Long before the mammoths were around, there used to be rhinoceros living in the Siberian region . Hence, sometimes, the mammoth ivory hunters would excavate rhinoceros horns by chance .
As the years went by, the rhinoceros' horns would turn into something that was between fossil and bone . It had no ornamental value and carried a faint smell . By external appearance, it looked like it had been carved out of wood .
However, it was in fact very valuable . Its unit price was much higher than that of ivory . In Southeast Asia countries like Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and other places, the rhinoceros horn was used as folk medicine, and its price was comparable to gold .
One would need more luck to be able to find rhino horns than mammoth ivory . There was not much use for experience . That was because the horns were simply too rare and every time someone found one, it had been purely thanks to luck .
The ivory hunters did not think that Li Du and his people had located the rhino horns by luck, however . The group had looked as though they were focused and knew what they were doing . In the afternoon of the same day, they had gone to another location and found a mammoth carcass .
With those two rhino horns and two mammoth tusks, Li Du's team returned again and made even more money that day .
Seeing that, the ivory hunters became anxious . The things that Li Du and his group had excavated should have been theirs instead . Although they did not know where all the horns and ivory were, the hunters assumed that they would eventually have found them . Now some outsider just came and snatched them away .
Li Du went to the bar again for a drink and the hunters came to talk to him . “Hey, mister . You're really lucky . You've found a good number of tusks, didn't you?”
After scanning the few men, Li Du did not speak but continued to sip his drink with a smile .
The mammoth ivory hunters exchanged a look . Then, one of them said, “We've checked some of your background, mister . You guys are all rich people, filthy rich . I don't understand why you guys come here to work so hard and earn comparatively little money . ”
Li Du finally spoke up . He said, “We did not come just to excavate ivory . We are here to look for one b*stard . Once we find him, we will leave . But while we are at it, it's not a bad idea to take the chance to hunt for some ivory . ”
Beside him, Steve smiled . He said, “No one would say that they have too much money . It's never a bad idea to make more money . ”
“Who are you guys looking for?” Someone quipped . “Perhaps we can be of help . ”
Someone around them whispered, “Black Snake . They are looking for Black Snake from the Prayer gang . ”
“What's the Prayer gang?” an ivory hunter questioned .
“It's one of the gangs that has been formed recently,” someone else answered . “Black Snake started it . Obviously, he had offended someone when he was in America . Now, these people are here for him . ”
There was no reason to hide anything . The mammoth ivory hunters were aware that if someone from afar came looking for a person, it must be for revenge . Hence, they would unite . After all, most of them had come to live in Siberia after making trouble somewhere else .
Besides them, there were also some people who just made a living hunting ivory . These people, usually locals, have not committed any crimes or made any trouble . They were in this line of work just because of the prospect of making good money .
Now that they knew about Li Du's actual motives, the mammoth ivory hunters left .
They were people with their own principles . They would not gang up with outsiders to deal with people like themselves . Instead, when people of their own kind were in need, they would extend help .
Li Du continued to excavate ivory in the surrounding taiga . After some time, perhaps because they were getting better at using the machine, they managed to excavate more and more ivory . Every day, they were able to dig up four, six or even eight tusks .
That caused the ivory hunters to turn anxious . In that span of time, Li Du had excavated the number of tusks that far exceeded what they could excavate in a year!
Besides, they witnessed Li Du's machine getting more accurate . It managed to help them locate deposit after deposit and they dug hole after hole . All the mammoth ivory seemed to have been excavated .
The ivory was not an infinite resource . Once it was excavated, it would be gone forever .
Finally, an ivory hunter could take it no longer . At the end of March, Li Du received a text and there was an address: Naval Marshall Street No . 56, Unit 4002 .
Naval Marshall Street was a main street in Krasnoyarsk . Number 56 was a hotel, right next to the local government and police station . It was considered to be in a prime location .
Li Du read the text and called for Brother Wolf and the rest . He got Brother Wolf to check out unit 4002 of the hotel that night, to see what the situation there was .
That night, they received information on the unit . Brother Wolf sent a series of photographs to him, taken through the window . He managed to capture the image of a man . It was Jonas Malone!
Therefore, Li Du's plan had succeeded .
That place was the territory of Jonas Malone . He had been living there for over ten years . He must have made many connections locally . It would have been hard for Li Du and the rest to locate Malone by themselves, given that the ivory hunters were so united .
Besides, Malone was now practically a local . Once he realized that there were people looking for him, it would be easy for him to hide .
It would be much harder to rely on money alone in their search for Jonas Malone . The ivory hunters had principles and would not betray their own people for money . That is, unless the other party offered an amount too huge to reject . After such a betrayal, the hunters would move to another place far away . Otherwise, they and their family members would be punished severely by fellow hunters .
However, the hunters still had to rely on the mammoth ivory for survival . Once the trade was destroyed, their mode of livelihood and their means to feed their families would be gone .
The presence of Li Du was threatening their trade . Amongst them, someone could take it no longer and ended up helping Li Du .
Hence, the key to the issue was not money, but survival .
If Li Du had offered mere money, it wouldn't be something the hunters needed strictly to survive . However, Li Du was now threatening their trade, and if the hunters did not help him, they would go bust .
With that piece of news, Li Du started to make his plans .
The next day, he continued to excavate ivory as before . Of course, those deposits were excavated from the source of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River .
At midnight, when the small city retired to bed, Brother Wolf made the arrangements and they launched their plan to capture Jonas Malone .
First, they drove a pickup truck to a designated spot below the hotel building . Then, Brother Wolf brought his people, together with Ah Meow and Ah Ow, and they went up to the fourth floor to arrive at unit 4002 .
Big Ivan picked the lock of the door with ease and sniped off the electric circuit of the hotel . The entire hotel suddenly fell into darkness . Then, Brother Wolf got his people to knock the door down and they rushed in, wearing their infrared night vision glasses .
The process of knocking the door down was rather challenging . There were things placed on the other side of the door against an intrusion, and there was also an alarm on the door . Once the door was forced open, the alarm would go off .
However, the alarm worked on electricity . As the circuit was broken, the electricity did not flow and the alarm had lost its function .
In addition, there was a huge dog inside . Once the door was pushed open, the dog would bark . The barking was especially loud and clear in the quiet night .
Ah Ow pounced and brought down the big dog . It bit and tear at the dog, scaring it to retreat until it crouched on the ground, whimpering in pain .
There were two people in the room and both of them were lying in bed, sleeping deeply . They had not woken up despite the creaking of the door and the growling of the animals .
They had ordered take-out for their dinner . Brother Wolf had intercepted the order and laced the food with tranquilizers that were much more powerful than regular sleeping pills .
Chapter end
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