The days passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, Li Mingxi was five years old. Not only did he speak clearly and fluently, but he also did things neatly and efficiently like an adult, without any dragging his feet.

Since the natural disasters in those years, people's lives have begun to improve visibly. At least now they can have enough to eat. Although they still can't eat white flour buns, at least they don't have to eat tree bark or the like.

Especially their Dongfeng Brigade, their life was much better than that of the surrounding brigades. Not only did no one starve to death, but the harvest from the fields was also quite good. It was strange that with the same seeds, the yield of the surrounding brigades was not as high as theirs.

Because of this matter, the county even sent people to investigate. They believed that it was related to the soil, so they sent some soil to the provincial government for inspection. However, they still couldn't figure out what was different about the soil in the Dongfeng Brigade, so they had to give up in the end.

These things are not what Li Mingxi should care about. Now she is at home playing with her two younger brothers, Li Mingyi and Li Mingde. Yes, she has two more twin brothers who are only three years old now. They are lively and active and no one in the family can coax them.

The two brothers only listened to Li Mingxi. As for Da Mao, Er Mao, Dani and Er Ni, they all went to school in town. Only Li Mingxi and Sanni were left at home. As for Sanni, she followed the other little girls to dig wild vegetables in the mountains every day. Wu Mao was away from home all day, and Li Mingxi stayed at home to take care of his two younger brothers.

On this day, Li Mingxi was watching his two younger brothers digging in the yard when he saw Li Taohua, who had gone out to dig wild vegetables, sneaking back. Although he was a little curious, he didn't pay too much attention to it because she had often done this in the past few years and he had become accustomed to it.

Although I had speculated about Li Taohua's identity at the beginning and worried that she would do something bad, but after living with her for a few years, I found that apart from being a little mysterious occasionally, she had not done anything bad. Therefore, I didn't care too much about Li Taohua's sneaky return today.

At this moment, Li Taohua, who had returned to the west room, was carefully taking out a banknote from her pocket. There was a two-yuan note on it. She walked to the corner of the wall, pulled out a brick, rolled up the money and stuffed it in, then put the brick in. After making sure that the things were put away and would not be discovered by anyone, she walked out as if nothing had happened.

Li Taohua: "Sixty Cents, Seventy Cents, what are you two playing at?"

Li Mingyi, who was originally digging, heard Sister Sanni calling him that and immediately said sternly, "We are not six or seven cents. I am Mingyi and he is Mingde. I have said it many times!"

Li Mingde was digging in the dirt stupidly when he heard his brother calling him. He looked up in confusion and said, "Brother, what's wrong?"

Li Taohua smiled awkwardly: "Okay, it's righteousness and virtue!"

Li Taohua said this, but she was thinking in her heart, little guy, if you keep acting so arrogant now, you will cry later.

Li Mingxi, who had been silent the whole time, saw that Li Taohua was still standing there, so he asked, "Sister Sanni, what's wrong? What's wrong?"

Li Taohua: "No, nothing. I just came back to get something. Xiaofang and the others are still waiting for me. I'll leave first!" Li Taohua said as she went out with the basket on her back.

After a while, Li Mingxi felt thirsty and wanted to go back to the house to get some water, so she arranged for the two of them, "Sister needs a drink of water, you two should play here first and don't go anywhere!"

"Okay," the brothers said in unison.

So Li Mingxi went to the kitchen to get a bowl, and then walked into the main room. When she came out, the two people were gone. At first, she thought that the two people were hiding to play hide-and-seek with her!

But after she shouted for a while, no one responded. She became confused and looked around. Then she ran out of the door to look around. She found that there was no one on the road and immediately became anxious.

He rushed to the brigade headquarters first, ready to call for help. After all, it would be better to mobilize everyone to look for people together. As a result, he met the brigade leader Li Tiezhu halfway.

Li Tiezhu saw Li Mingxi's anxious face and sweat, and asked hurriedly: "Xiaoxi, what's wrong? What happened? Why are you so anxious?"

"Xiaoyi and Xiaode are missing, grandpa," Li Mingxi said and began to wipe away tears.

Upon hearing this, Li Tiezhu also became anxious: "What? They are missing, don't cry first, tell me what happened?"

Li Mingxi: "They were just digging in the yard, but when I went in to get a drink of water, they disappeared!"

Li Tiezhu pressed on: "Did those two hide? Did you look for them?"

Li Mingxi: "I looked for it, but couldn't find it. That's why I thought of going to the brigade headquarters to find you, Grandpa, and ask you to ask someone to help look for it!"

"They might be hiding somewhere out of play. They can't run far in such a short while. I'll send someone to look for them right away," said Li Tiezhu as he was about to go to work in the field.

Seeing that Li Mingxi was about to follow him, he hurriedly said, "You should go home first. Maybe they have already gone home!"

"Okay," Li Mingxi said and hurried home.

As soon as I entered the yard, I heard a noise behind me. Just as I was about to turn around, I felt a black screen in front of my eyes and passed out.

When Zhao Qiang saw that the person had fainted, he immediately gestured to Xu Mazi. Xu Zhiyuan, who was hiding behind the pile of firewood, saw that he had succeeded, so he hurried out, first blocked Li Mingxi's mouth, and then took out a cloth bag and put Li Mingxi in it.

Li Taohua, who was hiding in the dark, watched all this silently and thought to herself, don't blame me, if you want to blame someone, blame yourself for being so beautiful and your grandparents loving you so much. Besides, you shouldn't have shown up in the first place, I was just helping you.

It turned out that Zhao Qiang was the nephew of Mrs. Zhao. Although he was in his twenties, he was extremely lazy. He did nothing all day and just liked to wander around. As a result, he got to know a group of gangsters.

From then on, Zhao Qiang became a loner. Not only that, he often stole things. His father Zhao Baotian couldn't control him at all, and his mother Liu Pozi was protective of him and could only turn a blind eye.

In their eyes, Zhao Qiang would never do anything illegal. After all, losing things is a common thing in the countryside, and no one has ever said that it is a crime. Unexpectedly, because of this, Zhao Qiang became more and more bold, often going to the county town, and thus got to know Xu Zhiyuan.

Xu Zhiyuan is different from Zhao Qiang. He has been cheating and deceiving people since he was a child. When he was a teenager, he met a gang that trafficked women and children. Later, he felt that trafficking people could make money quickly, so he joined them.

The reason they chose to abduct Li Mingxi this time was because Xu Zhiyuan got the news that a workshop director of a factory in the provincial capital wanted to adopt a little girl, but he had looked at many in private but had not found anyone satisfactory.

Xu Zhiyuan was thinking of asking Zhao Qiang if he had anyone suitable, since girls in the countryside were not worth much. When Zhao Qiang heard the news, he immediately thought of his cousin's daughter, since both girls were pretty.

So he went to Sanni privately, but Xu Zhiyuan was not satisfied with her and was about to leave when Li Taohua said that her cousin Xiaoxi was pretty and young. So the two of them decided to ask Li Taohua for help and gave her a two-yuan reward.

Only after the people had gone far away did Li Taohua walk up the mountain unsteadily, carrying the bamboo basket on her back.