Chapter 60
Based on the volume of the sound, Ren Yi and Qi Yunhan judged that the group of poachers was likely some distance away. If they ran over on foot, the poachers would surely be long gone.
“What do we do?” Qi Yunhan asked, pacing anxiously.
Xia Anran gritted her teeth. “Let’s go over first!” They couldn’t just pretend they hadn’t heard anything because they thought they couldn’t catch up.
According to the lion king, Qi Yunhan should have awakened the power of the beasts, but for now, besides being able to understand animals, she hadn’t shown any other changes. Ren Yi had awakened his psychic power for some time and, through training, had already gained a general grasp of it. He could get there at top speed, but that would mean leaving Xia Anran and Qi Yunhan behind. It was dark, and fierce beasts could appear at any moment. He couldn’t rest easy leaving them to catch up on their own.
Just as he was caught in this dilemma, the system, which had been quiet all night, suddenly came back to life.
[Use the Portal, stupid!]
Xia Anran’s eyes lit up. That’s right! How could she have forgotten about the Portal?
She opened the Portal app and tapped on the map. Detailed information about the nature reserve immediately appeared on the screen. “Which direction is it?”
The deer’s cries were still coming in a continuous stream, and even Xia Anran could tell they sounded tragic.
Qi Yunhan was fully focused, listening intently for a moment, and then pointed confidently to a location. “There.” Her gaze was firm, her tone resolute.
“Alright.”
Without a second thought, Xia Anran opened a child portal at the location she had indicated. Soon, the familiar, faintly blue, circular portal appeared before them.
Neither Qi Yunhan nor Ren Yi had ever used a portal before, but in such an emergency, they had no time for curiosity. They followed closely behind Xia Anran and stepped through. After a moment of slight dizziness, the cries of the deer in their ears became much clearer.
In the blink of an eye, they had arrived at the southern edge of the reserve’s forest. Several beams of light were flashing. Xia Anran saw a dozen or so sika deer running frantically. Several were already lying on the ground, letting out desperate cries. A few men were chasing after them. She could even hear a few frustrated curses.
“Damn it! These wild deer can really run!”
“They nearly gored my waist bloody! These beasts really have some strength.”
“Brothers, push a little harder! Let’s get two more, and then we’ll pull out!”
The loud cries of the deer sounded like waves of grief in their ears.
Xia Anran gritted her teeth in anger. “These poachers really deserve to die!”
A crisp, mechanical sound suddenly rang out.
“Not good!” Ren Yi’s face turned grim. “They have guns!”
“You two stay here and don’t move,” he said in a deep voice, then decisively shot out from the forest.
A small fawn stumbled in their direction and ran right into Qi Yunhan’s arms.
“Are you alright? Did you get hurt?” Xia Anran asked anxiously.
Qi Yunhan hugged the whimpering little deer and shook her head. “I’m fine. It’s still small; its antlers haven’t grown in yet.” The little deer lifted its two front hooves and pawed at her chest, crying nonstop, its round eyes filled with panic and shining with tears.
“I know, it’s alright. Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,” she comforted it, then turned to Xia Anran. “It says this group of people came from the south. They’ve been here once before to poach deer and antelope.”
So they’re repeat offenders!
—Bang!
A gunshot!
The two of them whipped their heads around and saw Ren Yi’s figure weaving among the poachers. He was agile, and with his psychic power activated, his movements were almost too fast to see.
“Where did this guy come from?” a poacher in a cap with a burly build said, startled.
“One of the reserve’s people? Boss, what do we do if we’ve been discovered?”
The man gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on his gun. “I don’t care who he is. Send him to the next world.”
Ren Yi pulled up the collar of his storm jacket and, with a flash, quickly closed the distance. The poachers were startled and hastily raised their guns, pulling the triggers. After a chaotic round of firing, they looked again and saw that Ren Yi had already appeared before them, completely unscathed.
“What the hell is this thing?!”
Ren Yi snorted coldly. While still some distance away, he had already gathered his power and, using his psychic abilities, had sent several of them flying. One of them reacted quickly, scrambled up from the ground, and picked up his gun. But with a flash, Ren Yi was in front of him. He snatched the gun, and with a single punch to the face, knocked the man to the ground.
Only after seeing the poachers lying on the ground, groaning, did Xia Anran and Qi Yunhan rush out. Ren Yi had collected all their guns, unloaded the magazines, and thrown them into a bag. “The kind of gun poachers commonly use. It’s been circulating on the border.”
These men looked like standard poachers. They were either burly or lean and mean, carrying a pile of knives, guns, ropes, and woven bags. A bag on the side was stained with blood. Xia Anran couldn’t bear to open it and look.
Qi Yunhan now had a natural affinity for animals. The moment they came out, the sika deer no longer fled but gathered around her. The little fawn that had run into the forest for help also ran to a doe’s side. The doe lowered her head and licked it, the mother and child pressing close together.
Qi Yunhan took out the medical kit she was carrying and began to bandage and treat the deer that had already been brutally attacked by the poachers and were lying on the ground, wailing. Xia Anran also went over to help. Seeing the bloody, mangled wounds made her even angrier. These poachers were truly lawless, daring to sneak into a national-level nature reserve like this. During the day, Professor Qi had just explained to her that many of the animals here couldn’t handle being startled. Poaching of this magnitude affected not just the sika deer.
