Animal Detective

Chapter 577: Chapter 479: End of the Road

Granted, this wasn’t a battlefield with bullets flying everywhere, but it was a standoff between cops and criminals, and the strongest land animal on the planet had just gone on a rampage.

Staging a Romeo and Juliet-esque reunion at a time like this felt a little inappropriate.

But Shen Xin didn’t care.

She had been missing for a full eighteen hours.

So he hugged her!

However, Shen Xin’s sudden, full-throttle approach was the first thing to startle Ding Yuwei.

Her body tensed up instantly; she never expected Shen Xin to pull something like this.

’They’d been good friends for so long. She had been in danger, and he was just relieved she was finally safe. A hug out of sheer excitement... that seemed understandable.’

’But he seemed to be holding her a little too tight, and for a little too long.’

’It just felt...’

A woman’s intuition is a sensitive thing. Feeling the strength in Shen Xin’s arms, Ding Yuwei’s heart began to pound traitorously.

’She sensed something... different in this embrace.’

And whatever it was, it made Ding Yuwei forget her surroundings. Her mind went blank, and her arms, which had been held rigidly at her sides from the sudden hug, slowly softened.

Then, she found herself hugging Shen Xin back.

It was a good thing they were surrounded by seasoned veterans like Tang Youkun and Jiang Wengang, men who had seen it all. If it had been a group of youngsters, they definitely would have shuddered at the sour stink of young love.

Jiang Wengang actually broke into a fond, knowing smile, shooting Tang Youkun a look. ’See? I told you so.’

’That kid, Shen Xin, has feelings for the girl.’

’Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been hopping around like an anxious rabbit the moment she was taken.’

A piercing trumpet from the elephant rang out.

It was Nan Ji. Having failed to find her target, she was now charging back.

Elephants are incredibly vengeful. When it comes to holding a grudge, they’re definitely Number 1 in the animal kingdom.

Nan Ji trotted over and barreled headfirst into the stairwell.

With her sense of smell, she knew exactly where people were hiding.

It wasn’t that the stairwell couldn’t accommodate her, nor were the stairs too steep to climb. The only problem was that she’d underestimated her own weight.

He Jinglin had weighed her before.

He’d said Nan Ji was one of the larger female Asian elephants, weighing a hefty 3.5 tons.

All that weight on four feet created a small contact area and immense pressure.

Combined with the kinetic energy from her furious, lunging movements, she hadn’t even made it to the second floor before the staircase, which was only meant for two-legged beasts, collapsed.

With a tremendous RUMBLE, dust filled the air.

Shen Xin instinctively poked his head out to look, thinking someone upstairs had thrown a grenade.

Fu He and the others watched, dumbfounded. The elephant’s destructive power was far beyond their imagination.

Nan Ji, who had fallen along with the staircase, crashed down on her backside. With her thick hide, she was completely unharmed. She struggled back to her feet and stared at the suspended remnants of the stairs, her belly full of rage with no outlet.

She coiled her trunk around the iron handrail and simply tore it away.

The railing, which had been fixed from the first to the second floor, was twisted like a pretzel and brutally ripped down.

At the landing, a drug trafficker had mustered the courage to approach, intending to fire back.

But one look at her house-wrecking abilities, and he decisively abandoned the idea.

Whether he could even hit her was one thing; even if he did, he doubted he’d survive the aftermath.

Furious, she rammed the wall a couple of times. When it didn’t budge, Nan Ji coiled her trunk, picked up a millstone-sized piece of staircase debris, backed out of the stairwell, and hurled it straight up to the second floor.

With a BOOM, the impact was like a cannonball strike. The projectile ricocheted, grazing her body as it fell back down.

It only managed to cover her in dust.

But she wasn’t finished. Now completely wild, Nan Ji turned and charged back into the warehouse, zeroing in on the unlucky bastard who’d been trampled flat and stomping on him a few more times.

Fu He and his men could only look at each other in dismay.

Reports came through the comms that the encirclement was complete.

The problem was, the situation was so chaotic they didn’t dare move in, afraid that Nan Ji, in her bloodlust, would turn on them.

"Shen Xin, can you let go of me now?" Ding Yuwei whispered.

Her cheeks had long since turned crimson and hot.

’There are so many people here.’

Shen Xin glanced around, then said decisively, "No. I’m never letting go again."

This cheesy line made Ding Yuwei’s cheeks burn even hotter, and she wriggled free from his grasp in exasperation.

But inside, she felt a sweetness like honey spreading through her heart.

But the movement tugged at the wound on her hand, making Ding Yuwei suck in a sharp breath from the pain.

Using the ashtray shard had been a Pyrrhic victory; the wound on her right hand was bone-deep and drenched in blood.

Only then did Shen Xin notice the injury on Ding Yuwei’s hand. He was on the verge of shouting for a doctor and quickly pulled her back toward their lines.

They had a first-aid kit.

’As for the situation here, he couldn’t be bothered. The hostage was safe, and the place was surrounded. Did that Fan Liping guy really think he was Sun Wukong and could defy the heavens?’

Fan Liping heard Ding Yuwei’s shouts and knew she had jumped from the building and escaped.

His bargaining chip was gone.

He leaned weakly against the wall.

He’d been shot in the arm and abdomen, and blood was steadily flowing out.

A loyal underling frantically pressed his hands to the abdominal wound.

But most of his other men just looked lost and confused.

"I’ll fight them to the death!" someone shouted, raising his gun and standing up to open fire.

But the moment he stood up, he was thrown backward as if struck by lightning.

His face exploded into a bloody mess.

Atop a pile of lumber in front of the building, smoke still curled from the muzzle of a CS/LR4 high-precision sniper rifle, nicknamed the "Type 26," held by a SWAT officer.

