Chapter 616 — Childhood Playmate

"Hello? Xixing Mountain Village — who are you looking for?" Widow Wang's voice came over the line, her Mandarin thick with the accents of the countryside.

"Auntie Wang, this is Little Yi from Old Man Lin's family. Could you call Ergoudan for me?" Wei Zhao said.

"Oh? Little Yi from Old Man Lin's house! Hold on, I'll go fetch him right now!" Widow Wang answered, and set the phone down.

Xixing Mountain Village was small; practically everyone knew everyone else, and since everybody bought their goods from Widow Wang's shop, she was happy to let them take their calls there.

Right beside Widow Wang's grocery was the village office, which had a loudspeaker. In the village, finding someone basically meant shouting — once the loudspeaker sounded, it could wake a person from the deepest sleep.

"Ergoudan, it's your Auntie Wang — come take a call!" After bellowing into the loudspeaker, Widow Wang went back into the shop.

Before long, a great brute of a man, strong as an ox, came running into the grocery. This was Ergoudan, standing one meter eighty-five tall, planted in the shop doorway like a wall. "Auntie Wang, a call for me?"

Ergoudan had run all the way from his family's fields, a distance of about a kilometer, yet his face was not flushed, his heart not racing, and he was not even breathing hard. Anyone could see at a glance that he was a man of uncommon physique.

"It's Little Yi calling. Hurry up and take it — it's long distance on his end, and that's expensive!" Widow Wang said, pointing at the phone on the table.

"Brother Wei Zhao?" At the sound of Wei Zhao's name, Ergoudan rubbed his hands excitedly and picked up the phone. "This is Ergoudan!"

"Heh... Ergoudan." Wei Zhao laughed. "Busy back home these days?"

"Not too bad. We sowed the seed a while back, and now we're weeding and fertilizing, just waiting on the autumn harvest. I reckon we'll have a good crop this year!" Ergoudan said.

"Good, good. Got a girlfriend yet?" Wei Zhao asked with a smile.

"Who'd want the likes of me?" Ergoudan chuckled guilelessly. "My family's so poor, and I'm no looker either. I'll be a bachelor all my life!"

"Well, if you've got nothing on your hands these days, come by my house. My old man has my address. Bring me a few things, and while you're at it, see a bit of the world," Wei Zhao said, laughing.

"What? Really? That's wonderful!" Hearing that Wei Zhao wanted him to go see the big city, Ergoudan was instantly overjoyed. "Then I'll set off as soon as I've finished the farm work in the next few days... But Brother Wei Zhao, our harvest isn't in yet, so I've got no travel money!"

Ergoudan and Wei Zhao had grown up playing together, so he felt not the slightest embarrassment. No money was no money — nothing to be ashamed of.

"Heh heh, my old man will sort out your travel money. Whatever you need, just tell me before you set off," Wei Zhao said with a smile. "No need to stand on ceremony with me."

"Of course! You're my Brother Wei Zhao — of course I won't stand on ceremony!" Ergoudan had always been single-minded, and had been since childhood. Apart from his father, he listened only to Wei Zhao.

So in Ergoudan's eyes, Wei Zhao was much the same as his own father, and it was only natural that Wei Zhao should give him money to spend.

"Heh..." Wei Zhao laughed. He could not remember how many years it had been since he had last played with Ergoudan. The days of their childhood, catching fish and hunting prawns together, were long gone, never to return.

Even after he hung up, Wei Zhao was still lost in memory... If he had to say which times in his life had been the happiest, there were three.

The second had been in the training camp, with his few teammates. He had been the squad leader, leading the other six through trial after trial, cutting down every obstacle in their path, until at last they came out on top! Those years had been hard and exhausting, but also the fullest he had ever known.

It had looked tense, but it had never carried the true danger of a real mission — only the trust and friendship between teammates! Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Little Seven — where are you now? Are you doing well? Are you busy running missions all over the world too?

Wei Zhao shook his head. Since leaving the training camp, his teammates had scattered to the four winds, and he had never seen them again.

Of course, apart from those three happy periods, Wei Zhao had also known many bitter ones. One of them was not exactly bitter — at the very least it counted as bittersweet, and it too had been a rare stretch of time... It was during those days that he came to know Yang Huaijun, and a few comrades-in-arms like Pangolin, and Xiao Ning...

And it was precisely because of Xiao Ning that Wei Zhao had forcibly erased that period from his memory, and it was also the reason he had chosen to flee the first time he saw Yang Huaijun.

Even now, Wei Zhao was not clear why he had rejected Xiao Ning so decisively. Was it truly because of the vast power looming behind her, blotting out the sky? Or was it because he could not give her a stable life?

The Wei Zhao of back then had never imagined that one day he would retire — still less that he would retire at such a young age! Wei Zhao did not know what the old man had been thinking, suddenly planting him in Songshan City to carry out a special mission that, once completed, would let him live off it for the rest of his life. It was a one-shot deal, plain and simple.

……………………

Qiu Lingshan leafed through the case files on her desk. The kidney-harvesting ring seemed to have reined itself in considerably of late; ever since their transfer station had been smashed, their people had grown far more cautious. Yet they had by no means stopped — they had simply shifted their targets and locations to the villages and towns on the city's outskirts.

Over the past week, two widowed farmers had been murdered, with identical methods, and the locations ever more erratic! One victim was from Gayazi Village in the east of the city, the other from Shenbu Village in the west — one east, one west, tens of kilometers apart. There was no pattern to it at all!

Even deploying police to lie in wait, it was impossible to blanket the hundreds of villages around the city with officers. Never mind whether there were enough police to go around — even if there were, the entire station could hardly shut down and send everyone to stake out the kidney-harvesting ring, could it?

Qiu Lingshan felt thoroughly useless. Since taking up her post, she had cracked several major cases and won unanimous praise and recognition from the provincial and municipal leaders, but Qiu Lingshan knew well enough in her heart how things really stood. How those cases had been solved — she had not the face to say it aloud.

Even when others praised her, Qiu Lingshan felt herself blush crimson. She was not a person who liked to lie or boast, so it sat badly with her, and yet there was no way to explain.