Second Sister Zhao told the police everything she knew in detail, and said that Father Zhao and Mother Zhao had ordered her to sell the child, but the testimonies from Father Zhao and Mother Zhao were entirely different.
Unlike Second Sister Zhao, who confessed everything right away, Father Zhao had been a Little Red Guard in his youth and had a mental fortitude far beyond Second Sister Zhao’s. No matter how the police interrogated him, this old man in his sixties stubbornly insisted: “I don’t know! It’s got nothing to do with me, I didn’t sell Xiaoxi! I, your father, am not short on money! How would I know where the girl went? Go ask Zhao Daidi! It was all that damned girl Zhao Daidi’s doing alone!”
“I raised all five daughters, and you think I can’t afford to raise one granddaughter? Does my Zhao family look like we’re so poor we’d sell a granddaughter?”
Old Zhao waved his hand impatiently: “Anyway, I didn’t sell her!”
The whole child-selling affair was mainly set in motion after Old Zhao let slip some hints, then carried out by Old Lady Zhao and Second Sister Zhao. He never got involved from start to finish.
Even if you talked the sky down, this had nothing to do with him.
“It was the old woman who took care of Xiaoxi. How am I supposed to know? I’m so busy every day with things at the shop, it drives me crazy!”
The police then went to interrogate Old Lady Zhao.
Old Lady Zhao may have seemed weak and pitiful all her life, always looking so miserable, but when facing the police interrogation, her mental strength was no less than Old Zhao’s, and she gave a statement practically identical to his, pushing all the blame onto Second Sister Zhao. Weeping and cursing, she said: “How could I possibly take care of three people all alone? I only asked my second daughter to look after the child for a few days. Who knew that girl would be so black-hearted as to sell my Xiaoxi!”
“I raised Xiaoxi single-handedly. When she was little, I washed all her diapers. She was raised as if she were my own flesh and blood. How could I bear to sell her?”
“She’s the only grandchild in the family—I could never dote on her enough!”
“If I really preferred sons over daughters, I wouldn’t have raised all five of my daughters properly and married them off. Back then, times were really hard. In the Bamboo River, drowned baby girls were found every day. If I had been that cruel-hearted, would any of my five daughters still be here?”
It had to be said, Old Lady Zhao’s words were quite persuasive.
In reality, the Zhao family ancestors had been landlords. But before the chaotic years came, the ancestors had already squandered the family fortune by smoking opium. Still, even a rotten boat has three nails—though the Zhao family had declined, their family assets were still more substantial than those of ordinary households, enough to support the first two daughters. Later, Old Zhao became a Little Red Guard and followed the Revolutionary Committee in ransacking houses and conducting struggle sessions, secretly hiding countless assets, so naturally they could raise several daughters.
Nevertheless, the Zhao family raised their daughters in a manner not much different from raising pigs or dogs. Zhao family daughters were not seen as people, only as objects to be exchanged for bride prices to support the son.
If the family planning policy weren’t so strictly enforced now, and if the Zhao family didn’t have a tradition of having many daughters across several generations of single sons, and if Xu Huiqing wasn’t unwilling to hide in the countryside to give birth or leave any daughters born there, Old Zhao wouldn’t have worried that she’d only bear daughters. He was afraid that this pregnancy would be another daughter, which would take up the household registration slot for his future grandson. If she got pregnant again later, the Family Planning Office might force her to abort his precious grandson. So he came up with the idea of giving away all the earlier daughters, thus freeing up the household registration slot for the birth of his grandson.
He never actually intended to sell his granddaughter. As Old Zhao himself said, he didn’t lack that bit of money.
Selling Xiaoxi was purely Second Sister Zhao’s own selfish idea—she sold the child for just five yuan and pocketed it secretly.
So when Old Zhao declared that he hadn’t directed the sale of his granddaughter, his tone was brimming with righteous indignation!
Having confirmed that the Zhao family’s eldest granddaughter had indeed been sold, the police temporarily detained Second Sister Zhao, Father Zhao, Mother Zhao, and Zhao Zongbao, and then went to speak with Xu Huiqing.
“Your claim that the Zhao family is a trafficker’s den still requires further investigation. But we’ve now learned from Zhao Daidi the exact whereabouts of your daughter. We suggest you first go and bring your eldest daughter back, and then we’ll continue the thorough investigation of the Zhao family.”
Because the Zhao family had been reported by their own daughter-in-law Xu Huiqing as a trafficker’s den, even though the preliminary interrogation indicated that they had only sold their own eldest granddaughter, the Public Security Bureau officers didn’t dare take it lightly—after all, the Zhao family’s wealth came from unexplained sources.
It had been more than twenty years since Old Zhao acted as a Little Red Guard. In those days, the average life expectancy was only in the forties, so many of his peers, including those he had persecuted, were long gone. Very few people still knew about the ransacking and struggle sessions he had participated in back when the Revolutionary Committee was active.
Old Zhao himself certainly wasn’t talking. After all, the Director of the Revolutionary Committee and the Deputy Director who had led the way back then had either been shot or thrown in prison, and some still hadn’t come out to this day.
He insisted that his ancestors were landlords and that everything the family owned had been passed down from earlier generations.
