At the gate of the Coast Guard compound, Hou Guoyu turned around in his raincoat and looked at the little girl standing next to him.
She was probably about six or seven years old, dirty and very thin, looking like she was suffering from chronic malnutrition.
The little girl had a pale face and purple lips. Her clothes were tattered and she was wearing a large piece of plastic sheet to keep out the rain, the kind used to cover cargo boxes outside supermarkets.
Hou Guoyu was stunned for a moment, then lowered his head and asked, "Why are you pulling me?"
“Ahem…!”
The little girl coughed violently twice, stretched out her hand to gesture at the coast guard hat worn by Hou Guoyu, but no sound came out of her mouth.
Hou Guoyu was a little confused, and he bent over and yelled, "Are you a rag picker? What's wrong? Are you hungry?!"
The little girl had bruises on her face and was gesturing with her hands in an anxious manner, trying to communicate with Hou Guoyu using sign language, but the latter couldn't understand her at all.
"Stop gesturing, are you hungry?" Hou Guoyu thought the other party was asking him for food, so he looked up and shouted, "Boss, give her another serving of pancakes and give her a cup of hot drink."
"Okay." The boss nodded.
Seeing that Hou Guoyu's reaction was not right, the little girl immediately grabbed his wrist with both hands and pulled it back hard.
Hou Guoyu was also confused: "What on earth are you going to do? Didn't I buy you food?"
The little girl let go of her hands, stood on tiptoe, pointed at Hou Guoyu's police hat with difficulty, making an "Aba Aba" sound with her mouth.
"Mute!" Hou Guoyu also sensed something was wrong with her, and immediately bent down and asked, "What do you mean by pointing at my hat? Are you saying I'm a police officer?"
The little girl's clear eyes were filled with anxiety. She grabbed Hou Guoyu's wrist with her cold left hand and pulled him away with all her strength.
"What are you doing?"
“…!” The little girl gestured walking with her hands, pointing into the distance with an urgent look in her eyes.
Hou Guoyu probably understood what she meant at this time, frowned and asked: "You said I'm a police officer and you want me to go with you, right?!"
The little girl nodded vigorously.
"Let's go, let me see what you want to do." Hou Guoyu stood up and said to the boss, "You do it first, I'll come back to eat later."
…
Inside the second floor of Kiwanis Club.
Su Tianyu sat on the chair, looked at his elder brother with a serious expression and asked, "Is it necessary to save him?"
"He saved me and Lu Feng." Su Tiannan sighed and replied, "How about this, I'll find a way to get them out first."
"It's raining heavily outside, and many departments have issued notices for joint investigation. It's hard to go out now." Su Tianyu stood up and replied: "Can I meet that Zhang Chao?"
"Okay." Su Tiannan nodded.
"Let's go down and take a look." Su Tianyu walked towards the door.
About ten minutes later, in the backyard warehouse, Su Tianyu saw three bandits hiding in his association.
"Chao, he is my younger brother, Su Tianyu." The eldest brother introduced.
Zhang Chao stood up weakly and stretched out his hand to Su Tianyu: "Hello, I'm sorry to trouble you."
Su Tianyu's feelings at this moment were different from his elder brother's, because he had no emotional basis with the other party, and he really felt that the other party was causing great trouble to the association.
For the sake of his elder brother's face, Su Tianyu symbolically shook hands with the other party, then his face was serious and he asked in a cold voice: "What's going on?"
Zhang Chao hesitated for a moment, but decided to explain what happened to Su Tianyu.
It turned out that when Zhang Chao was working in District 2, he was introduced by a friend to a trade union organization, which was similar in nature to the Tongji Association. They were just poor brothers who came together to keep each other warm and wanted to do something together.
After Zhang Chao joined the union, he was quickly valued by the upper echelons because of his calm personality, and was transformed from a non-staff member into a backbone member.
Some time ago, eight colleagues in Zhang Chao's union disappeared in the war-torn zone while they were doing business. Even the third-in-command of the union disappeared when the search was underway to find them.
Zhang Chao's superior asked around and found out that Lao Pang from Baolong Mining was involved in the matter, so this group of people took the risk of going into the city and carrying out the kidnapping.
After the crowd took Lao Pang out of the district and interrogated him, Lao Pang told them that he had indeed opened a company with others and secretly provided drug testers for a certain pharmaceutical group, so he abducted and sold some unregistered people outside the district, including black, white, and Asian.
However, Lao Pang himself is not a manager. He just invested a little money and established connections with the pharmaceutical group.
Lao Pang's purpose in doing this is very simple. With his level, he certainly does not need to make money from any drug testers, but he can use this matter to make friends with pharmaceutical groups, obtain drug distribution quotas from them, and sell them at high prices in war-torn areas.
However, in this industry chain, Lao Pang himself does not manage specific affairs. Things like human transportation and trafficking are all handled by his partners.
After Zhang Chao and others learned the news, they asked about the situation of the partner. Lao Pang told them that he had been kidnapped for several days and the partner must have known the news, so it was unrealistic to use himself to transfer the other party out.
However, the partners have offices in Sinalo, Casaro, and around Longcheng, which are usually used to transport people, so if Zhang Chao and his team want to investigate, they can start from this aspect.
According to some information provided by Lao Pang, Zhang Chao and his team had set their sights on a cargo ship coming from the southern waters. They had originally planned to attack at the midway supply point, but unexpectedly, a typhoon hit Longcheng and the cargo ship was forced to dock at the port, so they had no choice but to attack here.
Zhang Chao explained the cause and effect of the incident very clearly and his logic was consistent, but no one knew whether he had thought of the lines in advance or was lying on purpose.
After listening to all his narration, Su Tianyu immediately asked: "Where did you shoot last night?!"
"We were originally planning to sneak into the Tianlan Labor Service Company, but before we could get in, a group of people suddenly rushed over from outside and shot at us first." Zhang Chao replied: "We don't know when we were leaked."
"Tianlan Labor Service Company?!" Su Tianyu frowned: "Does this place have anything to do with what you are investigating?"
"Yes! As far as we know, this company helps to abduct people. They use the name of overseas labor to defraud poor people who want to get rich." Zhang Chao replied firmly.
When Su Tianyu heard this, his heart skipped a beat.
…
On the street.
Hou Guoyu stood in the heavy rain, turned his head to look at the empty street, and asked, "Why did you bring me here?!"
The little girl stood in the heavy rain, her eyes a little confused. She kept looking around, but she couldn't remember the way.