The restaurant was quiet, and the police station was off duty—it was leisure time. James Brooks returned to his home in the Yizhong Community. His mother wasn’t there, probably at school for her shift. He absentmindedly turned on his computer, a domestic Hasee laptop he’d bought in college. It was already a bit outdated, noisier than a desktop, and crashed frequently, but it was still barely usable. He logged into QQ to check Grace Brooks’s status icon, which was dim—she wasn’t online. He sent a text message, and Grace Brooks replied saying she was in a business training session and didn’t have time!

Feeling a bit disgruntled, he pulled the covers over himself and took a short nap.

Reality not only wears down a person’s character, but also their feelings. The once inseparable bond between him and Grace Brooks had now become distant. When he first returned to Wulong County, they would video chat at night. Without James Brooks even saying a word, Grace Brooks would sweet-talk him and teasingly expose certain parts of her body on camera, flashing white and dazzling his eyes, always tempting James Brooks to run to the city every few days! But once pre-job training started, work got busy, and James Brooks had to work night shifts every so often, their contact became less and less frequent. Passion can never outlast time. After hearing the news that Grace Brooks was about to become a full-time employee, James Brooks actually felt he really should make a trip to the city.

Not to pour out his feelings, but to see if it was time to “blow out the candle and pull out the wick”...

At 18:00, it was time for work. Dressed in a fresh police uniform, James Brooks left the Yizhong Community. The crisp uniform bore the “Public Security Auxiliary Police” armband. This honorable temporary job had lasted James Brooks five months and twenty-three days as of today!

Chapter 05: When Cleverness Backfires

Strictly speaking, an auxiliary police officer isn’t really a cop. They’re just temporary patrol and investigation staff hired because the police stations are understaffed—basically like contract temp workers. Those with poor backgrounds and all the dirty, thankless jobs are left to these people. The pay isn’t high—800 yuan a month, and even that isn’t always on time. The only perk is being close to the action: no police registration, no badge number, but you still get to wear a uniform and act tough. Maybe after two years, if you’re lucky, you could get a real police registration and become an official cop. That would be something—suddenly you’d be a state employee!

After James Brooks had been unemployed at home for a few months, not only were his parents worried, but even his Uncle Brooks, the police station chief, was alarmed. So he simply put James Brooks on the roster and had him work at the station. According to Uncle Brooks, this was a good opportunity to get to know society and gain practical experience. Nowadays, the two most challenging jobs are city management and auxiliary police. If you can handle those, you can handle anything.

It was only after starting the job that James Brooks realized Uncle Brooks’s words were full of insight. As an auxiliary police officer, you had to deal with the station’s officers above, act tough to scare the public below, and every so often join city management and highway patrol for joint enforcement, chasing and blocking street vendors and peddlers. And that wasn’t even the hard part. In a small county like Wulong, there were rarely any major cases, but during shifts, there was a constant stream of petty troubles: drunks, fights, couples arguing, students causing trouble, stolen bikes, smashed windows at home—just endless trivial matters. People would even come to the station looking for lost cats and dogs... If you didn’t handle something well, you’d get cursed out—either by the residents in your jurisdiction or by the station leaders. It really wasn’t a job for just anyone!

Low pay, bad reputation, and a lot of responsibility meant the auxiliary police team had a high turnover—every three to five months, there’d be a new batch. Luckily, James Brooks was sharp enough to avoid a lot of trouble and managed to stick it out for half a year. But even so, every day when he went to work, James Brooks still felt uneasy. He was really afraid of accidentally getting caught up in some mess and getting fired. He didn’t care about losing the lousy job—he just didn’t want to lose face!

The Chengguan Police Station wasn’t far from the community—just a ten-minute walk. The white walls with blue trim and the big characters “People’s Public Security” marked the place where he clocked in for his paycheck. 18:00 was the time for the daily shift change.

As soon as he entered the gate, James Brooks was surprised to see that all the auxiliary and regular officers were present. There must be some emergency—otherwise, they wouldn’t have called everyone in. James Brooks quickly jogged to the end of the line and joined the auxiliary police team.

There was a clear difference between auxiliary and regular officers—the quality of the uniforms was way off. They could still fool people on the street, but standing next to the real officers, they looked like a bunch of unemployed drifters in knockoff police uniforms!

While everyone was whispering, a female officer walked out of the office. She looked to be around forty, shouting as she walked, “Comrades, today’s a special situation, so everyone’s been called back! Stand tall, don’t look like you’ve just lost a battle! Attention...”

You heard her before you saw her—her voice was even more piercing than a broken gong!

This policewoman was not to be underestimated. Her surname was Tai, given name Shuixian, and she was the station’s instructor, second only to the chief. Although her name was Grace (“Narcissus”), her looks and figure were nothing like the flower. She was the classic type—no curves on top, no shape below, kind of like a garlic scape! Yet she loved to dress up and scold people. Among this group of not-quite-police, not-quite-civilian auxiliary officers, the one they feared most was this “garlic scape auntie.”

There were forty people in the station. Hearing the instructor’s command, everyone straightened their backs and stared straight at her.