That single shot sent a chill down the spines of the seven remaining drug traffickers on the second floor.

"Boss, hang in there! I’ll blow the back wall, and we’ll escape through there," the man pressing on the wound said urgently.

He got up to leave.

Fan Liping grabbed him and shook his head.

’They’re already at our doorstep. The place is completely surrounded. There’s no way we can escape now.’

Now they didn’t even have the hostage anymore.

Fan Liping knew very well that he had reached the end of the line.

With a soft sigh, Fan Liping gritted his teeth and said, "Just surrender."

The men exchanged glances, remaining silent.

The underling pressing the wound shook his head. "Boss, with the shit we’ve done, do you think surrendering will make any difference?"

Fan Liping was left speechless by his words.

He continued, "Boss, you saved my life. If I’m going to die, I’ll die before you do."

He crouched low and scrambled into a nearby room to get a grenade.

Fan Liping couldn’t stop him. He just said to the remaining men, "Listen to me. Surrender."

The six men looked at each other. One of them was the first to speak. "Boss... I’m sorry."

After saying that, he immediately shouted to the people outside, "Don’t shoot! We surrender!"

Outside the window, Captain Fu heard him and immediately shouted back, "Throw down your weapons, then come out with your hands up!"

The drug traffickers turned to look at the destroyed staircase and all shuddered.

’Jumping down is one thing, but could you guys get the elephant out of the way first?’

Before they could move, the man who had gone for the grenades rushed out and fired a shot.

The six men flinched in fear.

He was holding a bag in his hand and said viciously, "Whoever dares to surrender, I’ll kill them first."

Just then, another gunshot rang out.

His body stiffened, and he looked down in disbelief.

The six men whipped their heads around.

It was Fan Liping, holding a gun.

"Brother, you go on ahead. I’ll join you in a bit," Fan Liping said with a bitter smile.

A flash of acceptance crossed the bag-carrying man’s eyes. He collapsed to the floor, his body twitching.

"You all can go."

Fan Liping waved his hand.

The six men snapped back to reality and quickly threw their guns out the window. But looking at the destroyed staircase, they were still terrified.

’Jumping down would be easy enough, but what about the elephant?’

Just as they were thinking this, Nan Ji, after calling for her calf and getting no response, charged out again, fuming.

Her trunk coiled, grabbed a motorcycle parked nearby, and hurled it directly at the second floor.

This time her aim was true. The motorcycle smashed through the glass of the second-floor balcony, shattering the window frame to pieces.

Seeing this display, how could the six men possibly dare to go down? They shouted to the people below, "We’ll surrender, but you have to get the elephant away first!"

"Otherwise, we’ll die if we go down anyway!"

The corner of Captain Fu’s eye twitched unnaturally. ’I’d love to get the elephant out of here,’ he thought, ’but the problem is, I don’t dare.’

He turned and gestured for someone to go find Shen Xin.

Shen Xin was outside the courtyard, next to the drone pilot, carefully watching a SWAT officer treat the wound on Ding Yuwei’s right hand.

Seeing Ding Yuwei’s brow furrow in pain, his own heart clenched.

"Yuwei, I’ve figured it out. I like you," Shen Xin said suddenly.

"Ah!"

Ding Yuwei flinched instinctively, grimacing from the pain again, but her face showed more shock and panic.

This was moving way too fast; she just wanted off this ride.

"Don’t... just don’t," Ding Yuwei said, mortified. ’Can’t you say this stuff later when we’re alone? Do you have to say it right now?’

Shen Xin’s stubborn streak kicked in again. "What’s there not to say? If people know, they’ll just wish us well, right?"

Shen Xin turned to look at the two people beside him.

The two exchanged a glance and nodded awkwardly.

Chen Lei, who was standing behind them, even poked his head in and said, "Congratulations."

Ding Yuwei was instantly so mortified she wanted to find a hole to crawl into.

Fortunately, Jiang Wengang’s arrival relieved her embarrassment.

Jiang Wengang said, "Shen Xin, you’d better get over there. Your elephant is out of control."

’Let her be out of control,’ Shen Xin thought. As for Fan Liping and his crew, the fact that he hadn’t personally rushed in and beaten them to death was letting them off easy.

’So what if Nan Ji was teaching them a lesson in his place?’

"Just go," Ding Yuwei said, giving Shen Xin an exasperated push.

Only then did Shen Xin run over.

When he arrived, Nan Ji was still running wild, grabbing anything and everything handy and frantically hurling it at the second floor.

In this state, no one dared to get close, not even Shen Xin.

Even with his high Favorability score.

Shen Xin peered into the warehouse and could faintly make out the small elephant lying on the ground.

No wonder Nan Ji was going berserk.

Shen Xin had Captain Fu shout to them, asking what they had done to the baby elephant and whether they had killed it.

A reply came immediately from the second floor: "No! We swear to God, the white elephant was just tranquilized!"

Shen Xin breathed a small sigh of relief.

As long as it wasn’t dead, the situation was salvageable.

Otherwise, Nan Ji would likely stay here indefinitely.

Elephants might look bulky, but their stamina is astonishing. A bull elephant fight, for example, can go on for hours at a time.

And they’re stubborn.

He Jinglin had told Shen Xin a story before about a herd of elephants that migrated north. They had gone to extraordinary lengths, tranquilizing and airlifting them, to finally get them back south.

And what happened? The moment the herd woke up, they headed right back north along the exact same route, without the slightest deviation.

Whatever they set their minds to, they absolutely have to accomplish.

Therefore, it was entirely possible that Nan Ji would stand guard over this small building until every last person on the second floor was dead.

"Captain Fu, let’s tranquilize her."

Tranquilizing her was the most reliable method, and as it happened, Chen Lei and his team had brought tranquilizer guns.

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