Hearing the voice, the village chief stood up from his prayer mat, turned around and looked at the group with a kind smile, saying, "You've come."

Lu An'an frowned slightly, glanced at the gasoline can placed next to the village chief's cushion without showing any emotion, and coaxed, "Village chief, you don't need to put yourself in this situation. We have already called the police, and they will be here soon."

The village chief chuckled self-deprecatingly, his tone chilling: "Police? No, these demons don't deserve to be punished by law. They only deserve to kneel here until they die!"

Lu An'an tried to communicate with the village chief: "I know the crimes they committed. You believe me, I will definitely find all the evidence and send them all to jail or be executed."

The village chief shook his head, looking at the villagers kneeling in the ancestral hall, weeping in fear, and smiled gleefully: "Miss Lu, I believe you, but I'm going to make them kneel here, feel despair, and watch them die helplessly."

His cloudy eyes gradually cleared, and he looked up at Lu An'an. "Miss Lu, you can read faces and practice medicine. When you first met those children, you felt their pulses, right?"

Lu An'an nodded in agreement: "Yes."

The village chief smiled and continued, "So you figured it out? Why can't they talk?"

Lu An'an's gaze swept over the villagers who dared not raise their heads, and her tone gradually turned cold: "They poisoned them and made them mute."

The village chief laughed out loud, the laughter growing louder and sadder: "Yes, they were poisoned and made mute by these beasts. Because these children couldn't be sold, and they needed the illusion of a harmonious village, they poisoned these children to keep the secret that Yunling Village was a human trafficking village!"

His eyes were filled with boundless hatred as he glared at the villagers who were finally starting to feel fear and tremble. He continued to reveal the truth: "Do you know? These demons have discovered the quick pleasure of making money through the trade of selling children. They don't even spare their own children. They sell any child they can, regardless of whether they are related to them or not. As long as they can abduct them and give birth to them, they will do anything to sell them, just to get that money, that money from selling those children's lives!"

Tears streamed down the village chief's face. "My wife, my son, and my daughter-in-law were all beaten to death by the villagers for resisting their atrocities when I went to town for an exchange program!"

His body trembled with immense grief: "My grandson, only three years old, was sold off. When I returned to the village, it had become a living hell, a concentration camp of demons. They had lost all humanity. These creatures, unworthy of being called human, should have died long ago!"

The village chief's words left everyone in a state of profound shock, unable to recover for a long time.

They never imagined that the truth would be so cruel and so inhumane.

Lu Yanli, enraged, kicked a villager next to him and cursed, "Beast!"

The villager was kicked to the side by the tremendous force, revealing his legs, which were stuck straight into the steel bars. The immense pain turned his face pale instantly, but because his mouth was sealed, he could only make a pitiful "woo-woo-woo" sound.

Lu An'an looked at the immobilized leg, a look of seriousness flashing in her eyes.

[Damn it, if all these villagers are restrained like this, we won't be able to save them later!]

The village chief seemed to have seen through Lu An'an's thoughts and laughed as he broke her mind: "Miss Lu, you don't need to think about saving them, it's useless."

Lu An'an looked at the village chief and said, word by word, "I don't want to save them, I want to save you."

“If you are doing these things now to avenge your husband, son and daughter-in-law, and to save those children, I can tell you clearly that I can save them, let them speak again, and also avenge you in a legal way.”

The village chief's gaze swept over the ancestral hall, he gave a bitter laugh, and slowly said, "I never intended to let these people go, nor did I intend to let myself go. I am a sinner, just like them."

“They have failed our ancestors, and I have failed them too. I should have reported them from the very beginning, but because they threatened me with the remains of my husband, son and daughter-in-law, I have been doing wrong things all these years in order to find their remains. I have protected them for so many years, and now I can finally atone for my sins.”

Lu An'an's eyes flickered slightly, "You found their remains?"

The village chief shook his head, his tone filled with deep regret and hatred: "I was deceived by them. Back then, after their bodies had rotted, they burned them. How ridiculous that I have protected these devils for so many years for something that has no future!"

Lu An'an was filled with doubts.

[The village chief shouldn't have known about these things when we were eating earlier, so why did he find out about my trip to the mountain with my second brother as soon as we came back?]

She glanced at Lu Wenjing and Fu Zhiyan, who had suddenly arrived, and her heart sank as if she had thought of something.

Is this time, is it aimed at my older brother?

She looked at the village chief and asked her question.

"Village chief, this is such a huge project, you can't possibly complete it by yourself, can you? Where are the people who were supposed to help you?"

"Furthermore, when we were having dinner at your house, you didn't show any intention of taking them all down with you. You told me about the forbidden zone, hoping I would find out the truth and expose it to the public, right? So why did you suddenly change your mind and take matters into your own hands?"

Lu An'an paused, then slowly said, "Let me guess, someone helped you and told you about the remains, right?"

The village chief's hunched back stiffened slightly, and his gaze toward Lu An'an gradually became meaningful: "Miss Lu, you are very smart, but I'm sorry, I can't tell you anything."

He bent down and picked up the oil drum, his tone chillingly calm: "Your companions aren't here. When I drugged those people, she was the only one who wasn't drugged. To prevent her from disrupting my plans, I tied her up and threw her into the cellar. Now, you should leave."

The village chief remained silent for a long time, then looked up at Lu An'an, his expression becoming kind again, just like at the dinner table earlier.

"Miss Lu, I'm entrusting those children to you."

After saying that, he dropped the oil drum and, in the instant the flames leaped up around him, closed his eyes in relief.

"village head!"

Lu An'an's pupils contracted sharply, and she subconsciously took two steps forward. An arm then wrapped around her waist and carried her away from the ancestral hall.

Lu An'an's gaze reflected the village chief's face, his eyes closed and engulfed by flames, and a sense of powerlessness rose in her heart.

She struggled to pry the hand around her waist, but it held her tightly.

Lu An'an's voice was trembling with tears: "Let me go! I can save him! Let me save him!"

Fu Zhiyan restrained Lu An'an, turned her around, pressed her tightly into his arms, pursed his lips, and quickly left the ancestral hall.

Just then, he suddenly heard a cry of surprise.

"Big brother!"