It seems that the villain is targeting me.

Her tone was neither salty nor bland, sounding like she was asking for a beating. "Next time you look for something, remember to be smarter."

Chen Xiaoya felt that this person's words were like poison.

The child almost exploded: "You——"

"Don't be unconvinced,"

"These people are deeply rooted in this area, and there are countless spies in the streets and alleys," she glanced at Chen Xiaoya, "If a stranger like you walk in, someone will immediately tip you off."

The other party said quietly, "I have at least dealt with three waves of people following you along the way."

Chen Xiaoya: “…”

As if he felt a little tired after riding for so long, the man pushed his bicycle to the railing on the side of the road and looked at Chen Xiaoya lazily.

"Do you remember the address of that small courtyard?" she asked.

Before Chen Xiaoya could reply, the other party continued to talk on his own: "There's no point in remembering it. There are at least a dozen similar places in Taoyuan."

"You're chasing the wrong people," the guy said, looking down and fiddling with the broken bell. "These people aren't sellers, they're buyers."

Chen Xiaoya's eyebrows twitched violently, and she suddenly felt a sense of clarity, as if a most crucial piece of the puzzle had been connected.

Yes, if Taoyuan is the den where human traffickers sell stolen goods, it is normal to have criminal gangs that make a living by begging.

After all, the penalty for buying a person is much lighter than that for selling a person.

Among those children who were bought, some may have disabilities themselves, or even be sold by their parents because of physical problems.

Of course, there are certainly man-made disabilities.

Although she didn't know why the person in front of her knew her purpose, she seemed to have chased the wrong person.

"But where do all these people usually hide?" Chen Xiaoya muttered to himself, "So many children forced to beg on the streets...didn't anyone notice anything unusual about them?"

"What do you think? Where will they be hidden?" the man asked her.

In fact, if you think about it for a while, it is easy to come to the conclusion - this is not difficult for Chen Xiaoya - because she herself grew up in a similar place.

"...urban villages, makeshift shantytowns," Chen Xiaoya frowned, "and the courtyard I just saw."

Urban villages and shanty towns are areas with a high concentration of outsiders and extremely high population mobility, while those old houses far away from human habitation...the residents around them often know each other.

Trafficking has received considerable attention in recent years, but the crackdown has always been insufficient, making it difficult to catch people and the sentences not severe.

Especially in the case of trafficking of children and women, sometimes even after the victims are found and the police and their families are blocking the door, they still cannot take the people away for various reasons.

This in turn leads to rampant crime, because even if the police are clearly aware of the existence of such a gang, it is difficult to truly eradicate them.

Thinking of this, Chen Xiaoya's heart sank suddenly.

...Arjun may have been sold. A person of her age can't make much money by begging, and is not as easy to control as a young child.

"...How do you know all this?" Chen Xiaoya was confused about what this woman was up to. "Are you a police officer?"

The guy didn't reply to Chen Xiaoya's question, but just asked, "Do you have any money on you?"

As she said this, her hands were on the handlebars of the bicycle, and her body movements were very relaxed.

Chen Xiaoya glanced at her and said hesitantly: "Well, I still have a dozen or so..."

"-Oh," the other party raised an eyebrow in surprise, "it's actually quite a lot."

Chen Xiaoya did carry some change with her when she went out because she was worried that she might need it if something happened on the road.

In addition to the pocket money Xiao Niao gave her, there was also a portion of advance payment earned from ghostwriting homework.

"Well, let me see the money." The woman said happily.

This sounds like preparation for highway robbery.

But maybe because of the previous

This person provided information very proactively and actually saved himself from the bad guys. Chen Xiaoya hesitated for a while, but finally took out the money.

...Then the money in her hand was taken away without any hesitation, leaving her with nothing.

This sister did it quite smoothly. She didn't say "borrow" or "rob". She acted as if she was taking her own money from Chen Xiaoya with a clear conscience.

Chen Xiaoya had never seen such a shameless adult - even her unlucky father stole the money without her knowledge.

The child was stunned for a moment and just watched his money being stuffed into the other party's pocket.

Now Chen Xiaoya can be sure that this person is not a policeman - if he is a policeman, he will definitely not cheat children out of their money.

After doing this wicked thing, the woman pushed her bicycle and prepared to leave.

Then, as if remembering something, he took out two coins from his pocket and stuffed them back into Chen Xiaoya's hand.

"Here, take it," she said.

The touch in the palm of his hand felt a little strange. Chen Xiaoya lowered his head and found a folded piece of paper under the two coins.

When he looked up again, the woman of unknown origin had already left on her broken 28-inch bicycle.

Chen Xiaoya wanted to catch up with him - but then she found that he was not afraid of her catching up at all.

The guy even stopped at a roadside stall for a while and bought a bag of steamed rice cakes with her (emphasis here) money.

...After buying it, he hung the bag on the handlebars and rode away swayingly.

Chen Xiaoya's steps became heavy, and he felt a strong sense of powerlessness in his heart.

She lost interest in chasing after him, so she lowered her head and opened the note that was stuffed into her.

The note was torn off casually, and there was some handwriting on it with a fountain pen.

Those characters—wow, they looked like Martian language, with long, wavy paragraphs. Chen Xiaoya even believed that they were a code.

