Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Before long, the nearest police officers arrived and immediately approached Meng Xiao to get the details, since she was the only one there who knew what the modified pressure cooker looked like.

Meng Xiao quickly described the pressure cooker, though she'd only caught a glimpse of the wires through the gap in the lid and hadn't dared to look any closer, so she didn't know much more than that.

"It's probably not remote-controlled—either it's rigged with a tripwire or it's on a timer," the person on the other end of the line judged after hearing Meng Xiao's description. "We'll have to see the pressure cooker to know for sure."

The officers exchanged a look—no time to waste. They took a deep breath, carefully got on the bus, and looked where Meng Xiao had pointed. The spot under the middle seat was completely empty.

"Where is it?" one of the officers asked, stunned.

"Miss Meng, where's that black bag you mentioned?" another officer asked, turning to her.

"It was right under the seat," Meng Xiao said, puzzled.

"There's nothing here," the officer said, shaking his head, and immediately radioed headquarters.

Back at headquarters, they'd been trying to figure out who'd brought the bag onto the bus. When they heard the report, they were stunned—what do you mean the pressure cooker's gone?

"Pull up the surveillance footage and see what happened."

The officer watching the cameras had been focused on spotting who'd brought the pressure cooker on board. When he got the news, he froze for a second, then quickly rewound the footage.

He watched Meng Xiao squeeze up to the driver, saw her grab something from under the seat, and then head back to the driver. As the bus cleared out, only an old man was left.

The old man grumbled to himself, looked around, then bent down and pulled a big bag out from under the seat. He walked off with it, looking pretty pleased with himself.

The officer's brain was spinning. They'd figured the biggest danger was in dealing with the bomb themselves—who would've thought someone would just walk off with it like it was a prize?

The bomb had been on the bus, the crowd was already evacuated, and most of the danger was gone. But now the old man had it—if it went off in a crowd...

"Find out where that old man went!" the police chief barked, his vision going black.

When Meng Xiao heard that a passenger had walked off with the pressure cooker, she was stunned. When the officers asked her about it, she just shook her head. "I don't know where he went. I didn't even dare look back after I got off."

The driver, though, remembered and quickly pointed which way the old man had gone. But a few minutes had already gone by, and nobody knew where he'd ended up.

"You can check the bus card—that old man's gotta be cheap, probably used a senior card," the driver said.

The police quickly pulled up the footage again, and several people started checking when the old man had gotten on. Their biggest worry was that he'd used a regular unregistered card, which would make finding him a nightmare.

Luckily, they caught a break. The old man had used a senior card when he got on. The card didn't have his phone number, but since it was registered under his real name, they were able to get his kids' contact info pretty fast.

His kids almost hung up thinking it was a scam, but when the police explained what was going on, their hands shook and they dropped their phones. Good thing the phones didn't break, or the call would've been cut off. Trembling, they gave the police their dad's number.

The police called right away, but nobody picked up after several tries.

"My dad probably thinks it's a scam," his kid explained, panicking. "He knows a guy who got scammed answering a call, so he won't pick up for numbers he doesn't know. I'll get ahold of him right now."

"If he's somewhere open, tell him to leave the bag where it is and get away fast, and keep people from getting near it. If he's not, tell him to put it down and call us immediately—we'll walk him through evacuating the area."

While they were scrambling to find the old man, the police also figured out who'd brought the bag onto the bus.

He was a chemistry student at a local university, and he'd been diagnosed with HIV a week earlier. He'd also ordered some stuff online.

Looking at his purchase history, the police confirmed he'd turned a pressure cooker into a bomb.

...

After getting out of the cab, Li Jia had no idea which bus to go after, but he knew exactly how powerful what was in his bag was.

He'd set it on a timer. If nobody found it and it went off on the bus, the results would be unthinkable.

Li Jia had built the bomb to get back at the guy who'd knowingly given him HIV. After finding out the truth by accident, he'd pretended not to know and lured the guy out, planning to blow him up.

But now, the bomb had wound up on a bus.

Li Jia thought it over, pulled up the bus route map, and picked a stop far away. He told the driver to take him there, where he'd wait and hop on bus after bus to find it.

But would he have enough time?

Li Jia was a nervous wreck. His original plan was to put the bomb in the bathroom, wait for the guy to get in the shower, and then leave while he was in there—so the blast wouldn't hurt him. That meant the timer wasn't set for long. If it went off now...

