Chapter 286 Human Trafficking
The old shopkeeper had been busy all night and had just fallen asleep for two hours. He was still sleepy when his apprentice woke him up.
When he heard that Wang Chong had been detained and his son had been summoned by Jingzhao Prefecture, he suddenly woke up, threw on some clothes and strode out.
The noise was so loud that even Chen Yu, who was in a corner of the yard, heard it.
Wang Chong was arrested? His heart felt like it was being clenched.
She pricked up her ears to listen, but she never heard the reason for her arrest.
He gritted his teeth, stamped his feet, and rushed out of the house.
In the front hall of the drugstore, the young manager was still confused.
Because it was just a summons for questioning, there was no arrest, but the clerks holding water and fire sticks were not joking.
"My son, my son has done nothing wrong..."
The old shopkeeper stumbled over, supported by his apprentice. "Sir, are you mistaken? We are honest and upright people."
The leading bailiff glanced at him and said, "I didn't say you weren't. I'm just summoning you for questioning. If you delay any further, don't blame me for being rude."
He didn't have the good temper to explain how many people had been taken away in the morning.
"Okay, okay, we'll go with you."
The old shopkeeper had more experience after all, so he turned around and ordered the store to be closed for the day, and he and his eldest son supported each other as they walked out.
Chen Yu hid in the corridor, pursing his lips tightly.
There were two apprentices and a servant in the shop. Now only one apprentice was closing the shop, and the other two followed him.
"Hey, Miss Chen, where are you going?"
After much deliberation, Chen Yu decided to go and see for himself, holding on to a glimmer of hope.
"I heard that Uncle Wang was in trouble, I have to go and see."
Although I was staying here to prepare for the provincial examination, it was natural for me to want to go and see him since he had helped many of his fellow villagers in prison.
The apprentice was worried that Chen Yu would get lost, so he wanted to wait for him to close the shop before going together, but in the blink of an eye, he disappeared, so he quickly quickened his pace.
Without wasting much time, Chen Yu quickly caught up.
He was lingering behind them about twenty or thirty steps away, and was not noticeable among the crowd of onlookers.
The same thing happened among the various markets in Fengjing.
All the yamen runners and clerks in Jingzhao Prefecture had their days off cancelled and some even stayed up all night.
All the important criminals were arrested and interrogated last night, and this morning only some relevant personnel were summoned.
Although they were tired, their contribution this time was definitely not small. While the superiors were eating meat, they could also have some soup.
There was a hint of coolness in the early morning air of Fengjing City.
There was a layer of gray mist in the morning. The sun came out for a while at noon, but was covered by dark clouds again after most of the time.
The withered, yellow, and curled leaves were torn apart by the autumn wind all night long, and fell scattered on the stone road.
The black-headed gate of Jingzhao Prefecture suddenly opened, and the creaking sound of the heavy door hinges crushed the silence in the alleys.
The people who had been waiting at the stone steps outside the door for a long time began to murmur.
Among the crowd were vendors wrapped in padded jackets, old men with their necks hunched and their hands hidden in their sleeves, and poor men with pale faces wearing only thin linen clothes.
The people had already heard the rumor that there would be a major case in Jingzhao Prefecture today.
At this moment, everyone tried their best to stand on tiptoe and look inside over the crowded heads in the front row.
"Ascension... Hall..." From deep inside the mansion, a long and loud chant rose from the ground.
In the main hall, Jingzhao Yin Deng Hongyi sat as tall as a mountain.
He was dressed in a dark crimson official robe, a gold and jade belt around his waist, and a Jinxian crown on his head. His expression was as cold and solemn as the blue bricks in front of the hall, without a trace of emotion.
"Bring the prisoner!"
The voice was not loud but every word was clear, with unquestionable penetrating power, instantly suppressing the noise of the people watching outside the hall.
