Li Family Village.
This was a backward, impoverished place — one that could rightfully be called a land of
desolate mountains and treacherous waters.
For kilometers in every direction surrounding the village, there was nothing but barren wilderness and one desolate hillside after another.
Human trafficking cases were invariably linked to places like this. The local customs were fierce and ungovernable as a rule, the general moral character of the populace was abysmal, and their ways of thinking were mired in the most profound ignorance.
Just how ignorant, you ask...
"Everyone get ready. We move fast the moment we're out — we need to get clear of this place as quickly as possible!"
Li Xiang's expression was unusually grave. He drew a slow, deep breath, rose to his feet inside the minibus, and then snapped his right arm outward in a sharp flick.
Schick~!
A baton extended to its full length in an instant, gripped tight in his fist.
Rescuing a trafficking victim was not something you accomplished by strolling up and having a polite conversation.
Every person held their breath, eyes fixed on the world outside, as the minibus wound its way along the rutted mountain road toward the village.
They reached the village entrance.
A few people tending to their fields caught sight of the
iron carriage and straightened up at once, staring with bewildered eyes.
Xu De swept his gaze across both sides of the road.
Most of Li Family Village was built from mud-brick — not a single stretch of paved road in sight. At a casual glance, it stirred the impression of having stumbled back into the 1970s or '80s.
If anything, it felt even more primitive than that.
This was where the victim, Wang Mei, had been sold.
Screech~!
In what felt like a haze, the minibus ground to a halt before the gate of an unremarkable compound. Mud walls enclosed the yard within; inside stood a house of mud-brick construction.
Li Xiang wasted no time.
"Out of the vehicle!"
With that, the other six officers drew their batons and snapped them open with a single sharp
schick.
Then, in one disciplined line, they poured out through the vehicle door.
Li Xiang looked at the firmly shut wooden gate before him. Without the slightest hesitation, he threw himself against it.
BANG!!
The wooden gate burst open. The interior of the compound lay fully exposed.
To the left: a firewood shed. To the right: a kitchen. Directly ahead across the yard: the main hall.
Li Xiang didn't slow down for a second. He strode forward with purpose.
"Wang Mei is in the firewood shed — find her and get out immediately!"
Thud-thud-thud.....
The team moved at speed. Without wasting a single breath, they escorted Wang Qiang and Xu De straight toward the firewood shed.
During all of this, no one announced their presence to the homeowners — or rather, there was no need to.
The crash of the gate had already done that for them.
Creak~
The ramshackle door of the main hall was pushed open. A man and a woman shuffled out — two frail, stooped elders, thin as bare branches, dressed in ragged clothes, moving like hollow husks of driftwood.
They came face to face with the officers just as the police were about to force open the firewood shed.
The instant their eyes met, both elders froze in shock. Then, realizing what was happening, they erupted into a shrill, piercing wail.
"AHHH!!!!"
"What do you think you're doing?!"
The sound was grating and sharp. They screamed as they lurched forward.
At the firewood shed, Li Xiang's brow furrowed hard.
"Xiao Li! Xiao Wang! Hold them back!!"
At his word, two officers moved without question and physically blocked the two shrieking elders from advancing. Old and frail as they were, the pair could make no further progress.
But the screaming would not stop.
"They're stealing people! The police are stealing people!!!"
"Someone come quick, someone come! Their son isn't home and the police came to steal his wife!! SOMEONE COME!!"
Unable to get past the officers, both elders dropped to the ground and began rolling about, wailing and thrashing with complete abandon.
The noise was tremendous — enough to draw a crowd before long.
Li Xiang's heart clenched with urgency. He shouldered the officer working the lock aside and stared at the firewood shed door, which was barred shut with an iron rod.
"Stop picking it — step aside!"
As he said it, he rolled his shoulder back, then drove forward with his full weight.
BANG!
The wooden door shuddered. The hinges mounted into its frame rattled in their housing.
Li Xiang rolled his shoulder back again.
BANG!
The door exploded open.
This was a firewood shed.
Kindling and scavenged firewood were piled everywhere, gathered from fields and hillsides. Beneath their feet, the floor was laid with uneven bricks, covered over with packed earth beaten down solid.
The single window on the far wall — the only source of light — was sealed shut with several iron bars.
The place was suffocating, like a prison cell. Oppressive and lightless. Not a sliver of sunlight.
Mmm......
Near the woodpile, deep in the shadows where figure and firewood blurred into one, a human shape suddenly flinched and curled inward.
On instinct, a hand lifted faintly to shield a pair of eyes.
The door had been forced open. Harsh light poured through in a hard rectangle, stamping itself onto the earthen floor like a mirror's reflected glare — and she, who had not seen light in so long, could not bear to open her eyes.
Xu De spotted her in an instant.
Her hair was a matted, tangled clump — caked with grime and flecks of straw, the ends brittle and yellow and split, plastered thick with filth. A foul stench hung about her.
Her cheekbones jutted sharply outward, making her sunken eye sockets look all the deeper.
Her eyes were nothing more than two clouded hollows. The lids hung swollen and heavy, and within them, her irises held only a dull, vacant stupor — and a numbness so complete it had no bottom.
This was...
"Wang Mei?!"
A voice rang out inside the firewood shed. It was impossible to tell whose it was.
By the woodpile.
The woman stirred. Her eyes filled with fear, and her body began to curl and tremble.
Then another voice followed.
"Xiao Mei......."
This one carried a tremor within it.
Wang Qiang — skeletal and gaunt — stood there with lips barely quivering, staring at Wang Mei as though the sight could not possibly be real. He dared not even breathe too loudly.
This was his daughter.
His daughter, who had been trafficked away a decade ago.
