Shi Dazhuang recalled receiving Meng Yan's call that morning. When he returned the Beauty after breakfast, the Madman he often saw was being dragged out by hotel staff, who seemed to be scolding him for going upstairs to a guest's room. At that time, the Madman's behavior was also different from usual.
" Tiger, I may have predicted that the drug trafficking scheme using mentally ill people was true. It wasn't a coincidence; it was organized and premeditated," Shi Dazhuang said.
Meng Yan also said, "Yes, judging from the Medicine Granny's ability to traffic people, she can control people's minds to a certain extent. Using mentally ill people to traffic drugs makes it difficult to arouse suspicion, and even if she is caught, we can't do anything about it."
"Damn it!" Peng Jiahu cursed, then picked up the phone to give a brief report to the bureau.
"The arrest warrant will be issued soon. We're short-handed, so it's up to you, Meng Yan, to make the arrests in Mangdian," Peng Jiahu said after hanging up the phone.
Meng Yan nodded solemnly and said, "I have dispatched all the police forces I can, including auxiliary police officers and the informants I have planted in various villages over the past two years. They will report to me as soon as they discover the whereabouts of the Medicine Granny and her group."
Peng Jiahu said, "Okay, leave the arrest to me."
Shi Dazhuang said, "We must guard all the mountain roads leading out of the country. I suspect they have connections with overseas drug trafficking groups. This time, the drug traffickers' retaliation against us came too quickly, and they can even make time bombs. This doesn't seem like a small gang. Medicine Granny and her group don't have that kind of power."
Who could it be?
Peng Jiahu fell into deep thought.
Since the Mu Kuo Group was dismantled, no particularly large drug trafficking gangs have emerged in Ruihekou. Moreover, who would have such a deep grudge against Yu Gang that they would risk exposure to kill Shi Dazhuang and Yu Meiren? If they had succeeded, it would have been a sensational case, shaking not only Ruihekou and Baoteng, but the entire Southern Yunnan. The higher authorities would have certainly spared no effort in rectifying and targeting them.
"Could it be Wu Suotun?" Meng Yan said.
"No," Shi Dazhuang said with absolute certainty. "After Mu Kuo was defeated, Yu Gang did go to Mianyue and Vietnam and had contact with Wu Suotun, but he didn't cause Wu Suotun any real damage. Besides, Wu Suotun is, to put it nicely, a man of great talent and ambition; he wouldn't retaliate over such a trivial matter."
" Wu Suotun wouldn't be that stupid, and the gangs that Yu Gang infiltrated have basically all been wiped out—some are dead, some have been captured." Peng Jiahu mentally reviewed the drug trafficking leads from recent years. "Could there still be some survivors?"
Shi Dazhuang suddenly slammed his hand on the table and shouted, " Mu Ka! It must be Mu Ka's back!"
The mad beggar watched the little girl return to her great-father's side, chuckled, and then squeezed out of the crowd.
He looked up at the sky; the thick smoke from the fire had turned the sky Black Crow, except for the blue sky in the distance.
He walked towards the distant blue sky, a simple, honest smile on his face, as if he had just found some money.
A clattering sound kept coming from behind him. The mad beggar turned around in confusion, but saw nothing. He touched his dirty head and continued walking. But the clattering sound kept following him, like Ghost.
He got a little scared, so he ran as fast as he could, but the more he ran, the louder the clattering sound became.
The mad beggar turned from a small intersection into an unnamed alley next to Tobacco and Hemp Street. His voice seemed to disappear, and he leaned against the wall, panting heavily.
Suddenly a van pulled up and stopped in front of him. The door opened, two people got out, and without saying a word, shoved the Madman into the van.
The Madman was terrified and screamed for help to get out of the van, but he was held down and couldn't move. The door closed, and the van sped away, kicking up a scattering of fallen leaves.
After leaving Mangdian and entering the mountains, the car drove for about two hours, winding its way through the mountains, before stopping in front of a dilapidated wooden building.
Surrounded by mountains, the dense trees obscure the path leading into the mountains. The wooden house is nestled between two large trees that can barely be embraced, and its exterior walls are covered with vines. If you don't look closely, it's not easy to tell that this is a habitable house.
Sparse sunlight shone through the gaps in the leaves, casting patches of light on the open ground in front of the wooden building.
A beggar dressed in tattered clothes lay on the ground, his body bathed in dappled sunlight; it was unclear whether he was seeking shade or basking in the Sun.
When the beggar saw the van approaching, he jumped up and ran towards it, yelling loudly.
Three men wearing headscarves threw the Madman out of the van, and the two mad beggars bumped into each other and started fighting.
The small door of the wooden building opened, and the Medicine Granny slowly walked out, followed by Han Bo.
The three men respectfully greeted, " Granny Medicine!"
Upon hearing this, the two Madman stopped simultaneously and knelt down beside him, trembling.
The Medicine Granny held her hands in a delicate, orchid-like gesture, trying her best to maintain a peaceful expression, but the Buddha-like compassion she once possessed was gone. Sunlight shone on her face, revealing the deep wrinkles that covered it.
She looked up, squinted as if trying to avoid the glare of the sunlight, and moved two steps to the side, hiding her face in the shadows.
"I never expected your soul to be able to break free of control. Looks like you'll need to be put back in a pig cage for a while."
Before the Medicine Granny could finish speaking, the two mad beggars began kowtowing on the ground, babbling incoherently.
The Medicine Granny said to the one who Sun earlier, "I wasn't talking about you; you did well this time."
The Madman kowtowed again, then jumped up happily and made faces at the still-kneeling mad beggar.
" Han Bo, lock him in the pig cage first," the Medicine Granny said.
"Alright!" Han Bo agreed and was about to go take the mad beggar away when he suddenly remembered something and asked, " Medicine Granny, since we failed to kill that guy surnamed Shi and that girl this time, will Mu Ka blame us?"
The Medicine Granny said with a stern face, "We've done everything we could. If it weren't for my junior sister's sake, I wouldn't have listened to him. If he really has the guts, he should do it himself!" She added, "But it's a real pity this time, we didn't manage to fry that 'chicken-hair' to death!"
"Is that Qingmu really that good?" Han Bo asked.
Thinking of Qingmu, the Medicine Granny's wrinkled facial muscles twitched slightly, and she said, "Don't ask what you shouldn't ask."
Han Bo was choked back by the Medicine Granny, so he vented his anger on the Madman next to him, kicked him, and then ordered his men to carry him into the small wooden building. The first floor of the wooden building was very damp and empty, except for a wooden staircase leading to the second floor and a back door.
The Madman screamed and resisted fiercely, seemingly terrified of where Han Bo was taking him. It took Han Bo and three other men to barely hold him back and open the back door to get out.
The old woman who worked Medicine Granny stood there for a while then went inside and went up the stairs to the second floor.
Only the original Madman remained. Seeing that no one was around, the Madman lay down again to bask in the sparse Sun filtering through the leaves.
As he lay there, he vaguely heard a clattering sound.
The Madman jumped up and saw the messy-haired man he had met at the hotel, leaning lazily against the van, smoking.