Chapter 3: Failed Jailbreak

"Good morning, boss. Oh, you brought a little girl with you. Why is your daughter crying like a kitten?" A young policeman stepped forward, took the breakfast from his hand, and said jokingly.

The man didn't bother to pay attention to this young man, and waved his hand, "Go away, what are you talking about? Call Xiao Li."

"Okay." The young policeman received the order and ran away in a hurry.

Xiao Li is a new police intern and the only female police officer in this small police station.

When she arrived, the child had stopped crying and was sitting on the sofa, not looking around, just waiting with his little schoolbag in his arms.

Xiao Li thought, he is quite well behaved.

"Xiao Li, please ask the kid what's going on. I'm going to do other things first." The man turned and walked away to give her some space.

Xiao Li said "hmm" and quickly put on a gentle and considerate image. He smiled and sat down next to Lele. "Little friend, what's your name?"

The gentle voice in her ear made the child, who had been tense all the way, relax. She timidly replied, "My name is Lele, happy Le."

"Le Le, what a nice name," Xiao Li nodded and asked, "Then Le Le, tell me why you came to the police. Did you run into any bad guys?"

Lele looked at the policewoman beside him and shook his head vigorously. "No, I want to find my parents. My sister said the police will help me find them."

Hearing this, Xiao Li's heart skipped a beat. A lost child? He glanced at the male police officer outside the window.

Xiao Li pulled up her sleeve inconspicuously, revealing the shocking wound underneath.

My heart ached, and I turned to a softer tone and asked, "Oh, so Lele is looking for his parents. Then tell me, what are your parents' names? Where do you live?"

Lele was puzzled by this question. She didn't know her parents' names or where her home was. Even her own name was learned by her aunt from her longevity lock.

She was like a stone monkey that appeared out of thin air, without parents and without origin.

It’s just a pity that she doesn’t have the stone monkey’s ability to transform into seventy-two different forms, but instead has eighty-one tribulations waiting for her.

Outside the door, the young policeman shouted to the man: "Boss, there is a new report..." Before he finished speaking, he saw the man making a "hush" gesture.

The young policeman glanced at the two people in the middle and quickly lowered his voice to report in his ear, "Boss, the Sunshine Welfare Home in the nearby countryside has reported that a child named Lele, 5 years old, is missing."

After he finished speaking, the situation was self-explanatory. The man nodded to show that he understood. The child simply didn't want to stay in the orphanage and ran away on his own.

He sighed, walked over, opened the door a crack, and called out, "Xiao Li, come out for a moment."

Xiao Li gently touched the child's head and whispered to her, "Eat your buns first. Don't starve. I'll be out for a while."

Lele nodded like a chick pecking at rice, and rubbed the corners of her pants happily. The sister just said that she would definitely help her find her parents.

He jumped off the sofa, picked up a bun and took a big bite. The delicious meat flavor instantly exploded in the child's mouth.

She moved the bun away and looked at it carefully. No wonder it tasted so good. It put much more meat than the one the skinny woman put in it!

"It's delicious." Although there was not much expression on Lele's face, he shook his legs happily.

Outside the door, Lao Chen lowered his voice and quickly told Xiao Li about the orphanage's report. Xiao Li's face turned pale instantly. She had heard some bad rumors about the Sunshine Orphanage.

"She...she is so young and has injuries on her body..." Xiao Li's voice trembled a little.

Old Chen's brows furrowed even more tightly, his tone filled with unquestionable professionalism and a hint of barely perceptible annoyance: "Procedures are procedures. The orphanage is her legal guardian. All we can do is send her back safely. The rest is not our responsibility."

He paused, looked at Xiao Li's red eyes, and softened his voice a little, "Xiao Li, in this line of work, you can't be too soft-hearted. There are some things...we can't control."

When the two of them walked back into the reception room, Lele had just finished eating two buns when the two people outside the door came in together, looking at them expectantly.

Xiao Li's eyes were slightly red, and her smile looked more forced than before. She took Lele's hand and said, "Lele, can I take you to find your parents?"

Lele's eyes suddenly lit up surprisingly, and he uttered a crisp "hmm".

Several people carried the child into the car. Xiao Li sat with her in the back seat and kept nagging her: "Le Le, don't run around in the future. Your family will be worried. If you really get lost accidentally, remember to find someone with this sign, okay?" She pointed to her police badge.

Lele watched the streets speeding away outside the car window, completely immersed in the joy of finding his parents. He agreed to Xiao Li's words without hesitation, "Yeah!"

Seeing her excited and defenseless face, Xiao Li felt a lump in his throat and turned his head away, no longer looking at her.

[How pitiful…]

Lele was startled by the sudden sobbing sound. She opened her eyes slightly, turned her head and asked cautiously: "Sister, what did you say?"

Xiao Li hadn't yet adjusted his emotions. He just kept touching the child's head without saying anything.

No one spoke, and the car suddenly fell into deathly silence.

Children have always had good perception, and Lele's heart was also in suspense. She gripped the strap of her schoolbag nervously.

Until she saw her familiar environment outside the car window, her pupils suddenly shrank and she screamed hysterically: "No! Don't send me back! I don't want to go back, I want to find my parents, you are liars! Don't send me back!"

Xiao Li held the throbbing child tightly, "Le Le, Le Le, listen to me..."

