Chapter 104: The Cub Wouldn’t Let Go
“So this is why you brought a golden snub-nosed monkey baby home?”
At the Lin residence in Yue City, Shang Fuyan looked at Lin Jiangye sprawled across the Tianheng–Kaiyang brothers’ backs. Three little ones were sprawled on Lin Jiangye’s chest: the tabby cat Zangao, the raven Bixi, and the newest member—a golden snub-nosed monkey baby named Xingxing.
Lin Jiangye had his eyes closed, resting. This trip to Min Province hadn’t been long—less than three days including travel—but mentally, he was exhausted.
After taking down the two groups of poachers, he’d planned to head down the mountain with everyone else. Who could’ve guessed he’d get intercepted on the way by a baby golden snub-nosed monkey?
Not just intercepted—the little thing straight-up pulled a “hit-and-run scam.”
Before anyone could even process what they were seeing, the baby came rustling over and sprinted straight at Lin Jiangye.
Then, right in front of everyone, it grabbed Lin Jiangye’s clothes and climbed up—climbing and climbing—until it reached his chest. And then it wriggled right into his collar and hid inside.
Lin Jiangye: ???
The forestry bureau staff, reserve staff, and police nearby: ???
Zangao and Bixi, who had finally made it back to Lin Jiangye: ???
Especially Zangao—she was practically about to let out a piercing scream. She’d only been gone for a little while. How on earth did another baby show up next to her human already?
Wait—where did this baby even come from?!
But honestly, it wasn’t just Zangao. Everyone found it unbelievable—Lin Jiangye included.
Staring at the small bump rising and falling under Lin Jiangye’s jacket, you’d think he was trying to smuggle a monkey out… if they hadn’t all just watched the baby make a beeline for his chest.
“Y-you… what did you do?” The director’s hand shook as he pointed.
Lin Jiangye looked even more bewildered. “I didn’t do anything!”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the panda cub, which had been lying on Lin Jiangye’s arm, suddenly burrowed in too. A moment later, everyone heard squeaky whining from inside—followed by frantic wriggling.
The two babies were fighting in there.
Lin Jiangye was completely dumbfounded. But dumbfounded or not, he hurriedly dug both cubs out.
When he unzipped his jacket, everyone saw it clearly: they really were fighting. Mostly, it was the panda cub pinning the monkey baby down and pummeling it while making angry little “y?ng y?ng” noises.
No one else could understand, but Lin Jiangye could.
“No, no, no—this human is mine!”
Well, that was some intense possessiveness.
Lin Jiangye swiped a big hand between them and separated the two. “No fighting!”
“I’ll fight, I’ll fight, I’ll fight!” the panda cub snarled stubbornly.
The monkey baby clung to Lin Jiangye’s finger and started crying pitifully.
Just crying—no words, no protest.
Lin Jiangye stared at it for a while, his brows knitting tighter and tighter. The baby looked only about three months old. Normally, a monkey that young should be with its mother.
So where was the mother?
“Where’s your mom?” Lin Jiangye cupped the baby in his hands and looked it straight in the eyes.
But the little one only kept crying—soft “wuwu-zhizhi” sounds—without saying a single word.
A nightmare. If it wouldn’t talk, he couldn’t ask.
“And then?” Shang Fuyan lay on his side next to Lin Jiangye, looking down at the baby asleep on Lin Jiangye’s chest. “You still couldn’t find its mother?”
Lin Jiangye took a deep breath and gently stroked the baby’s fine, soft fur, then sighed. “I asked several monkey troops in the reserve. This baby belongs to that newly discovered troop. Its mother… was killed by the poachers while protecting it.”
Not only killed—killed right in front of the baby. And maybe… skinned in front of it too.
To the baby, those humans were monsters. And Lin Jiangye—someone who beat the monsters—became the one “good human” it latched onto.
Even Lin Jiangye found one part hard to explain. “I don’t even know how it found me.”
After dealing with the first group, he’d been busy chasing down the second. He hadn’t noticed any baby monkey following him at all.
Shang Fuyan turned his head, met Lin Jiangye’s clear eyes, and smiled faintly. “Maybe it was obsession.”
Its mother’s death terrified it. Lin Jiangye’s brutal takedown of the monsters filled its whole world. Following the faintest trace of scent, the baby finally made it into Lin Jiangye’s warm arms before he left.
With the mother dead and the male monkeys not raising young, Lin Jiangye tried to get another mother monkey to take it in—but the baby clung to him like a burr. You couldn’t peel it off.
