I raise furry animals and fly them to my motherland.

Chapter 325 Perfect Cooperation
At that moment, as if receiving some signal, the white-tailed ground crows suddenly flapped their wings and flew away.

The man looked through the photos in his camera with annoyance: "No wonder it's a desert ghost, it really slipped away quickly."

Xu Ying seized the opportunity to move closer, pretending to admire his work: "My goodness, you took such good photos! These birds are so lifelike in your lens."

She pointed to one of the close-up shots, "This composition is fantastic!"

Once the beautiful woman praised him like that, the man completely opened up. He began to talk incessantly about the various rare birds he had photographed, while Xu Ying would occasionally express her amazement and subtly elicit information from him.

Soon, she learned that the man's name was Liang Zhizhou, that he came from a wealthy family, and that he was a second-generation rich kid.

Out of the corner of her eye, Xu Ying noticed that Qi Xiao was already standing silently not far away. She put her hands behind her back and quietly made a "wait a moment" gesture. Qi Xiao immediately understood and pretended to be an ordinary tourist, fiddling with his phone and waiting for her next instructions.

As Xu Ying and Liang Zhizhou chatted, Xu Ying casually remarked, "Have you ever photographed large birds, like black swans or cranes? I've never seen any wild ones; they're all in zoos. I find zoo birds so boring."

When Liang Zhizhou heard Xu Ying's question, his expression froze for a moment. Then, meeting Xu Ying's eager eyes, he pulled up the black swans and white cranes he had filmed on his camera.

“Look, I’ve photographed both of those large birds you mentioned.”

Liang Zhizhou showed Xu Ying the photos of white cranes he had taken: "These cranes are not called fairy cranes, they are called white cranes. In spring, they usually fly to the northeast. Very few fly to Xizhou Province. They usually take the wrong flight path, so they are very difficult to photograph. But I have always been lucky and managed to take a picture."

Xu Ying's gaze fell on the photo of the white crane taken by Liang Zhizhou, and her eyes narrowed sharply as she recognized it as the poor white crane whose legs had been severed by a drone!
Xu Ying's smile deepened: "Could I take a closer look?"

As Xu Ying said this, she beckoned to Qi Xiao with her hand behind her back.

Faced with such a young woman who admired him so much, Liang Zhizhou handed the camera to Xu Ying without any hesitation.

However, at that moment, a pair of large hands pressed down on Liang Zhizhou from behind, and Xu Ying immediately grabbed Liang Zhizhou's camera as evidence and carried it far away.

Liang Zhizhou watched as Xu Ying took his camera, and his eyes turned red with rage, but Qi Xiao held him firmly in place with his iron grip. He shouted at the top of his lungs, "What are you doing? Robbery in broad daylight!"

His three accomplices immediately surrounded him upon hearing the noise, staring at Xu Ying and Qi Xiao with hostile expressions.

One of them even secretly pulled out his hiking pole, and the atmosphere instantly became tense.

Xu Ying calmly took out a document stamped with an official seal from her bag: "I am the director of the Desert Animal Rescue Station."

Her voice was soft but firm: "Three days ago, a white crane, a Class I protected animal in China, had its legs severed by a drone in the wetlands."

She held up Liang Zhizhou's camera, and the screen clearly showed a photo of the injured white crane: "This is the one you photographed, and the location matches perfectly."

“Our rescue station found the injured crane at 3:48 pm.” Xu Ying’s eyes were sharp. “And the time of your photo was 1:46 pm. Based on the condition of the crane’s wounds, we can infer…” She said slowly and deliberately, “Liang Zhizhou, you are a prime suspect.”

Liang Zhizhou's face turned deathly pale instantly, and fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. His three companions were stunned for a moment, then exchanged glances and immediately began to speak up in his defense.

"Brother Liang only took photos!" the bespectacled middle-aged man said first. "Two hours have passed, so how can you say he caused the injury? Based on your visual assessment of the wound? That's far-fetched."

“Exactly!” another man with a thick beard chimed in. “We never use drones to photograph birds; they scare them away. Brother Liang didn’t bring a drone this time, so what kind of evidence is this photo?” Xu Ying keenly noticed that although these three men were all older than Liang Zhizhou, their words and actions clearly followed his lead. Even more suspicious was that their eyes darted around as they argued, and they kept stealing glances at Liang Zhizhou’s reactions.

Liang Zhizhou calmed down by now, a cold smile playing on his lips: "I took the photos, so what?"

He raised his chin defiantly. "Where's the evidence? What evidence can directly prove that I injured this white crane?"

That smug and fearless expression made Qi Xiao unconsciously tighten his grip on his hand.

No sooner had Liang Zhizhou finished speaking than Qi Xiao’s hand on his shoulder suddenly tightened.

The five distinct knuckles tightened like iron clamps, causing Liang Zhizhou to grimace in pain, beads of sweat forming on his forehead, and his arrogant demeanor instantly vanished.

Xu Ying calmly took out a transparent evidence bag from her evidence collection bag.

The steel cables and propeller fragments inside the bag gleamed coldly in the setting sun, and dark red bloodstains were faintly visible on them.

"you sure?"

She held the evidence bag up to Liang Zhizhou's face. "Isn't this a part from your drone?"

Liang Zhizhou's pupils contracted sharply, and his Adam's apple bobbed involuntarily. He forced himself to remain calm and turned his face away, saying, "Of course not!" But his voice was eight octaves lower than before.

He looked at his three companions for help, "Didn't my friends say that I didn't bring a drone this time at all!"

The middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses immediately chimed in, "That's right, we can testify! Brother Liang brought a camera with him this time." The other two nodded repeatedly, but subconsciously avoided Xu Ying's sharp gaze.

“That’s perfect.” Xu Ying took out a portable fingerprint scanner from her bag; the silver-gray device gleamed coldly in the sunlight. A meaningful smile appeared on her lips: “Since you have a clear conscience, then let’s get your fingerprints checked.”

Upon hearing this, Liang Zhizhou's tense shoulders relaxed. He shrugged exaggeratedly and said casually, "Let's test it then. Who's afraid of who? Anyway, I'm innocent and have nothing to hide." He remembered clearly that he was wearing professional photography gloves when disassembling the drone, so there was absolutely no way any fingerprints could have been left on the wreckage.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, Liang Zhizhou confidently pressed his thumb onto the sensor area of ​​the fingerprint scanner. The device emitted a soft "beep," and blue light swept across his fingerprint.

Just then, hurried footsteps came from afar.

Chen Su strode over, his black combat boots making a crisp sound as they stepped on the gravel.

The evidence bag he was holding contained the main body of a severely damaged drone.

"Liang Zhizhou".

Chen Su's voice was as cold as ice as he held up the evidence bag in front of the other person. "This is your drone, right?"

(End of this chapter)