There were dozens of people from the two villages who were arrested and brought to the Southern Province Police Station for suspected involvement in a large-scale human trafficking case. When a row of police cars with sirens blaring took them from the villages to the police station in the fading light of the evening, the noise was so loud that it was particularly conspicuous.
After being temporarily detained, some frightened villagers looked worried and lowered their voices:
"Brother Feng, what should we do? These policemen have never arrested us in such a high-profile manner. Did they get any evidence?!"
"Yeah, our village is going to be ruined!"
Wu Feng was also nervous, but after all, he had seen both sides of those big guys.
Judging from their aura alone, those people are much more powerful than Gu Zhisang and those other online contestants. They have a sinister aura all over their bodies, and just looking at them makes one's scalp tingle!
Thinking of this, he felt a little relieved.
He said calmly and robustly, "Don't be such a jerk. What can these cops find out? The 'goods' that were hidden in the village were taken away long ago. They can't even find anything!"
"As for those 'partners' outside, they are all veterans who have worked with us for many years. They know that if they betray us first, they will also be killed. They are much more stubborn than you, the weak ones."
The second-in-command who had been working with Wu Feng and was also the nominal person in charge of the village was previously suspected by the police of luring people from other provinces into the village because he accidentally revealed his identity.
With the help of the formation set up by the top masters in the village, he hid the kidnapped people inside, and finally returned to the village in a swagger without any trouble.
After this experience, the second-in-command has always been contemptuous of the authority of Xia State's laws.
After listening to the nervous or panicked voices of his fellow villagers, he snorted coldly:
"Brother Feng is right. You are a bunch of cowards with no guts. Just wait and see. The master who is protecting us will definitely find a way. In less than two days, these cops will let us go in disgrace."
The villagers who were ridiculed for being timid looked embarrassed and worried:
"I'm not afraid of going to jail. My eldest son has a girlfriend in a big city. She comes from a family wealthy and doesn't like poor guys like us. If I get arrested, his marriage will be ruined!"
Another villager was also anxious. "My daughter is still in college. She has good grades and will soon take the civil service exam. I can't let anything happen to me at this time. Brother Feng, you have to think of a solution for us!"
The detained villagers were in panic, and the police officers on duty outside were also a little worried.
"Captain He, the evidence we have is not enough to serve as proof of arrest and detention. Besides, will it be enough to arrest so many people at once..."
Captain He of the Southern Provincial Police Department said, "It seems that the orders from above are guaranteed by the Provincial Spirit Group. We just need to act."
"Although I don't believe in these monsters, I really hope that this time they can show up and help Nan Province break the haze that has been hanging over its head for many years! Let's go and take the statement now."
…
On the other side, Gu Zhisang was sorting out the information he already knew.
Back to the afternoon
When she and other contestants of the program were in the neighborhood committee of Xiaoyan Village, through Daisy's moment of empathy in retrospect, Gu Zhisang "saw" a picture buried in the crazy woman's memory.
It was a statue of a deity.
A body of gold and bronze, with multiple faces, some happy, some angry, it is none other than the 'Thousand-Faced God' that has emerged in the vicinity of Southern Province in recent years.
Even from the memory of a mentally ill person many years ago, one can glimpse the powerful power of this statue;
The same evil is sticky and touching it is like being stuck in a quagmire.
This is obviously not normal.
Generally, the various gods worshiped by people place a part of their spirit in clay, bronze or gold statues in the mortal world, and use this to receive incense and offerings.
These statues are not their true selves, and the remaining power on them is very weak.
There is only one explanation for why Daisy was attacked and nearly seriously injured after just one look back:
The statue that the crazy woman, Zheng Xiaona's lost sister Zheng Xiaoyan, saw back then was the true body of the Thousand-Faced God!
Gu Zhisang was very lucky and hit the target with one strike.
If she had not directly grasped the true identity of this so-called god, she would not have been able to see through the "black fog" shrouding Zheng Xiaoyan so quickly.
After sorting out the relevant information and making sure nothing was missed, Gu Zhisang handed the transcript notebook to the police officer who was responsible for receiving him.
After getting it, the police officers found that the information was very detailed with Zheng Xiaoyan as the central fulcrum.
Zheng Xiaoyan, born in 1990, is 32 years old this year. She was born in Jiangbei, Xia State.