Lin Jiangye still remembered the director’s face turning green—like he couldn’t believe a cub from his own reserve would cling to an outsider.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to take the baby back. But the second it left Lin Jiangye, it would erupt into shrill screaming.
“Advisor Lin, what is it saying?”
But when asked, Lin Jiangye’s frown only deepened. He shook his head. “It’s not saying anything. It’s just screaming.”
That wasn’t right. Something was seriously wrong.
He’d rescued the baby. The moment it returned to familiar scents, it calmed down. Lin Jiangye carried it among the troop’s mother monkeys, hoping they could talk to it—yet no matter what they said, the baby stayed silent.
“In human terms,” Lin Jiangye said, “it’s basically shut down. Like it’s withdrawn into itself.”
Trauma so severe it sealed itself off.
Listening to all this, Shang Fuyan finally understood why Lin Jiangye had brought the baby back.
Because right now, aside from Lin Jiangye, no one could treat whatever was going on.
It wasn’t human—not even an adult monkey. Forcing the baby away from Lin Jiangye would likely only end with the cub dying.
And the reserve staff couldn’t afford that, not with the current scandal: insiders had colluded with outsiders to slaughter protected animals. Without Lin Jiangye—without his animals helping search—the reserve might’ve turned into a poachers’ paradise.
Right now, no one’s hands were clean. They still had to wait for police to investigate and clear everyone.
If, on top of that, they killed a golden snub-nosed monkey baby through improper care… it would be pouring gasoline on a fire.
“So whether they like it or not,” Lin Jiangye said, “this baby can only come back with me for now.”
He had zero experience raising monkeys, sure. But he had plenty of animals at home, and the “private zoo” behind the mountain was nearly finished. At minimum, he could keep it alive—though, honestly, he should probably go get certified first.
By the time he earned a proper raising permit for golden snub-nosed monkeys, the wildlife park construction would likely be close to done too.
Shang Fuyan sighed deeply after hearing everything. “Poachers deserve to die. And so do the buyers.”
The moment buyers were mentioned, the light in Lin Jiangye’s eyes turned cold.
He hadn’t come back to Yue City to ignore what happened next. He’d only returned to rest briefly—and to bring Tianheng and Tiger Mom home.
He’d finally gotten a chance to trace the organization behind it all. There was no way he wouldn’t follow through.
Those people—he would never let them go.
“So you’ll be going back to Min Province in a couple days?” Shang Fuyan still found it unreal that the three batches of poachers Lin Jiangye had caught all traced back to the same hidden boss.
That organization had lost plenty of people to Lin Jiangye already.
They must hate him to the bone.
Scratch “must”—they absolutely did. He hadn’t just ruined their operations. His very existence, and what he could do, was a threat.
He could understand animal speech. Any animal wanting to “report” could find its way toward Yue City—then, once inside Yue City, countless local animals could point it straight to him.
Crows and gulls in the sky. Strays on the ground. Even porpoises in the water.
Once you entered Yue City, you’d be watched by local life. Especially humans—any suspicious behavior, and animals would go straight to the police to “file a report.”
With that network, many bad actors instinctively avoided Yue City.
But at the same time, more and more people came to despise Lin Jiangye’s existence.
Shang Fuyan pressed a hand to his chest. For a brief moment, a thin thread of unease had stirred—and it wouldn’t go away.
He wanted to say something. But when the words reached his lips, he swallowed them.
He knew even if he warned Lin Jiangye that taking down the organization wouldn’t be easy—that it could be dangerous—Lin Jiangye still wouldn’t stop.
Even if it was dangerous, Lin Jiangye would go.
Once he knew the organization was targeting protected animals, how could he possibly sit still?
He cared about animals far too much.
He couldn’t. He absolutely couldn’t. If the law didn’t exist, Shang Fuyan genuinely suspected Lin Jiangye would want to bury those people in the soil like he’d done the poachers—no heads sticking out.
In the end, after thinking it over, the only thing Shang Fuyan could say was the usual:
“Be careful.”
The second he finished speaking, Lin Jiangye—who’d been lying on the wolves—suddenly sat up and shoved Shang Fuyan down onto the floor.
“Captain Shang, do you know anyone in Min Province?”
He was close—too close. One hand rested lightly on the man’s chest, brushing—almost touching—in a way that made Shang Fuyan’s mind go hazy.
It took a long moment for him to regain even a sliver of clarity. He nodded slightly, voice hoarse. “Yeah…”
Before he could finish, the face in front of him moved even closer—so close their noses were almost touching.
Shang Fuyan suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe.
Every inhale carried a clean, refreshing scent—lemony, herbal—flooding his nose and rushing through his veins like it was spreading heat through his whole body.
