Release that Man

The room was not big—one living room, one bedroom and one bathroom. Even the kitchen was joined with the living room. If not for the simplicity of the stove and limited space, it could be viewed as a modern spartan living space. The house was placed behind a fruit tree farm. Nature Village had a small population, and they stayed far from each other. This place was even further than the center of Nature Village, sitting far above the mountain. The trek up the mountain was hard and difficult. It was not accessible by vehicle, not even a bull cart. When someone wanted to get up the mountain, they had to carry the tools by themselves. They would trek on muddy paths, and if they were unlucky enough to encounter rain, the chance of falling and slipping would drastically increase.

There was no one in the house; at least the place was empty when Ye Shuang and Anthony arrived. Based on the signs of living in the room, the owner should have left less than half a day ago. A cup of undrunk coffee sat on the table. Next to it were several newspapers and notices from inside the village. Even the television was left on.

Ye Shuang looked through the newspaper and notices, but she did not find anything valuable. Anthony squatted at the other side of the room beside the one electronic device in the room, which was the television. He pulled out the data line from the router and connected it to the laptop. After he worked on it for a while, he said, “Other than advertisements, dramas, variety shows, and the like, the only useful information broadcast on this television this afternoon is the news.”

With a shrug, he continued. “After taking out irrelevant issues like the hike of vegetable prices and a large car accident, I have a feeling the people in this room are only interested in this news.”

The man sure was a chatterbox. Ye Shuang did not know how to respond and walked over to glance at the news that Anthony had pulled up. It was a snippet of the morning news. The content was mostly about the country targeting some kind of international criminal organization, and several people have been captured successfully. A base that they had been watching had been taken down, and then the news gave a detailed analysis on the organization’s impact on the world enemy and the losses that would be saved from the lockdown on this operation, not to mention the lasting international influence it would have.

“Is the criminal organization mentioned the one we’re looking for?” Ye Shuang scratched her chin and started to understand what was happening.

“Yes, I believe so,” Anthony answered seriously.

Then he sighed. He pulled the laptop closer to his chest and worked on it. He pulled up different information. “Actually, not only this station has broadcast this news. Recently, many similar news reports have been popping up all over the world, but the nature of the operations are not the same… like several base have been destroyed, detained so and so members, and large funds have been discovered to not be taxed. If we trace these many news stories, we’ll discover the people who are captured are not simple characters, but they have been deep in hiding. They have not been discovered previously or have not been linked to each other before.”

It seemed like the FBI moved fast after they obtained the information. This should be the result of their action after unlocking the information. They cooperated with people from all over the world to overtly or covertly destroy their enemy with the maximum strength. Most likely, Han Chu’s kidnapping was just a trap, so he was kept in such an isolated place to prevent others from finding him. But now that they had been hit so severely, they probably wanted to ask for some demands, using the kidnapped Han Chu, so they abandoned this temporary base and moved the hostage to some place else.

“F*ck, we’re too late.” After arranging the sequence of events, Ye Shuang’s face darkened without her realizing.

Anthony did not look so good either. He grabbed his golden hair out of frustration. “If we weren’t captured, we would have arrived here yesterday or this morning at the latest.”

Ye Shuang actually agreed with that, but she could not voice it out loud. After all, Father Han only meant well. It was not that he did not care about his son, but he merely did not want the civilians to get into dangerous situations.

“Don’t panic. It’s impossible not to gather attention by moving in such big group. If Brother Han was really kept here, there had to have been at least two people involved when they moved,” Ye Shuang analyzed calmly. “They have to prevent Brother Han from running away when they were moving. Other than knocking him out, there is no better solution… And then both of them moved him together, but they could not use any transport vehicle…”

Ye Shuang looked outside the house. Luckily, she found some footprints that were left behind. After all, it was too difficult to remove all traces from this kind of muddy terrain. Plus, to hide their tracks, they only needed to pay more attention when they moved down the mountain—there was no need to do too much at the base.

Ye Shuang squatted down to study the footprints. She studied the way the footprints were heading with a frown on her face. “The only place nearby that can allow one to hide a hostage and ensure their living needs is Nature Village. If the two wished to move Brother Han away, unless they killed every single person they run into, they would have to come up with a reason. Like there was a member who got injured during a hiking excursion or so on.

“We will find something if we ask around… It is certain that they do not plan to move somewhere else, and that means they are still nearby. In that case, they will have friends in the village, ’cause they will need someone to be responsible for dealing with their food and living arrangements.”

“Not moving to another place is something I can understand. After all, Uncle Han will check the people travelling on any roads seriously since his son is missing. But why couldn’t they be hiding inside the village among the villagers?” Anthony walked out while holding the laptop under his armpit.

“Because it would be too obvious.” Ye Shuang rolled her eyes. “The police might be slower than you in finding the man, but they wouldn’t be so dumb that they wouldn’t find anything. They will arrive here within two days. Their first main search area will be Nature Village.”

Anthony sighed. “But I really cannot imagine who might be their partner. After all, the place is very isolated. Based on what you said, the people there should know each other very well, and it’s impossible for them not to notice something is wrong.”

“We’ll see when Su Zheng returns.”

Ye Shuang stood up and patted her hands. She signaled for Anthony to follow as she headed down the mountain. She called Su Zheng.

“Hello?” Su Zheng sounded excited once she answered the phone. The excitement was practically travelling through the phone. Before Ye Shuang could speak, she started to ramble. “Brother Shuang, do you know how scary the people here are? I am sure you never expected something like this. The aunties in the city are like small toddlers compared to the countryside aunties!”

She had only stolen a spring onion! One spring onion!

Before she could do anything else, the aunty had come home and exploded like a volcano. Before saying anything, she had summoned her husband and son to charge at the suspected neighbor’s home. Then the accusation started, and in the process, the aunty yanked the person’s clothes off before everyone’s eyes!