When Han Ye arrived on the third floor of the hotel, the room was pitch dark with no lights on.
He quietly closed the door behind him and walked over to Qin Yuanzheng’s side. Together, they looked out the window. “Uncle, do you see anything?” Han Ye whispered.
Qin Yuanzheng shook his head. “Not yet.”
But if his guess was right, the other party would soon make a move.
The two stood silently by the bed, watching for more than half an hour.
At that moment, Qin Yuanzheng noticed a car slowly driving to the entrance of an alley.
Han Ye whispered, “Uncle, look at that car!”
Qin Yuanzheng made a shushing gesture. The sky was dark, and the license plate was hard to make out, but there weren’t many cars around at this hour, so recognizing it wouldn’t be difficult.
A back door in the alley opened. In the pitch-black night, a woman opened the gate, and then a man carried a woman out. He placed her inside the car. Immediately after, he went back inside and carried out a girl about eight or nine years old, placing her in the back seat.
They were too far away to clearly see if the girl was the same one who had been chasing the woman earlier that evening.
From a distance, her clothes didn’t seem quite right either.
Han Ye hesitated. “Uncle, should we make a move now?”
Qin Yuanzheng’s face darkened. He gave Han Ye a meaningful look and said, “Let’s go.”
Han Ye instantly became excited.
Since childhood, he had dreamed of becoming a soldier, just like Uncle Qin and Han Wenlin—traveling everywhere on missions to uphold justice.
He especially hated human traffickers and wanted to see them all captured and executed!
Rubbing his hands together, he said, “Don’t worry, Uncle Qin. I’ll do my best when the time comes.”
Qin Yuanzheng said nothing but quickly led him out.
They hurried downstairs and ran out of the hotel.
The street was still lively at this hour. Many elderly men and women hadn’t gone home yet; they sat outside their doors, fanning themselves and chatting.
Qin Yuanzheng turned to Han Ye and asked, “Do you know where the police station is?”
Han Ye nodded. “Yes.”
He thought to himself, Uncle Qin and Aunt Qiao really are a perfect couple—their questions were exactly the same.
Then he heard Qin Yuanzheng say, “You need to go to the police station right now and report this. Tell them to block the highway and send officers here to make the arrest. Speed is crucial.”
Han Ye was stunned. “???”
He was confused. “Uncle Qin, didn’t you want me to come with you to catch the bad guys? I’m pretty good at this—I won’t hold you back.”
Qin Yuanzheng shot him a sharp glare. “No nonsense. Follow orders!”
Han Ye immediately stood up straight. “Understood!”
Then he turned and sprinted toward the police station.
Qin Yuanzheng walked briskly to the opposite side of the alley and peered inside.
The car was still parked at the alley entrance, its side facing inward. From his vantage point, he couldn’t see what was happening inside or how many people were in the vehicle.
The car hadn’t started yet, which meant they were still preparing to leave.
Qin Yuanzheng thought for two seconds, then pulled a folding knife from his pocket. He crept along the wall toward a car, crouched down, and stabbed the blade hard into one of the rear tires.
He put all his strength into it, making sure the tire was punctured before retracting the knife.
Just as he was about to stab the second tire—
He heard voices coming from the alley entrance.
A man was complaining, “I told you, I want young and pretty girls. Look at what you’ve found—either women in their thirties or forties, or little girls barely seven or eight years old. None of these meet the requirements.”
A woman’s sharp, bitter voice responded quietly, “It’s easy for you to say. Do you think young, beautiful women just fall from the sky or grow out of the ground? Girls at that age are the most cautious. They’re either working or studying, many already have boyfriends. I’m the only one who can’t take action.”
Her voice paused before she added, “Besides, these women in their thirties may be a bit older, but age has its advantages. They’ve already given birth, which proves they’re fertile. Those men who can’t find wives just want to buy women to carry on the family line, right?”
“And as for the eight or nine-year-old girls, their price isn’t low at all. Raise them for two or three years, and they can be brides—still pure young girls. Isn’t that perfect?”
Qin Yuanzheng was dressed all in black today. Calmly, he stabbed the second tire as well, then crouched in the shadows by the wall, listening to their conversation.