He felt hot. Everywhere.
“Help me with something,” Lin Jiangye murmured by his ear. “Check three people for me.”
Lin Jiangye whispered three names.
Earlier, when he’d gone after the second group, he’d left Bixi and Zangao with Bai Zhengwen. Being small, those two had quietly eavesdropped on plenty of things—things they should hear, and things they really shouldn’t.
The list of insiders Lin Jiangye got from the poacher didn’t fully match what he heard after he came down the mountain.
And those three names… were the discrepancy.
“…Okay,” Shang Fuyan swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed once.
He couldn’t refuse Lin Jiangye.
Especially not right now.
Lin Jiangye’s eyes curved into a smile. Around people he trusted, he was nothing like “Advisor Lin”—it was like a completely different person.
Seeing Lin Jiangye look so obedient and soft while perched on top of him, Shang Fuyan felt his heart pounding faster and faster.
And then—the speeding train slammed to a stop.
“Meowmeowmeowmeow!”
“You’re squashing me! I’m gonna get pressed flat!”
“Cawcawcawcaw!”
“Help! Save the crow!”
“Zhizhi-zhizhi…”
The three little ones wedged between them finally managed to force their heads out—and immediately started screaming for help.
“Aiya! I totally forgot about you guys~”
The tabby and the raven snapped their heads up in disbelief. Xingxing, still clueless, only made soft little whimpering noises.
Lin Jiangye pulled away from Shang Fuyan, smiling as he rubbed all three tiny heads. “I’m kidding. How could I ever forget you?”
As Lin Jiangye cuddled the babies and explained, Shang Fuyan lay there, eyes slowly closing, trying to calm the turbulence in his chest.
After resting at home for a day, on the second day Lin Jiangye brought only Chang Geng and Qiming—his two raptors—and headed back to Min Province.
Of course, the baby golden snub-nosed monkey was still stuck to him.
It wasn’t that Lin Jiangye didn’t want to settle the baby at home—he simply couldn’t. The little one really did seem to have been scared into shutting down. Other than Lin Jiangye, it ignored everyone. It even ignored Tiger Mom.
So Lin Jiangye had no choice. He stayed up overnight and sewed a small pouch. Once it was tucked under his clothes, no matter how fast he ran, the baby wouldn’t get shaken loose.
And if something really happened… the pouch had a strap, so Chang Geng could hook it tightly with his talons and carry the baby away from danger.
When Lin Jiangye returned to Min Province again, the person who came to pick him up this time was the director himself.
On the day they caught the poachers, the director had already applied to the provincial public security department for an investigation—not just into the reserve staff, but also into the forestry bureau and even himself—everyone would be thoroughly screened.
Especially the mid- and upper-level people who held even a little authority. They were the easiest to tamper with things, and the easiest to be corroded by money.
The poachers had indeed provided a list of insiders, but no one could be sure it was complete.
What if someone slipped through?
The director absolutely could not tolerate even one “fish” still hiding inside.
Forget how many protected animals the later batch of poachers had killed—just the death of a truly wild panda was enough to get Min Province’s forestry bureau cursed by the entire nation.
Not only the director—when the interrogating officers learned the poachers had gone after a pure wild panda, they all sucked in cold breaths, faces twisting.
Pandas were China’s national treasure. The whole country watched them like hawks. A panda being treated slightly worse could trigger a storm of outrage—let alone poaching.
And yet those people had really succeeded in poaching one. The cub had nearly been taken away too.
If this news went public, the reserve, the forestry bureau, and even the police would all get torn apart online.
The police ran a rough calculation: based on the value of the protected animals these poachers had taken over time, the amount alone would mean at least a ten-year sentence.
If it reached the ringleaders behind the organization, it might even be life.
After a full day of screening, the director was the first to clear his name—otherwise he wouldn’t have come in person to pick Lin Jiangye up.
In the rearview mirror, he saw the baby golden snub-nosed monkey lying quietly in Lin Jiangye’s arms. His chest felt packed with emotions—guilt, fury, frustration, and a faint sense of grievance.
He had complained in his head: why did a cub from his own territory cling so tightly to Lin Jiangye? But once he cooled down, he had to admit—sticking to Lin Jiangye probably felt safest.
And it wasn’t just the cub. That newly discovered golden snub-nosed monkey troop, compared to the director and his people, also trusted Lin Jiangye more.
There was nothing they could do about that.
They had failed the animals first.
At the police station, Lin Jiangye pulled out his credentials and immediately demanded to see the poachers’ statements.
Everything had already been prepared, but…
“Some of them just won’t talk,” a young officer said. “Hard as nails.”
