Locating, Digging, and an Anonymous Call
The black SUV drove smoothly through the night, seemingly following the same route it had taken. Inside the car, K sat silently in the passenger seat, letting the opaque eye mask block out all visual information.
The Skinny and the man with High Cheekbones sat on either side of him. The car was filled with a sense of relief after completing a difficult task, as well as a lingering fear of what the boss had just said. No one spoke, only the low hum of the engine and the soft sound of tires rolling over the uneven road.
K could feel the vehicle frequently turning and changing speed, clearly deliberately trying to confuse his sense of direction. He didn't try to remember; he just sat quietly, as if he had truly become a blindfolded, passive passenger.
His breathing was steady, his heartbeat was normal, and he showed no signs of trying to spy or resist. This absolute obedience gradually relaxed the two people responsible for "escorting" him.
After driving for about forty minutes, the vehicle slowly came to a stop.
"Dude, we're here." The Skinny's voice rang out, carrying the ease of having completed a mission. He reached out and helped K remove his blindfold.
The sudden light made K squint. Before him was the familiar scene of the abandoned dock, and his black SUV was parked not far away, looking like a lurking beast in the hazy moonlight. The sea breeze carried a salty smell, dispelling the lingering scent of disinfectant in his nostrils.
The Skinny pulled K's phone from his pocket, handed it back to him, and forced a smile, "Phone, returned as is. SIM card... we'll get you a new one later, the call charges are on us, you definitely won't lose out."
K took the phone, didn't even look at it, and put it directly into his pocket. He didn't say anything, just nodded, opened the car door, and got out.
The Skinny and the man with High Cheekbones didn't leave immediately. Instead, they sat in the car and watched K walk towards their vehicle. It was a silent surveillance, ensuring that he did indeed leave and didn't do anything unusual.
K walked steadily, opened the car door, sat in the driver's seat, fastened his seatbelt, started the engine, and drove off. His movements were smooth and natural, without the slightest hesitation or lingering. He turned the car around and slowly drove away from the dock, merging into the relatively open suburban roads outside.
In the rearview mirror, the dilapidated van remained parked in the same spot, like a spider hidden in the shadows. Only when K's taillights disappeared at the end of the road did it quietly start up and drive off in the opposite direction, disappearing back into the deeper darkness.
K drove his vehicle back the way he came. His face was expressionless, his eyes focused intently on the road ahead, as if he were just an ordinary person returning home after completing an unpleasant but necessary transaction.
The scenery outside the car window gradually transitioned from the desolate dock area to the suburbs with scattered buildings, and then extended towards the brighter urban area. The light and shadow of the streetlights flickered inside the car.
After driving for about ten minutes, K's gaze swept across the roadside. This was the edge of a suburban area, with sparse green belts along the roadside, and beyond that, vast stretches of undeveloped wasteland, with scattered factory outlines in the distance. There were very few vehicles on the road.
His gaze settled on a spot—a solitary, gnarled old locust tree stood at the edge of the roadside green belt, casting a deep shadow under the dim streetlights. Beside the tree was an abandoned, rusty bus stop sign.
K signaled, slowly pulled the car over to the side of the road, and turned off the engine.
He pushed open the car door, and the night wind immediately rushed in, carrying the scent of earth and wild grass. He walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. Inside, some odds and ends were neatly arranged: several bottles of mineral water, a first-aid kit, a few changes of clothes, a folding entrenching tool, and... a sturdy short-handled shovel with a few drops of dried mud on its handle.
K picked up the shovel. The shovel felt heavy in his hand, and the wooden handle was worn smooth from long use. He carried the shovel, walked around the back of the car, and headed straight for the old locust tree.
Under the tree, weeds grew thickly, and the soil was soft. K stood on the side of the tree trunk facing away from the streetlight, where the shadow was heaviest. He looked up at the canopy, then looked down and measured the grass with his toes, as if trying to pinpoint a precise location.
Then, he bent down, gripped the wooden handle of the shovel with both hands, and forcefully plunged the sharp shovel head into the soil!
"Pfft--"
The soil was easily broken open. K's movements were steady and powerful, shovel after shovel, digging out the soil with grass roots and dampness, piling it up beside him. He dug with great focus, like someone working in their own garden, except there was no leisure in his eyes, only a cold, purposeful focus.