She was twenty-four years old this year. Ten years without seeing her — and yet her face had aged to look like a woman of forty. Even so, Wang Qiang recognized her.
"
Wu......"
Wang Qiang lurched forward and gathered Wang Mei upright into his arms, breaking down completely — choking, weeping, the tears flowing freely. Those skeleton-thin hands wound around her body like bands of iron, a grip from which death itself could not have pried them loose.
There was none of the violation or beating he had feared.
The woman went still.
She stared at the man in front of her, then looked at Sun Hong, who was unable to speak — only weeping soundlessly.
Who was this person?
Like a wild creature chained at the ankle, the woman sat there with terror still vivid in her eyes — and within that terror, a creeping confusion.
She looked at Wang Qiang. She looked at this face — worn and weathered, every line etched deep.
She stood motionless.
Somewhere in her mind, the memories of ten years locked inside this firewood shed began to sink away, and in their place rose a face — long forgotten, the features blurred beyond recognition.
Her memory slowly sharpened. Gradually the blurred image aligned with the face before her.
All at once, Wang Mei went rigid where she sat. She looked at Wang Qiang. Her lips trembled faintly.
She wanted to say something but the words would not come. She wanted to pour out her suffering but didn't know where to begin. She wanted to break down and sob — opened her mouth, and felt only a dry, retching heave rise up from deep in her throat.
A thousand tangled emotions, and in the end—
Her voice came out.
"What took you so long......"
Wang Mei said it in a flat, hollow tone.
The voice was soft. The emotion was not violent. There was not even any weeping.
And yet every officer in that shed felt their heart drop — a wordless, suffocating feeling swelled in each of their chests, impossible to name.
Wang Qiang could hold back no longer. He wept openly and desperately, pulling her tight against him and refusing to let go.
"Officer Li, let's get her out of here."
In the midst of it all, Xu De suddenly spoke. His gaze swept the surroundings, and his brow tightened.
He was not a police officer, but he understood well enough what would happen if they lingered.
Officer Li Xiang didn't waste words. He called out directly:
"Move!"
With that, Wang Qiang — tears and mucus both streaming, no thought spared for wiping his face — gathered Wang Mei up and made to head out.
But when he rose, they discovered that Wang Mei's ankle was chained in iron, the other end driven into the ground.
Li Xiang didn't hesitate. One strike of his baton sent the chain's anchor rattling — then he wrenched it clean out of the earth.
The group closed around Wang Qiang and moved swiftly toward the exit.
Outside the firewood shed.
The two elders who had been rolling on the ground saw them coming and their faces twisted with rage. They screamed:
"Come quick!! Come quick!! The police are taking her!! SOMEONE COME!!"
"Don't you dare leave — we
paid for her, you hear?! You have no right!!"
"I won't live through this — the police are
robbers—"
Wail after wail split the air. Two young officers threw themselves against the crowd, barely holding them back.
Li Xiang could feel his scalp crawling with every shriek. He quickened his pace toward the gate.
As they moved, Wang Mei suddenly remembered something. Panic crossed her face and she looked at the officers, her voice breaking:
"My child — my child......."
Her child.
That's right — Wang Mei had a child.
Li Xiang faltered for a split second, his eyes flicking instinctively toward the main hall, then back toward the entrance.
He was just drawing breath to speak.
But Xu De, who had already reached the gate ahead of them, saw what lay outside — a dark, surging mass of bodies — and his expression hardened as he spoke:
"The child won't be harmed!"
"Get Wang Mei out now. Save who we can save — we stay another thirty seconds and none of us are leaving!"
Right.
The child wouldn't be harmed.
Li Xiang's mind snapped back into focus immediately.
The child belonged to Wang Mei — but it also belonged to the buyer. They would never do anything to their own child. It was only Wang Mei who was in danger if she stayed.
"Leader Li!" Behind him, the two officers' voices pitched tight — the crowd was beginning to push through.
"
MOVE!"
Li Xiang made his call without wavering. He ordered the two back into formation.
And then, as one unit, they formed a wall around Wang Mei and moved at a near-run down the village's dirt road toward the minibus.
Their footsteps were rapid. Their breathing was heavy. It wasn't long before the vehicle came into view.
Schick~!
They were barely on board before Li Xiang moved to drive—
But it was already too late.
A dark tide of people — like black floodwater rising — came pouring in from behind, and in moments, had completely surrounded the minibus.
The villagers.
The villagers of Li Family Village.
Now, led by the two elders, an enormous crowd had sealed off the minibus on all sides — completely, utterly encircled.
"Get out of the vehicle!! GET OUT!!"
"Someone go get Er-Niu — get him back from the fields right now! Tell him if he doesn't come back, his wife is gone!!"
"You son of a bitch, get DOWN here — what gives you the right to take someone?!"
"Bullying people, are you?! Hand her over!! HAND HER OVER!!"
"......"
Fury blazed on every face in the crowd. Some gripped hoes, others clenched sickles, the whole mob roaring at the people inside the vehicle — a deafening wall of sound.
In the back of the vehicle, Wang Qiang's breathing grew labored and ragged, the whites of his eyes bleeding red. He tightened his arms around the trembling body he held, and would not loosen them for anything in this world.
In the driver's seat, Lao Zhang tried to ease the vehicle forward — but the villagers at the front held firm, standing their ground. The only way through was to run them over.
"Son of a
bitch!"
Lao Zhang swore viciously, scanning the ring of villagers pressing in around them — the murderous fury in their eyes, the tools in their hands.
Those
weren't decorations they were holding.
The people in this godforsaken place had no fear of the police whatsoever.
Lao Zhang's face went ashen. The bottom dropped out of his stomach. He turned back to Li Xiang, voice low and tense:
"What do we do?!"