Chapter 337 Secret
Li Qihan was silent for a moment, and finally whispered, "I want you to... take good care of yourself."
He paused, his tone filled with a hint of helpless honesty, "But then I think about it, you're so smart, and if I talk too much, I'll just seem like a nag."
Xia Lili couldn't help but burst out laughing, and looked at him with curved eyelashes:
"Captain Li has indeed said a lot more to me recently than before."
Upon hearing this, Li Qihan's stern face tightened slightly for a moment, as if something had hit the nail on the head.
But the next second, Xia Lili blinked, and her voice slowed down, with a hint of warm teasing: "But... I don't hate it!"
At this moment, Peng Yiyi, who was in her arms, suddenly raised her little face, looked at Li Qihan and then at Xia Lili, and said in a childish but clear voice, "Sister, big brother seems to care about you so much."
The air seemed still for a second.
Li Qihan abruptly looked away, and the bases of his ears quickly turned a thin layer of red at a speed visible to the naked eye.
He almost instantly regained his businesslike, cold demeanor and said hastily, "...I'm going to interrogate the prisoner."
After saying that, he strode towards the SUV without looking back, opening the door and starting the engine almost in one go, as if something was chasing him.
Xia Lili looked in the direction where the car was leaving, then looked down at the confused Peng Yiyi in her arms, and finally couldn't help but chuckle.
As the night deepened, only a soft emergency light was on in the tent of the temporary resettlement area.
Xia Lili and Peng Yiyi squeezed into a sleeping bag. The footsteps and whispers of the night patrol in the distance became the background sound of their whispers.
Peng Yiyi turned over and faced Xia Lili, her large eyes gleaming with curiosity in the dim light. "Sister, what does that fierce-looking... but kind-hearted big brother do for a living?"
Xia Lili smiled and replied softly, "He's the captain of the police force, a criminal investigation expert who specializes in catching bad guys."
The little girl nodded, not quite understanding. After a moment of silence, she suddenly asked in a low voice, "So...sister, do you like him?"
The question came unexpectedly, and Xia Lili was speechless for a moment, feeling her cheeks slightly hot.
The tent was so quiet that they could hear each other's breathing. She gently scratched Peng Yiyi's nose: "He's a little kid with a big heart... I don't mind him."
Peng Yiyi seemed to have discovered some huge secret and said in a low voice, "Is this your secret? I promise not to tell anyone!"
Xia Lili was amused by her appearance. Just as she was about to say something, the smile suddenly froze on her face.
An overlooked question suddenly popped into my mind.
Why, when the adoptive parents were afraid that the police would find out that they were selling blood, their first reaction was not to run away or to make excuses, but to eagerly push Yi Yi off the cliff to silence her?
This is illogical.
Selling blood is certainly a crime, but it is not punishable by death.
They were so desperate that they would rather commit an "accidental" murder than face a police investigation. This can only mean...
What Peng Yiyi's "parents" were afraid of being discovered was not just the fact of selling blood.
They were afraid that Yi Yi would reveal a secret more deadly than selling blood.
Xia Lili's heart sank suddenly, and her intuition told her that the abyss of the truth was darker than she had imagined.
She turned around, faced Peng Yiyi, and asked in the calmest possible tone, "Yiyi, I want to ask you, do you have any little secrets that you've never told anyone?"
"About Mom and Dad, or...about the 'visiting relatives' thing in the past?"
Peng Yiyi's body stiffened almost imperceptibly.
She bit her lip, her fingers twisting the edge of the sleeping bag unconsciously. After hesitating for a long time, she said in an almost inaudible voice:
"...Yes. I... I used to have a little brother..."
Her voice began to tremble, as if she were caught up in some terrible memory: "One time, Mom and Dad took us to visit relatives... In that dark little room, they gave my younger brother an injection first... He cried so hard."
"Then...then he fell asleep and never woke up again...Mom said he went to a very far place...But, but I saw them using a black bag..."
The little girl's words were broken and confused, but like an ice-cold dagger, they instantly pierced Xia Lili's heart.
Overdose, illegal procedure, and the death of an innocent child.
All the clues finally connected into the most terrifying line.
Xia Lili suppressed the shock and anger in her heart, immediately took out her cell phone, concisely edited this crucial situation into a message, and sent it to Li Qihan.
After doing all this, Xia Lili took a deep breath, stretched out her arms, and hugged the slightly trembling little girl beside her tightly in her arms, as if she wanted to use her body temperature to dispel the bone-chilling cold.
"Okay, don't think about it anymore. It's all in the past."
Her voice was gentle but firm as she patted Peng Yiyi's back gently. "From today on, no one can hurt you anymore."
"Go to sleep, Yiyi, you can sleep well tonight."
Outside the tent, the night wind swept across the mountains.
Inside the tent, the girl's breathing gradually became even and long in the reassuring embrace.
And the important clue about Xia Lili has quietly arrived on Li Qihan's mobile phone screen.
One morning three weeks later.
Just as the sky was getting light, Li Qiuhan's car appeared at the edge of the resettlement site again.
When he got out of the car, there was a hint of fatigue between his brows from working all night, but his eyes were as sharp as torches, and he walked straight towards Xia Lili who had just stood up.
"It's been explained clearly."
Li Qihan said succinctly, "That couple, Peng Dayong and Li Cui, are not desperate foster parents at all. Instead, they are two pests entrenched in a remote mountainous area, sucking the blood of children."
He took a deep breath and continued to reveal the outrageous truth: "They have long roamed through remote mountain villages, specifically targeting children left at home who lack love and discipline. They lure these children with the promise of snacks, toys, or false affection, or even buy them cheaply from even lower-level human traffickers."
"They have only one goal - to use these children as mobile blood banks, continuously sending them to illegal blood stations to sell for money."
"According to their confessions," Li Qihan's tone grew colder, "the police have already located an underground blood station located inside an abandoned factory in a neighboring province. The environment there is extremely filthy, with no sanitation or safety measures in place."
"They didn't measure blood, didn't sterilize the equipment, and didn't care about the child's life or death. The boy who 'fell asleep and never woke up' as Peng Yiyi mentioned was actually drained of his blood by them."
Li Qihan looked at Xia Lili, his eyes heavy and determined: "We have set up a special task force."
"Next Tuesday, we will join forces with the local police to take action and completely destroy this inhumane black blood network."
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