Xu Huiqing held out little hope of sending Father and Mother Zhao to prison. She knew them too well; she was certain they would push all the blame onto their second daughter, and that Zhao Daidi, under their pressure, would shoulder all the crimes alone.
What she was thinking now was to first bring Xiaoxi back, then get Zhao Daidi locked up for as heavy a sentence as possible, because she knew that three years from now would be the Year of the Strike Hard Campaign. Before the Strike Hard, many criminals whose offenses weren’t that severe ended up getting harsh sentences or even a bullet.
Right now, her only thought was to send Second Sister Zhao inside to get that bullet.
Seeing Xu Huiqing nod in agreement to go pick up the child first, the police at the station breathed a sigh of relief and had Second Sister Zhao lead the way.
When Second Sister Zhao was brought out and saw Xu Huiqing, she wept pitifully, tears and snot smeared across her face: “I really didn’t harm Xiaoxi! Xiaoxi is my eldest niece too—how could I ever harm her!” She sobbed, wanting Xu Huiqing to beg for mercy on her behalf: “Huiqing, tell the police, I’m really not a trafficker, it’s not me who wanted to kidnap and sell Xiaoxi!”
The answer Second Sister Zhao received was a heavy slap from Xu Huiqing. If Xu Huiqing had a knife in hand at that moment, she wouldn’t have aimed at her face, but at her neck!
Seeing Xu Huiqing about to strike again, the police officers quickly pulled her back and urged: “We’ll talk about the rest later. The important thing now is to find the child first! Isn’t that right?”
Xu Huiqing was actually quite calm. Before her rebirth, Second Sister Zhao had already been diagnosed with late-stage cancer; in her previous life, the revenge had already been served once. She only wanted to quickly bring Xiaoxi back now.
Although in her previous life’s investigation, the couple only started abusing Xiaoxi after they had a son of their own, Xu Huiqing dared not gamble with human nature. She just wanted to find her child as fast as possible.
The police drove the patrol car all the way to Shimen Brigade, then proceeded on foot into the narrow mountain paths.
The mountain terrain was extremely complicated. Without a knowledgeable local to guide them, even locals from Water Wharf Town who had never entered the mountains would easily get lost once inside. Hiding a person there was all too easy. Whether child or woman, once sold into the deep mountains, there was little chance of ever getting out.
In her previous life, Xu Huiqing had managed to find Xiaoxi only when Fourth Sister Zhao, seeing her searching for over three years without giving up, secretly asked her in sympathy: “Have you searched in the mountains?”
At that moment, it was as if a lightning bolt struck the top of Xu Huiqing’s head. Because the local mountain custom of drowning baby girls was prevalent, mountain families without children would only adopt male infants. Basically, no one would adopt or buy a baby girl to raise. So when searching for her child, she had never thought to look in the mountains.
She grabbed hold of this lifeline and asked Fourth Sister Zhao, Zhao Youdi: “Do you know something? If you have any news, please tell me! I beg you, please tell me!”
She immediately knelt down before Zhao Youdi, her entire emotional state on the verge of collapse. It frightened Zhao Youdi, who quickly looked around and pulled her up: “Don’t kneel, don’t kneel! I just heard that some families in the mountains who can’t have children themselves look for children from families who are good at childbearing, to ‘summon’ a child. I was just asking.”
No matter how she pressed further, Zhao Youdi wouldn’t say another word.
But Xu Huiqing, like a person who had been blind to what was right under the light suddenly shown the path, desperately plunged into the mountains to search, asking if any family without children had adopted a girl to “summon” a child.
The mountains were vast; finding a little girl was extremely difficult.
Yet the mountains were also small.
Because drowning female infants was the norm there, very few families adopted baby girls.
Through her and her brother’s repeated visits and inquiries for less than half a year, they found Xiaoxi.
When she found her, Xiaoxi, already over seven years old, looked as if she hadn’t grown in those three-plus years. She was so thin she resembled a matchstick figure, as if her frail, bony body could no longer support her head, which seemed terrifyingly large because of her emaciation. If she had arrived just a little later, her dried-up body might not have held up that big, empty head.
In countless nightmares, she dreamed that Xiaoxi’s skeletal body could no longer support her hollow, oversized head, that it suddenly snapped backward at the neck and rolled to the ground. Time and again, she woke with a start from these nightmares, reaching out to check Xiaoxi’s breathing to make sure it was warm, to confirm her body was warm, to reassure herself that she was truly there by her side—only then could she fall back asleep.
Even though she had traversed this route once before in her past life, the complex mountain paths still left Xu Huiqing uncertain about the exact way.
Her anxiety was like an arrow. She grabbed a bamboo stick from the roadside and rained blows on Second Sister Zhao’s head and face: “Move faster! Where is she? Hurry up!”
Hopping and yelping under the attack, Second Sister Zhao didn’t dare delay a moment. Scrambling and tumbling, she ran ahead to lead the way, taking them through one narrow, dark mountain path after another, climbing slope after slope, until at last they reached the mountain hollow that in Xu Huiqing’s previous life had taken her more than half a year of searching to find. There, beside a pig trough in a household hidden by dense branches, she saw the tiny figure that she had yearned to find in her heart countless times in her dreams.
It was as if a beautiful dream had walked into reality. She nearly stumbled as she rushed down, stopping not far from that small, young figure, and in disbelief, softly called out: “Xiaoxi.”