He still didn’t dare to act rashly. After all, aside from his folding knife, he had no other weapons.
And these days, many people carried guns.
Especially these desperate criminals trafficking women and children—they likely had plenty of weapons and manpower.
Qin Yuanzheng remained silent, leaning against a small pile of bricks by the wall to conceal himself.
Inside, the voices continued. The man spoke angrily, “I said this is a special shipment. The people over there are opening a dance hall and need young dancers. They’re paying more than ever before.”
The woman scoffed, “What dance hall? Never heard of it. Anyway, I can’t get any girls aged eighteen or nineteen—there aren’t many on this street.”
As they talked, another man spoke in a low voice, “Alright, alright, stop arguing. Hurry up before someone finds out.”
The woman said smugly, “Don’t worry. I only make my move after careful observation. These girls aren’t from around here or have families who care about them. No one will notice for a while.”
The man asked, “Are there any more? Just these three?”
Another man replied, “Just three. Damn it—two women in their thirties and forties, and one eight or nine-year-old girl. This batch won’t sell well. We’ll have to take them up into the mountains.”
The first man was clearly unhappy, “Originally, we just needed to deliver them to the dance hall. Now we have to leave the province and go into the mountains. This trip’s really not worth it.”
The woman had already disappeared down the alley, and Qin Yuanzheng couldn’t quite make out what she was saying—only faint murmurs, as if she was cursing someone under her breath.
At this point, it seemed there were only three of them here: two men and one woman. Inside the car were two other women and a girl.
These two men were probably in charge of finding buyers, while the woman here was responsible for scouting targets, then finding a way to lure the women over, capture them, and under the cover of night, drug them and send them off.
Over the years, Qin Yuanzheng had carried out countless missions and encountered all sorts of villains and monsters.
He had seen human traffickers before, but back then, with strict household registration controls, you needed a letter of introduction wherever you went. Such incidents existed but were relatively rare.
Now, several years into the reform and opening-up, with the country’s economy booming, the number of villains had increased.
Even human traffickers had become so brazen!
Listening to their conversation, Qin Yuanzheng realized they were about to leave.
His expression grew serious. Han Ye—he wondered if he had already reached the police station. Why hadn’t the officers shown up yet?
Hesitating for a moment, Qin Yuanzheng quietly rose and circled to the mouth of the opposite alley, crouching again by the wall. Both tires of their car had been slashed; they wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
Sure enough, as soon as the two men got into the car, they sensed something was wrong. One of them got out to check and then muttered in confusion, “What’s going on with the car? The tires are flat.”
The other man also stepped down and walked to the back to inspect the tires. When they saw both were completely deflated, anger flared up immediately. “Damn it! Who the hell slashed my tires? They were fine when we got here.”
They muttered as they circled the car, scanning the surroundings. Qin Yuanzheng remained motionless in the darkness, unnoticed by their sweeping gaze.
“There are a lot of kids around here. Maybe it’s some prank—needles or something.”
“That’s impossible. If it were kids playing tricks, we would have noticed earlier. Maybe we ran over some nails on the way here?”
The two men discussed quietly and inspected the area again. It was pitch dark, and no one had passed the alley entrance.
But they were clearly nervous, behaving like guilty thieves. They lowered their voices, exchanged glances, and one slowly slipped his hand into his pocket. The other opened the car door and dragged the unconscious woman out. Realizing they couldn’t leave, they feared lingering too long would attract attention, and they worried the three women might wake up.
So they decided to move the three back to a house inside the alley.
If their place had a tunnel or secret room, it would be hard to find them.
They couldn’t let them get away.
But the man assigned to keep watch obviously had a gun.
His hand was in his pocket, as if gripping something. Qin Yuanzheng didn’t hesitate. After locking eyes with him a few times, as the other man carried the woman away, Qin Yuanzheng suddenly charged at the lookout.
The man was startled and hastily pulled a gun out of his pocket. Unfortunately, he was half a step too slow. In the darkness, Qin Yuanzheng pressed down on the man’s arm with one hand and twisted his wrist hard, instantly disarming him. Then, he delivered an elbow strike to the man’s stomach, followed by a knife strike to the back of his neck.
