Chapter 31: The Trafficking Syndicate

Although Officer Xu didn't quite understand, he chose to respect each person's unique quirks. As long as no one was out there harming society or disturbing others, even rolling your eyes at a cat was hardly a big deal.

Officer Xu smiled, "In a couple of days, I might need you to come down to the station again. By the way, you messaged me before about a van near your neighborhood—you said after you had a run-in with it, two men dressed like laborers tried to attack you the next day?"

Several days had passed since that incident. Hearing it mentioned again, Mo Fei was momentarily stunned before nodding, "Yes, were they caught?"

Officer Xu's expression became somewhat indescribable.

He pulled out his phone, scrolled to a picture, and showed it to Mo Fei. "Take a look, is this the one?"

Mo Fei squinted at it.

It was a blurry image captured from a surveillance camera, but Mo Fei could make out the spiderweb cracks sprawling across the van's rear windshield.

He nodded with certainty. "That's the one. I smashed that window myself."

Officer Xu's expression grew even harder to describe.

"What’s with that look?" Mo Fei studied him, sensing something unusual. "Was there really a problem with that van?"

Mo Fei had never been one for gossip, but Officer Xu's attitude was too subtle to ignore.

It had started as a simple traffic matter—so why was he personally involved?

There was a case behind this.

Mo Fei's eyes lit up instantly, his whole being invigorated as if he'd just had a strong coffee. "Was someone found dead in the van?"

Officer Xu pondered for a while, put his phone back in his pocket, then finally said, "The person you rescued from that serial killer before—before being hunted, he actually encountered human traffickers."

“Unlucky, really—serial killers and traffickers, what kind of idiot could be more cursed than you?” came a slitted voice, full of ridicule.

"Go mind your own business," Mo Fei retorted automatically.

Officer Xu glanced around, as if confirming he was the only one present with Mo Fei.

He hesitated, pointing at himself. "Should I go?"

"No, I wasn’t talking to you," Mo Fei explained hurriedly, then shot a glare at the slitted figure.

"Tch, you fool," the slit cursed, flicking its tail as it sauntered elegantly over to the water bowl for a leisurely drink.

Mo Fei felt himself stiffen.

His fists, that is.

How could this thing be a best partner? It was clearly here to collect on some karmic debt.

"Anyway, the killer’s been caught, but there are still some loose ends to tie up," Officer Xu said, not bothering with Mo Fei’s oddities. He patted Mo Fei’s arm. "Human traffickers have been particularly rampant lately. Be careful when you go out."

"Damn, this guy’s overthinking it. Even if you gathered five of you together, you wouldn’t make up a single decent brain—what kind of trafficker would bother with you?" the slit piped up again.

This time, Mo Fei managed to ignore it, nodding seriously. "Understood."

Officer Xu flashed a smile. "Things are busy at the station; I’ll be off now."

"Take care," Mo Fei called after him, but didn’t see him out.

Once Officer Xu was gone, Mo Fei turned and flashed a sinister grin, expertly scooping up the slit and giving it a thorough petting.

"Trying to outsmart me? You think you can win?" Mo Fei tormented the enemy’s body while crushing its spirit. "You’re just a little cat—how can you hope to compete with a human who occasionally stands at the top of the food chain?"

"Even if I’m not at the top among humans, handling a little cat like you is a piece of cake!"

Mo Fei’s hands were merciless, though his eyes were thoughtful.

Officer Xu had just brought him a wealth of information.

With the murderer caught, the case should have been closed, yet Officer Xu asked him to identify the van and brought up the traffickers.

Mo Fei frowned, recalling the words on the corner of the surveillance image Officer Xu had shown him.

He took out his phone, searched the map, and realized that the road segment in the surveillance shot was less than five kilometers from the location where they’d filmed a highway scene.

The timing matched too—just over an hour before he’d found Ji Xingyu.

Officer Xu wouldn’t have had him identify the van for nothing, especially since Ji Xingyu had escaped after encountering traffickers. That van had to be the traffickers’ vehicle.

If you followed this line of reasoning, when the police arrived, Officer Li Cangyu had discovered two bodies—which matched the two laborers Mo Fei had seen.

The victims were likely the two men dressed as laborers he’d encountered.

There had been a driver, not mentioned—perhaps he’d fled when things turned bad.

Human traffickers were, after all, an interest group. It wasn’t unusual for the driver to run.

But thinking back, there really did seem to be more abductions lately.

Mo Fei’s frown deepened.

The slit lay on the ground watching him. "Some people just love worrying about things that don’t concern them."

Mo Fei shot it a cold look. "Who’d have thought a cat could recite proverbs?"

The slit remained elegant and aloof. "Who’d have thought a penniless fool like you would care so much?"

Mo Fei ground his molars, wondering how best to cook cat meat.

Was this really owning a cat?

It felt more like serving an ancestor.

"I challenge you to a duel!"

"I don’t bully my grandkids."

"I—I’ll cut off your food!"

"Oh, I’m so desperate for your tasteless kibble. Only a dog would eat that stuff."

"It tastes fine, just a little bland," Mo Fei retorted.

"How about you get something decent for a change?"

"I’m taking you down with me!"

"Foolish, wanting to perish together with a cat."

…

In some places, it was chaos—cats and dogs darting about. In others, there was a silence like death.

"Sis, haven’t we been ‘receiving goods’ a bit too often lately?"

In a humble country house, a plain-faced middle-aged man voiced his worries to the middle-aged woman across from him.

"Last time, the third son’s family got caught picking fruit; now another’s run off, and Dagang and Qiangzi are gone too." He spoke as if complaining about a bad harvest.

The woman looked every bit the kindly rural matron, her face full of gentle amiability, her voice timid and soft. "That’s just because you’re stupid. Stupid to death."

"This time, I finally scored a big order. If we pull it off, we’ll never have to worry about finding buyers again. If we mess it up, we’ll have to give a share to the traders downstream."

"These country folks are so picky about their goods, and the costs keep rising—you know that as well as I do."

She sipped her tea. "Foreign buyers don’t care about age or gender; they pay the same price for all, and it’s higher than what the villagers offer. Where else could you find a deal this good?"

"But the heat’s really on lately," the man said nervously, rubbing his hands. "Ever since Dagang and Qiangzi were lost, the fruit-pickers downstream have been uneasy."

"Uneasy?" The woman sneered. "In this business, nothing is strange—lightning from the blue, children born without anuses—what’s a bit of unrest now?"

She fixed the man with a serious look. "If we can deliver, we’ll all get rich. If not, we go back to farming and feed ourselves from the dirt."

"Understood?"