I started by watching videos, and I chose 10,000 combat power.

Time flies, and the new year is here in the blink of an eye.

New Year's Day, January 1st.

Luo Fei opened his eyes in the sunlight; the winter sun was not glaring.

He rolled over and activated the system in his mind.

[A divine choice has been triggered today.]

The options then appeared.

Option A: Obtain 500 smart rice cookers. Features include IH heating, precise temperature control, and the ability to cook rice, porridge, soup, and cakes.

Option B: Obtain 500 air fryers. High-speed air circulation, oil-free cooking, can fry, bake, and roast.

Luo Fei chose A.

Rice cookers are more practical than air fryers, as rice is something we eat every day, while air fryers are not used every day.

Air fryers are great, but most elderly people in rural areas are not used to using them.

He sat up in bed and leaned against the headboard.

The alien fleet will arrive on Earth on January 4th.

There are only three days left.

In the past few days, the joint government of Blue Star, with China, the United Eagle, and the Northern Bear as its core, has launched an unprecedented large-scale purge of Blue Star.

In the words of the Dragon Kingdom, it is "to repel external aggression, one must first pacify the internal situation."

Aliens are about to arrive; there must be no chaos inside.

Those lurking "tumors," such as organizations involved in trafficking women and children, telecommunications fraud, drug manufacturing and trafficking, and human trafficking, must be eradicated before external enemies arrive.

This is not a "severe crackdown" or a "special rectification campaign," but a complete elimination, leaving no one behind.

The actions taken within the Dragon Kingdom were the most swift, resolute, and thorough.

Xiao Wan conducted a thorough investigation of criminal networks across the country, clearly marking every network, every clue, and every node, from cities to villages, from coastlines to inland areas, and from borders to the heartland.

On the large screen of the Ministry of Public Security's command center, red dots were densely distributed across the map of China.

Each dot of light represents a criminal den involved in illegal and criminal activities such as telecommunications fraud, human trafficking, drug manufacturing and trafficking, illegal detention, and forced labor.

When the personnel at the command center first saw this picture, some fell silent, some clenched their fists, and some quietly turned away, not wanting others to see their expressions.

The operation was carried out simultaneously, not in batches, but as a comprehensive crackdown.

Thousands of arrest teams moved out at the same time, from office buildings in big cities to shacks in border mountains, from factories on the coast to villages in the interior, the sound of handcuffs ringing out at the same moment.

What was most impressive was not the fraud gangs caught in the city, nor the drug manufacturing plants destroyed at the border, but a remote mountain village.

This village is located deep in the mountains of western China. The road conditions are extremely poor. It takes more than three hours to drive there from the nearest county town. The last section of the road is not even paved with cement, but only with gravel. On sunny days, it is dusty and on rainy days, it is muddy.

The village is small, with about a hundred households and several hundred people. It is built against the mountain and its main occupation is farming, but its secondary occupation is human trafficking.

They weren't selling the kidnapped women to others; they were taking them as wives for their own families.

This village's "tradition" has been passed down for generations.

What if the boy in the family grows up but can't afford to get married? Buy him a wife.

Where do they buy them? From human traffickers in the village who specialize in abducting women.

Human traffickers lure naive young girls from big cities—some are tricked when looking for work, some when meeting online friends, and some are targeted at train stations.

After the girl was taken to the village, she was locked in a house with the door locked and the windows nailed shut, leaving her in a desperate situation where no one could help her.

If a girl disobeys, she will be beaten until she submits.

After having children, some people stop running away.

It wasn't that they didn't want to run, but that they were too tired to run anymore, didn't know where to run to, and had even forgotten the outside world.

Over the years, it's not that no one has come looking for us.

Some parents brought police officers, and some volunteers brought reporters. But what good did their presence do?

The men in the village, armed with sticks, kitchen knives, and hoes, blocked the village entrance, surrounding the outsiders and threatening and intimidating them.

Want to call the police? It's no use!

The police station also has people from their village.

Trying to force their way in? The villagers are really daring to take action.

Some of the girls who were abducted in those years have been found, but they have already had children, become numb, and have empty eyes, like walking corpses.

Her parents knelt before her, weeping. She looked at them, her eyes devoid of tears and expression, as if she were looking at strangers.

It wasn't that she didn't want to admit it, but that her heart was already dead, killed by the human traffickers and the village, leaving only her body alive.

This time it's different.

Xiao Wan thoroughly investigated the village's situation—the location of every imprisoned girl, the blind spots of every escape route's surveillance, the identity information of every villager involved in trafficking, detention, and harm, and even where they usually liked to drink and what they would say after drinking.

Inside the Ministry of Public Security's command center, a map of the village was enlarged onto a large screen, and each suspect was marked with a red human-shaped icon.

The operation was launched in the early hours of the morning.

