Necessary Evil

Mo Qiong's Flight Suit had been taken off, folded neatly, placed in a woven bag, and left in an uninhabited patch of wilderness in the mountains.

He wouldn't carry the equipment around with him. He only used it when he needed to travel long distances.

He just had to remember the location and retrieve it when he left.

At two that afternoon, Qin Ya and her family arrived in the county.

After receiving Qin Ya's call, Mo Qiong waited at a plaza. Less than ten minutes later, a black Phaeton arrived to pick him up.

"Brother Mo!" Qin Ya climbed out of the car.

When Mo Qiong saw that there were also two middle-aged men inside, he knew they were Qin Ya's father and her second uncle.

He was just about to greet them when the middle-aged man in the front passenger seat got out, grabbed him, and asked, "Are you Mo Qiong?"

Mo Qiong nodded. The man said gratefully, "Thank you so much. Without you, who knows when we would have found Liang Liang..."

"Liang... Uh, was the child rescued?" Mo Qiong felt that the nickname sounded a little ominous.

Her second uncle shook his head. "Not yet, but we've already found the Special Investigation Team and confirmed that Liang Liang is safe... In fact, we confirmed it long ago!"

At that, her second uncle's face filled with displeasure.

Mo Qiong was completely confused. "What do you mean? What do you mean, you confirmed it long ago?"

At that moment, Qin Ya's father said from inside the car, "Get in first. We'll talk on the way."

Qin Ya pulled Mo Qiong into the car, and the two of them sat in the back.

The car drove straight to the county bureau. After listening for a while on the way, Mo Qiong finally understood what was going on.

Qin Ya's family knew many important people. Through their connections, they had directly located the Special Investigation Team responsible for cases like this.

They had also learned about the team's progress.

The information provided by the human traffickers Mo Qiong had captured had actually already been known to the Special Investigation Team. Only a small portion of it was useful.

The Special Investigation Team was investigating the cases as a whole. Cases from all over the country had been combined into one major case.

They knew even more than some of the minor figures in the trafficking ring.

They had already been watching this Dinosaur, and had completely identified his strongholds and personnel half a year ago.

In theory, they could have acted six months earlier, captured Dinosaur's group, and rescued all the children under his control in the surrounding area.

"If you were already able to act, why didn't you rescue them?" Mo Qiong exclaimed.

"They didn't just fail to rescue them—they didn't even tell us," her second uncle said.

"You've been looking for Liang Liang and reported it to the police. The Special Investigation Team had been watching for so long, so they should have known one of the children was Qin Liang, right?" Mo Qiong said.

Mo Qiong was astonished. If they had investigated everything so thoroughly and knew the children's parents were looking for them, why hadn't they notified the parents?

Her second uncle continued, "If you hadn't told me, I might still be kept in the dark even now. Who knows how long Liang Liang and all those other children would have had to wait to be rescued..."

Hearing this, Mo Qiong sighed.

Qin Ya was even more upset. "The police clearly knew where my little brother was long ago, but they never told Second Uncle, leaving him to search everywhere on his own..."

Mo Qiong hurriedly said, "Qin Ya, you're oversimplifying it."

"Uncles, this can't be because they were covering for anyone. Otherwise, they wouldn't have investigated everything so thoroughly, much less told you about their progress now."

Hearing this, her second uncle turned around and looked at Mo Qiong with admiration.

Mo Qiong froze when he noticed that Qin Ya's father was also watching him through the rearview mirror.

"Then why did they do it?" Qin Ya's father asked.

Mo Qiong said, "They want to catch everyone in one sweep. This isn't just one local gang—they're spread across the country. To arrest them all, the authorities in every region have to act together. They've completely figured out the situation here with Dinosaur, but they may not have finished investigating the other places. Perhaps they felt it wasn't time to close the net yet?"

Qin Ya was stunned for a moment. "So that's how it was..."

Her father said, "You're very calm. You were actually able to consider the problem from the perspective of the overall situation."

Mo Qiong said, "That's a very obvious explanation. The police may seem to be doing nothing, but the fact that they investigated every detail here is already a major accomplishment. It must have taken tremendous effort. If they didn't rescue the children, there was naturally a reason. I think you uncles must have thought of that too."

"Uh... I didn't think that far..." Qin Ya said quietly.

Qin Ya's father sighed. "The reasoning is obvious, but not everyone would think of it. For someone your age to avoid blindly following the crowd and think independently is already very rare."

As he spoke, his eyes filled with amusement as he looked at Mo Qiong.

Mo Qiong rubbed his throat and said nothing. He had figured it out: this family was evaluating him, though he had no idea why...