Judging from her expression, she has suffered a lot in her life.
When I was young, I was far away from home and separated from my family;
When she was still a young girl, she was forced into an affair and married a vicious man.
She gave birth to her first child, a boy, at the age of sixteen. Six years later, Zheng Xiaoyan, who was only twenty-two years old, gave birth to her second daughter.
Finally, when her daughter was just three years old, she fell insane because she could not escape, and since then she has been wandering around the village like a zombie for several years.
If Gu Zhisang had not come to this village, had not discovered the abnormality in her, or had not been willing to intervene at that juncture;
According to Zheng Xiaoyan's original life trajectory, she would die when she was less than 40 years old due to mental confusion and difficulty in moving, and she would fall and hit her head on a rock.
She wanted to leave this prison and find her family and hometown all her life, but she died miserably and no one came to collect her body.
Over the next ten years, the Zheng family's elderly couple and Zheng Xiaona continued to search for her, and they had no idea that their daughter was dead.
This is indeed the trajectory of Zheng Xiaoyan's real life.
From the memories extracted by Gu Zhisang, she interpreted Zheng Xiaoyan's painful and miserable first half of her life.
When she was 7 years old, Zheng Xiaoyan and her sister Zheng Xiaona followed their parents who collected mushrooms to Nan Province. In the summer of that year, Zheng Xiaoyan, who ran to the side of the road out of anger with her sister, was spotted by local human traffickers.
Taking advantage of the fact that there was no one on the village road at the time, the human trafficker covered Zheng Xiaoyan's mouth and nose with a handkerchief soaked in medicine and abducted her quietly.
The Zheng family stayed here for more than a month, but could not find the whereabouts of the child, and finally returned in despair.
They didn't know that their lost little daughter was being detained like cargo in the next village less than three kilometers away.
At that time, the trafficking chain here had already begun to take shape, and many of the traffickers were poor and incompetent villagers from nearby villages who had no intention of finding a decent job and were only interested in making huge profits.
These people are responsible for the first stage of 'selecting', 'catching' and 'training' the children.
There are several higher-level sales chains further up.
It is said that the people in charge at the top of the chain are not comparable to ordinary people. They are a group of big guys with magic and skills, who can use various magical means to prevent the cops from catching the small shrimps at the bottom.
When Zheng Xiaoyan was first abducted, she was hidden in the village's formation.
Although she was cute at that time, she was only seven years old after all, too young to be sold to the mountains as a new "daughter-in-law".
But as a child she was too old. She could clearly remember that she was abducted and kept clamoring to go home and ask for her parents. It is impossible to raise such a child.
Plus, she wasn't a hot commodity - a boy - so she was almost sold across the border as inferior goods.
Once the money is invested overseas, there is no possibility of getting it back.
It happened that at this time, the mysterious boss who protected the village came in person and wanted to choose a suitable child from the batch of goods and take him away.
The villagers involved in the trafficking chain also don't know where the top gangsters are taking the children and what they are going to do with them.
All I know is that every three to five months, someone would come to pick the 'right' child, without fail.
After they were taken away, they never saw the children again.
Zheng Xiaoyan was one of those "goods" at that time.
At such a young age, she clearly remembers that a middle-aged man in a long robe and with a slight beard picked her up, looked surprised at first, then after observing her carefully, he threw her back to the ground in disappointment.
She heard the middle-aged man say: "This girl has a special physique, but it is not suitable and useless for cultivation... but it is quite suitable for you ordinary people."
At that time, Wu Feng was not yet the village chief of Xiaoyan Village. He was only 20 years old and was a well-known gangster and hooligans in the village. He would gather a group of brothers to collect protection fees all day long.
After hearing from the mysterious man that Zheng Xiaoyan was the legendary woman who brought good fortune to her husband and family, he immediately gave up the idea of selling Zheng Xiaoyan and kept her at home as a child bride.
In other words, the worst marriage that ruined Zheng Xiaoyan's life was with Wu Feng.
The person Wu Feng mentioned at the village entrance who drove the crazy Zheng Xiaoyan out of the house was exactly himself.
Seeing this, a police officer looked puzzled, "Isn't 'lucky husband' a superstition? Are there really women with such a fate?"
Gu Zhisang explained, "Of course not. From ancient times to the present, there has never been anyone born to serve others. However, Zheng Xiaoyan's physique is indeed a bit special. Her soul was a sage in her previous life."
