"Xiaoxia?"

After Jiang Qiaoqiao took the little girl home and cleaned her up, she looked at the little girl's face in shock.

She thought the voice calling for help sounded familiar.

But she never expected that the little girl would be from an orphanage.

The welfare home and Yangjia Village are located in the east and west of Yun County, respectively, separated by more than a hundred miles. How did Song Xiaoxia manage to run away from the welfare home to the mountains of Yangjia Village all by herself?

And judging from her appearance, she came out of the old forest all by herself.

"Xiaoxia, how did you end up here? Does your mother, Song, know you left the orphanage?"

Jiang Qiaoqiao watched as Song Xiaoxia, a young girl, drank a large bowl of thick porridge before asking a question.

But as soon as she finished speaking, the little girl's head hit the table with a "thud," and then she stopped moving.

Jiang Qiaoqiao was startled and worried that the little girl might have some internal injury that hadn't been detected. She was about to rush the little girl to the hospital.

Then I heard the little girl snoring softly.

Lin Xiaohui, who was standing next to Jiang Qiaoqiao, breathed a sigh of relief. "This child, how could she just fall asleep like that? It scared me to death. I thought she..."

"The child must have run out of the mountains, exhausted and hungry, and his body had reached its limit. Now that he's eaten, he naturally fell asleep."

Jiang Qiaoqiao carried the little girl back to her room, put her on the bed, covered her with a blanket and told her to sleep well.

Who knew that the little girl would sleep for a whole day and night?

Halfway through, Jiang Qiaoqiao became a little worried and asked Huo Beixiao to call Xu Yizhou to come and check on the child.

"Don't worry, sister-in-law. Apart from these external injuries, the child is fine. She's just too tired. She'll be fine once she wakes up."

Hearing Xu Yizhou's words, Jiang Qiaoqiao finally felt relieved.

At this moment, Song Lixiang also arrived.

Her eyes were still red and swollen, and she couldn't stop crying; she had clearly been crying all the way here.

"Comrade Jiang, Xiaoxia...where is she?"

As soon as Song Lixiang entered the courtyard, she wiped away her tears and asked anxiously.

"Lixiang, don't worry, Xiaoxia is too tired and is still asleep. Let me take you in to see her first."

Jiang Qiaoqiao led Song Lixiang into the house.

Upon seeing Song Xiaoxia, Song Lixiang hugged the child and cried even louder, raising her hand as if to hit the child.

Jiang Qiaoqiao quickly stepped forward to stop her.

But Song Lixiang couldn't bring herself to hit the child; instead, she slammed the child hard onto the bed.

Even so, the little girl was not woken up.

Once Song Lixiang's emotions had calmed down a bit, Jiang Qiaoqiao persuaded her to put the child on the bed and let the child sleep well.

She led Song Lixiang to the main room and first made her a cup of sugar water.

After Song Lixiang drank several mouthfuls of the sugar water from the enamel mug, her emotions finally calmed down completely.

"Lixiang, what exactly happened? How could Xiaoxia, a young girl, have run so far by herself?"

"Sigh!" Song Lixiang sighed with frustration. "It's all my fault! I left the children at home and went out to work."

The children used to be very well-behaved. When I wasn't home, they would stay quietly at home and wouldn't run around. I also locked the yard gate, thinking that if they couldn't get out, nothing would happen to them.

"But this time, those damned human traffickers actually broke down the gate and tricked a few children into thinking that I had an accident while I was working and that they wanted to take the children to see me."

Xiaoxia, being cautious, told the younger children to stay home while she went with them to check on things. Seeing the children were clever, the traffickers didn't dare force them. They had their accomplice take Xiaoxia away first, and they would come back for the others.

"When I got back, I ran into them trying to take the other children away. The younger ones were okay, but Xiaoxia..."

As Song Lixiang spoke, she couldn't help but shed tears of heartache again.

She gripped Jiang Qiaoqiao's hands tightly, her eyes filled with gratitude as she looked at her. "Qiaoqiao, thank you, thank you so much. If it weren't for you, Xiaoxia..."

Jiang Qiaoqiao smiled and comforted her, saying, "It's nothing, it was just something I did on the spur of the moment. If it had been someone else who encountered Xiaoxia instead of me, that person would have saved her too."

In this day and age, even if someone else discovered Song Xiaoxia, they might still rescue her, but they might not necessarily contact Song Lixiang.

Because everyone is poor now, although they can no longer live like they did more than ten years ago, where they had to tighten their belts and go hungry every day, ordinary rural families still cannot eat to their heart's content.

If they really got a grown girl like Song Xiaoxia for free, they would most likely resell her.

Nowadays, not only in remote mountainous areas, but even in places like Yangjia Village, which is not far from the county seat, there are some men with disabilities who buy wives from human traffickers.

If they can't find girls of the right age, they'll buy young girls like Song Xiaoxia and raise them as child brides.

Jiang Qiaoqiao grew up in the countryside and had seen many similar things.

*

“Mother Song…”

When Song Xiaoxia woke up, she saw Song Lixiang guarding her bedside and immediately threw herself into Song Lixiang's arms and burst into tears.

Song Lixiang hugged her and comforted her softly, "It's alright, it's alright, Xiaoxia is back..."

After Song Xiaoxia woke up, Jiang Qiaoqiao realized that her guess was indeed correct.

Song Xiaoxia was indeed sold by human traffickers to a mentally challenged man in the mountains to be raised as a child bride.

Fortunately, Song Xiaoxia was quick-witted. After realizing something was wrong, she not only didn't resist, but also praised the mentally challenged man's parents and family. When the man's parents asked her if she would like to stay with them, she acted as if she was very willing and honored, which made the family completely lower their guard.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!