Human trafficking was a major crime, especially in these mountain regions over the past few years, where the trafficking of women persisted despite repeated bans.
If no one reported it, the authorities might have turned a blind eye. But now, with the victim’s own daughter-in-law filing a report, the County Public Security Bureau immediately took it seriously. If the investigation proved it to be true, it would be a huge case.
After yesterday’s interrogation revealed Xiaoxi’s whereabouts and confirmed she had indeed been sold, the local police station officers left. The County Public Security Bureau then arrived and transferred Father Zhao, Mother Zhao, and Zhao Zongbao to their own facilities for further processing.
Beyond Second Sister Zhao identifying Father and Mother Zhao as the masterminds behind the scheme, and her brother Zhao Zongbao consenting to the sale, Xu Huiqing estimated this also had something to do with the misdeeds Old Zhao committed in his youth.
Did he really think that after twenty or thirty years, no one would remember the evil he committed during his days as a Little Red Guard?
The Director of the County Revolutionary Committee from back then had been executed by firing squad during the Strike Hard campaign in the early 80s. His Deputy Director was sentenced to twenty-two years. But many of the remaining Little Red Guards never faced severe punishment. Aside from a few who continued their violent, criminal ways into the 80s and were caught in the Strike Hard campaign, there were many others like Father Zhao—vicious, bold, and eager to wreak havoc during their crimes. When trouble arose, they immediately fled back to their mountain villages, hiding in the deep hills to survive the storm.
They themselves might have forgotten the evil they committed in their youth, but Xu Huiqing believed someone would always remember.
And even if no one remembered, it didn’t matter. She would help them recall exactly what Father Zhao had done in his younger days.
By noon, officers from the police station arrived once more.
Third Sister and Fifth Sister Zhao both assumed the police had come to release their parents because Xiaoxi had been found. They never expected the officers were there to take Xu Huiqing away.
Worried about leaving Xiaoxi alone, Xu Huiqing carried the baby with her. As the actual victim who was sold, Xiaoxi could also accompany her.
There was still a newborn in the Zhao household. Third Sister Zhao and Fifth Sister Zhao had to stay behind to care for the infant and guard the family’s expensive appliances—the television set, radio, and electric fan—against theft. Not daring to leave, they believed that as long as Xu Huiqing went to the police station and clarified that Father and Mother Zhao were not human traffickers, their parents would be home soon. They even saw Xu Huiqing off to the vehicle, calling out: “Huiqing, don’t say anything reckless! Explain things clearly to the police! We’ll wait at home for you to come back for lunch!”
The police station officers, however, were not here to release anyone. They had come to bring Xu Huiqing to the station as a witness to record her statement.
They had returned too late the previous night, so the officers hadn’t transported Second Sister Zhao to the county seat. The next day, they came for Xu Huiqing and her child, taking them all together in a police vehicle to the County Public Security Bureau.
The difference was that Second Sister Zhao rode in handcuffs as a criminal, while Xu Huiqing and Xiaoxi were witnesses.
If it had been the Xu Huiqing of this time in her previous life, she would have truly known nothing about the deep mountains. But the Xu Huiqing reborn into this life had spent several years in her past life investigating that couple and the affairs of the deep mountains—all for Xiaoxi’s sake.
How could she possibly destroy that family without spending time and money on it?
At the time, she hadn’t known it was Second Sister Zhao and her parents who sold Xiaoxi. She was still working as a substitute teacher at school and needed to care for Xiaoxi. For her own safety, she naturally couldn’t venture into the mountains herself.
So from the very beginning, her investigative approach had been wrong.
She hadn’t started by investigating Second Sister Zhao. Believing Xiaoxi had been taken by traffickers, she worked backward from the mountain households that bought wives, trying to trace the traffickers. On top of that, she was a local familiar with the native dialect. The people she sought out were her own brothers, cousins—young men from her village. Locals had kin everywhere. Relatives she didn’t even know, and relatives of those relatives. Asking for news among family never aroused suspicion. Instead, precisely because they were local kin, everyone loved to gossip. Which family bought a wife? Whose wife ran away? Who did they buy her from? Locals would share everything without any guard, possessing an immense spirit for gossip among their own.
Gathering information was far more convenient than for police who came from the outside to investigate specifically!
A difference of ten miles meant a different accent. Even within the same county, outside of Water Wharf Town, the dialect varied from that spoken in the mountains. Mountain folk were xenophobic; a slight difference in accent was enough for them to tell you nothing. If a kind soul did speak to an outsider, the outsider couldn’t understand the mountain dialect anyway.
In her past life, she had investigated the traffickers just four years after Xiaoxi was found—a mere four years from the present. So the information she knew was precisely what the police desperately needed right now.
She told the officers everything she had learned from her investigations in her past life. She never claimed she had investigated it herself in a past life, only that she occasionally overheard fragments of conversation when Father and Mother Zhao spoke privately in their room at the Zhao house.
She insisted she had never suspected them before, and her words lacked certainty: “My father-in-law said his family used to be landlords. He claimed the money for their three large street-facing storefronts and for buying the television, radio, and electric fan came from old family wealth. But he also said his grandfather’s generation smoked opium and squandered the family fortune, leaving not a cent behind. He said the money came from his youth when he was a Little Red Guard—that’s why his family escaped being denounced and why he himself became a Little Red Guard. He knew which families had money. He said the wealth was all confiscated from the houses he broke into and ransacked in his youth. Other times, he said he earned it from doing business later on.”
