Staff member Ren Shengde holds a goat at a farm of the black goat breeding cooperative in Wangwan Village of Zhenyuan County in Qingyang City, northwest China's Gansu Province, Jan. 21, 2021. Zhenyuan County has turned abandoned cave dwellings into goat sheds in recent years.Photo:Xinhua

Police in Southwest China's Sichuan recently received a basin of mutton soup as a "gift" from a goat owner who got his three missing goats back from the police.

The police got a report on Friday that three missing goats were found near the highway, before fetching them and bringing the goats back to the local police station.

With the help of one villager, the police gave the goats back to the owner surnamed Zeng on Saturday who had been raising them for more than three years.

One day later, Zeng brought a basin of mutton soup to the police station to thank them for finding his goats. The three goats are worth thousands of yuan each.

The hashtag has become a hot topic on China's Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo, as netizens find themselves in a dilemma to decide whether the police, or the goats, should feel happy for this surprising ending. 

"The goats were like, 'I'd rather get lost than go back to the pot and be cooked,'" joked one netizen.

Global Times