Animal Detective

Chapter 206 I Know You

Shen Xin wasn't woken up by being called, but by the cold.

I took out my phone and saw that it was already past 3 a.m.

Ding Yuwei, sitting in the front row, huddled up and stared at the person opposite her like a stone statue.

Why didn't you call me?

It's past three o'clock; the shift should have been over long ago.

Ding Yuwei turned her head and said, "I saw you were sleeping soundly, so I didn't wake you."

"It's cold, isn't it?"

You can feel your breath when you talk inside the car.

Shen Xin took off his down jacket and handed it to Ding Yuwei.

"Need not."

Ding Yuwei quickly refused.

Shen Xin said, "Keep an eye on me for now. I'll go for a run to refresh myself and warm up before you take over."

As he spoke, Shen Xin got out of the car, stretched his muscles, and ran two laps around the perimeter of the village until his body felt warm before returning.

"Okay, drive the car a little further away, turn on the heater and sleep, I'll keep an eye on things from here."

Shen Xin came up with a solution.

"No, I'd rather lie in the back," Ding Yuwei shook her head.

Shen Xin said, "It's comfortable to sleep with the heating on. Anyway, it's just to prevent them from moving, so it doesn't matter. I'm waiting for Da Mei downstairs. She's not back yet."

The collar had long since run out of power.

Only after Shen Xin insisted did Ding Yuwei drive the car away.

Shen Xin never imagined that his second Lunar New Year's Eve since becoming a police officer would be spent in this way.

But that's alright too.

If we can rescue three innocent children, it will be a good start to the new year.

Silent all night.

The next morning, just as dawn broke, Chen Chao and Lao Qian arrived.

I brought him breakfast.

There was no sound all night, and Da Mei returned.

According to business registration information, the owner of the scrap yard is named Li Yihao.

This matches his bank account number.

"Take a look." Chen Chao handed over the phone.

According to household registration information, Li Yihao is from Anping County, Yuexi Province. He is married and has a son.

Shen Xin looked at the household registration photo and shook his head, saying, "Captain Chen, the person I met was neither his wife nor his mother."

The photos of his wife and mother in the household registration were not the two people he had met.

Chen Chao nodded slightly, "Then this makes things even more complicated."

"Let's wait, I reckon they'll be heading out today."

Chen Chao told the two to finish eating and rest for a while, while the two of them kept an eye on things.

Around 7 o'clock, the woman opened the door and set off firecrackers.

I also saw Li Yihao.

Then, around 9 a.m., a van drove out of the scrap yard.

The woman got out of the car and locked the door, so there should be no one left in the junkyard.

The van was completely covered in black tint, making it impossible to see inside.

"Follow."

Chen Chao's voice came through the walkie-talkie, and Shen Xin started the car and followed.

Surprisingly, Li Yihao did not drive towards the bustling city center, but instead took the airport road and the national highway, heading southeast.

"Why did you go to Pingyu?"

Shen Xin found it somewhat strange.

They've already driven all the way to Pingyu City next door.

Ding Yuwei couldn't explain it either.

The van drove all the way to Pingyu's landmark location, Pingyu Center.

The van stopped at the entrance of an underground parking lot near the center. An old woman, leaning on a cane, carrying a worn-out handbag, and pulling a child along, got out of the van.

Ding Yuwei exclaimed in surprise.

The two of them hadn't taken their eyes off the scrap yard all day yesterday, and then a child suddenly appeared. It was obvious that the child had been hiding in the scrap yard all along.

"Oh shit!"

Shen Xin cursed.

The child was wearing a dirty cotton-padded jacket. He was short, but his head was relatively large. Judging by his height alone, he was probably only about five years old and about one meter tall.

The old lady closed the car door, and the van drove off again.

"Shen Xin, you guys keep an eye on this side, we'll keep following them."

Chen Chao followed in his car.

The old woman held the child's hand tightly and stood at the entrance of the parking lot waiting. When a car came and slowed down, she would pull the child forward to beg.

"Why isn't this child making a sound?"

Ding Yuwei frowned, muttered something, and then suddenly gasped, her eyes widening in shock as she looked at Shen Xin.

Shen Xin nodded slightly.

Shen Xin had thought of it yesterday.

Li Yihao and his two companions hid the child at a junkyard, but for a long time, the nearby residents did not discover it.

There's only one explanation: the child didn't show up or make a sound. A child that small must cry, right?

If there's no movement, it can only mean they're mute!

Or rather, they were deliberately rendered mute.

The old lady was experienced and targeted luxury cars. Despite the freezing weather, she was dressed in rags, hunched over, and leading a child who looked only a few years old. She looked pitiful, and many people stopped their cars to give her money.

