Chapter 1 The Alarm

"Ding-ling-ling!"

Inside the Nan City Military Police Bureau's duty room.

Hanhan had fallen asleep quietly, her nostrils twitching slightly.

Yuan Wen picked up the phone, gently covering the mouthpiece, and said, "Hello! Nan City Military Police Bureau!"

"Officer! I want to report a crime... my daughter is missing! She went out with my husband this afternoon to buy things, and on the way, they crashed into something, causing a car accident. My husband was knocked unconscious by the car's airbags. When he woke up, he found my daughter was gone!" A middle-aged woman's voice came from the phone, filled with crying, anxious, and on the verge of collapse: "Our relatives and friends have been searching for several hours, but we haven't even found a trace of her!"

"Don't worry! Please describe the location and what happened... and the characteristics of your daughter when she went missing!" Yuan Wen skillfully picked up a pen and paper to record, listening to the voice from the phone while quickly writing on a piece of paper, nodding repeatedly, "Okay, I understand! I'll send someone to connect with you as soon as possible!"

"Officer, you're the only ones who can help me now... you must find my daughter! Otherwise, I can't go on living!" The middle-aged woman's collapsed crying came from the phone.

Yuan Wen comforted her a few more times. Then, she hung up the phone and reported the case to a male colleague in the duty room next door, asking him to take someone and go check it out immediately.

"Another young girl missing?" The male colleague who was woken up rubbed his eyes, looked at the case record, and muttered.

He was the same dark-faced military policeman who had handled Wang Bing's case.

"Another?" Yuan Wen was taken aback and asked.

"Recently, our team has received many cases of missing girls, more than twenty. They're all around sixteen to twenty-four years old... other teams have similar cases as well," the dark-faced military policeman said.

Although Nan City was chaotic now, and the number of people who went missing every day was not small, most of them were elderly people living alone who had difficulty moving around. They encountered accidents while going out to buy supplies, maybe fell into a roadside pit, or were robbed and then died of sudden illness on the way.

Although they were reported missing at the time, a few days later, someone might find their already stiff corpses by the side of the road.

Although it was cruel, this situation was normal.

But such a high rate of missing young girls was a bit abnormal!

"This situation started ten days ago, but none of these missing girls have been found, not even a corpse... it's not like they encountered an accident on the road, but more like they vanished into thin air," the dark-faced military policeman muttered, "Could it be that a 'River God' has appeared in Nan City, who specializes in eating young and beautiful girls?"

River God.

In Yanhuang legends, a monster lived in the big river, demanding that the villagers living by the river offer him two young and beautiful girls as food every year, otherwise he would cause the river to flood the village and fields.

But this was just a myth.

Even though the world had changed and terrifying mutated beasts had appeared, those mutated beasts were obviously not comparable to the monsters in myths, lacking the monster's picky tastes and high intelligence.

If mutated beasts were to attack humans, it should be indiscriminate.

There wouldn't be situations like the one the woman who reported the crime described, where the husband was unharmed, but the daughter mysteriously disappeared.

This method didn't seem like a beast's doing, but more like a human's!

"River God..." Yuan Wen narrowed her eyes, denied this guess, and shook her head, saying, "In this situation, humans are more terrifying and cruel than beasts and monsters!"

Throughout history, beasts have been said to be ferocious, but the number of people who died in the mouths of beasts is less than one in a billion compared to those who died at the hands of humans!

Humans are the most cruel and terrifying animals.

Especially in this era of collapsing laws, the evil of human nature will be released to the greatest extent!

"You mean... this might be a kidnapping gang targeting young women?" The dark-faced military policeman reacted quickly, frowning, "But none of the families of these missing people have said they received a ransom call from the kidnappers!"

If it was a kidnapping, then it must be for profit, but the other party only kidnapped people and didn't want money, so what were they after?

Yuan Wen's mind was racing. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration went through her mind: "The kidnappers don't ask the victim's families for money, maybe because they will use these young women to get more money from another source!"