Qin Ya's father continued, "Xiaoya, we can focus only on our own family members, but the police can't. They have to consider the safety of every child. Precisely because every parent only cares about their own child, once they learn their child can be rescued, they'll pressure the Special Investigation Team from every direction. Some might even search for the child themselves and alert the traffickers. That's why they didn't notify anyone, preferring to let those parents continue searching everywhere."

Qin Ya asked, "Dad, after arresting these people, couldn't they interrogate them about the situation elsewhere? Even if the criminals in other places escaped, couldn't they be wanted? Rescuing the children is more important, isn't it?"

Mo Qiong hesitated, wanting to speak.

Qin Ya's father shook his head. "These people are extremely cunning and vicious. In different regions, it's possible to make small arrests and capture a few traffickers. But if you wipe out one of their important strongholds without exterminating the entire network, the others will certainly destroy the evidence, abandon their bases, and go into hiding."

"Hm?" Qin Ya still seemed not to understand.

Mo Qiong couldn't help saying, "Fleeing into hiding while bringing so many children along would be suicide. At the same time, if the children are rescued, they can identify their captors from among the many suspects..."

Qin Ya's mouth fell open. She finally understood what her father and Mo Qiong were saying.

In fact, in serious child-trafficking cases, the maximum sentence was death. One should never underestimate what criminals would do to stay alive.

"The police have to wipe out this entire group in one swift, thunderous operation. They've been working on it for three years, investigating both openly and in secret. Without all the intelligence, they wouldn't dare close the net recklessly. Acting too soon would only waste three years of planning," Qin Ya's father said.

Mo Qiong asked, "When will you close the net?"

Qin Ya's father smiled. "We have you to thank for that. Although you abused the law by extracting confessions, the personnel and routes you got from those traffickers seemed ordinary when viewed separately. But they gave the Special Investigation Team the final piece of the puzzle."

"The police began making preparations last night. They'll close the net everywhere at the same time. This scourge will be eradicated completely tonight."

Mo Qiong said, "Good."

When they arrived at the county bureau, Team Leader Chen of the Special Investigation Team was there.

Since the operation was being carried out simultaneously in different regions, it didn't matter where the command center was. Wherever he was, that place became the center.

To prevent the only informed parents from affecting the operation, Team Leader Chen had simply moved the command center there.

"Brother Qin Zheng, Brother Qin Zhi, you can stay here tonight. Don't worry. Not a single child will be missing."

Team Leader Chen was very old, but he was brimming with vigor.

Her second uncle, Qin Zhi, nodded. "Thank you."

"You should thank this kid..." Team Leader Chen looked at Mo Qiong. "You're Mo Qiong, right? If you hadn't forced those traffickers to talk for us, who knows how many more days it would have taken to pry the information out of them."

Hearing this, Mo Qiong knew that they probably would have done the same thing themselves.

As Team Leader Chen entered the command room, Mo Qiong suddenly strode after him and stopped at the doorway.

"Hm?" Team Leader Chen turned to look at him.

Mo Qiong said, "How many children have there been over the past six months?"

The sudden, cutting question left Team Leader Chen stunned. Then he said solemnly, "..."

Mo Qiong asked again, "Then what's the probability of complete success tonight?"

Team Leader Chen's gaze sharpened. He answered decisively, "One hundred percent."

Mo Qiong asked no more questions. Team Leader Chen smiled and had someone arrange for them to wait in the room next door.

Now, the members of Qin Ya's family, along with Mo Qiong, were all aware of the situation. It would have been fine if they hadn't come, but since they had, they had to remain at the bureau until the operation ended.

Although Mo Qiong didn't know the police's arrangements, he knew that since they had decided to act, they would surely achieve complete success. Perhaps "one hundred percent" was an exaggeration, but Team Leader Chen and the others would undoubtedly do everything possible.

For this operation, the police had spent three years investigating and half a year planning.

Especially during the final six months, they had uncovered nearly ninety percent of the personnel involved, yet they had still endured the wait and refrained from acting.

Perhaps acting early could have saved most of the children, but some would certainly have died, while some of the criminals would have vanished without a trace.

Conversely, waiting until they had absolute certainty before closing the net could save every child's life, but some children would inevitably suffer greatly in the meantime.

The police chose the latter because they wanted to eradicate the entire network, with saving lives as their bottom line.

But for the children who clearly shouldn't have had to bear any of this, they were forced to pay the price under the police's indifference in order to save children who would have died under the other choice.

"Is being kind to everyone, in itself, evil toward a small portion of them..."

"Necessary evil?"

Mo Qiong was filled with emotion, unsure whether this was what reality was truly like.

The only ones to blame were the human traffickers.

His eyes shifted slightly as he recalled the wall covered in photographs that he had seen when he took the opportunity to look into the command room during the interrogation.

P.S. Sorry.