The brothers Liu Yaowen and Liu Yaowu stepped forward and grabbed Song Jinyue and Fang Tang by the arms.
“Girls, don’t be in such a hurry to leave. Come on, come inside and sit for a while.”
“Let us go! Let go of us! If you don’t, I’ll scream for help!”
Fang Tang struggled fiercely while glaring at them.
“You stupid little brat, go ahead and scream! Ours is the only occupied house around here. Even if you scream your lungs out, no one will come!”
The kindly-looking auntie from the train had completely changed her demeanor.
“Yaowen, Yaowu, stop wasting your breath on her. Take them inside. After sitting on that train all day, my old back feels like it’s about to break.”
After saying that, the human trafficker rubbed her aching waist and headed into the house.
The brothers dragged Song Jinyue and Fang Tang along behind her.
“Help! Human traffickers are kidnapping us! Someone come catch them!”
Fang Tang screamed at the top of her lungs, clinging to her last shred of hope before they were dragged into the dilapidated house.
But soon, the two brothers pulled both her and Song Jinyue inside.
Bang!
The front door was slammed shut by Liu Yaowen’s father.
With that, Fang Tang’s final glimmer of hope was completely cut off.
Staring at the tightly shut wooden door, Fang Tang’s heart sank to the bottom. Her face turned ashen, and despair filled her eyes.
How could she have been so stupid?
How had she fallen for the traffickers’ trick so easily?!
But things had already reached this point. No matter how much she regretted it, there was nothing she could do.
After all, there was no medicine in this world that could cure regret.
Beside her, Song Jinyue neither screamed nor struggled.
After being brought into the run-down house, she calmly surveyed her surroundings.
Several chickens and ducks were being raised in the courtyard, and vegetables grew in a small garden. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary impoverished household.
Who would have imagined that this family secretly made a living trafficking people?
Just as Song Jinyue was about to look away, an inconspicuous wooden board in the courtyard was suddenly pushed upward from below.
A little girl around five or six years old poked her head out.
“Dad! Grandma brought more people back!”
Seeing two unfamiliar faces in the courtyard, the little girl grinned and swiftly climbed out of the cellar.
She circled Song Jinyue and Fang Tang, examining them carefully before nodding in satisfaction.
“These two are much prettier than the three I tricked into coming here. We should be able to sell them for more money.”
“Dad, with these two and the ones in the cellar, we have ten people now. Let’s sell them tomorrow! When we get the money, will you buy me candy and meat?”
The little girl walked over to Liu Yaowen, tugged at his sleeve, and spoke in a spoiled, childish voice.
Fang Tang, who had been screaming for help moments ago, felt as though her entire worldview had shattered.
Th-Those words had actually come from a five- or six-year-old child?!
Song Jinyue, however, showed little reaction to the girl’s vicious words.
Some people were simply rotten to the core.
“All right. I’ll buy them for you tomorrow. You must be hungry. Go inside and eat.”
Liu Yaowen and Liu Yaowu dragged Song Jinyue and Fang Tang toward the inner room.
Snapping back to her senses, Fang Tang began struggling again, screaming at the top of her lungs for someone to come catch the traffickers.
They weren’t worried that her screams would attract anyone, but the noise was still irritating.
Liu Yaowen, who was gripping her arm, snapped at her impatiently.
When Fang Tang refused to stop, he raised his hand and slapped her hard across the face.
“Shut up! Make another sound and I’ll sew your damn mouth shut!”
He roughly shoved Fang Tang to the floor and glared at her viciously.
Having little experience with the darker side of the world, Fang Tang had never encountered someone so vicious.
Tears immediately streamed down her face, and she shrank into the corner, too frightened to make another sound.
Song Jinyue walked over, crouched beside her, and gently patted her shoulder.
Seeing how obedient Song Jinyue was being, Liu Yaowen and Liu Yaowu nodded in satisfaction.
“Look at her and learn. You’d better behave yourself. That way, you’ll suffer less. Of course, if you refuse to cooperate, that’s fine too.”
“We have plenty of strength and plenty of ways to make you obey!”
Of all the people they had tricked and kidnapped before, which one hadn’t started out crying and screaming for their parents?
In the end, after being properly dealt with, every single one of them had become obedient.
After locking Song Jinyue and Fang Tang inside the inner room, the brothers turned around and went out to eat.