The dark-faced military policeman was stunned. A hint of ruthlessness appeared between his eyebrows: "You mean, if this is really a gang doing it, then they might be treating those kidnapped girls as... merchandise?"

People in the military police have strong logical thinking and detail reasoning skills. From the short amount of information, Yuan Wen and the dark-faced military policeman deduced a series of possibilities.

And the more they thought about it, the more they felt that their guess might be true!

Just then, Yuan Wen's phone suddenly made a buzzing notification sound.

"Anlixing intelligent anti-theft and positioning system reminds you that your vehicle is currently located in an unfamiliar area and has left the bound mobile phone IP by more than 10 kilometers! There is a large deviation from your daily route. Please confirm whether the vehicle is in a stolen state! Intelligent butler reminds you that it has forwarded the current location and images of the vehicle!"

Yuan Wen's car recorder is a streaming media system, which will locate the vehicle's driving route and location in real time. If there is a large deviation from the daily located route and location, the intelligent system will issue a reminder, believing that the vehicle is in a stolen state. Then, the car recorder will start shooting and recording the current image, and transmit it to the bound mobile phone in the background!

And this function is forcibly transmitted and cannot be artificially canceled.

At this time, a series of photos and images were transmitted to Yuan Wen's phone!

Yuan Wen didn't pay much attention at first, but then, as she looked at the transmitted photos and images, her eyes slowly widened, and a look of astonishment and shock appeared on her face.

"What's wrong?" The dark-faced military policeman walked over and asked in a deep voice.

Yuan Wen looked at the location marked on the photos, her breathing gradually becoming rapid. She suddenly looked up at the dark-faced military policeman and said urgently, "Quick, quick, quick! Call all the brothers on duty tonight and come with me!"

...

Inside the church.

Li Tianran followed Chen Ping to a warehouse door in the corner of the church. Combat Berserker and Xiao Hei were in the hall, guarding the fanatical believers and Golden Lotus women.

Chen Ping stood at the door, seeming a little hesitant. Li Tianran kicked her, and she tremblingly opened the door.

As soon as the warehouse door opened, a smell filled with decay, excrement, and fishiness hit his face, almost making Li Tianran throw up on the spot.

After a few seconds, he looked intently into the warehouse, his pupils suddenly shrinking to the size of needles!

His body stiffened, as if he had seen something extremely strange.

In the warehouse, which was only about fifty square meters in size, there were some sundries piled up. Besides that, there were nearly a hundred girls with dull eyes and terrified expressions on their faces, huddled together to resist the cold of the night.

They were all around twenty years old and had good looks, but their bodies were covered in stains, and their faces were bruised and scarred. A rusty iron chain was locked on their wrists and ankles, and some of them had even tightened into the flesh, the wounds inflamed, emitting a rotten smell!

When they heard the sound of the door opening and saw the light shining in, they screamed and desperately shrank into the corner, dragging the chains binding them, making a clattering sound!

Their eyes were filled with despair and fear, and some of them cried loudly!

Looking at this scene, Li Tianran suddenly thought of the pigs and sheep trapped in cages, waiting to be slaughtered!

"Who... are they?" Li Tianran's eyebrows twitched wildly.

"This has nothing to do with you... I'll go get your parents' ashes now." Chen Ping lowered her head, seemingly not wanting to answer Li Tianran's question.

Pa!

Li Tianran grabbed Chen Ping's arm, his eyes radiating a terrifying baleful aura. His fingers twisted, and he twisted Chen Ping's arm into a pretzel!

"Answer my question." Li Tianran's pupils were like needles, and he asked, word by word, "Who... are they?"

Chen Ping screamed miserably, fell to her knees, unable to bear it any longer, and yelled, "They are... goods! Our goods!"

Li Tianran seemed to understand something. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and then he said:

"Goods? You treat people as goods? Eat their man-blood steamed buns?"

There was no fluctuation in Li Tianran's voice, like... the calm before the storm.

"Before I met you, I always thought Liang Tianyu was the most disgusting scum, but now, you have broken the lower limit of scum..."

"You don't deserve the strokes that make up the word 'person'."

"You are just a bunch of maggots."