Chapter 80 Chapter 80 Your methods are so cruel.
Wu Sijia was awakened by a sharp horn.
The air was heavy and filled with the stench of diesel and rotten apples. She tried to open her heavy eyelids, but it was pitch black and she couldn't see anything clearly.
It took her a while to realize that she was lying on her side on the cold iron floor of the trunk of the car, covered with canvas, with tape on her face. She was unable to speak, and her fingers and toes had lost all sensation from being tied up with hemp rope for a long time, making her completely unable to move.
...Where is this? Has she been kidnapped?
Suddenly, a crisp "pop" sound was heard in the noise. It was the sound of a lighter cover popping open. Then, a faint flame penetrated the gap and illuminated the narrow space.
Wu Sijia held his breath and used all his strength to move towards the light.
In the front seat, the conversation between the man and woman leaked in intermittently like a blunt knife cutting through a sack.
"After we pass the checkpoint ahead, it'll be your turn to drive..." The man in the driver's seat was smoking a cigarette and his voice was vague.
"...Okay." Amid the chugging of the diesel engine, the woman in the passenger seat flipped through the newspaper. "This girl is older and more sensible. We should go with her neighbor's. She's only eight years old, so she'll be easier to find."
The car braked at this moment, and Wu Sijia heard the front door being suddenly opened.
In the hazy vision, a flashlight beam shone in from the gap and slid over the canvas.
Wu Sijia was very excited. This was a great opportunity to be rescued!
She didn't dare make any sound and tried to raise her head upwards to make the canvas move.
However, the person at the checkpoint was completely oblivious. With a click, he slammed the car door shut and impatiently signaled them to "hurry up!"
The diesel engine roared back to life. After a moment, the man spoke in a voice thick with phlegm, "That girl you just mentioned, eight years old, is still a little young... She can't withstand the torture and will be dead in two days! Even though we're in this business, we can't lose our conscience!"
"...That's right." The woman exhaled slowly. "That one is smarter, and this one is quieter. This one is better."
The eleven-year-old Wu Sijia felt a sinking feeling in his heart.
What business do they do?
——Did you encounter human traffickers?
She bit her tongue hard, the sharp pain slowed down her emotions, and two lines of hot tears flowed down.
Jiangtan has not been peaceful in recent years. A few days ago, the radio reported that a group of human traffickers have been operating in the city recently. Parents are requested to keep an eye on their children.
Before going to work, her parents repeatedly reminded her not to be alone, and even if she went out to play, she had to go out with her friends in the compound.
Wu Sijia thought to herself that she was pretty and popular, and she always felt that she was capable and that such a bad thing would never happen to her.
Unexpectedly, when she just took the little sun out of the park and wanted to do something with it... she was knocked unconscious and taken away by human traffickers!
And the eight-year-old girl these two are talking about, isn’t she Ji Yinhe?
Most importantly, where are they taking her now?
Human traffickers are desperate criminals who hang their heads on their belts. Wu Sijia didn't dare to move and crawled stiffly under the canvas.
Suddenly, the ferry's whistle sounded in the distance, like a muffled sob.
Wu Sijia's ears trembled. Her mother had taken her on a river boat ride before. There was a Qingyi River in the southern suburbs of Jiangtan. Across the river was Jingzhou!
Was she going to be taken to the provincial capital? Would her parents still be able to find her?
The woman in the front row said in a deep voice, "...Bo'er, Sister Yu said things are tense these days, otherwise she wouldn't even refuse to accept a girl like this... Anyway, we should be more careful."
The man sneered, "Yu Yexiang? I see she's been busy trying to get close to the two daughters of the Su family lately! Is she going to retire? Anyway, I didn't expect her to be able to help me..."
He thought about it and sighed, "Let's take him back and lock him up first, and then find a buyer."
The woman thought for a moment and said, "Okay, but is there room at home to keep someone like that? My son is not young anymore. What if...it delays our ability to sell him for a good price?"
The man snorted and laughed. "The basement! I killed Da Huang last month and have a dog cage left. Put her in there and starve her for two days. Even the most stubborn young lady will behave!"
The woman laughed out loud. "That's a good idea!"
Wu Sijia was still a child after all. When she heard this, she was so scared that her whole body was shaking. She covered her mouth with her little hands and dug her nails into her cheeks.
The other side has two adults, and maybe a son. If we just fight with physical strength, we have no chance of winning.
What should I do...
She suddenly remembered a scene from not long ago.
In the small park filled with sunshine, Ji Jianguo, who had just got off work, came to pick up Ji Yinhe with a cream popsicle.
At that time, she stood by with envy on her face, watching her good friend's father tell her what to do if she met a bad guy.
"...Don't move. Stay calm, assess your surroundings, and minimize harm to yourself. Wait until the other party is less vigilant, then find an opportunity to call the police."
The confused Ji Yinhe nodded seriously.
At this moment, Wu Sijia, who was deeply impressed by this scene, took a deep breath and kept repeating in his mind, "Calm down! Calm down!"
She closed her eyes and waited quietly for the opportunity to escape.
*
The pickup truck stopped in front of a small courtyard at Jinghai Wharf.
This dock is one of the main cargo ports in Jingzhou. It is very busy during the day. However, since everyone does physical work and there are no entertainment facilities nearby, the workers and boatmen will get together after dinner to play mahjong and drink some wine, and then go home to sleep with their wives.
It was already past midnight, and the lights were out. It was eerily quiet, and the only sound was the sound of waves crashing against the rocky coast.
Wang Bo looked around, jumped out of the cab, picked up a hammer and handed it to Che Xiaozhen next to him.
"If she wakes up, knock her out again," he said simply.
Che Xiaozhen nodded and saw her husband stretch out his long arm and lift the canvas covering the trunk.
