Chapter 583 - 485: He’s Waiting for You to Lay an Egg

Chapter 583: Chapter 485: He’s Waiting for You to Lay an Egg

It was pretty awkward to have just stumbled upon an online catfight.

Shen Xin clicked on Doniya’s profile.

She had posted a total of 12 videos.

Her profile picture and bio had been changed as well.

Shen Xin remembered that Doniya’s original bio was: "I’m waiting for you on the grasslands."

Her profile picture had been a photo of her with her back to the vast grasslands, arms spread wide, with a yurt in the background.

And if he remembered correctly, the first few videos she posted were mainly song covers.

But now, her videos had switched to dancing.

What girl from the grasslands didn’t know a dance or two?

The problem was, in her most recent videos, her outfits were getting progressively smaller.

Ding Yuwei, who was leaning against Shen Xin and watching as well, said softly, "Isn’t this a bit... inappropriate?"

It hadn’t reached the level of miniskirts yet, but if this trend continued, it was only a matter of time.

In Ding Yuwei’s memory, Doniya was a very nice girl.

"Shen Xin, she came all this way because she likes you. You should at least look out for her. I’m worried she’ll be taken advantage of by her live-streaming company."

Lacking real-world experience, she could be continually coaxed by the company with the promise of making more money, lowering her standards step by step.

It was a common story.

It was like those girls at massage parlors who might start out thinking they’ll only do legitimate massages.

But people are competitive and vain. When they see others making money by pushing the boundaries, how could they not be tempted?

Influenced by their environment, they gradually lower their standards.

Today, they might think, ’I’ll just let the customer cop a feel, just push the line a little.’

Tomorrow, it might be, ’What’s the big deal, I’ll just use my hands.’

And after that, it could become...

Shen Xin jumped and hastily retorted, "Who likes me?"

He glanced at Ding Yuwei warily, wondering if this was some kind of trap.

"I’m being serious." Ding Yuwei gave him an exasperated push. "Don’t tell me you can’t see that she likes you."

Shen Xin thought for a moment, then shook his head decisively.

Ding Yuwei rolled her eyes at him. "I’m not that petty."

Pointing at the phone again, she said, "I’m serious, I really don’t think this is good for her. I read an article before about how the live-streaming on these short-video platforms is growing out of control, filled with tons of vulgar and suggestive content."

"Not that Doniya is completely naive, but there are so many schemes out there now. I’m afraid she’ll fall for one."

Shen Xin didn’t say anything. He thought for a moment, then searched for the other girl’s account from the stream.

Shen Xin’s memory was decent; he had an impression of it from his brief glance.

Her screen name was Li Yifei.

She had 1.7 million fans.

She had posted over a hundred videos, and a quick scroll showed they were basically all in the "sexy" style.

Shen Xin would occasionally come across these kinds of videos while scrolling.

Revealing clothes, heavy makeup, all sorts of filters, and simple, seductive dance moves.

They were definitely attractive, if you were into that sort of thing; each of them had the standard "influencer face."

But after a while, they couldn’t compare to the beauty of a natural woman like Ding Yuwei.

"Over a million fans. She must be the top streamer at their company, right? Is she pulling rank and bullying the new girl?" Shen Xin continued scrolling through her older videos.

It was obvious that her older videos had a high number of likes, while her recent ones had far, far fewer.

Ding Yuwei thought for a moment and said, "I don’t think so. It feels more like it was scripted. Otherwise, they would have shut down the stream right away."

Shen Xin realized that made sense. He mused for a moment, then said, "How about we invite Doniya to dinner tomorrow and ask her about it then?"

He had already promised Yang Zeran and the others that he’d treat them to a meal.

Ding Yuwei nodded in agreement.

The next day, the two of them went to work together.

Seeing them arrive together, Zhao Tianxing started teasing them again.

He complained that Ding Yuwei had stolen his man.

He’d been thinking his own rent was too expensive and wanted to become Shen Xin’s roommate. But no, Shen Xin was now part of a lovey-dovey couple, and he’d lost his chance.

Ding Yuwei blushed, while Shen Xin exasperatedly grabbed a bun from the table and stuffed it in Zhao Tianxing’s mouth.

That morning, Shen Xin presided over a brief meeting.

During the two months he was away, Yang Zeran and the team hadn’t been idle. They had reopened the investigations into five cold cases.