The shovel made a rhythmic "shush-shush" sound as it scraped against the soil and gravel, which was particularly clear in the quiet night. Occasionally, a vehicle would drive by on the road in the distance, its headlights flashing by without stopping, and no one noticed the strange figure digging a hole under the roadside tree.
The pit was dug deeper and deeper. When it reached a depth of about half a meter, the tip of the shovel suddenly hit some kind of hard, non-soil object, making a soft "clang" sound.
K stopped what he was doing. He put down the shovel, squatted down, and used his hands to clear away the loose soil at the bottom of the pit. The moonlight and the dim light from the distant streetlights barely illuminated the bottom of the pit, where a corner of a metal box, about the size of a shoebox and heavily corroded, was visible.
K brushed away the dirt from the box, revealing its full appearance. It was an old-fashioned tin biscuit box, well-sealed, covered in reddish-brown rust, looking as if it had been abandoned there for many years. One corner of the box appeared to have been resealed by welding.
K didn't try to open it. He grabbed the edges of the box with both hands and pulled it out of the dirt. The box was heavy, and it was clear that it contained something.
He placed the metal box on the grass beside him, then picked up a shovel and began to backfill the excavated soil. He filled it carefully, even tamping the soil down with his feet, and then tried to restore the excavated turf on top. After doing all this, he carried the metal box and shovel back to his car.
K threw the shovel back into the trunk, took the metal box, and got into the driver's seat.
The interior lights were turned on, casting a dim, yellowish glow on the passenger seat. K placed the metal box on his lap, pulled a multi-tool from his waist, and flicked out a small but sturdy chisel tip. He located the almost invisible weld seam on the edge of the metal box and carefully pried it open with the chisel tip.
With a soft "click," the weld was pried open. K put down the utility knife and, with both hands, forcefully lifted the slightly deformed metal box lid.
Inside the box, tightly wrapped in shock-absorbing foam, was a plain-looking, even somewhat outdated, black smartphone. The phone was powered on, and there were no carrier signal indicators on the screen, but in the center of the screen, a green, constantly flashing cursor was hovering over a coordinate point on an electronic map. Next to the cursor, a line of small latitude and longitude numbers was jumping in sync.
The phone screen glowed with a faint blue light, and the flashing red dot resembled a beating heart or an ever-opening eye, fixed intently on a certain location on the map.
K stared at the red dot, at the precise coordinates displayed on the screen, and a slow, uncontrollable smile crept onto his lips.
It was a cold, mocking smile, tinged with unsatisfied smugness.
It was a success.
Everything went as he expected.
When he first saw the unconscious Wei Guangyuan and Qian Zhiming at the dock, and when he confirmed that the two were the "goods" designated by Lin Feng (his "boss"), a more secretive and thorough plan took shape in his mind.
Simply sending these two enemies to organ traffickers to die in agony is certainly a punishment. But that's not enough. That Madman named Xie Yunchuan, that self-proclaimed "great" organ factory, that den of inhumane activities hidden in the shadows... is itself a much larger and more deserving target for destruction.
So, before handing Wei Guangyuan and Qian Zhiming over to those two "fellow Daoists," K took advantage of an extremely brief, unnoticed moment to insert a specially made, miniature tracking device deep into Wei Guangyuan's rectum in the most concealed and undetectable way—with the aid of a tool.
The locator is extremely small and made of a special material, so it will not be detected by conventional metal detectors (it will only be treated as a possible metal foreign object in the human body, such as a surgical nail, and its signal characteristics have been specially processed). It also has a built-in battery and anti-interference module that can work for a long time.
He had long anticipated that the enemy's hideout would have signal jamming measures. But for K, a top hacker and expert in electronic warfare, this was not an insurmountable problem. The locator was not an ordinary GPS or Big Dipper module; it used a low-frequency frequency hopping and short pulse burst transmission method to transmit signals, making it extremely difficult to be completely blocked by conventional jamming equipment.
More importantly, K had pre-installed a weak signal repeater amplifier disguised as vehicle circuit noise on the van that was transporting Wei Guangyuan.
This amplifier has very low power, but it is sufficient to capture and amplify the weak signal emitted by the locator at close range, mix it into the vehicle's normal electromagnetic radiation, and transmit it over a short distance to the receiving terminal that K had pre-buried under this old locust tree—that is, this mobile phone.
This mobile phone has been specially modified to receive encrypted signals on specific frequency bands and convert them into location information for display. It is sealed in a shockproof, moisture-proof, and electromagnetic interference-proof iron box and buried in a pre-selected location that is neither too close nor too far from the dock, and is relatively hidden yet easily accessible.