The girl still had her eyes closed, sleeping between the wooden boxes filled with rotten apples, and the moonlight illuminated her little face brightly.
"Hasn't he woken up yet?" Che Xiaozhen was a little confused. "You didn't hit him too hard and beat him to death, did you?"
"Impossible!" Wang Bo said this, but he still reached out to touch the girl's neck and exhaled, "There's a pulse."
The two men skillfully lifted Wu Sijia out of the car. One carried her while the other opened the door, and they quietly led the little girl into the basement.
Wu Sijia was thrown to the ground, her heart almost jumping out of her throat.
Wang Bo saw the dog cage in the corner and motioned to his wife, who was standing next to him, "What are you doing? Go clean it up!"
Che Xiaozhen felt a little soft-hearted. "Why not just forget it? She's still unconscious and probably won't wake up for a while... Anyway, once the basement door is locked, she can't get out."
Wang Bo clapped his hands, "Alright then."
The two human traffickers went upstairs. Only when they could no longer hear any footsteps did Wu Sijia gently open her eyelids and look around in the dim light.
The basement was very small, probably used to store miscellaneous items and keep dogs. The walls were stained with the stench of dog urine, and there was a rusty cage in the corner.
Thinking that he was almost locked up, Wu Sijia couldn't help but shudder.
Fortunately, I followed Ji Jianguo's instructions and pretended to be unconscious, so I have my freedom now.
Thinking of this, she couldn't help but envy Ji Yinhe.
We were all girls born and raised on Heye Street. How could others have such good parents?
An indescribable feeling spread in his heart. Wu Sijia shook his head heavily, forcing himself to cheer up. He moved his body to the side of the dog cage, put his wrist on the sharp edge of the wire, and rubbed it back and forth.
With a soft "snap" sound, the hemp rope broke on the ground and she finally gained a little freedom.
Wu Sijia let out a long breath, dragged her numb hands and feet up the stairs, and pushed the door.
The human trafficking couple locked the door from the outside, so it seems they can't get out tonight.
She thought for a while, turned on the light, and sat down on the steps by the door.
There was no water or food in the basement. According to the man, even if he had to torture her for a few days, he would not watch her starve to death.
The other party must have thought that her hands and feet were tied, and she was lying weakly on the ground, unable to move.
So, just wait until someone pushes the door open and their vision is blurred by darkness.
——She can escape from this basement!
*Provincial departments.
In the interrogation room, Che Xiaozhen stared blankly at the photo in Ji Yinhe's hand, her lips moving.
"So... her name is Wu Sijia." A strong hatred was revealed on her face. "She's not dead?"
Ji Yinhe and Lu Zheng exchanged a glance and asked patiently, "What do you mean? ...You thought she was dead?"
"That fire..." Che Xiaozhen's tears flowed silently. "That night, thick smoke suddenly billowed out of my basement... Bo'er and Xiaowei had already gone to bed, but when they smelled the smoke, they went down to put out the fire, and they never came back..."
"Che Xiaozhen, you are now suspected of kidnapping a minor. Tell the truth and we can consider giving you some preferential treatment in the future. Do you understand?" Lu Zheng knocked on the table with a serious expression.
Che Xiaozhen was silent for a long time, then wiped away her tears and sneered, "Once I set foot in the provincial department, I can't escape the death penalty, right? ... What else can you give me?"
Ji Yinhe leaned forward and raised his eyebrows, "Don't you want to sweep the graves of Wang Bo and Wang Xiaowei again?"
Che Xiaozhen's expression brightened up, "I'm still okay..."
"Sure." Ji Yinhe nodded, "As long as you are willing to cooperate with our work."
Che Xiaozhen lowered her head, looked at Wu Sijia's photo, and took a deep breath.
"...Okay, I'll tell you." She raised her eyes, decades of resentment condensed into a venomous expression. "We brought her from Jiangtan to Jingzhou and locked her in the basement of my yard, waiting for an opportunity to take action... I didn't expect that despite her small size, she was so capable that she actually escaped! Wang Bo caught her, beat her severely, locked her in a dog cage, and deprived her of food and water to make her suffer... I didn't expect that she would find an opportunity to steal the matches from Bo'er's pocket and set the basement on fire that night!"
"..." Ji Yinhe took a deep breath, "You are so cruel."
"Now that you're in this business, what conscience do you still have?" Che Xiaozhen asked her viciously.
Without waiting for a reply, she continued, "After Bo'er and Xiaowei went in, I saw the fire getting bigger and bigger. The whole house on the ground was on fire. There was a loud bang, and the wooden beam almost hit my head! I was so anxious! Bo'er and Xiaowei were calling me, but the smoke was too thick and I couldn't see anything. I went back to the main house and got a bucket of water to put out the fire, but it was no use. The fire kept getting bigger and bigger..."
The fire of those years burned in her eyes, and she seemed to fall into that desperate night all over again.
"...Later, my legs went limp and the burns hurt so much. I don't even know when I passed out... When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on a bed in the county hospital. I heard that a neighbor discovered the fire and dragged me out. The police were there too. They said my house was completely burned down and that Bo'er and Xiaowei's bodies had turned to ashes, so broken they couldn't be pieced together! Although they didn't say it, I knew there was a girl locked up in the basement. I was a little relieved at the time that they hadn't noticed..."
*
at the same time.
In that long-forgotten basement.
The traces of the fire from the past have been eroded deep into the years. In the corner where dust and cobwebs have accumulated, a brand new cage has replaced the dog cage of that year. A young woman hugs her knees, listening desperately to the sound above her head that has long disappeared.
"Thump, thump, thump—"
A pair of high-heeled leather shoes walked over with heart-pounding steps and stopped in front of the cage.
"Still waiting?" the owner of the leather shoes chuckled. "The police have left and won't be coming back."
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