PCJ – Chapter 367 The Cunning Cattle Thief

The people of Zaonan Village were very wary of strangers. As soon as they saw Zhang Jiaohua and his group, several villagers immediately gathered around. It was only after seeing Xu Jinlin that they relaxed.

“Director Xu, you must help us find our oxen! The double harvest season is about to start. Without these oxen, our village’s hundreds of acres of rice fields can’t be cultivated,” said an elderly man stepping forward.

“Uncle, you must trust the government. Not only is the county taking this seriously, but the city and the province are also deeply concerned about the case of stolen oxen in Maotouqiao Township. The police from our Gezhuping Town station have been stationed at Maotouqiao since the incident. Rest assured, we will do our best to solve the case and try to recover all of your oxen. We still need to visit the site where the oxen were stolen,” Xu Jinlin replied, though in truth, he wasn’t confident about retrieving the stolen oxen. He was not as experienced as Luo Changjun and Zhu Kaixun, who had encountered the cunning mountain leopards before.

“Alright, I’ll take you there,” the old man hurriedly said as he and a few fellow villagers led Zhang Jiaohua’s group to the home of a farmer who had lost an ox.

Zaonan Village was very similar to Meizi’ao, a typical small mountain village with scattered houses at the foot of the hills. Due to the strong odor from the cattle pens, they were built at a certain distance from the houses.

“This is the cattle pen of Ding Lao Si’s family. Their ox was stolen three nights ago. His family is extremely poor, and the only valuable thing they owned was this water buffalo. Then the damned cattle thieves stole it. Five oxen were stolen from our village in one night. One household with children who stayed up late and left the lights on was the only one whose ox wasn’t stolen,” the old man explained, leading them to a cattle pen made of mud bricks.

The wooden latch on the cattle pen still lay on the ground, and the pen itself was empty. A strong smell of ox manure wafted out from a distance.

The mountain leopard circled around the cattle pen for a while before returning to Zhang Jiaohua’s side.

“Uncle, for now, please don’t tell anyone in the village about our visit. The fact that the cattle thieves were able to steal oxen from your village so skillfully suggests that someone may have guided them. It’s possible that someone is watching us right now,” Luo Changjun, who had remained silent up until then, spoke up.

“Yes, yes! There must be someone leading them. If we find out who it is, we’ll dig out their conscience and feed it to the dogs!” the old man said angrily.

“Woof woof!” The mountain leopard barked in protest.

The old man stared blankly at the dog, confused about why it suddenly barked.

Zhang Jiaohua and Luo Changjun exchanged smiles, while Zhu Kaixun found the situation odd.

The old man led Zhang Jiaohua’s group to several other cattle pens in the village where oxen had been stolen.

After the villagers left, Luo Changjun asked, “Jiaohua, do you think we can find the missing oxen?”

“Hard to say. Let’s first head to Banshan Village and meet up with my father and the others. Now, it all depends on whether the mountain dogs can search the entire surrounding area. It’s not easy to lead so many oxen away quickly. They surely wouldn’t dare take the main roads, as they would have been seen by passersby. So, they must have traveled through the mountains. But it’s strange that Guo Bobo’s police dogs haven’t found any tracks. Even if the thieves used something to interfere with the dogs’ tracking, it’s impossible to hide all traces,” Zhang Jiaohua said, puzzled. After all, oxen leave clear footprints, given their heavy weight. It didn’t make sense that all the traces of so many oxen could be completely hidden.

“That’s what we thought too. Even if the thieves tried to hinder our tracking efforts, they couldn’t have erased all the traces. But when we expanded the search, we found nothing. It’s as if the thieves disappeared without a trace. Could they have gone underground?” Zhu Kaixun recalled some strange details.

“Disappeared? Director Xu, ask the villagers if there are any caves in the mountains wide enough for oxen to pass through,” Luo Changjun quickly suggested.

Zhu Kaixun hurried off and soon returned. “No, there aren’t. The caves in the mountains are too narrow for oxen to pass through.”

“Let’s go to Banshan Village first,” Luo Changjun said, frowning. After a moment of thought, he decided to set these thoughts aside.

When Zhang Jiaohua’s group arrived at Banshan Village, they found Zhang Youping and the others waiting for them in the mountains along the path to Meizitang.

Dozens of mountain dogs stood in neat rows in the forest, like soldiers awaiting inspection. Zhu Kaixun, an expert in the field, was immediately impressed by the transformation of these dogs compared to the ones he had seen at the police dog training base.