The phone remains in low-power monitoring mode until it receives a signal relayed by a repeater, at which point it is activated to continuously record and display the target location.
The entire plan was meticulously crafted, exploiting blind spots in human thinking (who would carefully examine the rectum of a "cargo" about to be dissected?), technological gaps, and the other party's blind confidence in their own security measures.
Now, the fruit is ripe.
The coordinates flashing red dot clearly pointed to a place on the far outskirts of Jiangcheng —a place originally marked on the map as an "abandoned chemical plant" or "land awaiting planning." Who could have imagined that beneath those dilapidated factory buildings and walls lay a hell on earth, equipped with advanced technology, strictly managed, and rife with bloody transactions?
Xie Yunchuan may be a clever Madman, a Butcher with taste, but in the face of real skill, calculation, and patience, his theory of a "great cause" appears so ridiculous and fragile.
K stared at the flickering red dot on the screen, as if he could already see the wailing sirens, the SWAT team breaking down the door, and Xie Yunchuan's gentle mask shattering in shock. He seemed to hear the clatter of surgical instruments hitting the ground and see the ugly sight of those "fellow Daoists" trembling under the gun barrels.
A chilling yet exhilarating feeling, like a subtle electric current, swept across K's usually calm and undisturbed heart.
He slowly, in a clear and calm tone, uttered two words to the screen:
"Idiot."
This word is both a final response to Xie Yunchuan's "great cause" speech and a mockery of the complete control that precedes the dust settling on the entire incident.
After admiring the coordinates, destined for destruction, for a few seconds, K's smile faded. He turned off the phone screen inside the metal box, resealed it, and placed it on the passenger seat.
Then he picked up his ordinary cell phone—the one the Skinny and the others had returned. He turned it on, checked it, and found nothing wrong with the phone except that the SIM card had been removed. He inserted a spare, anonymous SIM card.
After doing all this, K took a deep breath and adjusted his breathing and emotions. When he spoke again, all the sarcasm and smugness in his voice had disappeared, replaced by the tense, urgent, and slightly fearful tone that an ordinary citizen would have when discovering a shocking crime.
He opened the dial pad and pressed three numbers:
1-1-0
After a brief pause, the call was connected. A well-trained, calm, and capable female voice came from the receiver:
"Hello, this is the 110 emergency call center."
K gripped his phone tightly, and in a tone that deliberately suppressed both excitement and fear, spoke clearly and quickly:
"Hello, I need to report a crime. I... I found a place, an underground factory... They're... they're trafficking human organs! I saw it! It's horrifying! The location is..."
He provided the precise coordinates he had seen on the phone inside the metal box, and added some nearby landmarks as references.
"They have a lot of people, they're armed, and they look very professional! You absolutely must send people there quickly! Send as many as possible! They're terrifying!"
His voice even carried a slight tremor, perfectly conveying the terror of an ordinary person who had accidentally discovered a shocking secret.
The dispatcher on the other end of the phone clearly realized the seriousness of the situation, and his tone immediately became more serious and focused. He began to ask for more details: How did K discover it? What exactly did he see? Were there any guards? Approximately how big is the factory?
Based on his "observations" (of course, a embellished and simplified version), K answered each question in detail, providing enough information to warrant serious attention from the police while cleverly portraying himself as a "passerby" who had inadvertently stumbled upon a secret, was terrified, and only wanted to escape and seek protection.
The call lasted approximately three minutes.
Finally, the dispatcher solemnly stated, "Thank you for providing such important information! We have recorded it and will immediately report it to our superiors. Please keep your phone accessible and be mindful of your safety. An officer may contact you later to verify the information..."
K gave a vague reply a few times, then hung up the phone.
He took out the anonymous phone card, folded it in half, and threw it out the car window. Then, he restarted the vehicle and smoothly drove away from the roadside.
Outside the car window, the night remained deep. But K knew that it wouldn't be long before the seed he had just planted would ignite a storm at that hidden coordinate point, a storm powerful enough to shake the entire Jiangcheng of Jiangcheng.
Like most people in the city, he would be "surprised" the next morning to learn from the news how the police had cracked a shocking, massive illegal human organ trafficking ring.
The black SUV accelerated and disappeared on the road leading to the city, leaving only the old locust tree behind, swaying gently in the night breeze, as if no one had ever come, and no secrets had ever been buried or taken away.