Chapter 3

I was afraid my parents would think I’d made the decision without asking.

Another mouth to feed meant more expense.

But instead of scolding me, they praised me.

“You’re a kind, good girl, Zhuzhu. We’re very proud of you.”

While I was missing, they had spent every day and night longing for me to come home.

“I’m sure Xiaobao’s parents are waiting for him too.”

Dad stroked my head and decided, “He can stay with us for now. We’ll keep an eye out for any families nearby who’ve lost a child.”

Even Sis said, “I’ll look after them both.”

Having endured that pain themselves, they wanted to shelter other broken families too.

Even a little help might bring more children home.

With my family supporting me so wholeheartedly, I felt wrapped in warmth, body and soul.

And I hated the man who had nearly destroyed us all the more.

No one had any love for traffickers.

I spread the news that my uncle had worked with them. Soon, parents of missing children came looking for him. They beat him and demanded to know where he’d sold their children.

At first, he denied everything.

Eventually, he confessed. He really had acted as a middleman in several cases.

Most people in the village were related somehow. They hated him. His reputation was ruined.

Every day, someone threw rotten eggs and spoiled vegetables at his house. Even the walls were smashed.

Some went to the village head, asking to have him driven out before their own children became his next victims.

Expelled from the village, my uncle could only kneel outside our door and beg Dad to take him in.

“Brother, I was wrong. Please forgive me!”

Dad opened the door and gave him another beating.

“Get out!”

The next day, Grandma knelt outside too, wailing and calling us unfilial until the neighbors couldn’t stand it.

So I sent word to Gao, who collected debts around here.

Soon, a group of burly men in black arrived and hauled my uncle up as though lifting a chicken.

Gao was furious.

“Bi Deng, you bastard. Took me long enough to find you. Hiding, were you? Why stop now? When are you paying back my ten thousand?”

Sometimes it took one villain to deal with another.

My uncle shook from head to foot.

“Ask… Ask my cousin. I haven’t got a penny.”

“Oh? I hear you even sold your own niece. How can you have no money?”

Gao grinned savagely and kicked him hard.

“I’m no saint. But even I can’t stand filthy animals who kidnap children.”

Because I came home in time, my uncle hadn’t managed to swindle Dad in this life.

Unable to repay his debt, he had a leg broken and a finger cut off. He could only skulk about like a rat everyone wanted to drive away.

After some time, the police station in City S finally called.

“Daqiang and Du Juan have been arrested. Bi Mingzhu, we need you to come and identify the suspects in the child-trafficking case.”

Unlike the last time, I wasn’t anxious.

With my parents beside me, I could finally add my uncle’s name to the list of suspects.

He would get everything he deserved.

Apparently, Daqiang was an important figure in the network.

Following his connections, the police broke up several trafficking dens in time.

Alongside the children, they found many young women.

Perhaps this was the butterfly effect.

I had saved my own fate and, indirectly, changed so many others.

When Grandma learned my uncle had been arrested, she panicked.

Somewhere, she’d heard of a way to help him. She came to our house and demanded that my parents sign a letter of forgiveness.

She ransacked the place too. Any food she could carry went into her arms. What she couldn’t take, she destroyed.

“You’re Zhuzhu’s guardians. Sign this, and they’ll let A-Deng out!”

When we refused, she pulled the memorial tablet for Dad’s eldest uncle from inside her clothes and slapped Dad across the face.

“Ungrateful beast! Have you forgotten how your uncle fell down that mountain? If he hadn’t grabbed you, you’d be lying in the ground now! A-Deng is his only son. And you won’t even protect him!”

Dad raised his head, furious.

“Yes. My uncle saved me. I’ve spent more than ten years repaying that debt. I could give way to A-Deng over anything else. But he should never, ever have touched my children!”

Mom patted his shoulder gently.

Sis and I exchanged a look and each took one of his hands.

“Grandma.”

My voice was affectionate as I met her venomous gaze.

“I’m curious. You’re Dad’s mother. Why are you helping someone else hurt your own son?”

“Mom loves me. But you don’t love Dad at all.”

A flash of guilt crossed her eyes.

