Chapter 63: Cry for Help

Three hours later, having safely crossed out of the province, everyone in the westbound convoy felt a wave of relief. They pulled into a remote roadside gas station to top off the tanks, stretch their legs, and reroute onto the highway.

“Those two should be awake by now, right? Real obedient ones—not a sound out of them.”

The man from Y Province was chuckling with the others in the car when the refrigerated truck ahead—freshly fueled and idling—suddenly shuddered with a slight jolt. A muffled “thump-thump” echoed from inside.

“Fuck,” the man spat, leaping from the vehicle and striding to the cargo hold. He slammed his fist against the side in stern warning.

The noises quieted for a brief moment, but just as he turned to walk away, they started up again.

Basong leaned out the car window, tossing over a pack of wet wipes. “A’Li, take it up ahead and shut them up.”

A’Li snatched the pack midair with one hand, gave a quick nod, and hurried to the truck’s passenger side. He climbed in and barked at the driver to move.

The refrigerated truck lurched out of the station, drawing no notice from the staff who finally emerged from the office, blissfully unaware of the odd spectacle.

Two or three minutes later, they pulled to a stop at the edge of a tangled grove of mixed trees. A’Li and the driver hopped out and yanked open the rear doors.

Flashlights swept the interior. Without a word, they clambered aboard and laid into the buzz-cut man with fists and boots.

His legs still dangled awkwardly over the edge of the hold—it was obvious he was the troublemaker. Despite two rounds of anesthesia and bindings tight as drums, he’d somehow mustered the strength from his core to ram his body against the walls. Clearly, they hadn’t dosed him enough.

Yan Tuo curled into a tight ball, enduring the blows. His elbows and knees absorbed the punishing impacts, but he couldn’t afford to topple over—the little dumpling was still tucked in his jacket pocket. He couldn’t risk squishing it.

The pair pummeled him until their knuckles throbbed and their feet ached, yet they still couldn’t flatten him completely. Laziness won out. A’Li fished out the wet wipes, gearing up for a third knockout dose.

“I don’t want the hassle either,” Yan Tuo blurted desperately, “but nature calls. Diarrhea doesn’t wait. This your seafood freezer? Brand-new ride—want to test how foul it can get?”

The driver’s face twisted at that. It was his shiny new truck, one he babied religiously. He shot A’Li a beseeching glance.

A’Li scowled in irritation—who was he to deny his own brother-in-law? He whipped a pistol from his waistband and cracked it hard against Yan Tuo’s skull. “Fine, we’re going. No funny business, or we’ll see if your legs outrun bullets.”

Yanking a military dagger from his ankle holster, he tossed it to the driver. “Keep eyes on the other one inside. Any twitch, end him.”

Deep in the woods, Yan Tuo—hands briefly freed—squatted with his pants around his ankles, the icy gun barrel pressed firm against the back of his neck.

The little white dumpling burst from the jacket pocket in a flurry of feathers, flapping up to perch on a nearby branch.

A’Li jumped at the rustle. In the faint moonlight, he spotted the bird nearby and dismissed it as some wild thing. He glanced once and forgot it.

Yan Tuo finished his business, fully relieved at last. He shuffled meekly back to the truck, let them bind him tight, and succumbed to the fresh dose of drugs. This time, they sealed his mouth with duct tape too.

From afar, Bai Yiyi kept watch. Once the van rendezvoused and the convoy rolled out, he activated the system’s navigation for the shortest straight-line path home.

Birds typically rode air currents in flight, weaving through shifts in direction and altitude like a dance across the sky.

But with his heart burning in urgency, Bai Yiyi had no patience for such finesse. He locked onto one bearing and beat his wings furiously. Exhaustion soon set in; he had to pause for a brief rest before pushing on again.

Start and stop like that, it took nearly four hours. Dawn was brightening the horizon when he finally crossed back into J City limits.

Home turf at last—hope felt tantalizingly close. He allowed himself a sliver of ease, alighting on a roadside flower bed planter for one final breather. Just a minute or two, then straight to the precinct in one go.

His talons trembled with fatigue, barely supporting him. His wings hung heavy, impossible to lift properly, and his reactions had dulled.

He gathered himself to launch skyward when a red plastic bag plummeted from above, engulfing him completely. Rough hands cinched it tight around him.

“Gotcha! Gotcha! Grandpa, look—I caught a bird!”

A young boy’s voice rang out overhead.

Bai Yiyi’s soul nearly fled in terror. He wasn’t afraid of harm—just the delay. Every minute wasted here meant another minute of peril for Yan Tuo. How could he squander time in this brat’s clutches?

He thrashed desperately, but with his legs gripped fast, escape was impossible. He pecked through the thin plastic instead, poking his head free.

“Huh. Thought it was all white, but there’s a black tuft on top. Ugly thing.”

Bai Yiyi sized up his captor: a pudgy ten-year-old, cheeks so plump they nearly swallowed his eyes. An old man trailed behind him. He gave a casual glance. “That’s a crested canary. Never seen a wild one. Probably someone’s pet—let it go. Its owner might be waiting.”

The boy rolled his eyes, clearly displeased, but good upbringing held his tongue from outright defiance. “Fine, then I’ll just play with it a bit at home. Then I’ll let it fly off.”

Drained and now wrapped in extra loops of plastic, Bai Yiyi had no choice but to be carried away. He could only pray the kid kept his word and released him after a quick romp.

It was only minutes before the pair reached home, the old man still clutching breakfast—oil strips and soy milk—from their morning market run.

On the balcony, the boy—wary of the sharp beak—jammed a chunk of rubber eraser into Bai Yiyi’s mouth. He peeled off the bag and cradled the bird, stroking the feathers along its wings.