Perhaps they were completely convinced that two weak young women posed no threat whatsoever, because they didn’t even bother tying them up.
“W-Wuwu… Jinyue, what are we going to do? I’m so scared. They’re not going to sell us somewhere deep in the mountains where we’ll never be able to come back, are they?”
Once only the two of them remained in the room, Fang Tang finally began sobbing in a trembling voice.
Song Jinyue patted her shoulder and quietly comforted her.
“Don’t be afraid. Someone will come rescue us soon.”
“Jinyue, you don’t have to comfort me. I screamed so loudly just now, but nobody came. This place is so remote. No one will ever find us here.”
Fang Tang sniffled and grabbed Song Jinyue’s hand, looking at her with overwhelming guilt.
“Jinyue, I’m sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t kept insisting that you come work at the factory with me, you wouldn’t have been tricked into coming here.”
“I’m so stupid. I actually believed those human traffickers so easily.”
The more Fang Tang spoke, the guiltier she became, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
To calm her down, Song Jinyue leaned close to her ear and quietly told her about the plan she had arranged with the railway police.
Fang Tang’s eyes immediately lit up.
She covered her mouth to suppress her excitement, not daring to make even the slightest sound.
After hearing Song Jinyue’s explanation, much of Fang Tang’s fear disappeared.
She obediently leaned against Song Jinyue and waited for the police to arrive.
Meanwhile, Railway Officer Xiao Zhang, who had secretly followed them all the way here, was hiding nearby and anxiously watching the traffickers’ house.
The other railway officer, Xiao Li, had already gone to report the situation to the local police.
Xiao Li was a Beijing native and had an excellent memory. After following the traffickers through the winding streets and alleys once, he had already memorized the entire route.
As soon as he confirmed the location of the traffickers’ hideout, he sprinted toward the nearest police station as fast as he could, barely even stopping to catch his breath.
When he rounded a corner, he accidentally crashed into someone.
He immediately lowered his head and apologized.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I was running too fast and didn’t see you. I sincerely apologize!”
“It’s all right, Comrade. What happened? Why are you in such a hurry?”
The person he had bumped into didn’t take offense. Instead, seeing how frantic Xiao Li looked, he asked what was going on.
Xiao Li abruptly raised his head.
Only then did he notice that the two men standing in front of him were dressed in crisp military uniforms.
“Comrades, two young women were taken away by human traffickers! I’m on my way to report it to the police so we can rescue them!”
At the mention of human traffickers, the two soldiers exchanged glances.
One of them, a tall and imposing man, spoke in a deep voice.
“Take us there.”
“Comrade, I don’t know exactly how many traffickers there are. For safety’s sake, shouldn’t we report it to the police first?”
Xiao Li was worried they might be badly outnumbered.
If they failed to rescue the women and got themselves captured as well, then there really might be no one left to save any of them.
“You don’t need to worry about that. Lead the way. No matter how many of them there are, Commander Fu and I can handle them.”
Zhao Qiming confidently patted Xiao Li on the shoulder.
As the battalion commander of the Third Battalion of the 772nd Regiment, he had every reason to be confident in his abilities.
Besides, the man standing beside him was Commander Fu—the same man who had single-handedly taken down sixty-eight professionally trained criminals.
Xiao Li was still somewhat hesitant.
But when his gaze met Fu Sinian’s deep, unreadable eyes, the words he had been about to say suddenly lodged in his throat.
Fu Sinian hadn’t even said anything.
He had merely looked at him.
Yet the overwhelming pressure radiating from the man surged toward Xiao Li like a tidal wave, sending a chill down his spine.
“Comrades, follow me!”
Having already made it halfway to the police station, Xiao Li immediately turned around and led Fu Sinian and Zhao Qiming back the way he had come.
They rushed to the traffickers’ house as quickly as possible.
When they finally arrived outside, they found Xiao Zhang pressed against a crack in the wooden door, staring into the courtyard with his mouth hanging open in disbelief.
Xiao Li quickly grabbed his arm.
“What happened? Did something go wrong inside?”
Before he had even finished speaking, Zhao Qiming raised his leg and kicked the wooden door.
Bang!
The dilapidated wooden door crashed to the ground with a single kick.
However, when the three men saw what was happening inside the courtyard, their expressions instantly became identical to Xiao Zhang’s…