Usually so sharp-tongued, she offered no explanation. She only slapped the letter down on the table and threatened us.

“Enough useless talk. If you don’t sign within three days, I’ll make trouble at your factory and your school. Everyone will spit on you for being unfilial!”

She slammed the door on her way out.

But her reaction only made it clearer that something was wrong.

To settle our doubts, we went back to the village that weekend.

There was nowhere left to stay. The house had been smashed to pieces.

Fortunately, the older villagers knew the whole story.

Mrs. Zhang next door had lost a young granddaughter the year before. She hated my uncle and would gladly have dug up every secret in his past.

As soon as we asked, she told us everything.

Her first words landed like a bomb.

“That Bi Deng is your mother’s child with your eldest uncle!”

Mom and Dad were stunned.

So was I.

I’d expected something shocking. Not this.

Mrs. Zhang adjusted her reading glasses and pointed at Dad.

“You’ve had a hard life too. Your father… couldn’t have children. It was raining hard that day. Who knows where he brought you back from?”

“They told everyone you were adopted. Who knew the truth?”

Dad stood frozen for a long time before sighing.

“No wonder… No wonder she always favored him…”

A childhood riddle had taken years to answer.

Grandma’s scheme had cost her everything.

She hadn’t got her letter. She had lost the last of Dad’s affection too.

The next time she tried to make trouble, security guards who had been warned in advance drove her away before she even crossed the threshold.

I next saw my uncle in court.

He sat in the dock. I sat in the public gallery.

When he heard the sentence of life imprisonment, he began weeping and shouting.

“I was young! I didn’t know any better! Why such a harsh sentence? Those poor people couldn’t afford to raise their children. I helped send them to rich families. What’s wrong with that?”

Du Juan received a lighter sentence. Her face was white, but her voice was loud.

“I only wanted a son! What’s wrong with that? In ten years, when I get out, my husband won’t even want me anymore!”

Daqiang and the other ringleaders were sentenced to death.

In court, they blamed one another, exposing each other’s monstrous crimes.

Many victims’ relatives broke down in tears.

They thought themselves innocent.

What about the stolen children?

What about the parents who lost them?

I watched without expression.

There was none of the satisfaction of revenge I’d imagined.

Only gratitude.

Gratitude that I still had my whole family.

Without buyers, there would be no crime.

Those who profited from it deserved to be punished.

With neither my disappearance nor my uncle’s interference, Dad’s electronics factory soon found its footing.

Part of the profits went toward printing posters to attach to the products.

Each carried a different child’s photograph or details, along with a message:

【Help more children find their way home.】

As public interest grew, the trafficking case’s impact spread across almost the entire country.

That was when Xiaobao’s family came to Wutong County.

They were an elderly couple, white-haired but alert and healthy.

Seeing that their grandson could speak clearly, they burst into tears of excitement.

“Our boy can talk at last!”

But children’s memories were short.

Xiaobao no longer recognized them. Frightened of these strangers, he hid behind me.

After gradual contact, and with my help, he slowly opened up and began to accept his grandparents.

Only then did I learn how wealthy his family was—and that his mother was dead.

His father was a company president. While Xiaobao’s mother was pregnant, he had rekindled a relationship with his old love and openly had an affair.

When Xiaobao was three, his mother could no longer bear another blow. She jumped from a rooftop.

He saw her die.

Afterward, he developed mild asthma and autism and no longer wanted to speak.

His father soon married his lover and paid Xiaobao no attention. His maternal grandparents had to take him in.

Then, not long ago, his father had suddenly offered to take him out.

Partway through the outing, his lover called from the hospital.

He left Xiaobao at the amusement park and drove away.

A lost child was the perfect target for traffickers.

My memories of my previous life were growing hazy. I couldn’t remember what had happened to Xiaobao.

But my uncle, in prison, received quite a bit of “special care” because of it.

The night Xiaobao left with his family, Sis came to my bed in the middle of the night and held me, crying.

She said she’d had a terrible dream.

In it, I never came home.

Everyone blamed her.

Dad and Mom listened to my uncle and Grandma. They handed over all their money and went deeply into debt, yet never received a scrap of news about me.

