“Qi Lianxiang, why are you selling children?”

“…”

“I’m asking you a question!”

“The money comes quickly.”

“Don’t you know it’s against the law?”

“Isn’t it just a child? They can have more!”

“You! Ugh, where do the children you’ve kidnapped go?”

“They go all over the place. There are people who specialize in selling them; I just do the kidnapping. The people above don’t allow me to know where the children end up, saying they’re afraid people will trace them back to them.”

“How do you kidnap the children?”

“If they listen, I trick them; if they’re too clever, I snatch them; if they don’t listen, I knock them out and take them away. I grab them when the adults aren’t paying attention. Oh, right, sometimes there are families with too many children and not enough money who actively sell their children to us, asking us to find them a good home.”

“Have you ever thought about what happens to those children?”

“I don’t know where they’re sold; I’m just responsible for the kidnapping. They go to cities and villages, wherever they’re needed. But professional beggars buy them more often; they pay more, too.”

“Did you specifically target certain children?”

“I go for the healthy-looking ones and the well-dressed ones. Good quality ones sell for more money, but even rich people’s children don’t sell for much more.”

“Have you ever killed a child during a kidnapping?”

“…”

“During a kidnapping, have you ever killed a child!”

“…Yes.”

“What?”

“Yes, one of the kids was crying too loudly and almost attracted attention, and the guy I was with was afraid of causing trouble, so he threw the kid in the river. He did it, not me!”

*Sizzle*

The audio cut out. Wei Linglan rubbed his brow, smiling as he pretended to listen to Chu Yin’s complaints about life’s troubles, and surreptitiously reached out and pressed the button on the recorder, switching to another audio clip.

————

“They dislike your reputation?”

The crew-cut youth raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on? Did you used to be someone’s mistress? Or have you recently had an affair, a fling, some late-in-life romance?”

The old woman shook her head, unwilling to talk more about this topic, silently shifting her bottom to make herself huddle further into the tent.

Her meaning of resisting the youth and hoping that he would leave immediately was very obvious.

“Tch.”

The crew-cut youth scoffed, turned his back to the street, and looked down at his phone, murmuring, “It’s Yin City time, seven fifty-nine and one second, seven fifty-nine and two seconds, seven fifty-nine and three seconds…”

His action of standing in place and counting numbers was somewhat strange. The old woman subconsciously glanced at him,

And that glance was all it took.

The old woman was stunned to find that the features on the crew-cut youth’s face were slowly shifting and changing.

A chill instantly permeated the old woman’s body.

She subconsciously wanted to scream, but her throat was as if it was tightly gripped, and she could not make a sound.

The crew-cut youth did not seem to notice the old woman’s terrified and desperate expression. He was still standing at the entrance of the alley, back to the street, looking at his phone and counting the time.

The old woman’s face became somewhat twisted because of her excessive fear.

She opened her mouth and spat out the mushy bread, loosened her grip, and let the mineral water bottle fall into the tent, splashing water.

She used both her hands and feet to lift up the bedding,

And clumsily crawled out of the tent, wanting to escape into the depths of the alley.

Then, she froze.

She froze in place with her upper body protruding from the tent and her hands supporting the ground, unmoving, like a statue.

Only her eyeballs, widened to the limit, were frantically rolling in their sockets.

“Seven fifty-nine and fifty-nine seconds, eight o’clock.”

The crew-cut youth put down his phone, smiled, walked closer, squatted in front of the old woman, and whispered, “Time’s up.”

The old woman’s eyes were wide open, the veins on her forehead were bulging, and she made a “wuwuwu” wailing sound in her throat.

However, a force inexplicably emerged from her body, forcefully twisting her hands and feet,

Letting her slowly prop herself up, crawled out of the tent as usual, and even showed a gentle smile to the crew-cut youth like a normal person.

“Mom,”

The crew-cut youth tilted his head and smiled, “Let’s go for a walk by the river.”

The old woman nodded uncontrollably, watching her body move on its own, following the youth, walking along the street, gradually leaving the line of sight of the Public Security Building.

The crew-cut youth was not walking fast,

The old woman followed him one step behind, and passers-by kept walking past them in a hurry,

She tried desperately to shout for help, but she could not break free from the power that was controlling her body.

Half an hour later, the two walked to a river at the foot of Sheshan Mountain on the outskirts of Yin City.

“We’re here.”

The youth stopped, looking at the undulating river,

He turned to look at the old woman and smiled, “Mom, do you remember this river?”