Shen Xin wasn’t called awake. He was frozen awake.

He fumbled for his phone and saw it was already past three in the morning.

In the front seat, Ding Yuwei was curled into a ball, staring across the way like a stone statue.

"Why didn’t you wake me?"

’It’s past three. We should’ve switched shifts by now.’

Ding Yuwei turned her head. "You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you."

"You must be cold."

Their breath fogged up in the car when they spoke.

Shen Xin took off his down jacket and handed it to Ding Yuwei.

"You don’t have to."

Ding Yuwei quickly refused.

Shen Xin said, "Just put it on for now. I’m going to get out and run a couple of laps to wake myself up and get warm. Then I’ll take over for you."

With that, Shen Xin got out of the car, stretched his limbs, and ran two laps around the outskirts of the village, not returning until his body was warm.

"How about this: you drive the car a little farther away, turn it on, and sleep with the heater running. I’ll keep watch here."

Shen Xin had come up with a plan.

"No, I’ll just lie down in the back," Ding Yuwei said, shaking her head.

Shen Xin said, "It’s more comfortable to sleep with the heater on. Anyway, we just have to make sure they don’t move, so it doesn’t matter. Besides, I can wait for Da Mei down here. She’s still not back either."

The collar had run out of battery long ago.

Only after Shen Xin’s insistence did Ding Yuwei finally drive the car away.

Shen Xin never thought he would spend his second New Year’s Eve as a police officer like this.

But it was good, too.

’If they could rescue three innocent children, it would be a good start to the new year.’

The night passed uneventfully.

The next morning, just as dawn was breaking, Chen Chao and Old Qian arrived.

They had brought breakfast.

There had been no movement all night, and Da Mei had also returned.

Business registration records showed that the scrapyard owner’s name was Li Yihao.

This matched his bank transfer account information.

"Take a look." Chen Chao handed over his phone.

The household registration information showed that Li Yihao was from Anping, Yuxi Province. He was married and had a son.

Shen Xin looked at the household registration photos and shook his head. "Captain Chen, the women I saw weren’t his wife or his mother."

The photos of the wife and mother in the registration files were not the two women he had seen.

Chen Chao nodded slightly. That made things even more suspicious.

"Let’s wait. I suspect they’ll be heading out today."

Chen Chao told the two of them to finish eating and get some more rest while he and Old Qian took over the watch.

A little past seven, the woman opened the door and even set off some firecrackers.

They also saw Li Yihao.

Then, a little after nine in the morning, a van drove out of the scrapyard.

The woman got out to lock the gate, which meant the scrapyard was probably empty.

The van’s windows were completely tinted, making it impossible to see inside.

"Follow them."

Chen Chao’s voice came over the radio, and Shen Xin started the car to follow.

Surprisingly, Li Yihao didn’t drive toward the bustling city center. Instead, he took the airport road to the national highway and headed southeast.

"Why are they going to Pingyu?"

Shen Xin found it odd.

’They’ve already driven all the way to the neighboring Pingyu City.’

Ding Yuwei couldn’t figure it out either.

The van drove on, eventually arriving at a landmark in Pingyu: Pingyu Center.

The van stopped at the entrance of an underground parking garage near the center. The old woman got out, leaning on a cane, a tattered satchel on her back, dragging a child with her.

Ding Yuwei gasped.

The two of them hadn’t taken their eyes off the scrapyard yesterday, so for a child to suddenly appear, it was obvious they’d been hidden inside the whole time.

"Damn it!"

Shen Xin cursed under his breath.

The child was wearing a filthy padded jacket. He was short, but his head was disproportionately large. Based on his height alone, he looked to be about five years old, maybe a meter tall.

The old woman pulled the van door shut, and the vehicle set off again.

"Shen Xin, you two keep an eye on things here. We’ll continue to follow."

Chen Chao followed in the car behind them.

The old woman gripped the child’s hand tightly and stood waiting at the entrance to the parking garage. Whenever a car approached and slowed down, she would pull the child forward to beg.

"Why isn’t the child making any noise?"

Ding Yuwei muttered, her brows furrowed. As soon as she said it, she sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes widening in shock as she looked at Shen Xin.

Shen Xin nodded slightly.

Shen Xin had already considered this yesterday. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Li Yihao’s group of three had hidden the children in the scrapyard, but for so long, the nearby residents had somehow never noticed.

There was only one explanation: the children hadn’t shown their faces and hadn’t made a sound.

’A child that young is bound to cry at some point.’

’For there to be no noise, they must be mute!’

’Or rather, they had been made mute.’

The old woman was experienced, specifically targeting luxury cars. On such a cold day, dressed in rags with a stooped back and a child of only a few years in tow, she looked pitiful enough that many people stopped their cars to give her money.