“I hadn’t been married into the family long, so I only overheard bits and pieces when they talked privately. They never said anything in front of me. I thought the business he mentioned meant selling radios and televisions. How could I have known his so-called business was selling women and children, and that he wouldn’t even spare his own granddaughter!” As Xu Huiqing spoke, she broke down crying again, blew her nose, and sobbed: “The whole damn Zhao family is rotten. The old ones are traffickers of women and children, and the daughter they raised is also a trafficker!”
“I also heard that when he was a Little Red Guard in his youth, he beat people to death and threw the bodies into the cesspit at the county gate!”
When it came to Father Zhao’s killings, he naturally didn’t say he killed the man himself when he mentioned it to Xu Huiqing. He said he and the other Little Red Guards beat someone to death and casually tossed the body into the cesspit at the town gate.
When he boasted about this at the dinner table, his gaze towards Xu Huiqing even carried a hint of arrogance and intimidation.
Xu Huiqing’s words caused the detectives at the County Public Security Bureau to turn grave.
Through yesterday’s interrogation, they had believed the Zhao family had merely sold their own granddaughter. Now, listening to Xu Huiqing, it was clear that Father and Mother Zhao were not just human traffickers—they had blood on their hands!
They had no doubt whatsoever about Xu Huiqing’s words. If Father Zhao had been a Little Red Guard in his youth, then having blood on his hands was all too normal.
Too many people died in that era!
One of the officers glanced at another officer in his thirties, said nothing, and lowered his head to continue writing.
They had also questioned the source of the Zhao family’s wealth.
But what was Father Zhao in his youth? A Little Red Guard. The wealthy people and intellectuals he had beaten to death numbered more than one. This was a man who had truly broken families and destroyed households. The old man’s psychological fortitude was leagues beyond that of an ordinary person!
As for Old Lady Zhao, she looked thin, frail, and pitiable. Yet during the three years of famine, her parents and younger brother had all starved to death, and she had still struggled to survive. She first lived with her older sister and brother-in-law, and at barely ten years old, was sold to the Zhao family as a child bride. Raised under the torment of her father-in-law and mother-in-law, she developed her own code of survival. She appeared desperately pitiful, but she stood on the same side as Father Zhao. Her mouth was sealed even tighter than her husband’s. She had truly not leaked a single word—she only knew how to cry.
As Father Zhao aged, he became long-winded and couldn’t hold his tongue, constantly chasing after Xu Huiqing to recount the proud deeds of his youth. But Old Lady Zhao was capable of maintaining perfect silence from start to finish.
Sometimes, when the old man got carried away and said too much, the old lady would even stop him.
When the County Public Security Bureau detectives questioned Father Zhao, he insisted the money was ancestral inheritance. He didn’t breathe a single word about being a Little Red Guard in his youth, putting on the act of a common, pitiful old man. No one could see how viciously he had struck in his prime, or how tyrannical he was at home.
This completely contradicted Xu Huiqing’s testimony.
Naturally, they believed Xu Huiqing, not Old Zhao.
And it wasn’t as if they believed Xu Huiqing without investigation. It was precisely because they had investigated that they believed her even more.
They asked Xu Huiqing if Zhao Zongbao was involved. Xu Huiqing shook her head, saying she didn’t know.
But after thinking, she seemed helpless, dejected, and utterly lost. Her whole spirit drained, she said: “I don’t know if he participated in the trafficking, I never heard him mention it. That whole family guarded against me, never saying anything about this in front of me.” After a pause, she spoke with certainty: “But he should have known what his parents were doing. Zhao Daidi can prove that!”
Second Sister Zhao had explicitly stated that Zhao Zongbao knew and consented to the sale of Xiaoxi!
Xu Huiqing and her daughter were sent back temporarily. Third Sister and Fifth Sister Zhao all rushed out to look for Father Zhao, Mother Zhao, and Zhao Zongbao: “Where are Mom and Dad? Why didn’t Zongbao come back with you?”
Xu Huiqing had returned in the town police station’s vehicle. The officer helping her out of the car heard the Zhao sisters’ questions and glanced at them, saying: “Come back? They’ll be lucky to avoid a firing squad, and you’re asking if they can come back?”
Then he said to Xu Huiqing: “Don’t go anywhere these next few days. Stay home and wait. If anything comes up, we’ll be back to find you at any time!”
Holding Xiaoxi, Xu Huiqing nodded with the frail, helpless, and pure-hearted look of a good woman.
At this moment, she was twenty-three years old, with a face that fit the era’s standard of demure, gentle, and virtuous beauty.
Yes, twenty-three.
The “college student” people referred to was actually just a technical secondary school graduate.
However, a technical secondary school diploma in this era was different from what it would become a few years later. At this time, graduates were guaranteed a job assignment.
After graduating from the normal school, returning to her hometown meant a guaranteed job assignment—a secure, iron rice bowl, a lifelong state salary, worry-free for life regardless of drought or flood.
Rural folk didn’t understand the distinctions between technical schools, vocational colleges, and universities. To them, these were all “college students.”
At twenty-three, having recently given birth, she bore an extra layer of fragile, broken beauty and maternal innocence. Anyone looking at her would see an honest, kind, agreeable, and virtuous woman incapable of lying.
If she hadn’t become pregnant with Zhao Bei, and hadn’t refused to send Xiaoxi away to hide in the countryside so she could pass Zhao Bei off as her firstborn, she would still be a formally employed teacher with state employment at the Town Central Primary School, widely respected.
Even when she erupted yesterday and shattered Zhao Zongbao’s leg, everyone instinctively made excuses for her. Her daughter had been sold—any decent person would be driven mad.
Who could have imagined that a woman like her would frame others, would lie?