Chapter Forty-Four: The Trafficker’s Hideout

Li Ironhead, the child trafficker, tried several times to capture a child, but each attempt was secretly foiled by Shen Ye. In the end, he could only return, disgruntled, to a certain place where a van was parked. He got into the driver’s seat and drove the van straight out of N County, heading toward a remote rural area.

Upon entering the village, he saw a sign: this was Dagugu Village.

Li Ironhead parked the van at the far end of the village, in front of an inconspicuous farmhouse. He then entered the modest house.

Inside, six men were seated. Most of them were unremarkable, but one stood out: around six feet tall, robustly built, exuding a commanding presence that was anything but ordinary. Despite holding a beer bottle in his left hand and gnawing a chicken claw with his right, he radiated an unusual aura. Most peculiar was his attire: a plain gray T-shirt, but on its front was embroidered a strange pouch, about ten centimeters square, lending him an odd air.

This man was the leader of the human traffickers, Li Jinguo.

The other five men were nothing special.

“Hey, Ironhead, how was today’s haul?” one called out, a short, chubby man with a perpetual squinting smile. His name was Li Yinshi.

“Not good today. For some reason, as soon as I approached a child, I was spotted. Just my luck—today’s been nothing but trouble,” Li Ironhead replied gloomily.

“Still better than Tiehan. He went to snatch someone today and got his head smashed by a woman’s high heels,” Li Yinshi jeered, pointing at Li Tiehan, whose head was wrapped in bandages. Tiehan had tried to abduct Shen Nan, only to be struck by Wen Xiuting’s shoe.

The group laughed at Li Tiehan, mocking him for being bested by a woman.

Li Tiehan grumbled, “Next time I see that woman, I’ll kill her. Let her split my head open? Damn it!”

“Boss, we’ve got ten kids locked up now, right? Time to make a move?” the short, fat Li Yinshi asked their leader, Li Jinguo. Though all were traffickers, Yinshi clearly feared Jinguo.

“Ten is about right. Each sells for tens of thousands; ten of them means fifty or sixty thousand. That’s enough,” Li Jinguo bit off a chunk of chicken claw. Though the claw had bones, he swallowed them without hesitation, chewing them up as if they were nothing.

Next, Jinguo gnawed a large bone—one most people couldn’t even bite, but he miraculously crushed it into pieces, producing a series of unsettling cracks.

“This batch goes,” Jinguo said, half-closing his eyes. “Once this deal’s done, we’ll move again—if the police get wind, it’ll be trouble. As for the next batch, we won’t sell them; we’ll break their legs and send them out to beg. That way, they’ll keep earning for us, slow and steady.”

His words carried a chilling authority.

“Yes,” the others nodded in agreement.

One trafficker immediately chimed in, “That’s right, I’ve heard some made a lot of money this way. Should’ve done it sooner. Break those brats’ legs, send them to the streets, subway stations—they’ll bring in money fast, and it keeps coming. Boss, you’re brilliant!”

Another said, “If the boss weren’t brilliant, he wouldn’t be our leader. You’re just stating the obvious.”

Li Jinguo turned to Li Ironhead, “Ironhead, it’s fine that you didn’t catch a kid this time. Come drink with us—you’ve worked hard.”

Hearing the boss acknowledge his effort, Li Ironhead felt a warm surge in his chest and nodded repeatedly, “Boss, I understand.”

…

Meanwhile, on the tree outside the farmhouse window, someone was perched, watching the men inside with binoculars.

“Li Jinguo, murderer, prolific child trafficker. Sin value: forty.” After scanning with the Eye of Justice and seeing this number, Shen Ye was stunned. Underworld figures like Lu Youwei or Ma Guosheng had sin values in the thirties at most. Yet this trafficker leader’s score reached forty.

How could that be!

It seemed the Eye of Justice assigned particularly high sin values to child traffickers. The crime of selling a child was likely no less severe than murder.

Indeed, it made sense—a trafficker destroyed entire families.

Traffickers deserved death.

He scanned the other five.

“Li Yinshi, trafficker, multiple child sales, formerly trafficked women, sin value: twenty-one.”

“Li Yinshui, trafficker, multiple child sales, sin value: eighteen.”

“Li Tiehan, trafficker, multiple child sales, sin value: seventeen.”

“Wang Ping, trafficker, multiple child sales, sin value: nineteen.”

“Liu San, trafficker, multiple child sales, sin value: eighteen.”

Shen Ye looked at these men, startled. Each trafficker had a high sin value—even Li Ironhead, the lowest, scored fifteen; the highest, twenty-one. Yet none came close to their leader, Li Jinguo. Still, it was broad daylight, with villagers occasionally passing by, so it was not the time to act.

He would wait for nightfall.

Shen Ye found a place to sit and kept a distant watch on the farmhouse to prevent the traffickers from moving the children.

In the afternoon, while waiting, he happened upon two items.

One was a mask of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven.

The other was a wooden Ruyi Golden Staff, about a meter long—clearly a child’s toy.

Both lay in the mud, with only a single set of footprints, no dust; they had likely been discarded recently.

It seemed a child had brought these toys, been abducted by the traffickers, and dropped them here.

Shen Ye examined the items, his eyes narrowing.

Members of the Black Organization revered Lord Guan; so wearing Guan’s mask to hunt them was ironic.

Traffickers sold children; so if he donned the child hero’s Great Sage mask to strike at them, it would be even more fittingly ironic.

Night gradually fell.

Shen Ye put on the freshly cleaned, dust-free mask of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, loosening the strap.

A sardonic smile curled his lips.

Time to begin.

(Thanks to Purple Wolf, Bone Spirit, Blood Bull Yang God, Liu Lijin, and Past Times for their rewards. And thank you all for your recommendation votes.

Also, hmm, I’ve used up all my featured posts for the week in the review section.)