and would come tell Shen Dongqing the good news when he did.

"Alright, I'll wait for your good news. But don't take too many risks. Be extra careful with high-risk fugitives." Shen Dongqing said.

"Don't worry. I won't go looking for fugitives until I've mastered the one-glance recognition." Zhang Feiyu wanted to get famous, but he valued his life more. Unless he was confident enough, he'd rather stay safe.

...

Shen Dongqing thought the impact of reporting Liang Xinghua had ended there, until he received a message from Xiao Ze asking if he could teach other police officers his technique for quick facial recognition.

When he didn't reply for a while, Xiao Ze jumped to the wrong conclusion.

"It's okay if you can't. Don't worry, they don't know who you are. I'll tell them you don't have time to teach."

"That's not it." Before Shen Dongqing could react, he sent a message over.

Looking at the message he'd already sent, Shen Dongqing wanted to unsend it, but his phone rang—it was Xiao Ze calling.

Shen Dongqing hesitated for a moment, then answered.

"You don't have to force yourself. It's fine if you can't. The facial recognition stuff they teach in school is enough." Xiao Ze said.

"I'm not forcing myself. If I could teach, I would. The problem is..." Shen Dongqing gave in and admitted, "My facial recognition skill was something I figured out on my own. I might not be able to teach it."

"At least for now. Not sure if I'll be able to later." Shen Dongqing added.

There was silence on the other end of the line, followed by a quiet laugh.

"Shen Dongqing, do you think the facial recognition abilities taught at the police academy came out of nowhere? They were all developed step by step through trial and error. Don't underestimate your own ability." Xiao Ze genuinely hadn't expected Shen Dongqing to be so unsure of his own ability.

But then Xiao Ze thought about it and found it made sense. Shen Dongqing had only proven his ability with Liang Xinghua, and confidence is built on a series of successes.

Shen Dongqing was breaking out in a cold sweat. He could tell Xiao Ze really trusted him, but his extraordinary facial recognition ability came from a skill card.

If the skill card gave him a level five in facial recognition, then Shen Dongqing's own ability was probably only level two—one was a master, the other an apprentice.

Shen Dongqing stayed silent, and Xiao Ze didn't compliment him again.

When someone lacks confidence, forced praise only makes them doubt themselves more—better to let them prove their own abilities.

"You need learning materials to practice and improve, right? If you're willing, I can give you some practice problems to help you build up experience."

Xiao Ze's voice was no longer as cold and hard as when they first met—it carried a hint of gentleness.

Shen Dongqing hesitated. He could simply refuse, and Xiao Ze wouldn't say anything, but did he really not want to improve his ability?

Once he realized facial recognition could be learned through practice, Shen Dongqing was eager to master it—that's why he'd been working so hard to memorize faces.

But wanted criminals only had one photo each, with nothing to compare against. Passersby had comparison photos, but they didn't disguise or alter their appearances, making practice problems identical to real tests—useless for training.

"These learning materials you're giving me—they're not illegal, are they?" Shen Dongqing didn't know much about police discipline, but he assumed internal police materials shouldn't be casually shared.

"What are you thinking? The materials I can give you are ones I've collected myself, not internal documents." Xiao Ze chuckled, surprised that Shen Dongqing was worried about that. "Do you want them?"

"Yes." Without any hesitation, Shen Dongqing said firmly, though his boldness lasted less than a second. "Start with something low-difficulty."

"Alright, I'll send them to you later."

After hanging up, Shen Dongqing opened the system panel. His Fame Points had reached eighty thousand.

The growth in Fame Points mainly came from Ningchuan Public Security's blue-and-white announcements. Although not revealing his identity earned fewer points, the high exposure still boosted his total considerably.

Unfortunately, Fame Points never seemed to accumulate. Shen Dongqing looked at the facial recognition skill in the shop, let out a helpless sigh, and opened the spinning wheel, angrily spending fifty thousand Fame Points.

The skill was useful, but the side effects were too strong. He still hoped to draw a skill-limited card and learn it himself instead.

Shen Dongqing's luck wasn't bad. Aside from some ordinary physical items, he drew five skill cards in total.

"Master Chef Card—One-Day Limited"

"Recognition Technique—Facial Recognition—Three-Day Limited" x3

"Recognition Technique—Body Recognition—Three-Day Limited"

The purpose of the chef card was obvious at a glance. Shen Dongqing was curious about body recognition.

Faces were directly exposed, and looking at them could reveal a lot of information, but most of the body was covered by clothing—surely you couldn't tell much just by looking.

Shen Dongqing entered the system shop and quickly found the body recognition skill.

The description was simple: this skill card could identify the health condition of a person's body.

Was it really that simple? Shen Dongqing remained skeptical.

Whatever the effect, Shen Dongqing had no intention of using it now, so he simply stored the card away.

As for the three facial recognition cards, Shen Dongqing called out to the system in his mind. He suspected the system had self-awareness—how else could he want facial recognition cards and conveniently draw them?

But after calling for a while, the system remained silent as ever, offering nothing. Shen Dongqing disappointedly stopped.

Honestly, he wished there was a system consciousness. If he could communicate with it, maybe he could haggle, but unfortunately, there wasn't.

Looking at the remaining thirty thousand Fame Points, Shen Dongqing didn't spin again. What he'd drawn today was enough; he needed to keep some Fame Points for emergencies.

But seeing the Fame Points reminded him that he hadn't gone live in days.

Shen Dongqing logged into his streaming account. Sure enough, fans had already sent numerous messages urging him to stream.

Feeling guilty, Shen Dongqing didn't even bother with an announcement and went live immediately.

Within seconds of the stream starting, fans began trickling in.

"We just praised you for being diligent, but count how many days you've been offline now"

"Streamer, you can do one day on, one day off, but not one day on, five days off—do you remember you're a full-time streamer?"

Shen Dongqing was sweating nervously. He hadn't meant to slack off, but first he was memorizing wanted criminal photos, then he discovered Liang Xinghua's identity—with all that going on, he'd missed several days of streaming.

Shen Dongqing quickly apologized and made amends: "I'll stream all day today to make it up to everyone. Also, wherever you all say to stream, I'll go."

"All day, fine, we'll let you off for now"

"Is the streamer catching thieves today? Want to see that again"

"No catching, no catching. You can't bait thieves into action—you have to stop their theft before they make a move." Shen Dongqing said with a serious face.

"True, then streamer should take the bus first, anywhere is fine"

"Don't worry everyone, with the streamer's eyesight, he can spot a thief and hold back. Once he's on the bus, there's bound to be some excitement"

Seeing two comments from the same person, Shen Dongqing fell silent. Even so, couldn't they switch accounts? That was way too blatant.

Shen Dongqing thought this fan might be disappointed. He'd taken the bus just two days ago, and thieves fled at the sight of him—there was no way anything like an on-the-spot theft would happen.

But the other fans were all convinced and clamored to watch the streamer take the bus.

"Alright, since that's what everyone wants, I'll take the bus."