Chapter 575 - 477: Mother and Child, One Heart

Chapter 575: Chapter 477: Mother and Child, One Heart

Mo Mao. Inside the sawmill.

That night, Fan Liping personally guarded Ding Yuwei, staying up the entire night.

He didn’t trust anyone else, only himself.

Ding Yuwei hadn’t rested all night, and neither had he. He hadn’t closed his eyes once.

The two of them had argued the night before, an argument that ended with Ding Yuwei’s silence.

Fan Liping had sat back down, seething in frustration for a long time.

Unable to let it go, he’d stormed back over to argue with Ding Yuwei, laying out his reasoning and insisting his method was better.

He said that no matter how good the animals were, they were still ultimately used by people.

And since people’s ability to execute plans varied, there would always be loopholes.

He also argued that if they pushed the drug traffickers too far, they would deliberately hunt and kill the police dogs and birds.

He said that the human heart was impossible to predict and that one should never underestimate a person’s capacity for evil.

For money, those guys were capable of anything.

But his method was different.

He believed drug trafficking would always exist, and he made an analogy.

He said that if this were a field, Shen Xin’s method was like a farmer patrolling day and night, tilling the soil, searching for every single weed seed.

That was too much effort.

It was better to wait for the weeds to sprout, grow tall, and become visible before harvesting and pulling them out.

His approach was just like that: he would personally step in, prop up a massive drug cartel to attract the country’s attention, and then focus all his power on taking it down.

Taking down one drug cartel was like wiping out an entire nest of traffickers.

And in the process, the drugs sold would also lure out the addicts who had access to drugs and were tempted to use them.

If a person could control themselves and never touch this stuff, then they would never be harmed by drugs.

If someone was caught using drugs, it just meant they were a bad seed, a hidden weed that would have sprouted sooner or later.

He believed the weeds were always there, that they were bad seeds by nature, unworthy of sympathy. His method was simply a way to screen them out and then kill them.

He also retorted that he and Ding Yuwei were different.

Ding Yuwei had inherited her father’s will and become a police officer, but in the end, she was just a minor officer with limited influence.

If he had become a police officer too, his hands would have been tied.

Only the path he had chosen would allow him to achieve his goals without restraint.

Ding Yuwei hadn’t wanted to engage with him at first, but she couldn’t stand him constantly arguing with her, so she decided to have a proper debate with him.

Ding Yuwei’s core argument was that human nature is fundamentally good. You can’t deliberately create a bad environment, and then when people turn bad, claim they deserve to die because they were born that way.

Not to mention how many people would be harmed throughout the entire process if Fan Liping did things his way.

Take the narcotics officers, for example. How many of them were sacrificed each year to catch drug traffickers?

Were those acceptable losses?

Fan Liping’s point was that they were. For a greater goal, anyone could be sacrificed—even himself.

The two of them argued all the way until three or four in the morning, but in the end, neither could convince the other.

Sometime after nine, Fan Liping took a printed photo of Shen Xin and went outside to find one of his men.

He told the man to arrange for someone to go to Pakang and kill Shen Xin.

The night of debating hadn’t allowed Fan Liping to win against Ding Yuwei; instead, it had only strengthened one of his convictions.

He would forget about using Shen Xin. Just kill him and be done with it.

Shen Xin’s existence was a threat to his "enterprise."

His subordinate took the photo without asking any questions and quickly left to make the arrangements.

In a chaotic city, if you knew where someone was, you could just find a random person to drive by. The moment the car stopped, a hail of gunfire, and the target would be dead.

Even if the killer was caught, it wouldn’t matter.

Just then, the sound of an elephant trumpeting came from outside.

It was the white elephant.

Fan Liping didn’t want to deal with it at first. The white elephant was a gift he was preparing.

He detested feigning civility and playing along with those people, acting nice to drug traffickers while suppressing the urge to kill them.

So, to him, this white elephant was just a tool to be used.

’A sacred creature? One that would bless and protect him? What a load of bullshit.’

Fan Liping never believed in such ethereal nonsense. Fate was something to be grasped with one’s own hands.

But before long, one of his men reported that the white elephant was going crazy, causing a huge ruckus.

Fan Liping had no choice but to go take a look.

It was locked in a warehouse.

An iron chain was wrapped around its leg, the other end bolted to the floor.

It was light brown and not very large.

Its cries were still young, almost infantile.

Since it had been brought here, he’d had people training it constantly.

It was still just a baby, after all. With an iron hook in one hand and a milk bottle in the other, the training had been effective. It had become quite obedient and rarely made a fuss.

He never expected it to suddenly go berserk like this, repeatedly charging back and forth.

They tried using the iron hook, but they didn’t dare hurt it too much, so the group of men couldn’t even get close.

Seeing that nothing was working, Fan Liping grew impatient and ordered them to use a tranquilizer.

After a few injections of the anesthetic, the white elephant swayed and quickly collapsed to the ground. It moved its trunk weakly, its cries growing fainter and fainter.

It had smelled its mother’s scent.

It was as if it had returned to the forest, back with its mother.

It would drink milk when hungry, and after it was full, it would run around and play. If it encountered danger or an unfamiliar animal, its mother would always charge over at the first instant to protect it.

Its eyelids were too heavy to lift. The last image it saw was Fan Liping’s face, filled with a look of probing confusion.

"What did you do to it?" Fan Liping asked, crouching down to examine the elephant in confusion.

The men all shook their heads, saying they hadn’t done anything. It had just suddenly gone wild.