"No, not there. Take me to the bus station instead," Li Jia said, doing the math. If traffic was bad, he'd never make it. And even if he did, carrying the bomb would make him the prime suspect—he'd get caught for sure. Li Jia decided to run.

"You're sure about this? Not gonna change your mind again?" the driver asked.

"I'm sure. Come on, hurry up, I'm in a hurry," Li Jia said, talking fast.

The driver rolled his eyes. It was almost rush hour—how fast did this guy think he could go? But he kept his mouth shut, figuring Li Jia was a loose cannon and might change his mind again if he said anything.

Sure enough, they got stuck in traffic not long after. Watching the car crawl along, Li Jia wanted to bail and run, but he didn't dare. On foot, he had no idea how far he'd make it.

Even if something went wrong, there was no way the cops could trace it back to him this fast. Don't panic.

Li Jia tried to calm himself down as traffic started to move again, and he let out a sigh of relief.

The car kept going. As they passed an intersection, a traffic cop glanced at the taxi and suddenly waved for them to pull over.

The driver was confused but slowed down. Just then, the back door flew open and a guy tumbled out, slamming into the ground. Ignoring the pain, he scrambled up and took off running.

Seeing him run, the cop chased after him. Li Jia looked back, confused about how he'd been found out so fast, but he kept running.

If traffic had still been bumper-to-bumper, Li Jia might've gotten away with running through the streets. But the congestion had just cleared, and he ran straight into the path of a turning car.

The driver, caught completely off guard, sent Li Jia flying. Looking at the guy on the ground and the cop nearby, he wanted to curse—what the hell was wrong with this guy?

The cop hadn't expected Li Jia to be this jumpy. He rushed over to check on him. Seeing he wasn't in danger of dying, he immediately asked about the pressure cooker bomb—what kind it was and how much time was left.

Li Jia, dazed from the crash, snapped to attention at the question. He grabbed the cop's hand. "It hasn't exploded yet, has it?"

"Right, there's still some time—it hasn't gone off yet." Despite the pain all over his body, Li Jia felt a wave of relief. Laughing and crying at the same time, he sobbed out the details about the bomb.

But there was less than six minutes left.

Back at headquarters, the news sent everyone into a panic. All they needed now was to find the old man.

Soon, word came in—the old man's kids had gotten through to him.

When the old man found out the pressure cooker he'd picked up was a bomb, his legs went weak. Staring at the black bag he'd casually set down, he crawled away, shaking, too scared and weak to even stand.

He'd been heading home but had stopped to watch a chess game on the sidewalk.

Everyone around him was baffled as he crawled away.

After crawling a ways, he grabbed a tree to pull himself up. Seeing everyone staring at him in confusion, he shouted, "Run! That's a bomb!"

"A bomb?" Someone figured the old man was joking and peeked into the bag. "Isn't this just a pressure cooker?"

"Someone turned a pressure cooker into a bomb." The old man left those words hanging and turned to run, but then his phone rang again. Seeing who was calling, he nearly hung up again, but luckily he remembered what his kids had said—that the police would contact him—so he answered.

"Okay, okay, I'll turn it on right away." The old man nodded eagerly as he listened to the voice on the other end, then put the phone on speaker.

The people nearby hadn't fully believed him at first, but hearing the police officer's voice, they began to hesitate—could this thing really be a bomb?

"What would I gain from lying to you?" the voice on the phone said, just as several police officers pedaled up on bicycles. Seeing the large bag on the ground, they immediately shouted for the crowd to move away.

A phone call could be faked, but nobody would dare impersonate the police in person.

The group exchanged glances and bolted.

The police arrived, saw the black bag, and immediately began evacuating the crowd. If the bomb squad couldn't handle it, they'd have to detonate it right there.

The cops were thankful for one thing—that the old man had carried the bag to the park. If he'd walked any farther, it would've been a disaster.

Sure, Li Jia said the bomb was simple—just a timer, no vibration switches—but homemade bombs like that are still extremely dangerous. If anything went wrong inside, it could blow at any second.

The crowd was pushed way back, but even knowing it was a bomb, plenty of people still held up their phones to watch the show. From a few hundred meters out, you couldn't see much with the naked eye—only phones could zoom in.

The cops holding the crowd back were annoyed. People had some sense of danger, but not a lot.

Time crawled by, second by second, and the cops got more and more tense.

"Bomb successfully defused."