"Based on the blessings and good conduct of her previous life, some of them will still remain in her soul after reincarnation, so she was born with a tough and unyielding character.
If such a person can handle the relationship between family and work well in a harmonious and happy family, can always accompany his loved ones through thick and thin, and can reconcile various conflicts..."
In ancient times, when the imperial masters selected queens for the dynasty, they always said that the selected woman was "born with the fate of a phoenix" and was destined to be the mother of the country. In fact, the women they chose were those who possessed these qualities.
They believed that this type of women could coordinate relationships among the six palaces and help the dynasty continue.
Everyone understood.
It's not that people like Zheng Xiaoyan can bring good luck to their husbands or families, but that their personal charm can influence the people around them and help them run their families better.
The police officer sighed and said, "This is... such a pity."
If she had not been abducted, one can feel from Gu Zhisang's description alone that Zheng Xiaoyan's other life must have been wonderful and happy.
It was precisely because of her inherent stubbornness and tenacity that she never gave up the idea of escaping.
When she first came to Wu Feng's home, Wu Feng felt that she could bring him good luck and was quite "nice" to her.
Although she could not go out freely or go to school, she never skimped on food and clothing. However, she never gave in and learned a lot of words through self-study.
He escaped three times in five years, but was caught each time.
Later, Wu Feng often beat her and deliberately took her to see how miserable the lives of some women who were abducted and sold to darker places were. However, this only strengthened Zheng Xiaoyan's determination to run away.
After Zheng Xiaoyan's second child was born, when everyone who knew the situation, including Wu Feng, thought she had completely given up, she once again used the false appearance of loving her daughter to secretly run away with another woman.
That was the thin woman who was chained in the afternoon.
It's a pity that they were caught again.
Everyone in the village is either an accomplice or did not participate but would not care about these things. Even if they saw something, they would pretend not to see it for fear of getting into trouble.
This time Wu Feng was completely annoyed.
He decided not to "pity" Zheng Xiaoyan anymore.
He had made a lot of money from human trafficking over the years. He had a son, a daughter, and a lover, so he no longer needed Zheng Xiaoyan to bring him prosperity. So he went crazy about Zheng Xiaoyan.
The other woman's fate was not much better. If she had not been found out to be pregnant when she was caught, her fate would probably not have been much better than Zheng Xiaoyan's.
It was precisely because Zheng Xiaoyan had memories of their escape that Gu Zhisang was able to accurately locate the woman's position.
Seeing this, the police officer asked again:
"Ms. Gu, do you mean that Zheng Xiaoyan didn't go crazy on her own?"
"That's right. She is mentally strong. If she was going to collapse, she wouldn't have held on for more than ten years." Gu Zhisang said with cold eyes:
"I've said that there are metaphysical forces behind these cases. Zheng Xiaoyan's madness is not a normal mental problem. She was cursed by someone to replace her soul."
The so-called "soul-replacing curse" is a kind of curse cast between people in a contractual relationship, and it is difficult to distinguish between good and bad.
Some people love each other very much, and one party is willing to share health, life span and luck with the other party, so the two parties will conclude a two-way spell.
The 'soul-replacing curse' on Zheng Xiaoyan belongs to the latter. This curse is not bidirectional but is only cast on her, and she has become a funnel for sacrifice.
The worse her luck and health are, the more prosperous the other party to the contract will be.
In addition, her special fate brought her with some great luck, making her the best nourishment for Wu Feng.
He sought help from the great mystics above, and used extremely cruel means to shatter Zheng Xiaoyan's mind, turning her into an idiot. He kicked her out of the house, leaving her to starve and waste her days.
Just in case, Wu Feng also wanted Zheng Xiaoyan to stay under his supervision.
Thanks to the luck gained from the 'Soul-Substitute Curse' over the years, Wu Feng has been able to be so successful and arrogant in Southern Province.
Until Gu Zhisang and others came to Xiaoyan Village and uncovered the darkness of this place, Wu Feng and Zheng Xiaoyan were still husband and wife, and their marriage line was still preserved.
He is still squeezing out the last bit of value from Zheng Xiaoyan.
For Zheng Xiaoyan, the pain of having her mind distorted was tantamount to being tortured to death by slicing. The spellcaster dressed in foreign clothes became the person she remembered most and hated the most.
