Ice is not averse to deception

No sooner had Liu Ruo left than Sun Xiaoni left the room. In fact, Sun Xiaoni had been observing the situation in the hotel since yesterday. This was Yanji, which was not as developed as second- or third-tier cities, so even though the hotel was located near the train station, the number of guests was not very high.

But early this morning, when Sun Xiaoni and Liu Ruo went out to buy breakfast, they saw a woman checking in at the front desk. The perceptive Sun Xiaoni quickly realized that the woman was staying in room 321, which was not far from their room.

The woman looked to be in her thirties, not as pretty as Liu Ruo, and appeared somewhat haggard. But when Sun Xiaoni saw the Hello Kitty charm on the woman's backpack, she instantly identified her target.

A woman who likes plush toys is very likely to be kind-hearted, so she should help me, right?

With this in mind, Sun Xiaoni had already begun her plan as soon as she returned to her hotel room.

She first obtained Liu Ruo's phone, deliberately making it seem as if she was trying to tip off Sun Bing. Firstly, this would attract Liu Ruo's attention, paving the way for later events. Secondly, it would significantly drain Liu Ruo's energy.

Although Sun Xiaoni is only nine years old, she knows that people are most likely to let their guard down in two situations: when they are completely relaxed or when they are exhausted.

So, when Liu Ruo was exhausted and felt she had defeated Sun Xiaoni, Sun Xiaoni immediately asked for cream puffs, deliberately choosing the Golden Triangle Cake Shop, which was some distance from the hotel. This would at least buy Sun Xiaoni twenty minutes of time to act.

Once everything was ready, Sun Xiaoni knocked on the door of room 321.

However, when Sun Xiaoni looked up, a chilling sneer suddenly flashed across that previously friendly face.

Just then, Liu Ruo walked out of the hotel. He had noticed the woman who had checked in the day before. Although he hadn't seen her face, he felt like he had seen her somewhere before.

Just as I reached the door, I ran into the front desk staff who had just returned from buying food.

"Going out to buy something?" the waiter greeted warmly.

"Yes, my daughter suddenly wants to eat cream puffs. The Golden Triangle is at that intersection, right?" Liu Ruo asked casually.

The waiter nodded: "Yes, it's over there, but..." He frowned, then pointed in the opposite direction and said, "There's a cake shop over there too. It's closer, and the cakes are better quality. You out-of-towners don't understand, so you should buy yours over there."

  

Liu Ruo knew the importance of listening to advice and that the locals were definitely more knowledgeable about the quality of the nearby shops than they were. So she followed the waiter's directions and went to the nearest cake shop to buy cream puffs.

Sure enough, this saved several hundred meters of distance. Although we queued for a while, we were back at the hotel in just fifteen minutes.

Just as Liu Ruo returned to the hotel entrance and was about to go inside, she suddenly saw several police officers escorting a woman into a car in a nearby alley. She couldn't help but ask the waiter next to her, "What's going on here?"

The waiter shook his head: "Need you even ask? Judging from the situation, the human traffickers have definitely been caught. These people have lost all conscience; they can do such a despicable thing."

Traffickers?

For some reason, upon hearing those three words, Liu Ruo suddenly felt nervous, and the image of that woman checking in yesterday flashed into her mind.

He remembered that the woman had a plush Kitty charm hanging on her backpack, but judging from her back view, she didn't seem to have a child.

When Liu Ruo came to her senses, her face was already very tense. She suddenly remembered that the plush toys she had seen in the gaps of the woman's backpack were likely tools used to coax children.

And instantly, a news story I'd seen a few days ago flashed into my mind: the woman's back looked exactly like that of a wanted human trafficker.

Thinking of this, Liu Ruo rushed up the stairs and headed straight for her room.

The door to the room was ajar, which made Liu Ruo even more nervous. She rushed into the room and found that Sun Xiaoni was nowhere to be seen.

After searching around, Liu Ruo's anxiety intensified. She turned and rushed out of the room, heading straight for room 321.

Liu Ruo was indeed panicked. If that woman was indeed a human trafficker, she might have already tricked Sun Xiaoni away in fifteen minutes. Of course, a human trafficker wouldn't stay in the hotel after succeeding; she's probably already disappeared somewhere.

The train station is nearby!

Liu Ruo even wondered if the woman had chosen this hotel because she had her eye on them, a group of out-of-towners with children, and perhaps even the identity information on the check-in form was fake.