“Now, these are real mountain dogs,” Zhu Kaixun praised.

With a wave of his hand, Zhang Jiaohua sent all the dogs charging out, following the mountain leopard. Somehow, the mountain leopard communicated its findings to the other dogs, and they quickly spread out, searching the forest. Near Zaonan Village, they finally made a discovery—traces left by the stolen oxen.

“The footprints are clear here; they must belong to the stolen oxen. Keep searching, and we’ll definitely find their trail,” Luo Changjun instructed.

Zhu Kaixun, staring at the clear ox tracks, shook his head. “We’ve been here before. How did we miss this?”

“Well, look at how many dogs they have compared to yours. There’s no way to search every corner of such a big mountain without this many dogs. Plus, didn’t your dogs get thrown off the trail? These thieves are really sneaky, choosing the most difficult paths,” Luo Changjun laughed.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect the cattle thieves to escape right under our noses,” Zhu Kaixun said dejectedly.

“They were long gone by the time we realized,” Luo Changjun reassured him, not wanting to dampen his spirits further.

Once they found the trail, the mountain dogs rushed ahead, following it closely.

Zhang Jiaohua and the others quickly followed the trail, tracking it to a mountain stream.

“No wonder we couldn’t find any traces. They were walking along the stream!” Xu Jinlin realized.

“If we follow this path, we’ll reach Shiqi County in Wuxi City. It’s very likely that they took the stolen oxen to Shiqi County,” Zhang Youping, familiar with the area, explained.

“That explains why we couldn’t find any traces within Xintian County, no matter how hard we looked. Now it makes sense,” Xu Jinlin muttered.

“Chase them! No matter where they’ve gone, we’ll pursue them. This cattle theft case has attracted attention at the provincial level, and no one dares to protect these criminals,” Luo Changjun declared, realizing that the thieves were so bold because they were committing crimes across different jurisdictions. The difficulty in communication between regions had allowed them to evade capture, and in some places, officials might even be reluctant to admit that such incidents had occurred in their area.

The water in the stream wasn’t deep, and the bottom was covered with a thick layer of pebbles. Even if footprints were left behind, the flowing water would quickly wash them away.

“Jiaohua, can you determine which direction they went?” Luo Changjun asked.

Zhang Jiaohua stepped into the stream and soon uncovered a series of ox prints buried beneath the pebbles, revealing the direction the cattle had traveled.

“They went that way,” Zhang Jiaohua said confidently after tracing several sets of footprints.

At this point, the cattle thieves likely didn’t expect Zhang Jiaohua to be able to track them in this way, so they had stopped trying to cover their tracks, making it easier for the group to follow.

After walking along the stream for several miles, they reached a lower-lying area where the stream widened, and the valley deepened. Suddenly, the mountain dogs, who had been searching along both banks, made a discovery. The thieves had come ashore here!

Once they left the water, the thieves no longer bothered to hide their tracks, following a path through a sparser section of forest.

“I’m worried that the thieves have already sold the oxen. If that’s the case, it will be very difficult to recover them. But with so many oxen, they shouldn’t have been able to sell them all in such a short time. The case has garnered a lot of attention from the provincial authorities, so I believe the authorities in Shiqi County are also aware of it,” Luo Changjun said with concern.

But Zhang Jiaohua soon brought good news. “It seems the water buffalo are nearby.”

Suddenly, all the mountain dogs entered a heightened state of alert, clearly indicating that they had found the target.

“Where?” Luo Changjun asked excitedly.

“They’re just ahead,” Zhang Jiaohua pointed to a nearby mountain.

“That looks like the Wuxi Reservoir. Could the thieves have hidden the stolen oxen around the reservoir?” Zhang Youping wondered. Although the Wuxi Reservoir was within the jurisdiction of Wuxi City, it irrigated areas in both Shiqi and Xintian Counties. It was a massive reservoir, with a large hydroelectric power station called the Wuxi Hydropower Station located near Shiqi County. During the era of collective farming, the people of Meizi’ao had come here to help build the reservoir. At that time, Zhang Youping had been a boy as small as Zhang Jiaohua, but he still had clear memories of the place.

“Let’s go take a look,” Luo Changjun said.

As soon as they reached the top of the hill, they could see the vast expanse of the reservoir stretching out before them. From the foot of the mountain, they could hear people shouting.

“Why are there so many wild dogs here?”

“Who knows? Too bad we didn’t bring the dog whistle, or we’d have some dog meat for dinner tonight!”

The moment they heard the words “dog whistle,” everyone knew they had found the right place!