Ren Yi had already used the ropes from the poachers’ bags to tie them up and had tossed them aside. He began to interrogate them, asking where they were from, who their accomplices were, and where their base was.
The group was very tight-lipped, insisting they were just a five-man team that usually operated on the border and had just come to this famous nature reserve to try their luck.
Ren Yi didn’t believe a word of it. From their equipment alone, it was clear they weren’t some small group. They were using high-end black market goods. Equipment of this level wasn’t something you could buy just with money. To avoid being implicated if they were caught, the sellers would only sell these things to groups of a certain size.
“Don’t be afraid. It’s alright, it’s alright,” Qi Yunhan said, comforting the terrified deer. She turned to look at Ren Yi, who was still interrogating the poachers. “Senior Colonel, no need to ask. These deer have already told me everything.”
…
The production team, who had stayed behind at the house, hadn’t slept either. They were all waiting in the living room. As long as the three of them weren’t back, the rest of them couldn’t sleep.
“They’re back!” Little Yan, who had been staring out the door, suddenly stood up. She had just seen a flickering light in the distance.
Sure enough, the figures of the three of them soon became clear. Everyone rushed out to greet them.
“How was it? Are you alright?”
“Why were you gone for so long? You’re not hurt, are you?”
After a barrage of questions, they finally noticed the men behind them, tied together with a rope and being dragged by Ren Yi.
Director Huang was shocked. “What’s going on?”
“Poachers,” Xia Anran said calmly. “We just happened to run into them.”
After entering the house, she contacted the staff of the nature reserve and explained the situation. Soon, people came overnight to take the poachers away and expressed their gratitude to them. Qi Yunhan told them the information the deer had given her. The other party immediately said that they might need their help in the future to destroy the poachers’ den. And this matter had to be handled immediately. It was best to wipe out their den before dawn. Once the sun was up and the poachers didn’t return, if they heard any news, they would be gone in a flash. This was the border. Once they crossed it, it would be difficult to handle.
In no time, dozens of nature reserve police officers arrived on the scene. Qi Yunhan and Ren Yi went with them on the mission. Xia Anran had wanted to go too, but considering that if there were any accidents, she could provide them with help at any time from here, she stayed behind.
“If there’s any danger, notify me of your location immediately. I’ll open the portal there,” she instructed before they left.
“Don’t worry,” Ren Yi nodded.
…
The situation had been chaotic just now, and she hadn’t had a chance. The moment they left, she immediately contacted the leaders in the capital. Even though it was very late, the top leader immediately began to arrange for manpower upon receiving her message, contacting the local government and military to dispatch support.
After finishing with that, she also told him about what she had learned from her meeting with the lion king tonight. The amount of information in this was a bit too much.
The top leader put on his coat and sat at his desk, silent for a moment. “I understand, Little Xia. I’ll have news for you at dawn.”
After hanging up, Xia Anran finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Too much had happened tonight, and the impact on her was huge. The moment she closed her eyes, she saw the deer’s bloody, mangled antlers. She was so angry and anxious she couldn’t sleep at all.
She stayed up in the living room until two or three in the morning before she managed to doze off for a bit. Everyone else was also keeping watch in the living room. At around four or five, when the sky was just beginning to lighten, Ren Yi and the others returned.
Seeing that they were back safely, everyone crowded around, asking another round of anxious questions.
“It’s alright. It’s all been resolved,” Qi Yunhan said with a smile. “The animals guided us along the way. We caught all of them very smoothly. Not a single one got away.”
During the pursuit, some wolves had even shot out from the forest and had helped them chase the poachers all the way before quietly leaving. Qi Yunhan’s influence on the animals was growing stronger and stronger. She even felt that she could now understand what they wanted to say just by looking into their eyes.
Ren Yi seemed a little tired. There was a mix of relief and melancholy in his eyes, clearly different from Qi Yunhan’s simple joy.
“What’s wrong?” Xia Anran asked.
He sat down on the sofa and took a sip of water, his hand tightening slightly around the cup. “Do you remember the first time we met?”
“Of course I remember. At the Academy of Sciences, treating Jiang Tianyang,” she answered without a second thought. Remembering his miserable state at that time, she still felt a little scared. These drug traffickers and poachers were all insane.
“I remember you guys had just finished a major anti-drug case then. You were very frustrated at that time, saying that a few had escaped across the border…”
At this point, she paused and looked at him in astonishment. “It can’t be such a coincidence, can it? Were some of the people you didn’t catch back then there?”
Ren Yi nodded and leaned his head back on the sofa. “After they reached the border, they joined a local poaching gang. I never thought that, by a strange twist of fate, I would be able to finish what I started back then.”
He was happy, but also a little sad. Seeing them reminded him of the tragic state of his brothers at that time.
Xia Anran also felt a little wistful. Before she could say anything more, her phone suddenly rang. She opened it and saw it was a call from the top leader.
“Little Xia, I’ll have to trouble you to open the portal’s access. We’ll be there shortly.”