The clanking sound of iron chains dragging on the ground came from far away. Two burly yamen runners in black clothes, one on the left and one on the right, grabbed a staggering man like iron clamps and dragged him to the front of the hall.
The prisoner was about forty years old and was wearing a tattered jacket whose original color could not be identified. It was covered with mud and had a faint blood color.
The bailiff gave a sudden push, and the criminal's knees hit the bricks hard. He fell to his knees with a thud, and the iron chains rattled.
"Zhao Laoshi!" Deng Hongyi's voice sounded again.
"I'm asking you, the day before the beginning of autumn, was Wang Baoer, the youngest son of Wang Shouren, a cloth merchant at Ruijinxuan in the West Market, abducted by you?"
Zhao Laoshi raised his head suddenly. The yamen runner had pushed him with all his strength just now, and his knees were now aching.
He bared his teeth, stiffened his neck, and shouted in a rough voice:
"It's unfair, sir!
Villain... I am an honest and upright person. How could I dare to do such a thing that is against the will of heaven and will destroy my family lineage?
What Wang or Li family dolls? I've never seen them before."
"Oh?" Deng Hongyi's eyebrows remained motionless as he simply asked, "Never seen it before?"
His eyes turned to the chief clerk beside the filing desk. The chief clerk understood what he meant and immediately opened the file in his hand that was still freshly written and read aloud:
"According to investigation, at 3:30 pm on the day before the beginning of autumn, three witnesses identified Zhao Laoshi as wandering around Ruijinxuan in the West Market, acting suspiciously.
The first is the owner of a nearby teahouse, the second is the patrolling Wu Hou, and the third..."
The chief clerk paused, his eyes sweeping across Zhao Laoshi's honest face.
"The third one is your accomplice that day, Liu Jincai, who is now in prison!
Liu Jincai confessed everything and stated that you were the mastermind.
He successfully abducted Wang Baoer and hid her in the cellar of the abandoned Jishan Yizhuang in the suburbs of Beijing.
Zhao Laoshi's face suddenly turned pale, like the cheap mulberry paper pasted on the wall.
His lips trembled, his eyes were swallowed by great fear, and he spoke incoherently:
"Liu Jincai is slandering me! It must be...it must be...
That's right! They must have accepted money from the Wang family to frame me!
Your Excellency, please understand! I am innocent! "
Deng Hongyi ignored his shouting and only looked towards the hall:
"The victims, Wang Shouren and his wife, and the recovered child, Wang Baoer, were summoned to the courtroom."
Before he finished speaking, the crowd outside the hall parted to both sides like a tide, leaving a narrow path.
The clerks cleared the way with water and fire sticks in their hands, and the cloth merchant Wang Shouren staggered in, supporting his almost exhausted wife Wang.
Even so, Wang still held tightly to a boy who was about five or six years old.
The child's face was pale, his eyes were filled with fear and dullness, like a frightened little animal. He curled up tightly in his mother's arms, his body still trembling slightly.
When Wang saw Zhao Laoshi kneeling in the hall, the fear and despair that had been pent up for many days burst out in an instant.
Aolao let out a shrill cry, and rushed over to fight the child with him, "You damned evil villain!"
Wang Shouren hugged his wife tightly. The usually respectable businessman now had red eyes and tears streaming down his face.
He only managed a few words through his teeth: "Your Excellency has the final say! Your Excellency has the final say!"
Everyone outside the hall was ignited by this tragic scene.
The chief clerk stated clearly that there were two eyewitnesses and an accomplice who was imprisoned also confessed.
Who doesn’t have a child? Human traffickers have always been the most hateful and damnable people.
"What a sin! Look at that child, he's so scared!"
"I heard they found it in the cellar of a dilapidated charity cemetery outside the city. It was dark, cold, and damp, and it was chained. What a sin."
"That's right! When we found him, his face was pale and he was barely alive..."
"Such a heartless villain should be cut into pieces!"
The suppressed discussions suddenly rose in volume, merging into a wave of anger...
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