Chapter 3 The child must still be in Chongzhou Prefecture
"Uncle Wu, it's me."
"Uncle Wu."
Just when Meng Mingshu and her group were about to break in, the door finally opened from the inside.
"Yes, it's you?!"
The person who opened the door was the wife of that family. When she saw Meng Mingshu, there was obvious guilt and panic on her face, and her hands subconsciously protected her stomach.
It was obvious that she was pregnant.
When Meng Mingshu saw her like this, she felt as if she had fallen into an ice cellar and her heart sank to the bottom.
But Meng Mingshu still held her hand and asked in a trembling voice, "Where's my child, Tuan'er?"
Madam Wu was frightened by Meng Mingshu's appearance. She tried to break free from Meng Mingshu's hand and kept backing away.
"Don't, don't get excited. That day, it was you who left the child at my house."
Mrs. Wu's voice was trembling. She didn't expect that this man would come back.
"I gave you money and told you I would come back to get her later!"
Meng Mingshu held her tightly, her hands shaking violently and her teeth chattering. "I just want to ask you, where's the child? Where is she?"
"Is the child dead? Did you take her life?"
At this moment, Xu Shaozhang was finally sure that Meng Mingshu was not lying.
This time I really came to find my daughter.
"say!"
Xu Shaozhang drew his sword immediately, and the guards behind him did the same.
Looking at the cold sword light and the sinister and terrifying faces of the people opposite, Madam Wu was so frightened that her legs went weak and she almost couldn't stand.
"No, no, the child is not dead."
Madam Wu's voice trembled as she knelt before Meng Mingshu, "Madam, my dear, you know, we are just farmers. We rely on the weather for food and the land for support. We are poor."
"Originally we didn't have any children, so it wouldn't be a problem to have another girl, but, but, I'm pregnant."
The more Mrs. Wu spoke, the lower her voice became.
"So, where are my children?"
Mrs. Wu knew she couldn't escape, so she made up her mind, banged her head heavily on the ground, and hugged Meng Mingshu's skirt with both hands:
"Please spare my life, my dear, I'll sell the child!"
“When did you sell it?”
Madam Wu prostrated herself on the ground, trembling, and said, "I sold it ten days ago."
Meng Mingshu closed her eyes, feeling filled with regret.
She was still late.
But she also knew that now was not the time to delay.
The most important thing now is to find the whereabouts of my daughter.
Meng Mingshu took a deep breath, pulled out a sword from the guard's hand, and put it against Madam Wu's neck.
"Who did you sell it to? Where did you sell it to? Tell me everything."
Madam Wu turned pale with fear: "Madam, please spare me, please spare me!"
"The trafficker who sold me to Sui County is named Zhou Dazhi, who has a mole on his forehead. He's in the West Market of Sui County. You can find him if you ask around."
Xu Shaozhang took out the token from his waist and handed it to the guard:
"Ride as fast as you can and find that trafficker."
Of course, we cannot believe the farmer's wife's one-sided statement. A confrontation between the two parties will be a better way to verify it.
"How much silver did you get?"
Meng Mingshu asked.
With the knife at her neck, Mrs. Wu dared not hide anything and told everything.
"I sold it. I sold it for four ounces."
"The child was good-looking and could have been sold for more, but she was sick, so the human traffickers lowered her price."
Meng Mingshu's heart instantly tightened into a ball, and her heart felt like it was being pierced by needles, with dense pain sweeping over her.
She clutched her chest, feeling a dull pain. "How could I be sick? What's wrong with me?"
Madam Wu trembled and said, "It must be a cold. We, we found a doctor for her, but she hasn't gotten better. She cries all night and keeps crying for her mother and father."
"We really have no choice. We are just farmers and it's hard for us to support ourselves, let alone hire a doctor. What's more, I'm pregnant with a child."
As Mrs. Wu spoke, she began to cry.
"Sir, we are also forced to do this."
Madam Wu concealed some of the facts.
It is true that children cry for their parents every night, and it is also true that they are sick.
But in the final analysis, it is because they force their children to work.
It was the autumn harvest season, and even though the child was only three years old, they didn't want her to be idle, for fear that she would develop a promiscuous figure.
But the child was too fragile. He fell ill unexpectedly after being taken to the fields and has never recovered.
They had no choice but to sell the child quickly while the child was still alive.
Fortunately, the girl was pretty, and even though she was so sick, she was sold for some silver.
Meng Mingshu couldn't help but shed tears, her voice choked and hoarse:
"I gave you a hundred taels, which is enough to support ten children, but you said you couldn't afford it."