She stared at it for a long time before she vaguely realized that there must be several different addresses written on it.

One of the addresses was a certain dock, with the time marked next to it, circled in red, and the word "transaction" written on it.

What's this?

Chen Xiaoya's mind went blank for a moment, and he subconsciously looked at the coin in his hand that was still a little warm.

After a while, she suddenly understood.

This money seems... just enough to make a phone call?

------

-

It took Chen Xiaoya half an hour to organize his thoughts and anonymously provided the information on the note to the police.

After the phone call, the two coins were completely spent, not a penny left.

She walked back to the hotel, bearing the humiliation.

When she opened the door, Xiaoniao had not come back yet. Chen Xiaoya was tired and sleepy. She was too lazy to even take off her clothes. She threw herself on the bed and fell asleep the next second after closing her eyes.

What woke her up afterwards was a faint sweet smell lingering between her nostrils.

The sky outside the window had become completely dark, but the table lamp in the room was on. Chen Xiaoya turned over and found that his coat had been taken off and the quilt was covering him properly.

She wrapped herself in the quilt and groggily uttered a "hmm".

There was a rustling sound of fabric rubbing against each other in the room, followed by the sound of slippers stepping on the floor.

After a while, Chen Xiaoya saw Xiaoniao's face appear in his sight.

"Awake?" she asked in a low voice.

The familiar voice made Chen Xiaoya feel a surge of sour grievance in her chest. She reached out to touch the back of the bird's neck and leaned her head on its shoulder.

Xiao Niao was obviously a little surprised, but still opened his arms and hugged her, gently stroking the child's back with his hands, trying to soothe her sudden emotional instability.

"...What's going on?" Xiao Niao gently patted the person in his arms and asked softly, as if thinking about something.

But Chen Xiaoya just nestled in her arms and shook his head.

Tongzi? Xiao Niao asked in his heart.

[I don’t know either.] The system said.

"She only went out once at noon," Tongzi guessed, "Could something have happened then?"

When Xiaoniao was out, Tongzi would regularly check Chen Xiaoya's location.

It checked once at noon and located Chen Xiaoya in a noodle restaurant - the system thought she was eating.

What made it feel a little strange was that after the child left the noodle shop, he walked around the street for a long time as if he was lost, and then turned into a small road and returned to the hotel.

This action was a little unusual, but the person had returned after all, so the system no longer cared about it.

——Coincidentally, when it was positioning itself again, Chen Xiaoya had already returned to the hotel room.

When Xiao Niao rushed back, he saw the child sleeping soundly on the bed and didn't notice anything unusual.

Is it because you feel scared to be alone?

Xiao Niao's expression was a little confused.

The child in her arms seemed to have recovered by now, she let go of her hand and climbed up from the bed.

"You're back." Chen Xiaoya said embarrassedly, his cheeks slightly flushed.

Xiao Niao was about to ask a few more questions, but when he saw that the boy didn't seem to have any other problems, he gave up the idea.

It is normal for adolescent children to have some privacy and thoughts. Xiaoniao puts herself in their shoes and thinks: when she was in school, she was not willing to tell them what she was thinking.

For adults.

Thinking of this, Xiao Niao changed the subject.

"Are you hungry?" she asked. "I bought something. Would you like to eat something first?"

A lot of things happened that day, and Chen Xiaoya's mood fluctuated several times. Now she didn't feel hungry at all, and she subconsciously wanted to refuse.

But at this moment, Chen Xiaoya suddenly looked over the bird's shoulder and saw something in the house.

The words were stuck stiffly in my throat.

There was a bag of rice cakes on the table.

The sweet scent she had just smelled came from here.

The rice cake was still hot, dotted with sesame seeds and grapes, lying quietly in the plastic bag.

She remembered that the little bird usually liked to eat rice cakes.

"Why are you acting strange today?" the person in front of her asked worriedly, putting the back of his hand on her forehead to test her temperature. "Are you feeling unwell?"

Chen Xiaoya responded absentmindedly.

...What was I thinking? She reflected on herself, it was obvious that the colors of the bags were different.

Xiao Niao was still looking at her, with an expression full of unfaithful worry and doubt... Xiao Niao's eyes were a light, warm chestnut color.

It's completely different from that damn guy.

"...I'm fine, just a little sleepy."

She laughed.

If I tell the truth, the fact that I ran away secretly would definitely be exposed.

Chen Xiaoya hesitated again and again, but in the end he did not mention the strange woman to Xiaoniao.

Chapter 45: The bird decides to fight alone

"It's just nonsense!"

The captain of the Third Criminal Investigation Brigade of Taoyuan Police Station put his hands on the table and shouted at the person across the table.

"This is an investigation! Not some child's play," Captain Three said, clearly furious. "If it was someone of interest, it would be fine, but to actually suggest that an ordinary citizen contact the criminals—"

"Who on earth came up with this stupid idea?"

Several team members looked at each other, buried their heads in their chests and pretended to be quails.

"You're all silent again," the third captain sneered, "Speak!"

A certain unlucky young man had his heel kicked and stood out from among a group of Quail players.

The third captain's murderous gaze fell on his head.