Without warning, he yanked out several large primaries, muttering, “I caught it, so it’s mine. No way I’m letting it go.”

Pain jolted through Bai Yiyi like lightning. Tears welled in his eyes.

This wasn’t some innocent child—it was a little demon!

All sugar in front of adults, but a sadistic monster in secret. Utter scum.

The torment didn’t end there. The boy snatched nearby flower shears and snipped viciously—clip-clip—shaving off Bai Yiyi’s crest until he was a bald-headed bird.

The black shears whistled toward his skull. Bai Yiyi froze rigid, terrified one slip would claim more than feathers—his life.

Rage and agony shook him to his core. The moment the shears dropped, he bucked wildly, whipping his head to fling off the eraser.

The boy clamped down on his legs and wrenched a talon hard…

The rubber flew free. Bai Yiyi didn’t care about the kid’s age—he unleashed. “You fat bastard, you even human? Tormenting a helpless bird? You’re no better than a beast—worse!”

The boy gaped, dumbfounded. Birds didn’t talk—that shattered his world. His hands shook, and Bai Yiyi tumbled to the floor.

Bai Yiyi twisted his voice for menace. “Dare drop me? Believe I’ll gobble you up right now!”

The boy burst into wailing sobs—”Grandpa, monster!”—and bolted for the kitchen. He tripped hard on the balcony doorframe.

Ignoring his wounds, Bai Yiyi shoved off with quivering talons and shot out the window. Freedom.

No more breaks this time. He flew higher, threading through the steel canyons of the city, until he reached the precinct at last.

He slipped into Yan Tuo’s second-floor office first. The system’s display read 60—a massive sigh escaped him. The ordeal had dragged him down a few points from the stress, despite his efforts to rein it in, but he’d clung to the passing line. No derailment.

Shifting to human form, he grabbed paper and pen to jot a situation report.

Their position four hours prior, headcount, names, rough number of guns, license plates, vehicle models, colors, suspected destination of Gaoli Mountain—every scrap of intel seared into memory went down in detail.

He reviewed it thrice, ensuring nothing was missed, then folded it into a slim strip. Bird once more, he clamped it in his beak and winged up to the third floor.

In the Detachment Captain’s office, Zhao Ge lit his twentieth cigarette of the morning, turning the air thick with haze. Li Zhong barely noticed; he was under full assault from Yu Lian’s barrage of questions.

It was Sunday. Yu Lian had called all night yesterday, eager for her nephew to bring his partner over for a family dinner. But Yan Tuo’s phone rang out unreachable, her own husband ghosted her calls too—and hadn’t come home at all.

Her woman’s intuition screamed disaster. She’d stormed the precinct at dawn. Li Zhong couldn’t stonewall her, so he’d spilled a vague version: Xu Qingru had snatched Yan Tuo off to gods-knew-where.

Yu Lian reeled in disbelief, crumbling on the spot. Both men were like blood brothers to her—how could this happen?

Yu Lian began recounting in detail everything that had happened since Xu Qingru’s arrival at the Yu family home, along with how he had always shown such care for Yan Tuo in their daily lives. She went through each incident one by one, determined to prove to her husband that he had completely misunderstood the situation and suspected the wrong person.

Li Zhong had already listened to the surveillance recording that Tangyuan had delivered. But with Yan Tuo not present and no final conclusion reached yet, he truly didn’t know how to broach the subject. His wife’s beloved younger aunt, whom she had always treated like a mother, had actually died at Xu Qingru’s hands. The man she thought of as her own brother had turned out to be a shadowy kingpin on the dark web—and now he had even kidnapped her own cousin?

In the end, Li Zhong could only remain silent, letting Yu Lian vent her emotions.

She chattered on for nearly an hour before finally tiring herself out from all the talking. Convinced that she had gained the upper hand, she asked suspiciously, “It’s been a whole night now—how can two grown men still be nowhere to be found? Doesn’t Qingru have an apartment in the west side of the city? Have you sent anyone to check it out?”

Li Zhong replied, “We went there first thing last night. No one was home.”

Yu Lian was at a loss. She paused to think, then remembered something else. “What about Tangyuan? It’s always glued to Yan Tuo’s side and so clever—maybe it can help track down its master.”

At those words, Li Zhong felt a pang of regret.

When Tangyuan had cried out Yan Tuo’s name and flown off, he hadn’t reacted in time. By the time he realized it might have spotted a clue, the little bird was already out of sight.

He had chased after it, circling the Phase Three parking lot without spotting any sign of it. He rushed back to the surveillance room, where the footage clearly showed the white puffball squeezing into an old truck. They enlisted traffic police for real-time assistance and finally intercepted the truck in the east side of the city—but by then, the cargo hold was completely empty.

Not only had he lost track of his brother-in-law, but he had also let the man’s beloved bird get away. Guilt gnawed at him relentlessly. He gave a brief account of what had happened, then lowered his head, bracing himself for another round of scolding.

Yu Lian was livid. In her anger, she blurted out, “You, Detachment Captain, aren’t even as good as a bird… You—” Her words cut off abruptly as her voice pitched up an octave. “Tang… Tangyuan?”

Hearing her startled cry, Li Zhong turned to follow her gaze. There, perched awkwardly by the window behind him, was a bedraggled white puffball. It had just folded its wings after limping into place. Blood stained its wings, its distinctive crest had been nearly sheared off, and it clutched a long strip of paper in its beak. Who else could it be but Tangyuan?

Bai Yiyi took in the room full of people and finally let out a deep breath of relief. A wave of extreme thirst, exhaustion, and pain crashed over him all at once. His vision darkened, and he toppled onto the windowsill.