"Leave it for now."

Fan Liping couldn’t be bothered with the white elephant at the moment.

’A child needs its milk. If it’s disobedient, just let it starve.’

After giving his men a few more instructions, Fan Liping left the warehouse.

But as soon as he stepped out, Fan Liping whipped his head around and stared to the north.

He had faintly heard a sound.

’Was that... an elephant’s cry?’

He looked up in confusion.

Mo Mao was a very small town with few industries.

The sawmill was on the outskirts of town. The property was quite large, and its perimeter was piled high with logs.

As Fan Liping’s most secret hideout, its main feature was a relaxed exterior hiding a tightly secured interior. The perimeter didn’t have high walls or barbed wire fences sealing it off completely.

That would have looked suspicious at a glance.

The entire sawmill was just surrounded by a simple barbed wire fence, with some sections crudely blocked off with large wooden planks.

There weren’t many assets to speak of. No one could steal the thick, heavy logs.

When he wasn’t around, the place operated as a normal business, looking very ordinary and inconspicuous.

Just then, the stacked logs blocked his view, and Fan Liping couldn’t see what was happening.

He only heard a loud CRASH, accompanied by human screams.

The noise seemed to come from the simple shed built to store expensive lumber.

As he stood there wondering, his pupils suddenly contracted, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

Because he saw... a flying man!

A real flying man.

A living person, as if launched from a catapult, flew screaming five or six meters into the air. He traced a parabola before slamming hard into a pile of lumber and going still.

The next moment, an elephant charged out, trumpeting furiously.

A man was running for his life in front of it, but how could he possibly outrun an elephant?

The elephant charged head down, and with a wild swing of its trunk, the man was sent flying several meters like a rag doll.

"Fuck!"

In an instant, Fan Liping’s scalp went numb with shock.

At that same moment, Shen Xin’s scalp went numb too.

A short while ago, Shen Xin had been controlling Nan Ji, trying his best to follow the road and search.

After traveling for what felt like seven or eight kilometers, they reached the small town of Mo Mao.

They had been moving along the outskirts, traveling in almost a straight line.

But as soon as they reached the edge of town, Nan Ji suddenly went berserk.

A mother’s heart is connected to her child’s. She seemed to have sensed her calf’s condition, and with a shrill trumpet, she charged off madly.

Shen Xin had been riding on her back, but he was instantly thrown forward into a prone position. He clung to her ears, his legs gripping her tightly, but he was still about to be bucked off.

Shouting was useless.

Behind them, Tang Youkun and the others were scared stiff.

Luckily, Nan Ji was on the outskirts of town, where there was only farmland and wasteland.

The critical thing was that Shen Xin was still on the elephant!

The group frantically gave chase.

The charging elephant actually gave Shen Xin the feeling of moving at lightning speed.

[My baby]

Nan Ji’s thoughts appeared like a flood of messages.

Shen Xin was certain now. Nan Ji must have found her calf.

In the midst of the chaos, Shen Xin only managed to see what looked like a large courtyard with a two-story building and a simple shed, hidden behind some trees, before he was thrown off.

It was just like falling off an electric scooter.

Thankfully, he didn’t land underneath Nan Ji’s body.

’If she’d stepped on me, I would’ve been one step ahead of Ding Yuwei in meeting my maker.’

With a muffled groan, Shen Xin hit the ground, the pain making his vision go black.

He struggled to his feet, and through his blurry vision, he saw Nan Ji charging like a juggernaut, knocking down a stand of trees and storming into the large courtyard.

The barbed wire fence was nothing to her.

A rather large shed collapsed with a loud CRASH.

Someone pulled him up. It was Fu He.

The captain of the Cloud Fox Assault Team was in astonishing physical condition and had been the fastest to catch up.

"I’m fine,"

Shen Xin quickly waved his hand.

In the distance, only Nan Ji’s trumpeting could be heard.

Tang Youkun and the others caught up, panting, just in time to hear gunshots from the direction of the courtyard.

The color drained from Fu He’s face.

The same went for Shen Xin. Then, a thought shot through his mind like a jolt of electricity: ’We found it.’

There was a white elephant here. This might be Fan Liping’s hideout.

Shen Xin was so anxious he wanted to curse.

’I was just thinking about how I needed to control Nan Ji and not alert them.’

’Who knew I’d lose control and let her go on a rampage?’

"Captain Fu, what do we do?" Tang Youkun asked urgently.

Fu He was truly a battle-hardened captain. Faced with this sudden turn of events, he immediately made a decision: they would raid the compound directly.

He quickly signaled for his team members to move.

There was no time to position snipers, nor was there any way to. The only high ground nearby was the two-story building right in front of them.

They had been following along, ready to act at a moment’s notice.

The moment Nan Ji had confirmed the direction, they had actually already begun to prepare.

They had already put on their body armor and helmets, and their submachine guns were slung and ready.

He quickly divided them into three groups. One group would go left and flank them from behind the two-story building. Another group would go right, flanking what looked to be the entrance.

As for himself, he would lead a team straight down the middle, following Nan Ji’s path.

At the same time, he left two people behind to launch a drone and report on the situation ahead over the comms channel.

"If you encounter armed hostiles, shoot to kill!"

Before they came, their superiors had already issued a kill order. In a chaotic situation like this, they couldn’t afford to show mercy or try to take anyone alive.

Showing mercy would be irresponsible to their own team members.

Without a word, Shen Xin drew his pistol and followed.