Accidental Hero: The Rookie Who Outshines the Force - Chapter 26

Provincial Highway 217 checkpoint.
Chen Weimin was on duty with trainee officer Yuan Jie and young patrolman Xiao Chen, choking on dust and smoke at the roadside.
For Yuan Jie, this was his first time on such an assignment. The harsh environment was bad enough, but what really wore him down was the non-stop routine—over ten hours straight without a break. Even a body of iron would buckle.
Worse, they had inspected thirty or forty trucks and turned up absolutely nothing. For a straight-A academy graduate like him, the monotony was soul-crushing.
Checkpoint work was hardly glamorous: wave the truck down, order the engine off, ask where they were coming from and where they were headed, inspect the cargo, check driver’s license, registration, repeat. Over and over, like a broken record.
Yuan Jie’s patience was fraying fast.
Not far away, Tang Kai from the anti-narcotics squad cast a glance at him and smirked.
“Old Chen, your little apprentice looks bored out of his mind.”
Chen Weimin fished out a cigarette and offered one. “Hah, fresh-capped top student. First time eating this kind of bitterness. Give him time, he’ll toughen up. Every rookie goes through it.”
Tang Kai chuckled. “Kids have it easy nowadays. Back when I was shadowing my mentor, we tailed a group of fugitives by car. Held our bladders for six hours straight—didn’t dare stop to take a leak, afraid of losing the target. Thought our bladders would burst.”
Chen Weimin laughed along. “I remember chasing wanted men when I was young. No fancy surveillance back then. We went house to house, door to door. By the end, my legs didn’t even feel like mine anymore.”
“The new generation really has it good.”
Tang Kai drew on his cigarette, then asked suddenly, “Old Chen, I heard you’ve got a trainee named Lu Cheng. Snagged a wanted criminal on his first day?”
Chen Weimin waved a hand dismissively. “Ha! Pure dumb luck.”
Just the name made him perk up without the cigarette. Who would’ve thought the story had reached the anti-narcotics squad already?
“Luck, huh? And that pickpocket he bagged afterward—was that luck too?”
“Oh, that one? No, that was real skill,” Chen Weimin answered, dead serious.
Tang Kai raised an eyebrow. So the old man hadn’t been modest at all—he was bragging!
“Promising kid. Shame he’s stuck in Sanliqiao.”
Tang Kai liked rookies like that. It had been years since he’d met one.
Chen Weimin bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean? What’s wrong with Sanliqiao—”
Before he could retort, Tang Kai’s radio crackled.
It was Channel 13, reserved for the joint operation task force.
“All units, be advised: checkpoint team at Provincial Highway 212, Zhengyang North, has intercepted a dump truck carrying five kilos of heroin. Interrogation indicates a second red dump truck is carrying another five kilos. Model: Ruiyu K68D, configuration 4-front-10-rear, length 8.6 meters. All units to prioritize inspections of this model. Suspected concealment location is the truck bed’s steel bottom.”
The alert repeated three times. Cigarettes hit the ground. Both men snapped to full alert.
“They found it! Turns out they split the shipment between two trucks!”
“Wait—212 Zhengyang North… why does that sound familiar?”
“Old Chen, isn’t that checkpoint in Sanliqiao jurisdiction too?”
Chen Weimin slapped his thigh. “Yes! Zhao Han’s team! I’ll check in now!”
He had just grabbed his radio when Zhao Han’s excited voice burst through:
“Chief Chen! We just nailed a drug truck—five kilos of heroin on board!”
“It was Lu Cheng! That kid spotted it!”
“The truck was about to be cleared when Lu Cheng insisted the steel floor of the bed looked off. He said it had to be cut open. And sure enough—ten wax-paper packages of heroin hidden inside!”
Chen Weimin’s pupils shrank to pinpoints. Again? That brat?!
Tang Kai was equally floored. It was the trainee who had caught it?!
The two veterans stared at each other for several long seconds before snapping back. This wasn’t the time to gape—there was still another truck out there!
“Old Chen, the radio said the second truck is a red dump, Ruiyu K68D?”
Chen Weimin froze, then shouted, “Four-front-ten-rear, red dump truck, Ruiyu K68D—damn it! We checked one of those around five o’clock!”
Tang Kai went pale, cold sweat soaking his back.
It was over.
They had let the second truck slip past their checkpoint.
Yuan Jie and Xiao Chen came running, saw their faces, and turned pale themselves.
Yuan Jie shook his head violently. “Impossible! We inspected it thoroughly, even the aftermarket A/C unit! It was empty! How could it possibly be hiding drugs?”
To him, a proud academy grad, such a “mistake” was inconceivable.
But he was just a trainee. Even Tang Kai hadn’t realized.
Chen Weimin shot him a glare. “Save the outrage. We still have a shot. Once that truck’s in the city, the surveillance net will catch it. Easier to track.”
Tang Kai was already reporting in, instructing the information center to comb camera footage past 5:20 p.m., focusing on three routes: Yuemei Road, Tianxi Road East, and County Road 048. Those were the only ways into the city from the 217 checkpoint. No side roads.
Tracking would be tough, but not impossible.
He exhaled slowly. Two hours had passed, but inside the city’s camera grid, there was still hope.
Chen Weimin recalled the inspection. A red dump truck, empty. The driver claimed he was hauling potatoes back. From Yun Province all the way here, just for potatoes? The transport costs didn’t add up. They had suspected something.
The driver, however, had been perfectly cooperative.
They checked inside and out, nothing suspicious.
And with eyes as seasoned as theirs, neither of them spotted a single tell.
Tang Kai had even scrutinized the man’s hands, the sun-tanned arm, the crow’s feet around his eyes. The calluses, the weathering—classic long-haul trucker.
No way he was a trafficker. One run would be enough to retire on.
And the bed of a dump truck? With exposed side panels and a solid steel floor, it was the least likely place to hide drugs.
Or so they had thought.
But sometimes, it was the least obvious place where the truth lay hidden. Even Tang Kai, a hardened veteran, had been fooled.
When Yuan Jie heard the story of how Lu Cheng had forced open the truck floor, his expression twisted.
Again? Lu Cheng again?!
He had insisted on cutting open the bed just because the welds under the mud looked fresh?
It was a flimsy reason, bordering on overkill.
Yet that “overkill” had uncovered heroin.
It was absurd.
So absurd it was beyond absurd.
Absurdity’s mother had opened the door—and absurdity had walked right in.
This was ridiculous beyond belief!