If these people had not aided and abetted Wu Feng and others, if they had treated ordinary people as ants and abused them at will, how could she have been abducted and suffered such pain? !
So even though she was crazy and stupid and had forgotten almost everything, when she saw the clothes on Xun Yiqing and He Mi Tu, it still aroused the deepest hatred in her heart, prompting her to pounce on them.
At this point, the mystery surrounding Zheng Xiaoyan was completely solved.
From her memory, Gu Zhisang also saw the faces of several masters, as well as the names of some people who cooperated with Xiaoyan Village and were part of the trafficking chain.
After she sorted out this information, she handed it over to the Southern Province Police Department.
"This is all we can do. We really can't help with the subsequent investigation and arrest."
Captain He looked at the concise but important information on the paper and was moved:
"Thank you Comrade Gu for your assistance!"
…
The subsequent exploration progress is very fast.
Although some people who heard the news hid themselves early, there were still some who were slow to react and did not receive the news and were captured by the police.
Following these people's clues, the Nan Province police, who had been waiting for this day for who knows how many years, were extremely excited and carried out the operation without sleep. In the end, they arrested nearly a hundred related criminals and sorted out the information of thousands of kidnapping victims in the past two decades.
Although this data is already quite large, there are still many victims who have no information left.
This criminal chain includes trafficking in women, selling children, and a significant portion of the trafficking is human organ trafficking…
The remains of these people have disappeared and are difficult to trace.
Among those captured were some border criminals who were not from Xia Country.
The overseas list in their hands is a valuable piece of information. Perhaps in the near future, those who have been displaced outside their country will be able to be brought back to this land.
As for the mastermind behind this major case involving Southern Province and surrounding areas, his identity also surfaced during the investigation.
Among the main Xuan masters were evil cultivators, strange people who entered Xia Country from abroad, and the deputy director of the Southern Province Xuanmen branch.
The crimes they committed are too numerous to list.
The reason why these "high and mighty" and self-important masters were willing to condescend and deal with a group of stupid mortals, and even set up formations to help and support their trafficking business, allowed the people of the two villages to form a huge criminal gang in just a dozen years.
All because of their shameful selfish desires.
Through the investigation of the spiritual group, it was found that these mystics would select children and men and women with special characteristics, spiritual perception or talents from the trafficked population, deprive them of their spiritual perception through secret techniques, and use this to speed up their own advancement.
Some people were directly used for poison testing, medicine refining... Such creepy, chilling and vicious methods caused an uproar in the entire metaphysical world once they were announced by the Spirit Group.
Without any call, all factions in the metaphysical world are spontaneously hunting down those metaphysical masters.
Also, because there was a master from the Qianqing Sect among this group of people, they remained silent, which was unusual for them, about the Ling Group's start of construction in the Southern Province.
As for the main culprits like Wu Feng and Chen Xiangbiao, it is almost certain that they will be sentenced to death.
The remaining buyers and sellers will also enter the sentencing assessment process, which will be a long but joyful and hopeful process.
——
Before leaving, Gu Zhisang went to see Wu Feng and Chen Xiangbiao.
Their eyes were red with hatred for her as the 'culprit' who had brought disaster to the village. If she hadn't been handcuffed, they would have pounced on her and killed her to death.
Looking at Wu Feng's sinister expression, Gu Zhisang remained unmoved.
Wu Feng sneered: "Master Gu, you are so cunning. You are here to laugh at me, your defeated general! You vicious woman!"
Gu Zhisang said calmly, "You are not as good as Village Chief Wu. Don't make it sound so innocent. Everyone in your village is guilty."
Villagers who were unwilling to collude with the evil and could not accept human trafficking had already moved away from this evil place with their families.
Those who are still in the village are either participants and accomplices, or they know the truth but do not report it and allow the situation to develop.
These people have made enough money from their long-term crimes to fill their pockets.
They keep saying that their relatives are innocent, but they never think that the money their relatives squander is the blood and tears of innocent lives.
The most ridiculous thing is that they claim that they love the southern province and the mountains, and say that those girls from other provinces who have worked hard to study and have acquired knowledge and education have become wild and impure in mind, and they want their flower-like vibrant lives to be ruined in the mountains.
But when it comes to their own children, they have to go to great lengths to send them out of the mountains.
How ridiculous is this?
