Xiao Yunying said to the woman, "Don't panic. Quickly find someone to help you and search the nearby mountains. Maybe the two children went into the mountains and accidentally fell or got lost. It's not necessarily that they were abducted."
"Yes, yes." The woman got up from the ground and said to the man next to her, "Go find the village chief and borrow the gong to gather the villagers to help us find our son."
Xiao Yunying then said to Dai Jincai, "Go and bring the carriage over quickly."
Dai Jincai jogged back to fetch the carriage, and Xiao Yunying said to Lin Shi, "Brother Lin, just in case, why don't you ride in my carriage and see if you can catch up with that carriage? No matter what the result is, it's always good to take a look."
If they fail to catch up, just report it to the authorities. Even if they find it in the village later, you can simply give the officials some extra money as a reward. They shouldn't blame you for making a mistake like this.
Lin Shi thanked Xiao Yunying gratefully. Another father who had lost his child said, "I'll go too. If that person is really a kidnapper, there might be more than one. Brother Lin Shi might not be able to handle it alone."
Xiao Yunying nodded. When the carriage arrived, she asked the farmhand who had seen the stranger to go with her to identify the person. Before setting off, she gave Dai Jincai and the farmhand two paper packages.
She whispered, "This is chili powder. If anything happens, aim carefully and sprinkle it into the other person's eyes. Just don't get it on your own face."
Don't fight them head-on. Your priority is protecting yourself and getting your child back. You can shout loudly to attract attention. Whether you can catch the kidnapper is not your concern.
Dai Jincai and the farmhand understood that their employer meant they must be careful and pay attention to their own safety. They nodded and said they understood.
She placed several shovels and hoes on the carriage as weapons for self-defense. After watching them leave, Xiao Yunying called to the remaining farmhands and addressed them and the women who had gathered around:
"Everyone, please stop what you're doing and help look for the children from both families. Don't worry about the wages; I will pay them as promised."
The loss of a child in a village is a major event, and even people who don't get along with each other will not ignore it.
The women working in the fields scattered to help find the child; those whose own children were there sent their children home first before helping others.
"I'd heard about the kidnappers in the city a long time ago, but I didn't expect they still haven't caught them."
"That's right, children started going missing last fall, and it seems quite a few young women have also gone missing."
“The village chief had reminded us to keep a close eye on our children before, but since nothing had happened recently, no one paid much attention.”
"You guys go ahead, I'll go home first to see if my child is there."
Upon hearing this, Xiao Yunying turned and walked towards her parents' home.
Only after arriving at her parents' home and seeing Luo Xin playing with her nephew and niece did she feel at ease.
Her father and two older brothers went to the mountains this morning and haven't returned yet, so Xiao Yuntao is the only one at home right now.
Xiao Yunying hugged Luo Xin: "Where are Mother, Eldest Sister-in-law, and Second Sister-in-law?"
Xiao Yuntao said, "They went out to help look for the child. Have you heard about it?"
"I heard about it. Just now, Aunt Lin and another family came to my place to ask. One of my farmhands said that he saw someone who wasn't from our village wandering around the greenhouse. When he asked the person a question, the person left without saying a word."
Xiao Yuntao was startled: "That person is a kidnapper?"
Xiao Yunying dragged a stool down and sat down: "It's hard to say, but I feel there's a certain possibility. The farmhand said that he looked like he knew martial arts. It's too much of a coincidence that a stranger who knows martial arts came to our village and the two children disappeared."
In the past, if a child went missing, it was more likely that they had run off to play somewhere or secretly gone into the mountains.
Nowadays, with the frequent loss of children and young women in the city and nearby villages, it's no wonder that their first thought is that they've been abducted.
Xiao Yunying admonished the children, telling them to stay obediently in the yard and not to run around.
By evening, the child was still not found.
Lin Shi and his companions failed to catch up with the unfamiliar carriage. They went to the county government office to report the incident, and returned with two constables to survey the surrounding terrain and learn about the circumstances of the child's disappearance.
Dai Jincai stood beside Xiao Yunying, leading his horse, and recounted what had happened after they chased each other all the way to the city gate.
“We questioned the soldiers guarding the city gate, and they said that they had checked all the carriages entering and leaving the city in the hour before us.”
Among the carriages entering the city, there was only one with two children under the age of eight, but those two children were clearly young masters from wealthy families. The other carriages with one child each showed no signs of distress or that the children were unconscious.
"I see."
Xiao Yunying sighed softly. Now it seemed that either the two children had gone into the mountains and hadn't been found yet, or the children had been abducted and the kidnappers hadn't entered the city but had gone to another place by taking a detour.
In the former case, one can only pray that the child is not in any accident and is just lost; in the latter case... one can only pray that the authorities catch these kidnappers as soon as possible.
Dai Jincai suddenly exclaimed, "It's past the time for school to end. The two young masters must be getting impatient."
It's all his fault. He was so focused on finding the lost child that he forgot to pick up his son from school.
Xiao Yunying calmly said, "No need to rush. I don't know when you will be back, so I have already asked the second brother of the Yang family to drive an oxcart to pick you up."
Yang's twin sons and Xiao Chunlei have transferred to another school, not far from Yunshan Academy. The children usually ride in her family's carriage to and from school together.
Luckily, her carriage was large, and the children were still small, so they could sit on small stools in the middle of the empty space, and there were also seats on the outer platform of the carriage. They could squeeze in and make do, otherwise they really wouldn't have been able to fit nine children.
There were only a few households in the village with oxcarts, and her father and brother were still in the mountains and had not returned, so she could only ask the Yang family, who had oxcarts, for help.
"Alright, you can take the carriage back now. I'll go to the village entrance to meet the children."
She followed the path to the village entrance, where she happened to meet the village chief and the two families who had lost their children seeing off the officials.
After they saw the person off, they turned around and walked back, and saw Xiao Yunying.
The village chief praised her a few words, and the two families who lost their child thanked her repeatedly for lending them the carriage and for having the people tending the vegetable garden help look for their child.
Xiao Yunying waved her hand: "Don't thank me. Everyone is worried when their child is lost. If we can help, we should help. When Luo Yang was lost before, everyone helped me find him. Let's hurry up and search the nearby mountains before it gets dark."
After listening to the advice, everyone continued to search for the person on the nearby hills. Xiao Yunying waited at the village entrance for a while and saw a circle of little people sitting peacefully on the oxcart that was driving in the distance, which put her mind at ease.
She felt relieved that it wasn't a child from the Luo family who was lost, otherwise she didn't know how anxious she would have been.
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