None of them were homicides.

In the end, they only managed to solve two.

One was a theft at a certain public institution. After reopening the case, they determined it was an inside job, and the suspect was already in custody.

The other was a robbery and assault case.

Yang Zeran’s team had started by looking at the M.O., conducted extensive canvassing, and actually found a lead. They issued a request for assistance and luckily discovered a clue from Peng An’s side, which allowed them to lock onto a suspect who was a repeat offender.

Two cases solved out of five.

If these were active cases, the leadership would have flipped out over a clearance rate like that.

But these were cold cases. For cold cases, it would have been perfectly normal to not solve any, let alone two.

Shen Xin’s plan was to focus on smaller cases for the time being.

Homicide cases were tough nuts to crack.

He was busy training the police dogs right now and couldn’t devote all his energy to the cases.

Once he was done with that, he would pick a homicide case.

Yang Zeran made a sarcastic comment, saying they certainly couldn’t get in the way of Shen Xin’s quest to become a First-Class Hero Model.

Shen Xin didn’t get mad, just retorted that Yang Zeran wished he even had a shot at it.

The four of them had grown close, and this daily banter was normal.

After the meeting, Shen Xin inevitably had to report the situation to his superiors.

Neither Zhang Hancheng nor Zhao Hongjie had any objections to Shen Xin’s plan.

They both agreed that Shen Xin needed to focus his energy on training the police dogs and birds right now.

Zhao Hongjie went even further, stating his full support and telling Shen Xin to make any requests he needed, and he would take care of them.

At lunch in the cafeteria.

Shen Xin was replying to messages while he ate. He looked up and asked, "Yuwei, what kind of toy was it that Jin Siqi likes?"

There was a large group chat.

The 351 qualified drug-sniffing dogs trained in Dian Nan had already been inducted and started working before Shen Xin left.

Shen Xin had specifically created a group chat to communicate with the units that had been assigned the dogs, making it easier to answer their questions.

Normal police dogs all have a one-to-one handler.

But the ones he trained didn’t; they were essentially departmental K-9s.

So when they arrived in a new environment, there were bound to be issues with adapting and bonding.

The group chat was basically his after-sales service.

But there were too many dogs, and Shen Xin couldn’t keep track of them all.

For example, when someone asked what toy a certain dog liked, he honestly couldn’t remember some of them.

But Ding Yuwei remembered. She thought for a moment and said, "A wobble ball. I remember he liked the blue one. He had one at the base, but he lost it later. We tried to replace it, but he wouldn’t have it."

Shen Xin immediately replied to the message.

Ding Yuwei took a couple of bites of her rice and added, "Shen Xin, I feel like something’s wrong with Teddy’s mood."

"He seems a little irritable. When you let them out to fly today, he even picked a fight with Plane. Maybe you should pay more attention to him."

At the mention of this, Shen Xin let out a soft sigh and said he knew.

How could Shen Xin not have noticed Teddy’s mood swings?

"I discussed it with Professor Chen. He proposed a theory that Teddy might want to have children with me, and since I can’t give him any, he’s getting a little angry."

Ding Yuwei froze.

Beside them, Zhao Tianxing’s eyes went wide.

Yang Zeran raised an eyebrow, excited. "That’s right, Shen Xin! You tricked Teddy into coming back with you. He thinks you’re his mate and is waiting for you to lay some eggs for him. It’s been months with no action, of course he’s mad!"

Shen Xin glared at Yang Zeran. ’What are you getting all worked up about?’

After getting over her shock, Ding Yuwei said, "Seriously, Shen Xin, I remember you saying you asked Professor Chen to help find Teddy a mate. Has there been no news on that?"

"The key is the timing," Shen Xin said.

"Saker falcons start looking for mates in April and begin laying eggs in mid-April."

"By May, the chicks have already hatched."

"But I didn’t even meet Teddy until May first."

"Back in Dian Nan, I could already hear in his thoughts that he was wondering why we hadn’t laid any eggs yet."

"Now that it’s dragged on this long, he’s obviously getting impatient."

"The fledgling period is only about two months. For Saker falcons, the young birds would have already grown up, left the nest, and the mated pair would have separated to migrate south for the winter."

"Trying to find him a mate now, or trying to get him an egg or a chick, the timing is all wrong."

