CHAPTER 16: CHAPTER 16: LOST AND FOUND

Lin Qin searched every room upstairs and downstairs in the hospital ward, but there was no sign of Liu Yaya.

Lin Ying was so anxious that she was at her wits’ end, "Could she have been kidnapped?"

Child abductions from hospitals aren’t rare, usually occurring in the children’s ward; it’s uncommon to hear of such incidents in general wards.

Lin Qin’s vision went black, and she collapsed.

The crowd panicked and quickly called for a doctor and alerted the police.

When Lin Qin slowly regained consciousness, a group of people surrounded her, and she instinctively tried to get up to search for the child.

The officer quickly stopped her, "Comrade Lin Qin, don’t worry, the child has been found. She’s at the police station and will be brought back to you soon."

"Found? Really?" Lin Qin looked at Lin Ying whose eyes were filled with tears.

Lin Ying nodded heavily, "Just recently, a kind-hearted person found and rescued her."

"What’s the situation? No way, I have to go find Yaya; I won’t be at ease until I see her," Lin Qin insisted on putting on shoes to leave.

The officer had no choice but to take her to the police station.

On the way, he briefly explained the situation to her, "The child was indeed abducted by a human trafficker. As soon as they left the hospital, they were recognized by someone named Chen Wenjun. That Chen Wenjun is a fishmonger, and without a word, he rushed over and trapped the trafficker with a fishing net. With the help of bystanders, they caught the trafficker with little effort, and the child was rescued.

My colleague took them to the police station to give statements. We wanted to help find the child’s relatives, and coincidentally the hospital reported the missing child, so I came to check."

Hearing it was Chen Wenjun, Lin Qin’s heart finally settled, and she felt a sense of relief as if she were utterly exhausted.

At the police station.

The officer was interrogating the human trafficker who had been beaten into submission, "Tell us, why did you abduct the child? Do you know how many years you can get for child trafficking? Huh!"

The trafficker shivered and initially hung his head, intending to remain silent till the end.

Until the officer got serious and was about to drag him away, only then did he know fear.

He hurriedly said: "If I confess, can I get a lighter sentence?"

"You still dare to negotiate with us?" The officer was so angry his eyes bulged like brass bells.

The team leader stopped him and asked gently, "Let’s hear it."

The trafficker hesitated and reluctantly said, "I’m actually just a thug, a hooligan! I haven’t done anything as big as murder or robbery, at most petty theft... It’s just that recently I’m short on cash, and a woman happened to tell me she wanted to sell a child, so I went along..."

Everyone simultaneously looked at Lin Qin, who had just walked in.

Lin Qin stared incredulously at the trafficker, wishing she could tear him apart.

The team leader pointed at Lin Qin and asked the trafficker, "Is it her?"

The trafficker glanced at Lin Qin and shook his head, "No, it’s a rather glamorous woman, with long curly hair, bright red lips, a mole above her eyebrow, wearing high heels, about five feet tall."

Lin Qin and Chen Wenjun exchanged glances and shouted in unison, "Fang Yin!"

Lin Qin eagerly looked at the officers, "I know the woman he’s talking about. Her name is Fang Yin, from Fangshan Village."

The team leader asked no more and immediately sent two officers to Fangshan Village to arrest Fang Yin.

By the time the two officers reached Fangshan Village, it was almost dark.

They were not familiar with Fangshan Village, and finally made it to the village entrance, just in time to see a man and a woman struggling toward them.

The woman was clearly being coerced, continuously struggling, with tears on her face.

"Hey! What do you think you’re doing!" The officer, full of a sense of justice, shouted angrily, and the two quickly stepped forward.

When the woman saw that they were police officers, she immediately cried for help, "Officers, save me! I don’t want to marry him; I don’t want to marry him."

Qian Dashan was on guard but refused to let go of the woman’s hand, patting his bag, "This is my wife I paid for. Her parents already accepted my bride price, and her household registration is with me. Tomorrow we’re going to register her household at my place! You can’t take my wife away!"

The police rummaged through Qian Dashan’s bag and indeed found two household registration books inside. When they clearly saw the names, both officers’ expressions changed,

and they restrained the two from both sides.

"Fang Yin, you are now suspected of involvement in a child trafficking case. Please cooperate and come to the police station for investigation."

Fang Yin was stunned.

Qian Dashan was terrified and immediately sat on the ground denying, "I won’t go, I won’t go! I have nothing to do with her!"

The officer laughed angrily, "Isn’t she your wife?"

"We haven’t registered yet. I’ll go right now and take back the bride price from her family; I don’t want this woman anymore, okay?" Qian Dashan started to make excuses.

Seeing that the officers were insistent on taking him to the station, he hurriedly grabbed his bag and ran away without looking back.

Fang Yin snapped back to reality and quickly cried her innocence, "I didn’t traffic children, I’m being wronged!"

The officers carefully examined Fang Yin’s dirty face, which did not match the trafficker’s description. This was the reason they hadn’t forcefully detained Qian Dashan earlier.

The left officer asked, "How many people named Fang Yin are there in your village?"

"Just... just me..." Fang Yin replied nervously.

The two officers exchanged glances, still deciding to bring this Fang Yin back to confirm her identity.

When the officers brought Fang Yin to the police station, Chen Wenjun and Lin Qin, who was holding Liu Yaya, were filled with questions.

The officer asked, "Take a look, is this the Fang Yin you were talking about?"

Both of them shook their heads in unison.

Lin Qin hurriedly said, "That Fang Yin has a mole above her eyebrow, is about five feet three inches tall, not like this one at all."

The officer frowned, "This person is the only Fang Yin from Fangshan Village, we asked, and there’s only one named Fang Yin in the entire Fangshan Village."

"Impossible!" Lin Qin urgently refuted, "The Fang Yin from Fangshan Village even got into college, she should be quite well-known in their village."

"A college graduate?" The officer grew increasingly skeptical of the information Lin Qin provided.

Just then, Fang Yin timidly spoke up, "Um... if I’m not mistaken, the person you’re talking about should be Fang Meixiang."

"Fang Meixiang?" Everyone was puzzled.

Fang Yin nodded confidently, "If there’s a woman in our village around five feet three inches tall with a mole above her eyebrow, it can only be Meixiang. But she’s not a college graduate; she married far away after failing the college entrance exam and hasn’t been back for years, so it can’t be her."

The trail went cold at this point.

Chen Wenjun and Lin Qin had their suspicions, but without evidence and unsure of the woman’s whereabouts, they didn’t dare voice their guesses to the officers.

The group left the station after giving their statements.

Lin Qin stopped Fang Yin, "Um, may I ask you a few questions?"

Fang Yin understood and nodded, "Ask anything you want!"

"So... there’s really only one person named Fang Yin in your village? No one got into college?"