Damn it, they got away!

The karst cave had been sealed off.

Zhang Ming borrowed Zhao Dongsheng's portable cellular phone and dialed the city after several failed attempts. Once he finally got through, he brought old man Sun and his wife to the village committee office.

"She's a heartless wretch! She wouldn't even care for her own child! Dead is dead, what does it have to do with me?"

Old man Sun remained unrepentant and full of grievances.

His wife silently wiped away her tears, claiming ignorance to every question asked.

Zhang Ming grew so angry that he slammed his palm onto the desk.

"That was your daughter-in-law, the mother of your grandson! You told everyone she ran away with someone, yet she ended up dead right at the edge of the village. How do you explain this?"

Old man Sun cast a sideways glance. "She has legs of her own and could go wherever she pleased. What business of ours is that?"

Truly... utterly impervious to reason!

Zhao Dongsheng clicked his tongue and shook his head. With this level of stubbornness, Captain Zhang was unlikely to get any answers out of them.

Just as he was thinking this, he heard Su Chen say, "The one who killed her is their son."

"What?!"

Zhang Ming whipped around in astonishment. Seeing Su Chen nod with certainty, his gaze toward old man Sun shifted instantly.

Old man Sun, who had been putting up a tough front moments ago, flew into a rage, his face turning beet red.

"What—what kind of nonsense are you spouting?! My—my son, my son he..." As he spoke, he met Zhang Ming's piercing stare and immediately averted his eyes. "My son is working odd jobs out of town."

Su Chen asked Zhang Ming, "Captain Zhang, do you have his son's birth date and time?"

As if struck by a sudden flash of enlightenment, Zhang Ming nodded repeatedly. "Yes, yes, I do! Year, month, and day."

"Hold on, let me go ask them what time of day Sun Zhiyuan was born."

Zhang Ming trotted off and returned shortly.

"Master, four o'clock in the afternoon. Can you use this to figure out where his son Sun Zhiyuan is?"

Su Chen took the small notebook, glanced at it, and his fingers immediately began to calculate.

A moment ago, he motioned to Zhang Ming: "Take your men."

"Oh, oh, oh! Ah Gao, stay here and keep an eye on them. Ah Zong, Ah Lu, let's move out."

With a death in the village and the situation causing quite a stir, a crowd had gathered around the village committee building.

Seeing Su Chen and the others emerge, someone hurried forward to ask, "Officer, how did Xiaoting die? Was she murdered? Is she from our village? Or was it old man Sun?"

"It couldn't be old man Sun, could it? He seems like such an honest man."

Zhang Ming wore a stern expression. "Why are you asking so many questions? Are you all that idle?"

The questioner sheepishly replied, "Well... we were just concerned..."

"Don't ask about things that are none of your business!"

Leaving behind those words, Zhang Ming saw that Su Chen was already walking more than three meters ahead and hurried to catch up.

Seeing that they were not heading down the mountain path, the villagers realized they were not leaving the mountain yet. A few of the bolder ones followed ten paces behind, hoping to catch some excitement.

Yet this following led them across an entire mountain ridge.

Climbing to the highest peak, Su Chen did not even pause and continued onward.

Taking a small trail down the mountain, they headed straight toward the bottom of the valley.

The villagers trailing behind stared at that mountain path, questioning reality.

"Wait a minute, since when was there a path here?"

"Who knows? Could it be something Ah Shan cleared out?"

The "Ah Shan" they referred to was a young man in the village who frequently set traps and snares in the mountains during the agricultural off-season.

Initially, everyone else had been eager to try their hand at it as well, but seeing him return empty-handed nearly every time, they abandoned the idea.

And rightfully so. Although Dragon Mountain was vast, back during the famine a decade or two ago, even the bark of some trees in the mountains had been stripped away—what game could possibly remain? In recent years there were slightly more wild boars, but if you happened to run into one of those beasts, wouldn't you lose your life?

Consequently, for the past half-year or so, aside from those cutting firewood near the village, almost no one ventured in this direction.

After murmuring amongst themselves for a bit, the villagers quickly followed the trail downward.

Upon reaching the mountainside, they realized something was amiss.

Forget traps; there wasn't even a single large pit along this path.