When she left the house, she only had one hundred taels of silver with her, and she gave it all to the family.
Meng Mingshu was never one to show mercy. She moved her sword closer.
"If anything happens to my child, your whole family will die too."
If Tuan'er died, not only this family would have no reason to live, but she would have no reason to live either.
After settling her mother and two sisters, she went directly to accompany her daughter to avoid her surviving and bringing harm to Xiao Yan.
If she had not left the palace in her previous life, she would not have been captured by spies from the enemy country and used to threaten and plot against Xiao Yan.
Xiao Yan would not die either.
He is the stupidest man in the world.
He clearly didn't forgive her, but he still saved her regardless of his own safety.
Even if someone like her is tortured to death by the enemy country, that is what she deserves.
While waiting for the human traffickers to arrive, Meng Mingshu searched the Wu family's house from top to bottom, but only found her daughter's clothes and the rattle she was holding in her arms.
This thing was made by Xiao Yan himself for his daughter.
The clothes were made of good material, so the family stripped them off.
They probably wanted to leave the rattle to their own children.
Meng Mingshu held the rattle tightly in her arms, resting her head on it, trying to smell her daughter's scent.
But no.
Xu Shaozhang, who has always looked down on Meng Mingshu, rarely comforts her at this moment.
"It's only ten days. The child can't leave Chongzhou Prefecture. As long as he is within Chongzhou Prefecture, it won't be difficult to find him."
Meng Mingshu certainly knew this.
The Meng family was the prefect of Chongzhou, and Xu Shaozhang's father was only one level lower than Meng's father.
Finding Tuan'er's whereabouts is not a problem, but Meng Mingshu is worried about the child's health.
Children are already weak, and if they catch a cold, they may die if they are not careful.
Now every minute and every second is torture for Meng Mingshu.
Finally she met the human trafficker.
"Gui, noble, please spare my life!!"
The human trafficker Zhou Dazhi was thrown to the ground.
The moment he was caught, the human trafficker knew that he had offended a big shot and had inadvertently bought someone he shouldn't have bought.
On the way, the people who arrested him had already interrogated him briefly, and Zhou Dazhi also found the person from his memory.
"Where did you sell the child?"
Meng Mingshu's voice was hoarse.
"Qing, Qinglou, the child is sick, very sick."
Zhou Dazhi's body and voice kept shaking: "I originally wanted to sell it somewhere else, but no one else wanted it. Firstly, it's too young, and secondly, they're afraid it'll die of illness."
"Only five days ago, Yihonglou said that this child was delicate and tender, and asked if I could raise him. So I sold him for two taels of silver as compensation."
Meng Mingshu's body trembled.
The compensation for selling it indicates that Tuan'er's illness has become more serious.
If it was like this five days ago, what about today?
Meng Mingshu didn’t dare to think about whether Tuan’er was safe.
She rushed out suddenly, turned over and tried to mount the horse, riding forward as if she was risking her life.
Her movements were astonishingly fast. Xu Shaozhang and others hurriedly rode their horses to catch up, but for a while they could only follow behind Meng Mingshu and could not catch up with her.
Meng Mingshu's heartbroken look, and her grief-stricken look that had made her lose her mind, made Xu Shaozhang sigh in his heart.
"If I had known this would happen, I wouldn't have done it in the first place. I hope nothing happened to the child, otherwise Mingyue would be heartbroken too."
Mingyue has a sharp tongue but a soft heart, and values sibling affection very much.
The same is true for her mother and elder sister.
If not for this, a troublemaker like Meng Mingshu would have been strangled to death in an ordinary family long ago, and would not have survived until now.
Meng Mingshu was too anxious, and when she dismounted at the gate of Yihong Tower, she fell off the horse.
When Xu Shaozhang wanted to catch her, it was too late; Meng Mingshu had already fallen off the horse.
"Are you okay?"
He promised Meng Mingyue to take care of his sister.
Meng Mingshu could no longer feel the pain in her body at this moment, and she stumbled towards Yihonglou.
He was soon stopped by someone.
But soon Xu Shaozhang and others behind her drew their swords.
"The government is investigating the case!"
Xu Shaozhang showed his token, and since they were holding swords, the people in Yihonglou consciously made way for him.
The madam soon came over.
"Did you buy a three-year-old girl five days ago?"
The madam replied tremblingly, "Yes, I did."
"Where are the people?"
Meng Mingshu suddenly stood up and asked, her voice was shaking and extremely hoarse.
What Meng Mingshu actually wanted to ask was, is the child okay? Is he still alive?
But she didn't dare to ask for a moment.
She was afraid of hearing an answer that she couldn't bear.
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