Chapter 196 144: Arrest! Captured Without a Fight

December 6th.

Evening, 6:23 p.m.

The sky was pitch-black, dotted with starlight, brilliant and beautiful.

TAP, TAP, TAP...

The sound of footsteps echoed, mingled with the squelching of mud, reaching everyone's ears.

Within the dump.

A man appeared.

Or rather, it wasn't just him.

He had a tricycle with him—not an electric one, but a pedal-powered one. The cart was piled high with an untold number of things.

SCREEECH—

The tricycle screeched to a halt. Crows circled endlessly overhead, their cries grating on everyone's nerves.

The man stopped and looked around.

This was a dump, where mountains of trash were piled high, radiating a thick, putrid stench.

It was also a veritable Heaven for bacteria, rats, flies, and mosquitoes!

Nearly all the trash from the entire Linlan City was concentrated here, piled into a small mountain that buried all sorts of things.

FWEEET!

A sharp whistle cut through the dead silence.

The next moment.

From every corner, small, dark silhouettes began to rise, their eyes glinting in the darkness.

One, two, three...

A dozen or so small heads appeared, and a smile spread across the man's face.

They were children.

Children who had escaped from a defunct orphanage.

Some orphanages worked with human traffickers, using the children's names to collect government subsidies and public donations while simultaneously selling the children, effectively getting paid three times over.

These kids had no survival skills. Left to wander on their own, they would soon fall ill or starve to death.

The man had considered just handing them over to an orphanage, or even directly to the traffickers...

At least there, they could get a full meal.

But...

He knew a little too much.

Fourteen years ago, his mentor had been known as the Turtle Master.

The Turtle Master was a death row inmate, the kind who faced immediate execution.

Before his death, he told the man that he divided his clients into three tiers. The first was ordinary people, those looking to buy a child to carry on their family line, or as a future child-bride or child-groom.

The second tier was "customized abductions"—delivering a person based on a client's specific request.

And then there was the third category: his major clients, who were also his special clients.

He said the payout from a single special client could feed you for half a lifetime.

He also said that these people were no saints—that they deserved death even more than he, the Turtle Master, did.

Because that type of client had their own lackeys.

The Turtle Master called them "Corpse Cleaners."

They specialized in disposing of the bodies the special clients created, whether from illegal medical procedures or after someone had been tortured to death.

The Turtle Master said that a good number of those special clients were fond of children.

The Turtle Master also said that he had sold a few in the past. The next time he saw those children, they were no longer breathing. And after that... perhaps they'd been turned into baby oil.

And so, to this day, the man still hadn't figured out what to do with these kids.

"Have you eaten yet?"

The man calmed himself and smiled at the small heads before him.

He pulled some food out of his tricycle.

In addition, there were also some toys.

There were toy cars, and some princess dolls with changeable outfits.

Normally, the small heads would have scrambled out from the trash heaps, and a few of the kids who were afraid of the dark would have rushed over in a flurry to dive into his embrace.

But today...

He blinked.

The children stayed right where they were, not moving at all.

Seeing this, the man paused.

He said nothing more.

Instead, he walked over to a trash heap, found a rock, and sat down. Spreading his legs, he stared off into the distance.

Linlan City was poor, unable to afford development in many districts, so the progress in some areas presented two opposite extremes.

The man was looking in the direction of the glittering night market.

Over there were dazzling neon lights that caught the eye, a bustling atmosphere, and young men and women gathered together, genuine smiles on their faces.

Of course, none of that had anything to do with him.

The dump was stinky and suffocating, full of pools of putrid water.

Unlike that world of young men and women, this place had only rats.

Of course, it wasn't just rats, but the others weren't much different.

"Want one?"

Seemingly out of nowhere, a voice sounded beside him.

The man glanced to his side and saw another man had appeared there.

'He's handsome,' he thought, 'especially compared to my own plain features... How would I describe it?'

'He's the kind of guy who can stand in the sunlight and flash a handsome smile, I guess.'

"You want one or not?" Xu Huo asked, a hint of impatience in his voice.

"You've really had us on a wild goose chase. Four days running all over the place, cops pulling all-nighters... and now you're here, playing the deep, silent type?"

Sun Jiang hesitated for a moment but took the cigarette anyway.

Just then, a clear voice suddenly cried out.

"Boss, run! Bad guys are here to catch you!"

The voice was childish, but incredibly loud.

"Keep an eye on those little brats!" Xu Huo shouted back over his shoulder.

Sun Jiang didn't turn around. He simply lit the cigarette and started smoking.

"Looks like I'm not walking away from this one," he said with a self-mocking laugh.

"You could always try," Xu Huo said with a smirk.

Dozens of police officers were deployed all around. The dump had been surrounded long ago, and in the shadows, snipers on loan from the armed police were on standby.

He wasn't going anywhere.

As for why Xu Huo dared to approach him...

Skill breeds confidence.

Of course, the main reason was that he saw nothing to fear in his target.

"Any last words?" Xu Huo asked.

"Heh. So sure I can't get away?"