Gu Zhisang would not judge whether the relatives of these criminals were guilty or not, but she would not change the decision she had made.
Because the truly pitiful people are the victims of trafficking cases.
Wu Feng said bitterly: "Don't be complacent, you have ruined the hard work of those adults, they will not let you go!"
Gu Zhisang curled his lips slightly and said, "I came here just to tell you one thing. The 'Soul Substitution Curse' you cast on Zheng Xiaoyan has been broken by me. You will soon be able to feel the changes in your body. It is the backlash of the curse you cast."
"At first, your skin will fester and your body will swell. Then your internal organs will feel excruciating pain, as if cut by a knife. In the end, you will either die of festering all over your body or die in agony. Of course, the process to death will be a very long one. You probably can't wait that long, and you will be shot."
She leaned forward slightly, smiling from the bottom of her eyes, "But in order to give you a better experience, I used a little trick to accelerate the speed of backlash. Don't worry, you will definitely feel it until you die."
Wu Feng was shocked and angry, and his heart was chilled by the scene described by Gu Zhisang.
He didn't know if it was due to psychological reasons, but he always felt his skin was itchy.
Gu Zhisang stood up straight, his eyes cold, "You must pay back for all the things you stole from Zheng Xiaoyan and the suffering that the victims have endured over the years."
After the 'soul-replacing curse' was lifted, Bai Ci also helped Zheng Xiaoyan sort out her mind several times.
Although her mental state is still not fully recovered, it is improving. The Zheng family's old couple and Zheng Xiaona have already taken her and Erya away with many thanks.
In about half a year, her consciousness will become clearer and clearer, and there is a great possibility that she will return to normal.
At that time, it will be up to Erya to decide what to do with the child and whether to let her go or stay.
When Zheng Xiaona left, Erya was only three years old, and she left without any regrets.
After being caught, Erya was the only person in the Wu family who still recognized her. Although she heard many people talk about her mother abandoning her, she did not hate her mother. She understood and supported her mother in her heart, but she did not dare to say it. She only dared to go to see her mother secretly without telling her father and stepmother.
Because of this, Zheng Xiaona's family did not have too many grudges against her.
Before leaving, Gu Zhisang glanced sideways:
"By the way, don't you admire those outsiders so much that you even sent your son to learn from them?"
Wu Feng's face changed: How did she know? !
He always felt that this line of work was not a promising one and wanted to retire. He thought that the boss was very powerful and could make things happen at will, so he asked his son to study metaphysics.
Not many people know about this.
Gu Zhisang smiled with pity: "I forgot to tell Village Chief Wu one thing, your son does have some spiritual talent, but it's a pity..."
Those masters of the mysticism who regarded ordinary people as ants were worried about not having a good way to deprive their spirits, so Wu Feng delivered people to their doorstep.
As for morality and conventions, would those mystics who are worse than animals follow them?
After she turned and left, bursts of heart-wrenching screams of pain erupted in the house.
"No! Impossible!! I don't believe it!"
When Gu Zhisang turned and entered Chen Xiangbiao's room, he was not as arrogant as Wu Feng next door. It was obvious that he had accepted his fate.
After looking at him for two seconds, Gu Zhisang said, "Chen Xiangbiao, your son and daughter have been found."
Chen Xiangbiao raised his head suddenly, "Found it?! Have they been sent back?"
Gu Zhisang shook his head slightly: "They probably won't be able to come back in a short time, because they have already merged with the cross-river bridge at the border."
What Chen Xiangbiao didn't know was that the border partner had cheated him.
The other party did not take the twins away accidentally, but did it on purpose.
The construction of the new cross-river bridge was not going smoothly. The local master said that this was because the river god needed living people as sacrifices, the so-called "bridge keepers".
According to the master, the "Bridge Keeper" needs a pair of twin boys and girls, but no suitable candidates have been found.
In order to build the bridge smoothly, the local master gave the border partner a very generous reward and asked him to help find the right candidate.
After searching in vain, this person turned his attention to Chen Xiangbiao's children.
In fact, when Chen Xiangbiao called the border partner, the two children had already been taken away by the bridge builder.
That night they were poured into cement and turned into clay sculptures alive.
By the time Xia Guo police found the bodies, the foundation of the bridge had already been built. Now it was very difficult to even remove the bodies of the two children...
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