Then grief overwhelmed them and they died, leaving her alone. My uncle took the house too.

When I was finally found in the deep mountains, I had been shut inside a small jar.

She had no family left.

“Nightmares mean the opposite.”

I patted her back and comforted her quietly.

“I’m home now. None of that will happen.”

My hazy memories began to sharpen again.

Yes.

Our fate was completely different now.

Years later, Sis and I both got into the universities we wanted.

She studied criminal investigation. I chose journalism.

Xiaobao went out into the world and became a celebrated piano prodigy.

On the very day I should have died at eighteen in my previous life, I paid a large sum to hire people to accompany me into the mountains.

Outwardly, I said I was going to film material for a news story.

In truth, I was going to take revenge.

The familiar mountain village held rituals at regular intervals.

Its people were backward, poor, and ignorant. The daughters-in-law in every household had been bought from traffickers.

If they couldn’t gather enough offerings, they sacrificed women who couldn’t bear children.

In my previous life, I had been one of them.

While everyone was absorbed in the ritual, I freed all the women locked in the cellars.

“Who are you? What are you doing?”

I didn’t waste words. I told the people I’d hired to take the women off the sacrificial altar and put the villagers in their place.

“If you worship your gods so much, why don’t you find out what it feels like to be offered to them yourselves?”

They screamed in the flames, cursing and struggling before turning into trails of black smoke.

Day broke.

I held the hand of a young woman among those we’d rescued. She still seemed dazed.

Gently, I told them all, “You can go home now.”

May every lost child find the way home.

And may we all follow our own dreams, grow toward the sunlight, and flourish.

Extra: The Previous Life

My name is Bi Mingyu. I had a sweet, lovely little sister named Bi Mingzhu.

But when I was eight, I let go of her hand and ran inside to get fruit cake.

When I came back, she was gone.

Mom cried every day until she could no longer see.

She couldn’t see me either.

Dad blamed me until the day he died. He held my hand and made me promise to bring my sister home.

I said yes.

And I spent my whole life keeping that promise.

Not long after my parents died, I was driven out of the Bi family home.

Only then did I discover that my uncle was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Beneath that hypocritical face lay nothing but filth and rot.

With the little savings I had left, I quit school and went to work.

Because I was so young, some sweatshops paid me half a normal worker’s wage.

But I had no choice.

I needed money to live.

And money to find my sister.

Whenever a lead appeared, I went after it immediately. Every time, I returned disappointed.

Then I met a boyfriend I got along with.

He took me to his home deep in the mountains.

In that cellar, I found something that belonged to my sister.

A stone bracelet Mom had bought for each of us when we were little.

I showed no reaction and quietly asked questions.

My boyfriend said people had been kept there.

The brides bought by the villagers were chained up and shut inside if they disobeyed or tried to escape.

They weren’t let out until they submitted.

Those who never submitted were treated like livestock. During the rituals, they were put into stone jars and burned alive.

Then…

Had that happened to my sister too?

I held back my fury and grief, found the stone jar containing her remains, and gathered all the evidence of their crimes.

While they held a ritual, I crushed poisonous weeds into liquid and poured it into the water tank used for cooking.

Before leaving, I set a fire that burned the whole mountain.

I buried the stone jar beside my parents’ grave.

“I’m sorry. Wait for me a little longer. Once I’ve sent all the bad people to hell, we’ll be together again.”

My uncle and the traffickers from those years were all arrested.

They knelt and begged.

“We were young. We didn’t know any better. Please forgive us.”

“What about my sister?” I asked.

“What did she do wrong? She never even had the chance to grow up.”

“You say you were young and ignorant. What did my parents do wrong? Why did they have to lie in the cold earth when they were barely past thirty?”

All the perpetrators were sentenced to death.

Once I’d done everything I needed to do, I returned to my empty room.

I lay in a bathtub filled with cold water, opened a bottle of sleeping pills, and swallowed them all.

As my consciousness slipped away, I seemed to see a faint figure rushing toward me.

Had my sister come to take me away?

If only time could turn back.

I would give everything to bring you home.