Chapter 4

"Hello! Would you like to buy an excavator?"

"Scared—?" Li Er's face turned pale, and he quickly turned his head to look behind him.

Behind Li Er was a wall, and there was no one there. Moreover, the voice seemed to come directly from inside Li Er's mind. Li Er quickly realized that this was the voice of the system, with its characteristic tone.

Li Er's face lit up, but when he came to his senses, he noticed that everyone at the table was looking at him with surprise at his nervous change of expression.

"Li Er, are you... okay?" Mei asked with some concern. "Actually, even if we can't be lovers, we can still be friends."

"Scared???" Li Er was stunned for a moment, then quickly reacted, taking advantage of Mei's misunderstanding. He shrugged and smiled, "Sure, of course! It's already bad enough that we can't be lovers, but at least we can have one more friend."

He Min also smiled in relief.

The atmosphere at the table became friendly again, but Li Er was preoccupied. While he chatted absentmindedly, he was frantically calling out to the system in his mind.

"Great System, is it you, sir?"

"......"

"Grandpa System, are you there?"

"......"

"Ancestor System, are you busy? Should I contact you later?"

The system's voice did not respond, as if the voice Li Er heard earlier was just his imagination.

"Buy an excavator?" Li Er racked his brain to understand the deeper meaning of the system's words.

By the end of the dinner, Li Er still couldn't figure it out. Could it be some kind of code like "Heaven King covers the earth tiger"?

Chen Jiaju naturally left with Mei, while Li Er was assigned to take He Min home. Zhang Dazui, the carefree single guy, didn't think anything was wrong and left on his own.

"Li Er, you seem a bit different today?" He Min asked curiously as they walked down the street.

"Really?" Li Er, still thinking about the system, smiled perfunctorily. "Maybe it's my new hairstyle. A lot of people say I look more handsome now."

He Min rolled her eyes at Li Er, but not because of his hairstyle.

"Ah! Damn, damn, this beauty's every frown and smile is so beautiful!" Li Er quickly averted his gaze. He knew which was more important between the system and the beauty, and his current priority was to wake up the system.

"You don't have to say it if you don't want to!" He Min said with a playful smile.

"Maybe it's because Jiaju and Dazui have been transferred to the CID department. Now, I'm the only one left in the patrol unit, and I have to handle a lot of things on my own. People have to grow up!" Li Er quickly found a plausible reason.

He Min glanced at Li Er and nodded slightly.

......

"Boss, these two foreigners paid with a hundred-dollar bill. How should I give them change?" The waiter at the Wonton Noodle Shop asked the boss, looking puzzled.

The boss turned to look at the table. The foreigner indeed had a hundred-dollar bill in his hand. The boss stroked his messy curly hair and said, "Using US dollars in Hong Kong? Since they're so naughty, give them change in RMB."

"Scared! Boss, are you kidding me?" The waiter said with a pained expression.

"Am I kidding you? It's those two foreigners and their wives who are kidding you!" The boss wiped the oil from his hands on his apron. "They should have exchanged their money before coming here. I won't indulge them. Call the police and let the officers handle it."

"Hey! Second Brother, Second Brother, here, here, come quickly and help resolve this international dispute!" The waiter, about to call the police, saw Li Er walking by and quickly waved to him.

"Blackie Chen, what's the matter?" Li Er and He Min walked over and asked.

Li Er clearly knew the waiter.

"Second Brother, these two foreigners ate and paid with a hundred-dollar bill. Help me resolve this!" The waiter said immediately.

"Boss, this is my neighbor and he's a police officer!" The waiter proudly told his boss.

The boss nodded at Li Er.

"Police!" Li Er showed his patrol officer badge to the foreign couple. "Are you two tourists?"

"Yes!" The foreign couple quickly stood up and answered.

Li Er nodded, not noticing that the two foreigners had looked panicked when he showed his badge.

He Min looked at Li Er's back in disbelief. Li Er was influenced by the system today and was a bit careless. He had just spoken to the foreigners in fluent English.

He Min knew that Li Er's educational level was not high, and he certainly didn't know English.

"Oh! Officer, you speak English, that's great. We are indeed tourists. We've used up all our Hong Kong dollars. Can we pay with US dollars? We're willing to take a loss on the exchange rate." The male foreigner handed the hundred-dollar bill to Li Er.

"Ok, ok." Li Er, eager to go home and call the system, squeezed out six hundred Hong Kong dollars from his belt and offered to exchange it for the US dollars. "I only have six hundred. Do you agree?"

"Alright! Thank you! Here's your hundred dollars!" The male foreigner hesitated for a moment and then handed the hundred-dollar bill to Li Er.

The exchange rate between US dollars and Hong Kong dollars was around 7.5, so Li Er had just made a profit of over a hundred Hong Kong dollars.

"No problem, convenience for others is convenience for oneself!" Li Er said, gesturing for the waiter to serve the foreigner, creating a win-win situation.

"Thank you! Goodbye!" The male foreigner paid and walked out the door.

"Li Er, this hundred-dollar bill seems a bit off!" He Min, looking at the bill in Li Er's hand, suddenly said.

