Chapter 326: Chapter 325: Despicable Neighbor

In an instant, the air seemed to freeze. The faces of Liang Zhizhou and his three companions turned deathly pale, with the man in the plaid shirt even subconsciously stepping back half a step.

"It’s not mine!" Liang Zhizhou’s voice suddenly rose, trembling, "There are so many drones of this model!"

Chen Su sneered, flipped the drone over to reveal a string of numbers engraved on the bottom: "We’ve already cross-referenced the registration information with the Civil Aviation Authority." He pulled out his phone, displaying the inquiry page of the drone management system, "Want to log into your account now to verify it?"

Xu Ying stepped forward at just the right moment, her voice clear yet resolute: "The Bai He is a first-class protected animal in the nation. According to the ’Wildlife Protection Law,’ intentional killing with serious circumstances can result in a prison sentence of over ten years."

She stared at Liang Zhizhou with eyes like a torch, "Your illegal drone operation caused the Bai He serious injury, that’s at least five years. The most heinous thing is—"

Her voice suddenly turned cold, "After the incident, not only did you not report it, but you dismantled and destroyed the evidence, letting the Bai He bleed and die there! The circumstances are particularly egregious!"

Liang Zhizhou’s legs began to shake uncontrollably.

Hearing the consequences Xu Ying laid out, his mindset collapsed: "I’ve dismantled the drone into parts and scattered them into three different trash cans! How could you possibly find them?!"

Xu Ying’s lips curled into a mysterious smile: "When you do something wrong, nature has its way of dealing with it."

Suddenly, a fluffy Sand Rat Boss leaped onto her shoulder, the little creature clasping its paws and making an exaggerated face at Liang Zhizhou.

[Squeak squeak!] The sand rat swayed its tail proudly, [The trash heap is our home, how could the sand rats not know what you threw in there?]

Under the shocked gazes of the crowd, Chen Su handcuffed Liang Zhizhou.

As the metal "click" sounded, this arrogant rich kid finally collapsed to the ground.

The red and blue lights of the police car pierced the dusk, stretching his shadow long, just like the long prison sentence he was about to face.

*

In the blink of an eye, spring had mostly passed, and the spring vibes deepened, with the jacarandas in front of the Fluffy Animal Hospital already sprouting tender green buds.

This white building on the edge of the desert has now become the warmest haven for wild animals.

Inside the hospital, sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows into the clean corridor.

Nurses hurriedly pushed medical carts past, while on the long bench at the treatment room door, several recuperating small animals lazily basked in the sun— a grassland eagle with broken wings quietly preening its feathers, next to a sand fox with its front paw bandaged.

Xu Ying, dressed in a lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck, had just come out of the operating room. Her forehead was still dotted with fine sweat, but her eyes were bright and content.

This was already the third surgery of the day— in the morning, she attended to a desert cat injured by an animal trap, and at noon, she urgently saved a demoiselle crane that had ingested plastic.

On the corridor’s honor wall, photos of rehabilitated animals were already posted everywhere.

There was a golden eagle soaring back into the blue sky, a desert wolf returned to its pack, and the once heavily injured Bai He— in the photo, it stood gracefully on one leg in the wetland.

Passing by the pharmacy, the Sand Rat Boss was directing a few Little Desert Rats in moving disinfectant cotton balls.

Seeing Xu Ying, it proudly puffed out its small chest, [All today’s supplies have been checked!]

Xu Ying gave it a thumbs up.

Outside the window, the spring breeze carried waves of floral fragrance. Xu Ying took a deep breath; this busy and fulfilling life was exactly what she had longed for.

Although she often faced partings of life and death, every time she saw rehabilitated animals return to nature, all the exhaustion would turn into heartfelt joy.

Another morning.

As the automatic curtains of the large villa slowly opened, Xu Ying was still drowsily holding her coffee cup. At this time of day, what usually greeted her eyes outside the floor-to-ceiling window was a rose garden dewed with morning mist, a shimmering pond, and a Little Ear Fox rolling on the lawn.

"Plop—"

Her coffee cup fell directly onto the carpet.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, the formerly transparent glass now seemed splashed with a layer of earth-toned paint, with fine sand grains pattering against the window.

The courtyard was a total mess— the succulent garden she had carefully cultivated had turned into dunes, the swing set was buried under a two-finger layer of sand, and even the plump Tusun who loved to occupy the fountain was nowhere to be seen.

The fierce wind howled through the air, carrying sand and gravel, making the entire world appear as if it were covered in yellowed frosted glass.

"This... a sandstorm?" Xu Ying incredulously pressed herself against the window.

Having worked at the Desert Rescue Station for over a year, with the surrounding protective forest gradually taking shape, she hadn’t seen such a scene in a long time.

During breakfast, the serious voice of a news anchor emanated from her phone: "Affected by desertification in the Desert North Country, our country’s sandstorm weather this spring is exceptionally severe."

"Meteorological satellites show that sand from the Desert North Country has crossed the Yangtze River Basin, reaching the southeastern coast this morning..."

"Crunch!" The yogurt spoon in Xu Ying’s hand dropped onto the table. She stared at the screen, which displayed a yellow cyclone covering half of Asia, as the news showed scenes of degraded grazing lands due to overgrazing by the neighboring country— on the barren land, goats were munching on the last grass roots.

"Oh my..." She snapped a picture of the dim yellow sky outside the window with her phone, "This isn’t just a sandstorm, it’s like the Desert North Country air-dropped a ’sand bomb’ all over East Asia!"

Meanwhile, the comments under the trending Weibo topic were full of national netizens’ complaints.

[Desert North Country, plant some trees, or just return the land to our Dragon Country if you won’t!]

[Can the Desert North Country reimburse my thirty-five yuan car wash fee?]

[This year’s sand can blow all the way to Guangdong and Guangxi. Usually, it’s a northern specialty, making up for the fact that our Guangdong Province lacks sandstorms.]

[Even Haikou got hit by your sand in the end.]

[Our country planned to donate a batch of saplings to Desert North Country, but they refused.]

Xu Ying had an extremely poor impression of Desert North Country. This neighbor not only held a hostile attitude towards Dragon Country but also had an appalling attitude toward wildlife.

What angered Xu Ying the most was the plight of the Snow Leopards. In Dragon Country, Snow Leopards are key protected animals, and anyone daring to harm them would face severe consequences.

But just last month, a foreign internet celebrity live-streamed a Desert North Country aristocrat’s mansion, where the ceiling was adorned with Snow Leopard pelts! A rough count showed twenty or thirty of them, absolutely insane!

Even more outrageous now, Desert North Country, due to excessive grazing and mining, had turned its grasslands into deserts.

And now, the sandstorm crossed the border to assault Dragon Country, causing destruction from north to south.

Xu Ying looked at the dim, sand-covered world outside the window, fuming with anger: "They mess up their own place and then drag their neighbors down with them, how despicable!"