I raise furry animals and fly them to my motherland.

Chapter 326 The Detestable Neighbor

For a moment, the air seemed to freeze. Liang Zhizhou and his three companions turned deathly pale, and the man in the plaid shirt even unconsciously took a half step back.

"No, it's not mine!" Liang Zhizhou's voice suddenly rose, trembling noticeably. "There are plenty of drones like this!"

Chen Su sneered, flipping the drone over to reveal a string of codes engraved on its bottom: "The registration information has already been verified with the Civil Aviation Administration." He took out his phone, the screen displaying the drone management system's query page. "Want to log in to your account now to verify?"

Xu Ying stepped forward at the opportune moment, her voice clear yet firm: "White cranes are a Class I protected animal in China. According to the Wildlife Protection Law, those who intentionally kill them and commit serious offenses can be sentenced to more than ten years in prison."

Her gaze was piercing as she stared at Liang Zhizhou. "You violated regulations by operating a drone, causing serious injury to the white crane. At least five years in prison. And what's most despicable is—"

Her voice suddenly turned cold, "After the incident, not only did they not report it, but they also dismantled and destroyed evidence, leaving the white crane there to bleed and die! The circumstances are extremely heinous!"

Liang Zhizhou's legs began to tremble uncontrollably.

Hearing Xu Ying describe the consequences of the actions, he completely lost his composure: "I disassembled the drone into parts and threw them into three different trash cans! How could you possibly find them?!"

Xu Ying smiled mysteriously: "If you do something wrong, Heaven will punish you."

Suddenly, a fluffy gerbil darted out from her shoulder. The little guy hugged its paws and made an exaggerated face at Liang Zhizhou.

[Squeak!] The gerbil wagged its tail smugly. [The garbage dump is our home. Do you think we wouldn't know what you've thrown into our house?]
Amidst the shocked gazes of the crowd, Chen Su handcuffed Liang Zhizhou.

When the metallic "click" sound rang out, the arrogant rich kid finally collapsed to the ground.

The red and blue lights of the police car pierced the twilight, casting his shadow long and thin, much like the long prison sentence he was about to face.

*
In the blink of an eye, spring has passed more than halfway, and the spring atmosphere is getting deeper. The jacaranda trees in front of the fluffy animal hospital have sprouted tender green buds.

This white building, situated on the edge of the desert, has now become a warm sanctuary for wild animals.

In the hospital, sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows onto the clean corridor.

Nurses hurried past pushing medical carts. On a bench outside the clinic, several recovering animals were lazily sunbathing—a steppe eagle with a broken wing was quietly preening its feathers, while a sand fox with bandages wrapped around its front paws was curled up beside it.

Xu Ying, wearing a white coat and a stethoscope around her neck, had just come out of the operating room. Fine beads of sweat still clung to her forehead, but her eyes were bright and satisfied.

This is already the third surgery of the day—in the morning, we treated a desert cat injured by an animal trap, and at noon, we urgently treated a demoiselle crane that had ingested plastic.

The honor wall in the corridor is now covered with photos of animals that have recovered.

There are golden eagles soaring through the blue sky again, desert wolves returning to their packs, and a white crane that once had both legs severely injured—in the photo, it stands on one leg in the wetlands, its posture still elegant.

As we passed the pharmacy, the alpha gerbil was directing several smaller gerbils to carry disinfectant cotton balls.

Upon seeing Xu Ying, it proudly puffed out its little chest, "[All the supplies for today have been inventoried!]"
Xu Ying gave it a thumbs up.

Outside the window, the spring breeze carried the fragrance of flowers. Xu Ying took a deep breath; this busy and fulfilling life was exactly what she had always dreamed of.

Although we often face life and death, all the fatigue turns into joy whenever we see recovered animals return to nature.

It was another morning. As the smart curtains of the villa slowly opened, Xu Ying was still sleepily holding a coffee cup. Usually at this time, the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows would be a rose garden glistening with morning dew, a shimmering pool, and a little fennec fox rolling around on the lawn.

"pat-"

Her coffee cup fell directly onto the carpet.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the once-transparent glass now looked as if it had been splashed with a layer of yellowish-brown paint, and fine sand grains were hitting the window surface with a crackling sound.

The yard was a complete mess—her carefully cultivated succulent garden had turned into a sand dune, the swing chair was covered with a layer of sand two fingers thick, and even the big, fat Pallas's cat that always loved to hog the fountain was nowhere to be seen.

The wind howled through the air, whipping up sand and gravel, as if the whole world were shrouded in yellowish frosted glass.

"This sandstorm?" Xu Ying pressed her face against the window in disbelief.

Having worked at the desert rescue station for over a year, she hasn't seen such a sight in a long time, as the protective forest around the station has gradually taken shape.

During breakfast, a serious voice came through the phone: "Due to desertification in northern China, sandstorms have been exceptionally severe this spring."

"Weather satellites show that dust from northern Mongolia has crossed the Yangtze River basin and arrived at the southeast coast this morning."

"Crack!" The yogurt spoon in Xu Ying's hand fell directly onto the table. She stared at the yellow cyclone covering half of Asia on the screen. The news was showing footage of grassland degradation caused by overgrazing in a neighboring country—goats were nibbling on the last few grass roots on the barren land.

"Good heavens!" She grabbed her phone and snapped a picture of the dusky sky outside the window. "This isn't a sandstorm, it's like the Northern Desert Kingdom airdropping a 'sand bomb' on all of East Asia!"

Meanwhile, the comments section of Weibo's trending topics was filled with complaints from netizens all over the country.

[Plant some trees, Northern Desert Kingdom! If you don't, give the land back to our Dragon Kingdom!]

[Can the Northern Desert Kingdom reimburse me for the 35 yuan car wash fee?]

This year's sandstorms reached as far as Guangdong and Guangxi provinces; these are usually a northern specialty. This makes up for the fact that Guangdong province rarely experiences sandstorms.

The sands that once carried my thoughts of you have finally reached Haikou.

Our country planned to donate a batch of tree saplings to the northern desert region, but they refused to accept them.

Xu Ying had a very poor impression of the Northern Desert Kingdom. This neighboring country was not only unfriendly to the Dragon Kingdom, but its treatment of wild animals was also outrageous.

What angered Xu Ying the most was the fate of the snow leopard. In China, snow leopards are key protected animals, and anyone who dares to harm them can face a lifetime in jail.

Just last month, a foreign internet celebrity filmed the mansion of a nobleman from the Northern Desert Kingdom during a live stream, and the ceiling was covered with snow leopard skins! A rough count revealed twenty or thirty of them, which is simply outrageous!
What's even worse now is that the Northern Desert Kingdom has turned its own grasslands into desert due to unrestrained grazing and mining.

Well, the sandstorm crossed the border and struck China, affecting the entire country from north to south.

Xu Ying looked out the window at the dark, dusty sandstorm and was furious: "You're courting death and dragging your neighbors down with you, how despicable!"

(End of this chapter)