Some people who are not short of money will give a hundred directly.

Shen Xin stared at it for half an hour, and her income exceeded two hundred yuan.

At this moment, security guards came over and chased people away.

But seeing that she was pitiful, he didn't make things difficult for her. He just pointed to the Pingyu Center in the distance and told her to go there and not to stop cars here, as it was dangerous.

Her appearance was pitiful enough to evoke sympathy.

At that moment, Chen Chao called.

He said in a serious tone that the van stopped at two different locations.

The woman stopped in Guanxia Old Street with a boy who had a broken leg, probably seven or eight years old. They were sitting on one of those begging flatbed carts, looking for crowded places to pretend to be a mother and son begging.

Finally, Li Yihao went to the scenic area outside Zhuoshan Temple, a famous tourist attraction in Pingyu.

He brought along a girl who was only four or five years old, with deformed feet, and put up a sign pretending that his daughter was disabled and that he was a poor man from out of town seeking medical treatment.

"Damn it, now I understand why they came to Pingyu."

Chen Chao cursed over the phone.

With the rapid development of society, many people are aware that these are professional beggars.

Especially for those with children, there are cases of forced birth and mutilation.

In this situation, the best course of action is to call the police. If you cannot confirm the situation, then at least you should be firm and not give them the money.

If you give them money, they will have income, which will make them even more ruthless and continue to do this kind of thing.

Under normal circumstances, begging is not illegal.

In many cases, the police are unable to confirm whether the other party is truly a relative.

Many children are brought out by their parents to beg.

Police cannot arbitrarily arrest people if they cannot confirm that a child has been abducted.

However, if you have any doubts, the best option is to call the police.

What's clever about Li Yihao is that he lives in Nanjiang and then comes to Pingyu to beg.

Cross-city.

If the people in Pingyu discover something amiss and call the police, they may have already returned to Nanjiang, and the police will not be able to find them.

Since they are not active in Nanjiang, the police in Nanjiang do not have clear evidence and cannot make arrests across cities; they need local cooperation.

Moreover, Shen Xin strongly suspected that they might not only be in Pingyu, but also in the cities surrounding Nanjiang.

Fire and run, then move on to another location to avoid being spotted by the police.

They were driving, and even going to Ningshan wasn't very far.

"Captain Chen, make the arrest."

Shen Xin said in a deep voice.

If they're not her biological mother and wife, it's clearly a gang.

Chen Chao said, "Wait for my news. I'll contact Pingyu. I know Captain Liang from their municipal bureau."

About half an hour later, Shen Xin's people arrived.

A colleague from the Criminal Investigation Brigade of Pingyu City Public Security Bureau, in his thirties with slightly dark skin, named Wang Cheng.

After meeting, he suddenly said, "Aren't you the policeman who filmed the short video? You have three dogs, one named DouDou and another named HuBan, right?"

"you know?"

Shen Xinyi is curious.

Wang Cheng nodded quickly: "Of course, I often watch your videos. My boss even mentioned that we should see if we could learn from you and create an account ourselves."

“We all know about your online bounty program.”

Upon learning that this group was discovered by Tiger Stripe, he was surprised again, and without saying a word, he ordered them to be arrested.

Shen Xin nodded; it was exactly what he wanted.

The three of them headed straight for the center of Pingyu.

There's a big square here. An old woman is leading a child. She goes up to people who are dressed up and begs. The child, being led by her, stares with wide eyes and doesn't say a word.

"Thank you, they are all kind people."

A couple gave her ten yuan. The old lady muttered some kind words, then turned her head and saw Shen Xin standing in front of her, his face ashen.

She had seen Shen Xin and Ding Yuwei before. She paused, her expression changed drastically, and she turned to leave.

"Where are you going?"

Shen Xin grabbed her arm immediately.

Ding Yuwei immediately snatched the child from her hands.

The old woman tried to shake her arm but couldn't break free. She immediately shouted at the top of her lungs, "Help! Someone's trying to snatch my child! Someone please call the police!"

Passersby turned to look.

Wang Cheng immediately pulled out his identification and explained to those around him that he was a police officer.

Without saying a word, Shen Xin took the handcuffs from Ding Yuwei and put them on the old lady.

Ding Yuwei squatted down and gently asked the child if he could hear her.

The child nodded slightly, pointed at Ding Yuwei, then at Shen Xin, and smiled.

Then he gestured with his hands.

I know you guys.

Seeing his actions, Ding Yuwei didn't know what he meant, but her nose tingled and she almost burst into tears.

(End of this chapter)