The implication was that Yuan Guoyao hoped he would quickly replace Xu Kuo, this "outsider."
Upon hearing this, Yuan Guoyao merely smiled, his gaze falling upon Xu Kuo, who was "besieged" by the case files, his eyes filled with a hint of amusement and certainty.
"You lot just don't trust my judgment?"
He patted the old police officer on the shoulder: "I'll make a bet with you guys, I bet Xu Kuo can sort out these backlog cases in less than three days! What do you say?"
"Three days?!" The veteran police officers looked at each other, then couldn't help but chuckle.
"Mr. Yuan, you must be joking!"
"With so many old cases and Wang Ming, that hot potato, let alone three days, even if you give him three months, it would be good enough if a layman like him could understand them!"
"I bet he won't even finish organizing these files today!"
They simply couldn't believe that a "barefoot doctor" who was a hoodlum and saved lives with acupuncture yesterday could transform into a shrewd and capable detective captain today.
At that moment, Xu Kuo was holding a stack of files taller than himself, feeling utterly overwhelmed.
The dense text and tables made his eyes dizzy.
What should we do? Are we really going to be stumped by these worthless papers, or should we go and resign from this position?
Just when he was at his wit's end, the long-lost system notification sound suddenly rang in his mind.
[Ding! Host is facing a major information processing dilemma. Do you wish to consume 200 points to activate the "Information Summarization and Organization" function?]
[It can intelligently classify and sort all case files according to case type, time, urgency, relevance, etc., and generate key information summaries.]
Xu Kuo's eyes suddenly lit up!
System! You're a lifesaver!
"Start! Start it now!" Xu Kuo shouted in his heart with wild joy.
He took a deep breath, clutching the pile of files that almost buried him, and amidst the curious, sympathetic, or expectant gazes of the crowd, pushed open the door to a makeshift office next door and went inside.
"Bang!" The office door slammed shut.
Outside the door, the old police officers looked at the closed door and let out another round of disdainful sneers.
"Ha! They've hidden inside?"
"I think he's too ashamed to show his face in public!"
"Just wait, I bet he's staring blankly at that pile of files right now!"
"Don't even mention solving the case in three days. If he can even sort out which part of those case files before sunset today, then he'll be considered amazing!"
The office door slammed shut, shutting out all the gazes from outside—curiosity, sympathy, suspicion, and the undisguised contempt and schadenfreude of the veteran officers waiting to see him fail.
He turned and looked at the mountain of dossier in front of him, which could almost bury him and smelled of old paper and ink, and took a deep breath.
If it were up to him, he might not be able to figure it out even in thirty days, let alone three.
But now... he's cheating!
As the "information summarization and organization" function in my mind was activated, a refreshing stream of data instantly flooded in.
The chaos before my eyes was quickly sorted out, and seemingly unrelated cases, fragmented clues, and vague testimonies began to be automatically classified, linked, and reorganized at an astonishing speed.
Time seemed to be fast-forwarded at that moment.
The sunlight outside the window shifted from east to west, and the light inside the office gradually dimmed.
Finally, as the last stream of data entered his mind, Xu Kuo let out a long sigh of relief and rubbed his throbbing temples.
Only half a day had passed.
Before my eyes, the files that were originally piled up like a mountain have been sorted and neatly stacked in different areas of the table.
At the top of each stack is a concise summary of key information generated by the system.
On the adjacent wall, intricate yet clearly structured diagrams were drawn in chalk.
Arrows, lines, names of people, names of places, time points... connect several seemingly independent cases, and the connections hidden behind some long-forgotten cold cases are now so clearly exposed.
Xu Kuo couldn't help but smile slightly. The system not only organized the information but also marked potential breakthroughs and directions for investigation.
After working for most of the day, Xu Kuo felt his bladder was a little bloated, so he got up and went to the toilet.
He opened the office door.
Outside the door, Yuen Kwok-yiu stood with his hands behind his back, talking quietly with the veteran police officers who had stayed the entire time.
Upon seeing Xu Kuo emerge, everyone's gaze immediately focused on him.
The old police officers still looked at him with scrutiny and distrust, as if they were certain that Xu Kuo had been lingering inside for a long time without accomplishing anything and was now slinking out to "surrender."
Yuan Guoyao, however, remained calm and composed. He stepped forward, a hint of barely perceptible expectation in his eyes, and asked a question.
"How's it going, Xu Kuo? It's been a whole afternoon, have you made any progress with those case files...?"
Xu Kuo chuckled inwardly, but feigned humility on his face, even displaying a perfectly measured weariness.
"Hmm... I think I've made some progress. There's just too much stuff; I've only managed to organize a small portion."
After saying that, he turned to the side and pointed somewhat embarrassedly to the end of the corridor: "Mr. Yuan, I need to use the restroom first."
Seeing Xu Kuo's seemingly unconfident demeanor and his statement that he had "only sorted out a small portion," the veteran police officers exchanged glances, their mocking smiles deepening.
"Ha! I knew it! I knew it!"
"Pretending! 'Eyebrows' indeed? I think you're just looking worried!"
"He must be having a headache looking at that pile of stuff, unable to get anything done!"
Among them, the gray-haired old police officer surnamed Zhang couldn't help but sneer and sarcastically stir up trouble for Yuan Guoyao.
"Mr. Yuan, how about... we go in and take a look? See what 'clues' our young and promising Captain Xu has uncovered?"
“Yes, yes, yes! Go take a look! Maybe you’ve made the case files even more messy?” Another veteran police officer surnamed Li chimed in.
Yuan Guoyao frowned almost imperceptibly. Although he had confidence in Xu Kuo, he was also curious about what Xu Kuo had done in the past half day.
Even he himself would need several days to roughly go through the mountain of files.
“Alright, let’s go in and take a look.” Yuan Guoyao nodded and pushed open the office door first.
Several veteran police officers immediately followed him in, eager to catch him in the act of being flustered and accomplishing nothing, so that Old Yuan would face reality.
The next moment, the door was pushed open.
"hiss--!!!"
When they saw the scene inside the office, the people at the door, including Yuen Kwok-yiu, almost simultaneously gasped in shock!
The chaotic scene I had envisioned did not appear!
Instead, neatly arranged and categorized files were placed on the table.
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