Some who weren’t short on cash even gave her a hundred directly.

Shen Xin watched for half an hour, and her income had already surpassed two hundred.

Just then, a security guard came over to shoo her away.

But seeing her pitiful state, he didn’t give her a hard time. He just pointed toward Pingyu Center in the distance and told her to go over there instead of stopping cars here, as it was dangerous.

Her appearance was pitiful enough to win people’s sympathy.

At that moment, Chen Chao called.

His tone was grave. He said the van had made two more stops.

The woman had stopped at Guanxia Old Street with a boy of about seven or eight who had a crippled foot. He sat on one of those flat carts used for begging, and she found a crowded area to pose as his mother and beg.

Finally, Li Yihao himself went to the area outside Zhuoshan Temple, a famous tourist spot in Pingyu.

He was with a little girl, only four or five years old, whose feet were deformed. He set up a sign, posing as a pitiful man who had traveled from out of town to seek medical treatment for his disabled daughter.

"Damn it, now I get why they came to Pingyu,"

Chen Chao cursed over the phone.

Society was developing quickly, and many people were now aware that these were professional beggars.

Especially those with children, who might be victims of the horrific practice of being kidnapped and maimed for begging.

When encountering such situations, the best course of action was, of course, to call the police. If you couldn’t be sure, you should at least harden your heart and not give any money.

Giving them money only provided them with income, encouraging them to continue their depraved activities with even more fervor.

And under normal circumstances, begging wasn’t illegal.

Often, the police couldn’t confirm if the parties were actually related.

Many children were brought out to beg by their own parents.

Without being able to confirm that a child had been abducted, the police couldn’t just arrest people.

But if there was any suspicion, the best option was still to call the police.

The clever thing about Li Yihao’s operation was that he lived in Nanjiang but came to Pingyu to beg.

Crossing city lines.

If someone in Pingyu noticed something was wrong and called the police, the group might have already returned to Nanjiang, where the police couldn’t find them.

And since they didn’t operate in Nanjiang, the Nanjiang police wouldn’t have clear evidence and couldn’t easily make a cross-city arrest without local cooperation.

Moreover, Shen Xin strongly suspected they didn’t just operate in Pingyu, but likely in other cities around Nanjiang as well.

They used hit-and-run tactics, moving from place to place to avoid being targeted by the police.

Since they had a car, even a trip to Ningshan wouldn’t be too far.

"Captain Chen, let’s move in."

Shen Xin said in a low voice.

’They aren’t his real mother and wife. This is obviously a gang.’

Chen Chao said, "Wait for my signal. I’ll contact the authorities in Pingyu. I’m familiar with Captain Liang from their City Bureau."

Over half an hour later, someone arrived to meet Shen Xin.

It was an officer from the Pingyu City Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, a man in his thirties with a tan, named Wang Cheng.

Upon meeting, he suddenly asked, "Aren’t you that cop who makes short videos? You guys have three dogs, one named Dou Dou and one named Tiger Stripes, right?"

"You know about that?"

Shen Xin was surprised.

Wang Cheng nodded eagerly. "Of course! I watch your videos all the time. Our chief even mentioned that we should see if we can learn from you guys and start our own account."

"And that online bounty you guys posted—that was huge. We all heard about it."

When he learned that this gang had been found by Tiger Stripes, he was amazed all over again. Then, without wasting any more words, he gave the signal to make the arrest.

Shen Xin nodded. That was exactly what he wanted to do.

The three of them immediately headed for Pingyu Center.

There was a large plaza there. The old woman was leading the child by the hand, approaching any well-dressed person to beg. The child, led by her, just stared with wide eyes, not saying a word.

"Thank you, you’re all such kind people."

A couple gave her ten yuan, and the old woman muttered her blessings. Then she turned her head and saw Shen Xin standing before her, his face ashen with fury.

She had seen Shen Xin and Ding Yuwei before. She froze for a moment, her expression changing drastically, and she turned to leave.

"Where do you think you’re going?"

Shen Xin grabbed her by the arm.

Ding Yuwei immediately took the child from her grasp.

The old woman tried to shake her arm free but couldn’t. She immediately shrieked at the top of her lungs, "Help! Someone’s kidnapping my child! Someone, please, call the police!"

Passersby all turned to look.

Wang Cheng immediately pulled out his badge and explained to the crowd that he was a police officer.

Shen Xin wasted no time, taking the handcuffs from Ding Yuwei and slapping them directly onto the old woman.

Ding Yuwei knelt down and gently asked the child if he could hear her.

The child nodded slightly, pointed at Ding Yuwei, then at Shen Xin, and smiled.

Then he gestured with his hands.

[I know you]

Seeing his gesture, even though Ding Yuwei didn’t know what it meant, she felt a lump form in her throat and was on the verge of tears.