When the officers in the lead finally stopped, someone pointed toward a relatively flat patch of land within the brush. "Looks like someone's growing something over there."

Just as the words left his mouth, a fierce roar erupted from ahead: "Police! Put your hands up!"

Immediately following were curses, the sound of scrambling footsteps, and muffled grunts.

Zhang Ming and his men had captured two individuals.

One was old man Sun's son, Sun Zhiyuan; the other was Ah Shan.

Seeing the two of them cuffed and looking utterly dejected, the villagers were immensely shocked.

"Ah Yuan, didn't your dad say you went down south to work? Why are you here?"

Sun Zhiyuan hung his head in silence.

"Hey, still refusing to speak?"

"You know your wife is dead, right? You..."

The villager paused mid-sentence, his voice turning stuttering and hesitant.

"N—no way! Did you kill your wife?"

At this, Sun Zhiyuan finally lifted his head and shot the villager a vicious glare.

Frightened, the villager instantly shrank back.

"Still not being honest? Where do you think you're looking?"

Zhang Ming kicked Sun Zhiyuan in the leg. Once Ah Zong and Zhao Dongsheng had cut a thin rattan vine to bind him and Ah Shan together, Zhang Ming left Ah Zong to watch them and took Ah Lu to scout the surrounding area.

A brief scouting tour was enough to nearly make him grind his teeth to dust.

"Damn it! I knew someone was growing this stuff in the mountains!" Zhao Dongsheng cursed furiously. "Who knows how many families this filth will tear apart! Heartless scum!"

Still not venting his anger, he rushed over and kicked Sun Zhiyuan and Ah Shan a couple of times. Though held back by Ah Zong, he didn't stop, instead planting his hands on his hips and cursing bitterly: "Damn scumbags and fools! Have you lost your minds over money to be growing this crap?"

Ah Zong softly reminded him, "Brother Zhao, Brother Zhao, don't get too worked up. They'll be doing hard time behind bars anyway."

A curious villager, seeing that Ah Zong had a relatively amiable temper, stepped forward and whispered, "Officer, how many years in prison will this get them?"

Ah Zong shook his head. "Not entirely sure. We'll have to see how much of this stuff is here before we can determine the sentence."

"This stuff... it's those berries you guys were holding today, right? Drugs?"

"Yeah. You folks better not learn from them; you must never plant this stuff. Once we're done here, they're hauled away—chances are they won't even serve prison time before getting a bullet."

The villagers waved their hands in frantic denial. "How could we ever dare?"

A few of the younger ones who had originally been eager to try suddenly lost all such thoughts upon hearing this.

Su Chen followed them on a short tour before returning, coming to a halt beside a small, bubbling hot spring.

He squatted down and scooped up a handful of the water—it was lukewarm.

It was a hot spring.

No wonder they were able to cultivate crops here in the mountains during the dead of winter.

In the distance, the chirping of birds suddenly rang out.

Su Chen stood up suspiciously, narrowing his eyes toward the opposite mountainside. The woods were dense, obscuring everything from view.

Yet the mountain mist, which should have been continuous, abruptly broke off at a certain point on the slope.

Something was wrong!

Su Chen informed Zhao Dongsheng of his observation, and the latter immediately went to find Zhang Ming. Ignoring the need to tally the quantities anymore, they led their men in another frantic dash.

Unfortunately, they were too late.

When they reached the opposite mountainside, they found only utter devastation—not a single shadow remained.

Unwilling to accept defeat, Zhang Ming searched the upper and lower slopes once more, gritting his teeth in frustration. "Darn it, they're definitely drug traffickers! Blast it, we let them get away!"

Suddenly, his eyes lit up as he looked at Zhao Dongsheng. "Old Zhao, do you think the Master can figure out where these drug traffickers are?"

Zhao Dongsheng retorted irritably, "The Master is brilliant, but even a clever housewife can't cook a meal without rice. Without their birth dates and times, what are you going to calculate?"

Zhang Ming felt a momentary deflation.

Ah Lu reminded him, "Captain Zhang, once we take these guys back and interrogate them to find out who the drug traffickers are, can't we just look up their birth dates then?"

Zhang Ming: "!!!"

"Right, right, right! Let's hurry up and drag these suspects back for interrogation!"