The child looked at her in disbelief, tears suddenly bursting out, her eyes full of disappointment and despair. She sobbed and beat Xiao Li, struggling violently to break free from the policewoman's grip.

Helpless, the child could only cry and kneel down with his hands clasped together, "Please, please, sister, don't send me back, I don't want to go back, I beg you."

"Boss..." Xiao Li cried for help from the man in front of her, but the male policeman just shook his head at her indifferently.

[What an annoying kid…] The voice was cold and tired, with a hint of imperceptible annoyance.

[It's really pitiful...]

The child heard several inexplicable voices in her ears. She covered her ears and didn't want to listen, but the voices ignored her wishes and forced their way into her ears.

In desperation, Lele pushed Xiao Li's arms away, opened his schoolbag, took out a pen from it and was about to stab it into his ear.

"Ah!" Xiao Li ignored the pain in his back and reached out to grab the child who was about to hurt himself. He snatched the sharpened pencil from him and scolded him in shock: "What are you doing!"

There were a few unshed tears hanging on Lele's eyelashes. She stared at Xiao Li in front of her, like a wild beast in a cage, waiting for an opportunity to take revenge viciously.

She shouldn't trust anyone. She's suffered so much, but she hasn't improved at all. No one will really be nice to her because she's just an insignificant person to them.

When they are pitiful, they will comfort them gently and give them some sweet treats; when they are in trouble, they will just throw them away in a hurry for fear of getting into trouble.

In the end, the child who couldn't resist these people was still sent back to the Sunshine Welfare Home.

The director politely thanked the police officers, saying something like, "Thank you for the trouble, kids are just prone to throwing tantrums. Thank you, thank you."

After bowing and nodding to send the police off, the director grabbed the child's arm with a ferocious look on her face. Her expression was completely different from before, and her voice was like a venomous snake spitting out its tongue, "Run! I told you to run! You little bastard! You're so bold! How dare you embarrass me like this!"

She dragged the child to the center of the yard, picked up the thin woman's broom, and kicked the skinny Lele to the ground.

"You dare to run? I'll teach you a lesson!" The dean's eyebrows stood up, and he violently swung the broom handle at the child.

"Ah——" Lele took the broom from behind and felt a fishy and sweet taste in his throat.

The burning pain on his back spread throughout his body. The child groaned in pain and stared at the abuser with hatred in his eyes.

"Did I give you less food or clothes?" She kicked him again, "You little bastard, how dare you stare at me!"

But how could she resist? She could only use her years of experience to hold her head tightly and curl up to reduce the fatal damage.

She can't die.

"Ouch! Enough, enough! Director, are you going to beat her to death?" The old lady had just returned from the town. Seeing this scene, she was so anxious that she dropped the basket in her hand and stopped the director's broom.

The dean took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and let go of the broom, letting the old lady snatch it away. She didn't intend to beat the man to death directly, but seeing that he was beaten like this, it was enough.

"Did you see it? See it clearly! This is the result of running around! Did you hear me?" She scolded the children who were watching the show.

The children nearby were so frightened by the scene that they dared not say anything else. They just whispered, "I heard it."

The director snorted and said to the old lady, "And you, if you really love this child, you can take her home and raise her yourself. I turned a blind eye to those little things before and didn't bother to say anything. Now I have one thing to say: if you can't do your job well, don't work here anymore! You're just causing me trouble."

"Yes, yes, you are right, Dean. I will work hard in the future. Don't be angry. Calm down." The old lady didn't dare to make her angry again at this time, so she quickly humbled herself.

"Alright, alright, let's see if she's dead. If she's not, lock her up in that room. Also, block the dog hole at the door so they don't run out all day for no reason."

The old lady echoed a few more words, and only dared to look at the dying child lying on the ground after the dean left.

"Oh, how pitiful." She didn't know where to start. Her body was covered with wounds and she was afraid of hurting anything she hugged.

But before the old lady could reach out to hold the child, the child climbed up by himself and coldly rejected the old lady's kindness.

"Okay, okay, I won't carry you. I'll carry you up." The old lady pulled her up and picked up the schoolbag that was thrown aside.

The child was carried upstairs limping.

"Okay, okay, go slower."

Lele was supported by the aunt and lay on the bed. Then the aunt lifted her clothes, and what she saw were several shocking purple and blue scars on her back.

"Poor thing, this..." The insults were on the tip of her tongue, but the old lady suppressed them. There was nothing she could do, as she had to bow her head under someone's roof.

There was no medicine to apply to her, so the old lady could only apply some cold water to her.

The old lady patted her pillow vigorously, half blaming and half distressed, saying: "Look at you, what were you running around for? Now you feel better, you got such a beating, you must have learned your lesson."

There was another lot of nagging, and Lele lay numbly on the pillow, no longer having much emotional ups and downs.

"Auntie, please go and take care of your own business." She didn't want to hear anyone buzzing in her ears anymore, so she started to urge her to leave.

"Hey? How come you can talk now?" the old lady exclaimed in surprise. "You were beaten alive? And you can even make it talk?"

Lele was too lazy to argue with her. She no longer had the energy to care about the people around her and just said "hmm" briefly.

Then, her vision went dark, and her consciousness completely sank into a dreamless, heavy darkness.

The burning pain in my back seemed to gradually numb and fade away.

The world is finally completely quiet.