The man clutched his stomach and collapsed to the ground in pain.
Another man was carrying a woman as he just entered the alley. Hearing the commotion, he immediately shouted, “Who’s there? What’s going on?”
Panicked, he threw the woman he was carrying onto the ground, then pulled a gun from his pocket and fired two wild shots toward the entrance of the alley.
At the alley’s mouth, a middle-aged woman heard the gunfire and rushed out shouting, “Idiot, stop shooting! Run!”
Then she hurried back inside the house and quickly slipped out the back door to escape.
The man who fired the shots was also losing his composure. After two rounds, worried that the gunfire would attract others, he turned and started running away.
Qin Yuanzheng guessed there were probably only three people here.
One had already been dealt with, so the other two couldn’t be allowed to escape.
If they got away and raised the alarm, both their superiors and subordinates would likely flee, making it much harder to catch them.
Without hesitation, Qin Yuanzheng quickly gave chase and fired a shot at the fleeing man in the darkness.
Despite the poor visibility and distance, he still managed to hit the man’s leg with a single bullet. The man screamed in agony and fell to the ground, then wildly fired his gun in all directions.
Soon, he ran out of bullets. He struggled to get up and limped off, trying to escape.
Qin Yuanzheng didn’t know if there were ambushes inside the house or if the woman might be hiding with a gun in the shadows.
Pressing his back against the wall, Qin Yuanzheng fired another shot at the man’s other leg.
Both legs were hit. The man wailed in pain, lying on the ground, unable to crawl away.
Confident that the man wouldn’t be able to run anytime soon, Qin Yuanzheng left the alley entrance and took a detour, intending to pursue the woman.
Just then, the police officers finally arrived. Qin Yuanzheng heard Han Ye’s voice, but he didn’t stop where he was. Instead, he circled around to a back alley and chased forward for a bit.
However, in the pitch-black maze of alleys, he lost track of the fleeing woman.
There were too many narrow lanes and no streetlights. If she was determined to escape, Qin Yuanzheng found it difficult to follow.
He chased for several minutes in the darkness, passing two more alleys and emerging onto a main street, but still saw no sign of her. Worried that she might be armed, he realized pursuing her recklessly in the dark would be too dangerous.
After a moment’s thought, he decided to circle back and regroup with the police officers who had just arrived.
This time, six officers were present, with Han Ye leading at the front.
Han Ye ran while urging, “Come on, hurry up! Don’t let them get away!”
The Deputy Public Security Bureau Chief was accompanied by five young and robust officers, all of whom had recently transferred from the military. They kept themselves in good physical shape and were quite fast runners.
Yet, despite this, they nearly failed to catch up with Han Ye.
Each of them was surprised, silently thinking to themselves that this young man was truly a promising talent. His speed was almost on par with the military dogs they had served with.
Han Ye sprinted toward the alley entrance, and from a distance, he saw the tall figure of Qin Yuanzheng standing beside a car, holding two guns in his hands.
Those guns had been confiscated from the two men. After thoroughly searching them and finding no other weapons, Qin Yuanzheng had come to the roadside.
Han Ye hurried over, breathless: "Uncle Qin, how’s it going? Have they caught the traffickers?"
Qin Yuanzheng nodded and said to the officers who had just arrived, "There were two men and one woman involved in the trafficking. The woman got away—send people to chase her down. As for these two men, bring them in for overnight interrogation to see if they have any accomplices. The three abductees are all here; go check on them. Also, make sure to conduct a thorough search of that house."
The Deputy Chief was busy assigning tasks while approaching Qin Yuanzheng to get a briefing on the situation.
Qin Yuanzheng handed over the two confiscated guns to him.
Han Ye stomped his foot in frustration. "That woman got away? She’s the worst one. She even targeted Xiaxia before."
Qin Yuanzheng recalled how Xiaxia’s hairpin had nearly been taken and felt a chill of fear.
He asked the Deputy Chief standing nearby, "Has anyone reported missing family members tonight? Three people—no one noticed they were gone?"
The Deputy Chief shook his head. "No, if anyone had, we would have been out looking for them already."