"Damn!" Li Er carefully examined the bill. It wasn't just a bit off; it was clearly a fake, and a very poor one at that. The '100' had one '0' thicker and one '0' thinner. Li Er immediately realized it was a scam.

By this time, the foreigner had already stepped out of the Wonton Noodle Shop.

He Min was about to call out to the foreigner, but Li Er quickly covered her mouth.

A worn-out frying pan hung on the wall of the Wonton Noodle Shop. Li Er quickly took it down, approached the foreigner, and said with a smile, "Hey, friend, your shoelace is untied! Be careful not to trip."

"Thank you!" The foreigner instinctively stopped and looked down at his feet, but his shoelace wasn't untied!

Just as the foreigner turned his head, he saw the black bottom of the frying pan getting bigger in his field of vision.

"Clang—!"

The foreigner was hit in the face by Li Er's frying pan and fell backward.

"Clang—Clang!" Li Er quickly hit the foreigner's face twice more with the frying pan, smashing his hooked nose and causing him to faint from pain.

The female foreigner, who was walking ahead, turned around, saw the sudden incident, and immediately turned and ran, leaving Li Er momentarily stunned.

Li Er didn't chase her. He had seen that his money was in the foreigner's pocket.

"Blackie Chen, get me a rope!" Li Er, a patrol officer, had to hand over his gun and handcuffs to the armory after work, which was one of the reasons he had attacked the foreigner so aggressively. The foreigner was tall and strong, and Li Er, without a gun to intimidate him, had no confidence in subduing him.

The waiter excitedly ran out from the kitchen with a rope, and together with Li Er, tied the foreigner's hands behind his back.

"Call the police!" Li Er turned to Blackie Chen and said.

"Sure thing!" Blackie Chen, while dialing the phone, asked Li Er with a smile, "Second Brother, does this count as assisting the police? Can I get a Good Citizen Award?"

Li Er: "......"

"I saw him put your money in this pocket of his suit." He Min walked over and reminded Li Er.

Li Er's face turned grim as he shook his head. "I can't get the money back for now. The six hundred dollars are now evidence, and it will take some time."

He Min looked at Li Er with a strange expression. He really seemed like a different person, sharp and decisive, and very cautious.

A few minutes later, several CID officers arrived at the scene.

"What's the situation?" An officer who looked like Alex Man asked.

"Colleague!" Li Er showed his badge and subconsciously looked at the officer for a few more seconds.

Just as Li Er was about to explain, Blackie Chen was already enthusiastically recounting everything to the CID officers.

"Damn! These foreign scumbags, unable to make a living in their own country, come to Hong Kong to scam people. Damn them!" The CID officer cursed after hearing Blackie Chen's story.

They had handled many cases of fake currency scams, and most victims only realized they had been scammed after the fact, with little chance of recovering their money.

"Hey! Brother, you were pretty ruthless!" The officer who looked like Alex Man squatted down to look at the foreigner's smashed nose, then stood up and extended his hand to Li Er. "Nice to meet you, I'm B, from the CID department. We're from the same police station."

"Hello! I'm Li Er! A patrol officer!" Li Er also extended his hand and smiled. The name 'B' wasn't very polite, so Li Er looked at B's badge, deciding to call him by his name.

"Li Xianying?"

Damn, how do you pronounce that middle character? Li Er was gradually recovering his original memories, but the original Li Er was a poor student who had become a police officer because he was bad at school. He didn't recognize many characters.

I'll just call him B! Was his father his enemy or something? Li Er could imagine Li Xianying having to write his name every day when clocking in and out, which must have been a nightmare.

"Ah Min, sorry, they might need your help to take a statement." Li Er handed the fake hundred-dollar bill to Li Xianying and turned to He Min.

"No problem, I have a lot of free time after work." He Min smiled.

"No need, no need, Brother Li Er, you two go ahead. I'll handle this. Just come to the CID office tomorrow to give a statement for the record." Li Xianying, with a brotherly expression, winked at Li Er.

He Min blushed, knowing that Li Xianying had misunderstood and thought they were on a date.

"Thanks!" Li Er quickly pulled He Min's hand and fled.

Love your job, and Li Er had been studying police procedures diligently. He knew that being a plaintiff or a witness was a tedious and time-consuming process. Since Li Xianying was willing to help, it was the best outcome.

"Li Er, when did you learn such fluent English?" He Min asked with a smile as they walked down the street.

"I only know a few phrases. It just happened to be useful. If I knew more, it would have been obvious I was faking it." Li Er, feeling a chill, immediately pretended to be shy, touching his nose and saying with some embarrassment.

"Really?" He Min didn't believe him.

"Of course, I consider you a friend, so I don't want to lie to you. If it were someone else, I would boast about being fluent in six different languages." Li Er spoke sincerely.

He Min felt something was off, but Li Er's expression was so sincere that she didn't want to let go of her doubts for the moment.

"Hello! Would you like to buy an excavator?" The system's voice.

"......"

A black line appeared on Li Er's forehead. What the hell does buying an excavator mean?