Lin Jiangye lifted his gaze slowly and looked the young officer over once, then said, “Can you take me to see them?”
The young officer nodded frantically. That was exactly why he’d brought it up—he wanted Lin Jiangye to join the interrogation.
Their bones might be hard, but were they harder than Lin Jiangye’s methods?
When they reached the interrogation room, the young officer added a careful reminder: “Uh… ahem… Advisor Lin, later on, go a little easier.”
Otherwise, it’d be hard to explain afterward.
Lin Jiangye’s lips curved into a faint smile. “Relax. I won’t lay a hand on him.”
The officer was stunned.
If he didn’t lay hands on them, how was he supposed to force them to talk? Bribery? They’d tried that too—cooperate, provide information about the organization, and it could count as major meritorious service, possibly shaving off years.
But Lin Jiangye neither hit them nor bribed them.
He simply told them, bluntly and honestly, that he would not let them go—nor would the animals they had harmed.
“You can say nothing,” Lin Jiangye said. “Then once you’re out… it’ll be the animals’ turn to get revenge.”
Even if some animals didn’t live ten more years, that was fine. As long as the target was known to have been a poacher, plenty of “kindhearted” little animals would be happy to help.
“Just in Yue City alone, there are tens of thousands of crows,” Lin Jiangye added. “I can have them watch you—always watch you. Forever.”
Even without anyone touching them, just imagining being watched like that was unbearable.
The moment they saw Lin Jiangye, the so-called “hard bones” softened a lot, instinctively. After all, not everyone had the unforgettable experience of being buried in the ground.
Now he’d brought an even more terrifying method of psychological torture. Their hands began to tremble.
“Can I take this as you threatening me?” one of them snapped. “That kind of tactic puts massive pressure on a person’s mental state. We’re not accepting it! We’ll report you! We’ll file a complaint!”
Lin Jiangye smiled pleasantly. It made your spine go cold. “Oh? Sorry—I’m not a cop.”
“You’re intimidating me!”
“So what?” Lin Jiangye replied. “I’m not committing a crime. Even if you bring in a lawyer, there’s no charge you can stick on me.”
Outside, the officers listening in twitched at the corners of their mouths.
This young man looked even more arrogant than the criminals.
But they had to admit—if Lin Jiangye really ordered crows to stalk those men after they got out, the law truly had no way to deal with him.
First, the law didn’t govern small animals.
Second, there was no direct evidence proving he commanded them.
And most crucially—how would you ever prove that the animals showing up nearby were acting on Lin Jiangye’s instructions?
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
The Min Province police unconsciously rubbed their arms. Goosebumps had risen all over.
“Thank god Advisor Lin is on our side…” someone muttered in the crowded room.
The words instantly made everyone fall silent.
Then, in their hearts, they nodded like crazy.
If Lin Jiangye stood on the opposite side of justice, the police would be in unimaginable trouble.
Thank god—thank god—the Yue City bureau had brought him onto their team from the very beginning.
Beyond stalking, Lin Jiangye listed all sorts of things animals could do—each of them something that could be done quietly, invisibly.
In plain terms: Lin Jiangye could make them die in a way that looked “perfectly reasonable.”
That was far more vicious than hiring a hitman.
The poachers’ composure finally cracked. One after another, they spilled everything they knew.
The first group Lin Jiangye had encountered knew who the boss behind the scenes was, but they had no evidence and didn’t know the organization’s full transaction chain.
The second group, however, knew far more. They’d been in the business for years.
And the criminal organization lurking behind all of this wasn’t just about poaching. Smuggling, colluding with foreign forces—any one of those charges was enough to drown them.
When the hidden network finally surfaced from their mouths, and Lin Jiangye heard the location of their main base, he let out a cold laugh.
That laugh made the poachers shiver. They instinctively tried to curl into a ball.
They weren’t lying! So why did he suddenly look angry?
Lin Jiangye stared at the address they’d confessed, his gaze turning darker and darker.
“It’s in the capital…”
The last time he went to the capital, he’d wiped out the Zhang family’s nest of beasts and taken the Beidou Seven—abused to the brink of death—away with him. Back then, he’d wondered where the Zhang family had gotten those animals.
Now it seemed very likely: this was the supplier.
He slammed a fist down on the table.
A solid wood table dented in with a visible crater, startling everyone around him.
Just then, the golden snub-nosed monkey baby in Lin Jiangye’s arms seemed to sense something. It immediately wriggled out, climbed onto his shoulder, and then hugged his face, gently rubbing against him.
The baby said nothing—only cuddled close, again and again.
