Living Arrow

Mo Qiong had practically single-handedly brought Zhao Mingjun to justice, so it was only natural for him to be hated.

An ordinary timid person might panic after being remembered with such hatred by a criminal, but Mo Qiong's heart remained completely unmoved.

Because he knew very well that Zhao Mingjun was certain to receive the death penalty.

He had specifically looked into it. The several accomplices who had committed crimes with Zhao Mingjun before had all received the death penalty, and had already been executed.

Zhao Mingjun's crimes were even more serious. There was no chance he would ever get out of prison.

The matter was ultimately resolved perfectly. After learning what had happened, the police praised Mo Qiong lavishly.

"Good work! You've studied martial arts, right?" an older police officer asked.

"I never studied properly. Actually, as long as you aren't afraid of him, he's nothing special." Mo Qiong smiled.

The older officer nodded. "Exactly. Criminals are people too. If you dare to resist, ordinary citizens can subdue criminals as well."

The police were naturally delighted. Zhao Mingjun was implicated in numerous major cases, and as someone on an A-level wanted list, capturing him in their jurisdiction was a major achievement. Even if they had done nothing besides show up in uniform, it was still a great merit.

As for Mo Qiong's situation, they assumed that after Zhao Mingjun threatened him with a knife, Mo Qiong had bravely fought back and ultimately subdued him.

There was still one question, however: how had Mo Qiong ended up here? This was especially puzzling after they learned that he studied at Yan Da.

"You're not from Weifang, are you? What brought you to this place?" a police officer asked.

Mo Qiong smiled. "Well... I came to meet an online friend."

"An online friend?" The police officer was stunned.

The next moment, Man with severed finger suddenly understood. "Oh! Oh! You mean Xiao Xin?"

Mo Qiong smiled. "That's right. I met Xiao Xin online. She said she lived here, but then she stopped logging in for a long time. I figured I'd come look for her. I didn't expect the address to be wrong..."

Man with severed finger said in a tone of sudden realization, "I knew it! You came to my place looking for some Xiao Xin. So that's what it was... I thought Xiao Xin was my wife's old nickname..."

"Hm?" Mo Qiong and the police all looked at Man with severed finger.

The woman immediately glared at him. "What nonsense are you talking about?"

Man with severed finger coughed twice and fell silent.

What he did not know was that his reaction had been exactly what Mo Qiong expected.

Mo Qiong had made it clear from the beginning that he was looking for Xiao Xin, and that he had come here because he thought this was Xiao Xin's home.

The couple had been puzzled by this, but Mo Qiong had never explained.

He had simply been waiting for this moment to reveal the truth and let them embellish the story themselves.

Sure enough, once the confusion in his heart was suddenly cleared up, Man with severed finger naturally took up the thread and accepted this explanation.

Once everything lined up, the police had no reason to doubt Mo Qiong's story.

Not to mention that the couple had helped create an atmosphere of compliance; even if Man with severed finger had not chimed in, the police would not have bothered verifying whether Mo Qiong was telling the truth.

Why would they waste their time? He wasn't a criminal, and the police had no business caring about who his online friends were.

The cases connected to Zhao Mingjun were all quite clear, without any suspicious points.

As a fugitive, Zhao Mingjun would soon be sent to the city where he had committed crimes in the south. The police in Weifang would not even get to see the case files, so there was no way they would truly care about the case.

Only the older police officer casually remarked, "Meeting online friends isn't very reliable. Look, even the address turned out to be fake."

Mo Qiong smiled. "That's right. Some people look perfectly normal, but who knows what kind of person they really are?"

Mo Qiong followed the police to the station, completed a brief registration, and left.

The reward would take some time to be approved. It would then be sent directly to the Denzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau, and Mo Qiong could collect the money there in a couple of days.

"Fifty thousand yuan is basically in hand, but I'd better not keep dealing with wanted criminals."

"Judging from the situation, since I'm mainly based in Denzhou, the rewards for all the wanted criminals I capture across the country will eventually be sent to the Denzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau, and I'll have to go there to collect them."

"If I do this too often, I'll end up visiting the police station and the bank to withdraw money as though it were my job. Won't the police go crazy?"

Mo Qiong smiled. It wasn't worth it for such a small amount of money.

He found a restaurant, ate while taking out his phone.

Because GPS units could be deliberately damaged after reaching their destinations, Mo Qiong had to check the map at regular intervals and record the positions of every GPS unit. That way, if a GPS reached its target and then lost contact, it would not be mistaken for having been destroyed halfway there.

"They've all stopped..."

Mo Qiong had launched a total of thirty-two GPS units. Apart from the one that had disappeared, seventeen of the remaining thirty-one had also lost contact.

In the end, only fourteen GPS units had hit their targets and were still "alive."

After excluding the four that had already been dealt with, ten remained, all of them being used to locate children.

Two of them belonged to wealthy families, and were targets from whom he had decided to collect payment.

"I'll deal with the ones I didn't intend to charge for first."