Special police and armed police took off from the county town in helicopters and flew at low altitude in the valley, avoiding the observation points set up by villagers at the mountain pass.

The helicopter landed on an open field outside the mountain village, the airflow from its rotors sending fallen leaves and dust flying everywhere. The special police officers leaped from the cabin swiftly and silently.

They split into several teams and entered the village from different directions, surrounding the houses where the girls were being held.

The man keeping watch at the village entrance was dozing off, his head nodding, with an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

The SWAT officer crept up behind him, covered his mouth with one hand, pulled him off the chair with the other, pressed him to the ground, pressed his knee against his back, and snapped the handcuffs on.

The whole process took less than three seconds. The man didn't even have time to shout before the cigarette fell from his mouth to the ground, rolled twice, and became covered in dust.

When the detained girls were brought out of the building, some cried, some were stunned, and some huddled in a corner, refusing to leave. An older policeman squatted down and whispered to a girl in a dirty cotton-padded coat, "We've come to take you home."

The girl looked at him, her eyes dull and lifeless, her lips trembling for a long time before finally asking only one question: "Are my parents alright?"

The veteran police officer burst into tears on the spot, and nodded vigorously: "They've been looking for you."

The operation to close in on the suspects went smoothly, but the most intense conflict occurred at the village entrance.

The villagers were gradually awakened from their sleep by the noise. When they went out of their homes, they found that the village had been taken over by a large number of police officers.

Some panicked, some were angry, and some took kitchen knives and sticks from their homes and rushed to the village entrance, hoping to repeat their old tricks, thinking that this time it would be the same as before—as long as the whole village united, the police would not dare to take force and would eventually let the matter drop.

Dozens of men blocked the village entrance, brandishing hoes, shovels, kitchen knives, and wooden sticks, their faces contorted in rage.

The young man at the front had a buzz cut, a blue dragon tattooed on his arm, and held a machete in his hand, the blade gleaming coldly in the morning light.

He shouted at the SWAT officers, his voice shrill and piercing: "What right do you have to arrest people? This is a matter for our village! It's none of your business!"

The team was led by the deputy director of the municipal police bureau. Standing behind the riot shields of the special police officers, he shouted through a megaphone: "Put down your weapons and cooperate with the investigation. You are suspected of trafficking women, illegal detention, and intentional injury. These are criminal offenses."

The man with the buzz cut ignored him, spat on the ground, and raised his machete.

Seeing this, the deputy director said no more, put down the megaphone, and turned to the person next to him, instructing: "Give a warning first, and if the warning is ineffective... shoot directly."

The SWAT officer immediately raised his rifle, aiming it steadily at the man with the buzz cut's thigh, and shouted sternly, "Drop your weapon, or I will shoot!"

Instead of putting down his machete, the man with the buzz cut took a step forward, waving the machete in the air a few times while shouting.

The SWAT officer immediately pulled the trigger, and a shot rang out.

The moment the bullet struck the crew-cut man's thigh, his body jerked to the side, and the machete flew from his hand and fell to the ground.

He fell to the ground on the gravel road, clutching his thigh and howling in pain. Blood gushed from between his fingers, staining his trouser leg red.

Those holding hoes and shovels behind them saw this scene and their legs went weak. Some dropped their shovels, some started to back away, and some squatted down and covered their heads with their hands.

It wasn't that they suddenly had a change of heart, but rather that they finally realized—this time it was different, the police really would shoot.

After the standoff ended, all the villagers who participated in the violent resistance were forcibly taken back.

Special police and armed police lined up and drove the men from the village entrance to the truck.

Some people cried, some cried out for justice, and some collapsed on the ground and refused to get up, only to be dragged into a car by two special police officers who held their arms.

All local officials, from top to bottom, were investigated, and no public official who had contact, traded with, or covered up for the village escaped punishment.

The investigation concluded that the punishment would be "strict and severe": those who should be dismissed would be dismissed, those who should be sentenced would be sentenced, and those who should be executed would be executed.

The hotline was ringing off the hook with calls from people in the next village, the next county, and even the next province.

Those people have waited too long, waiting for someone who can stand up for them, waiting for an opportunity where they don't have to fear retaliation, worry about being ignored, or fear that their whistleblower letters will be thrown in the trash.

The rescued women and girls were sent to the county town and placed in a temporary relief station.

Some women, already mothers, are holding their babies in their arms, staring blankly out the window, unsure of where to go.

The staff at the shelter brought them hot meals; some ate, some didn't, and some held their bowls with trembling hands.

The counselor sat beside them and spoke softly. Most people did not respond, but occasionally someone would speak up. The first question they asked was not "When can I go home?" but "What will happen to my child?"

Those children were born in the village, and their fathers were the men who bought them.

They hated the man, but the child was their own flesh and blood.

There is no standard answer to this question; everyone's answer will be different.