I rushed to the door of room 321 in a hurry, and just as I raised my hand to bang on the door, I suddenly heard a familiar voice from the side.

"Ms. Liu Ruo, what are you doing? Why didn't you go back to your room after buying these?"

It's Sun Xiaoni!

My heart, which had been pounding with anxiety, finally settled, and my tension was instantly replaced by anger: "What have you been doing?! I called you for ages and you didn't hear me?!"

Seeing Liu Ruo's questioning, Sun Xiaoni looked somewhat aggrieved and pointed to the corridor next to her: "I went to throw out the trash."

Fortunately, nothing bad happened. Just then, the door to room 321 suddenly opened, and a woman's perfume wafted out. Liu Ruo instinctively turned to avoid the woman's gaze and quickly led Sun Xiaoni back to the room.

I almost mistook someone for a human trafficker. How embarrassing!

Back in her room, Liu Ruo was completely unaware that Sun Xiaoni had a plush Kitty cat in her pocket.

Of course, what Liu Ruo didn't expect was that she did know the people in room 321, and was even quite familiar with them.

The woman was just leaving with her bag when she received a phone call.

"Don't worry, I've already bought the Kitty bear, a whole backpack full of it," she said, then her tone turned to complaining, "I've never seen a cousin like you. Not only do you avoid your cousin, but you also secretly prepare birthday gifts for her daughter every year. What are you trying to achieve?"

After the other person said something, the woman continued, "I can't go back today. I'll stay at a hotel near the station for the night. I have to go on a business trip early tomorrow morning and won't be back for three to five days. I'll give it to you then; it's not too late anyway."

This time, the sound from the receiver became clearer.

It was a man's voice, deep and resonant, sounding at least forty years old. He said, "Thank you, Dongmei. I'm sorry you've suffered these past few years."

"That's enough of this, I need to go eat. Bye."

Winter plum?!

Liu Ruo never expected that the person she had just brushed past or even deliberately avoided was Dongmei, whom she had been searching for for a long time without success.

Dongmei, of course, had no idea that the adorable little girl she had just secretly helped was the biological daughter of her nemesis, Liu Ruo.

Having been mortal enemies for so many years, Liu Ruo believed that as long as Dong Mei appeared within a ten-meter radius, she could sense the danger simply by looking at Dong Mei's unique scent. However, she never expected that the two of them would spend more than a day together in the same hotel without her noticing anything.

Liu Ruo instinctively thought that Dongmei's actions were a show of force. She wanted to let Liu Ruo know that Yanji was her territory, Sun Bing was her man, and that Liu Ruo was too naive to fight against her.

Liu Ruo could even picture Dongmei's upturned nostrils and the corners of her mouth.

However, no matter what, Sun Xiaoni finally succeeded.

Using her quick wit and cuteness, Sun Xiaoni quickly won over Dongmei after knocking on the door of room 321. She lied and said that she had gotten up and couldn't find her mother, so she wanted to borrow Dongmei's phone.

Dongmei didn't refuse and readily borrowed the phone. The two even chatted for a bit, and Dongmei almost burst out laughing when Sun Xiaoni told her that she came to Yanji to help her mother catch her unfaithful lover.

Dongmei thought the girl was very cute, and before leaving, she gave Sun Xiaoni a Hello Kitty toy.

Dongmei also found it a bit strange; after the little girl finished using the phone, there wasn't a single call record on it. Little did she know how cautious Sun Xiaoni was, afraid of leaving any evidence, and immediately deleted the text message record after sending it to Sun Bing.

The message was actually quite simple, just one sentence: "Bing-ge, be careful! Liu Ruo and Liu Qiang are in Yanji. Don't let them find you! Love you!"

Sun Xiaoni was also anxious, afraid that Liu Ruo would find out, so she hurriedly sent a text message. She didn't have time to explain anything clearly, so she could only do whatever was convenient.

Regardless, Sun Xiaoni has already sent the text message, and Sun Bing will definitely be prepared. In this way, Sun Xiaoni has completed her mission and no longer needs to worry.

Back in her room, Liu Ruo noticed that Sun Xiaoni's mood had completely changed. She was puzzled, feeling that the girl didn't seem like she had been defeated.

That's very strange.

However, what Sun Xiaoni didn't know was that Sun Bing hadn't looked at his phone since arriving in Yanji, so there was no way he could see any text messages.