Susu couldn't understand why she couldn't find Xiao Xingxing on this street.
It had been three days since Xiaoxiao appeared in the parade footage, so it was understandable that she couldn't find him after such a long time.
But Xiao Xingxing had only left the hospital this morning. He said he was going to find Xiaoxiao, and he would only come here to look. Logically, he should be on this street.
After dark, Susu and the police searched this street for several more hours, checking all the buildings on both sides, but still found no sign of him.
The police received orders from their superiors to withdraw, and Susu fell into complete despair again.
She suddenly thought, what if Xiao Xingxing hadn't appeared on this street? What if something happened to him on the way?
She returned to the police station with the officers, wanting to review the surveillance footage along the route.
In the police station's surveillance room, Susu sat beside the professional surveillance officers, hoping to see Xiao Xingxing's figure as soon as possible.
Tianyi was already on his way. She hadn't called him, but she had sent him a message about the search.
She thought that as soon as he landed, he would see her message, and he would be anxious to know that Xiao Xingxing hadn't been found yet.
It was almost midnight when a police officer finally spotted Xiao Xingxing in the daytime surveillance footage of a street. He quickly exclaimed, "Look quickly, the child went in the wrong direction. To get to the parade street, he would have to take a huge detour."
Susu was the first to rush to the officer's side, looking at the playback on the screen. The little boy with the blue backpack was Xiao Xingxing.
That's right, it was Xiao Xingxing!
She excitedly asked, "Found him, finally found him! Keep going, where did he go?"
"Okay." This officer could understand the anxiety of a mother, and he pulled up all the surveillance footage of Xiao Xingxing appearing on that street.
Everyone gathered around the computer screen and saw Xiao Xingxing being pulled into a taxi by a driver.
Then, the taxi drove onto a road with no surveillance and disappeared from view.
The face of the taxi driver was unclear from the surveillance footage, only that he was a tall, dark-skinned man.
A police officer immediately said, "Quick, quickly check the taxi's license plate. As long as we find this taxi, we can find the child!"
Susu weakly agreed, "Yes, the license plate! If we find the license plate, we can find my son!"
A police officer immediately entered the vehicle management system to search for the license plate.
From the screen, Susu could see that Xiao Xingxing was unwillingly stuffed into the car by the driver. She knew he had encountered a bad person and trembled uncontrollably with fear.
She waited for the police to track the taxi's whereabouts.
However, the officer searching for the license plate searched the entire vehicle management network system and regretfully told everyone, "The license plate is fake. We can only go to that street to look for witnesses."
Upon hearing this news, Susu's legs felt weak, and she collapsed to the ground, unable to stand. She held onto the edge of the table and knelt down.
...
Xiao Xingxing and Xiaoxiao had fallen asleep in the iron cages. Later, the crying of the children gradually subsided.
The children who were locked up also understood after crying for a long time that this place was not like home, where a cry would bring their parents and family rushing to their side.
In this hellish place, no matter how much you cried, no one would pay attention. So Xiao Xingxing understood why Xiaoxiao wasn't crying; crying was useless.
After an unknown period, Xiao Xingxing and Xiaoxiao were awakened by the noise from the ship's cabin. Several people came down from the deck and pulled them out of their cages one by one, tying them up and stringing them onto a long iron chain.
They were led from the cabin onto the deck.
As Xiao Xingxing walked out of the cabin, he saw some children still lying in the iron cages, looking sick. They probably didn't even have the strength to walk.
These people didn't tie up the sick children but left them in the cages without further care.
Xiao Xingxing was a little worried about the sick children lying in the cages and said to the people who brought them up, "There are still people inside. You should give them medicine and see a doctor..."
Before he could finish speaking, a bad person watching them hit him hard on the back and roared, "Anyone who is not well will be thrown into the sea! If you dare to meddle again, you will be thrown into the sea too!"
Xiao Xingxing felt a sharp pain in his back, which tugged at his heart. Cold sweat broke out, and he was too weak to say anything more.
Xiaoxiao, tied up a short distance away, could only watch helplessly. Seeing this scene, she anxiously shouted, "Brother Xingxing, are you alright?"
Xiao Xingxing gritted his teeth and endured the pain, turned his head, and smiled at her, saying, "I'm fine."
It was then that he clearly saw that the ship had docked. Looking out, the shore was covered in dense forest.
Besides them, there was no one else on the shore, suggesting that these people had transported them to a desolate island.
After landing, the surroundings were all blue sea, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Xiao Xingxing felt that escaping from here with Xiaoxiao would be harder than climbing to heaven.
Several people dragged them through the forest, and after walking for a long distance, they saw rows of low thatched huts.
In the nearby forest, some sallow-faced children were climbing up and down large trees, peeling bark. White liquid seeped from the tree trunks.
It turned out that these people were exploiting the captured children as child labor.
They were lined up in rows in front of the thatched huts, and a man holding a wooden stick as thick as his arm was giving them a lecture.
He outlined their sleeping and waking times, meal times, and warned them not to be lazy while working...
Xiao Xingxing listened to the man's schedule and found it terrifying. They could only sleep for four hours a day and eat one meal, with all other time dedicated to work.
Someone unlocked their chains and then put shackles on each of their ankles.
At this moment, a slightly older boy took the opportunity to kick the person putting on the shackles and immediately ran away.
The man holding the stick immediately chased after him and struck the boy on the head with the stick.
The boy's head was bleeding profusely as he fell to the ground. The man rode on top of the boy and continued to beat his head fiercely.
Before the boy could even let out a scream, his head was smashed to pieces.
The other children all started crying in fear. Xiaoxiao covered her eyes, unable to watch.
Xiao Xingxing gasped, chilled by the brutality of these villains. He now understood that if he couldn't escape with Xiaoxiao, they might not survive.
Seeing this scene, the children were all terrified to death. No one dared to think of escaping anymore. They allowed these villains to put shackles on them and assigned them to different thatched huts.
Girls and boys were housed in separate huts, so Xiao Xingxing and Xiaoxiao were not together.
After they were settled in the huts, someone came to teach them how to harvest rubber from the trees.
Xiao Xingxing glanced through the window of the thatched hut and saw someone dragging the corpse of the boy who had been beaten to death towards the sea, presumably to throw the body into the ocean.