Hearing the voice over the radio, the officer spun around, looked at the little black bag in the distance, let out a long breath, and couldn't help but smile.

Back at headquarters, they got the same news. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and cheered—finally, it was over!

...

Meng Xiao had never left. When she heard the bomb was defused, the weight on her heart finally lifted. Even with the relief, she hadn't forgotten her savior—Shen Dongqing.

If Shen Dongqing hadn't told her about the misunderstanding he ran into, she'd never have known a pressure cooker could be turned into a bomb. Even if she'd noticed it, she might not have given it a second thought. If that bomb had gone off while the bus was moving...

Just thinking about it made Meng Xiao shudder. Who'd have thought that just taking the bus home could turn into a life-or-death situation?

Meng Xiao checked her account balance, gritted her teeth, topped up her credits, and sent Shen Dongqing a Moon.

It was the priciest gift on the Tianfeng platform—one Moon cost three thousand yuan. Meng Xiao had just started working, and with rent and food, every yuan mattered. That three thousand was money she'd scraped together over the past two months.

Shen Dongqing was drying beef jerky in the oven when he saw the Moon and figured a fan was trying to boost their odds in the giveaway. He quickly reminded them: "The beef jerky giveaway is random—gifts won't boost your odds."

"Streamer, if it weren't for you today, I might be dead. This is my thank-you gift."

"What's going on? Did the streamer save someone today? Did I miss something?"

"I don't think so—I watched the whole stream today, and there was no rescue."

Seeing the comments, Shen Dongqing remembered the fire he'd put out that morning and figured it was the downstairs neighbor thanking him. He quickly said, "We're all neighbors—anyone who sees a fire would help."

Shen Dongqing was a bit confused. If the neighbor wanted to thank him, they could just come upstairs—why send gifts in the stream? That seemed like a waste.

But then he thought—maybe the neighbor was worried he wouldn't accept it, so they went through the stream instead.

"Wait, the streamer also put out a fire today? When did that happen?"

Reading the comments and Shen Dongqing's words, some fans felt like they'd missed a lot today.

"It happened after I went offline this morning." Shen Dongqing briefly told the story of putting out the fire.

"How can someone be so awful? Smoking is bad enough, but tossing a cigarette butt from a high floor? That's just evil."

"Good thing the streamer caught it in time—if it had really caught fire, I don't even want to think about it."

"Don't worry, with that cigarette butt, today's tech will definitely find who tossed it. They can look forward to rotting in jail."

"I thought today was pretty uneventful for the streamer except for that little misunderstanding, but turns out stuff was happening when we weren't watching."

"Smoking is really bad—it makes others breathe secondhand smoke, and one careless moment can start a fire. Near where I live, someone was smoking while visiting a grave on the mountain and ended up burning the whole tomb."

"If the ancestors had any spirit, they'd string that smoker up and beat him."

"Heh, I don't know about that, but I do know he got a serious beating from his family when he got back. If not for all the people who helped put out the fire, they might've all been in trouble."

After sending the gift, Meng Xiao heard Shen Dongqing's response and realized he'd misunderstood. She wanted to explain but hesitated—she wasn't sure if she was allowed to talk about it.

After thinking it over, Meng Xiao decided to send Shen Dongqing a private message, then posted a comment telling him to check his DMs.

Shen Dongqing saw the comment, opened his DMs, read through them, and went quiet.

Wait—was his luck really this bad now?

Not only did he run into criminals himself, but now his fans were running into them too?

Shen Dongqing shook his head vigorously. No, it had to be a coincidence. The Criminal Attraction Aura couldn't possibly be that absurd.

After thanking him, Meng Xiao was still clearly emotional, sending message after message. Reading through her experience, Shen Dongqing felt she was incredibly lucky.

No—it wasn't just luck.

If Meng Xiao hadn't been kind-hearted and simply ignored the black bag, she'd never have discovered the pressure cooker bomb inside. She might not even be alive right now.

Shen Dongqing replied with a few messages to comfort her.

Meng Xiao's emotions gradually settled. Seeing Shen Dongqing's messages, she was moved to tears. The streamer she followed was truly wonderful.

Before, when she'd seen Shen Dongqing rescue the mother and daughter who'd fallen into the water, Meng Xiao had only felt excitement. But now, looking at Shen Dongqing's profile picture, she felt a deep sense of reassurance. Her streamer was so dependable.