Mo Qiong switched to another SIM card and began calling the parents one by one using the information backed up on his phone.

After being busy for more than half an hour, he had conveyed the location clues of four children to their parents.

"Hmm... These remaining six are all in Hefei..."

The map showed six GPS locations converging in Hefei. One was in the urban district, while the other five were clustered together in a county.

Comparing the identification numbers revealed that the five in the county all corresponded to children, including two from wealthy families whose parents Mo Qiong had decided to charge.

The one in the urban district, meanwhile, was the GPS targeting Qin Liang's Longevity Lock.

With a turn of his thoughts, Mo Qiong immediately understood what this meant.

"These five children haven't been sold yet... Otherwise, they wouldn't be gathered together like this."

"Five children together... Could this be the base of a child-trafficking gang?"

In theory, he could return to Denzhou that afternoon.

However, Mo Qiong decisively bought a plane ticket to Anhui Province, planning to reach Hefei overnight.

This trip was not only to collect payment in person, but also to investigate Qin Liang's whereabouts.

Hitting the Longevity Lock did not necessarily mean he had found Qin Liang. He could not simply claim that Qin Liang was at some specific location in Hefei.

He had to confirm it personally.

Since he was going to Hefei anyway, he might as well look for the five children and collect payment from the parents of two of them.

If there really was a child-trafficking gang's base there, Qin Liang might have been taken by them as well.

The Longevity Lock was in the urban district. Perhaps they had sold it without leaving it around Qin Liang's neck.

If that was the case, then to find out where Qin Liang had gone, he would have to track down this child-trafficking gang.

"Hmm... Tracking Zhao Mingjun exposed a problem. If the target is fleeing, or if the location hit isn't the target's stable residence, then my tracking efficiency is very low when the target is moving quickly."

This time, Mo Qiong was certain that Zhao Mingjun would not dare take a train. But the children at a trafficking gang's base came from all over the country, so this was clearly some kind of transit station.

An organization like this would certainly have a wide-ranging transportation network.

Their mobility would definitely be much greater than Zhao Mingjun's. If he needed to track them in a similar situation, could he rely on the Tracking Talisman and then pedal after them on a bicycle?

"I need an 'arrow' that can quickly strike a moving target. The arrow also must be able to hit the target repeatedly without arousing suspicion—or, rather, be able to conceal the GPS."

"Hmm... An animal?"

When it came to an arrow that would not arouse suspicion, Mo Qiong's first thought was an animal colliding with someone. Ordinary people would not suspect that the animal was up to something.

Who would suspect a pig of having an ulterior motive after being hit by one?

Or take a wasp. After being stung by a wasp, would anyone look "astonished" and secretly wonder, Why did this wasp suddenly fly into me? Could someone have sent it? There must be something fishy going on. There must be some enormous secret behind this.

Mo Qiong smiled. Unless it was too outrageous, no one would develop that kind of suspicion toward an animal.

A flying sponge ball, a flying stone, or a flying piece of wood might work once, but the second time would attract attention.

That was because when an inanimate object struck a target, people would certainly conclude that it had been done by a person.

That was also why he had not used GPS positioning on Zhao Mingjun twice.

Living creatures were different. If it was an animal that could naturally fly, it could hit whoever he wanted.

People would blame the animal. Who would normally imagine that it had been shot out?

Take a wasp, for example. Once it hit its target, its path would end. As long as it did not die, it could simply fly away.

Being hit by a wasp once would be written off as a coincidence. Twice would feel like bad luck. After being hit three times, one might wonder whether one smelled especially fragrant...

Unless there was something about the location that aroused suspicion, such as the animal smashing through a window or forcing down a door.

But that would not be a question of whether it was alive or not. No matter what was used, it would still be strange.

That was also why Mo Qiong only planned to earn his first pot of gold by finding people, rather than making a long-term career of it.

Absolute Hit was better suited to searching for treasure than people. It should be used on the open sea, not on land packed with buildings.

Of course, especially bizarre incidents involving objects passing through walls were extremely unlikely. After all, even kidnapped children could not possibly be confined in airtight rooms.

Still, using it to find people was ultimately unsuitable and carried safety risks.

"Once I deal with this matter, I should have enough money..."

"Before then, I'll make do by pairing it with a Living Arrow."

The greatest advantage of a Living Arrow was that no one with nothing better to do would inspect an animal to see whether it had a GPS, while animals could fly openly through the air.

Therefore, the Living Arrow had to be larger than a GPS, which ruled out insects first.

Next, it had to be an animal that most people would not boil and eat. That ruled out many Birds as well.

"Then what's left are flying mammals... Bats?"

At that thought, Mo Qiong felt somewhat speechless.

Bats relied on ultrasonic waves to perceive their surroundings. If they were disturbed, crashing into buildings or people would be perfectly normal.

From that perspective, they were very suitable as Living Arrows.

"I'll buy a few and give them a try. That'll count as adding another type of arrow. They should come in handy."

P.S.: There are many ways to use the Living Arrow series. This is only an introduction.