"Professor Chen’s opinion is that it’s too late for this year. If Teddy becomes less dependent on me, we should take him back to the grasslands and release him back into the wild."

He was just too clingy before and couldn’t be separated from me. That’s why I had no choice but to bring him to Nanjiang.

But a Southern urban area is ultimately not where Teddy belongs.

He belongs to the vast grasslands, to nature. The sky is his home.

Now he’s with me, often kept in a cage. I know it’s not good for him.

Soaring a thousand meters in the sky, free and unrestrained.

Cooped up in a cage... he might as well be a chicken.

This was also a major reason why Shen Xin had been intentionally avoiding Teddy lately—to reduce the falcon’s dependence on him.

Ding Yuwei nodded and didn’t ask any more questions.

She also felt that keeping a bird of prey like Teddy in a cage was cruel.

In the afternoon, Shen Xin and Ding Yuwei made a trip to the K-9 base to coordinate the upcoming training for a large batch of police dogs.

"Shen Xin, you really dream big, don’t you? Doubling the number of drug-sniffing dogs in the country!" Li Jiahui remarked with emotion as they walked.

But in the next breath, she added that only Shen Xin could pull it off.

After discussing business, Li Jiahui couldn’t help but gossip, asking how Shen Xin and Ding Yuwei had ended up together.

She had seen the clues on Shen Xin’s social media feed.

After a bit of probing, she had confirmed it.

She couldn’t help but feel a pang of heartache.

It was over before it had even begun.

But she couldn’t help wondering just how she had lost.

Shen Xin glanced at Ding Yuwei and said, "It’s a secret."

Shen Xin didn’t want to bring up what had happened in Mianguang again.

Especially for Ding Yuwei’s sake.

She had killed a drug dealer with her own hands, and it wasn’t as simple as shooting him from a distance.

It was true close-quarters combat. She had personally used a shard from an ashtray to smash a man’s head in.

At the time, she might not have felt anything.

But afterward?

Shen Xin knew that Ding Yuwei had suffered from nightmares for a long time afterward. While in Dian Nan, she had even seen a psychologist for intervention.

But Ding Yuwei was strong, and she had eventually put it behind her.

Shen Xin didn’t want to bring it up and stir those bad memories.

But Ding Yuwei spoke up first. She shot Shen Xin a sideways glance and said jokingly, "What else could it be? A classic hero-saves-the-damsel story."

Shen Xin nodded. "Exactly."

The hero saves the damsel, the damsel pledges herself to him in return. Perfectly normal.

Li Jiahui glanced at Shen Xin and thought glumly, ’If we’re talking about heroes saving damsels, Shen Xin saved me, too.’

She subconsciously wanted to ask for details, but she swallowed the words before they could escape. Knowing would only cause her more heartache.

The K-9 base in Nanjiang was a bit larger than the one in Spring City.

But the number of standard kennels was definitely not enough to meet Shen Xin’s needs, so they would have to resort to the same solution: prefabricated buildings.

Since Zhao Hongjie had personally promised his full support, setting up some temporary buildings was no big deal.

And it wasn’t just kennels; they needed aviaries, too.

He would have to coordinate with Li Mo on this matter and get it done as soon as possible.

After they had marked out a location and discussed the details, it was nearly time to get off work.

They had arranged to have dinner together that evening. Shen Xin had already booked a table and invited Doniya.

For her part, Ding Yuwei invited Li Jiahui.

It was at Junlai Building, the same place they’d eaten yesterday.

Yang Zeran naturally brought Song Xiangli, while Zhao Tianxing was still working hard to escape singlehood.

Doniya was the last to arrive.

The girl had really changed a lot. She knew how to dress up now.

After taking her seat, she glanced at Ding Yuwei next to Shen Xin. A flicker of sadness crossed her eyes, but she quickly recovered and began chatting animatedly with everyone.

The conversation inevitably turned to her work. At this, Doniya’s face lit up, and she started rattling off professional terms like "follower conversion rate" and "viewer retention."

You could tell she was treating it as a real career and was very dedicated.

During a lull in the conversation, Shen Xin brought up the "catfight" from last night’s stream.

"You watched it?"

Doniya froze for a second, then immediately laughed. "You’re overthinking it. It was just scripted, to deliberately stir up some drama."