Zhou Chen spent ten years as a trader in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, making a living by reselling canned food and water-purification tablets until he became an old hand at the game. Then he opened his eyes to find himself the owner of a private detective agency on the verge of bankruptcy in a modern city. His bank balance was in the triple digits, next month’s rent was nowhere in sight, and a new detective agency across the street was stealing his business. Looking at the case on his desk, “Find a Missing Cat,” Zhou Chen sighed.
Then he took an ordinary case investigating a husband’s affair. Using the trail-tracking skills and microexpression-reading techniques he had learned in the apocalypse, he not only got incontrovertible proof of the affair within three days, but also caught a corporate spy at the husband’s company. As police sirens approached, Zhou Chen counted the final payment and leaned back in his battered office chair. There was nothing dangerous about this world, except being broke.
