Chapter 385: The Eighties Gourmet System (23)

Two days later, the entire basket of eggs at home had been boiled into tea eggs by Xie Yang and exchanged for money.

Xue Lihua also finally waited for the distant relatives who wanted to adopt the children.

"Why are you only here now? I've been waiting until I'm dying of anxiety!"

"Oh my, what could we do! The village is going house to house taking a census and registering information, saying they're going to issue some sort of ID card. We didn't dare take a child back at a time like this without asking clearly; it would be trouble if we got caught."

"An ID card is just filling out some information; it doesn't care how many people are in your house. Country folk are just so ignorant!"

Xue Lihua retorted impatiently, then lowered her voice to urge the other party:

"Alright, alright, the children are inside. You can take them away once they come out in a moment. Where is the money we agreed on?"

The couple was also anxious to get home. The man untied a small cloth bag from his waistband, opened it, and pulled out another small cloth bag. After pulling out several like a nesting doll, he finally produced a stack of money.

"Three hundred. You count it."

"Isn't it three hundred and fifty? Didn't we agree that my eldest son would be taken away too?"

"Oh my, your eldest son is already seven. I asked around, and no one in our village wants to raise a child that old; they're afraid they won't be able to tame them."

"Then what should I do! I've already brought him here."

"There is a family in the mountains who can't have a son and wants to adopt one to carry on the family line. But they are truly too poor; forget fifty, they couldn't even scrape together ten..."

"Then five! Five is fine, right?"

At this moment, Xue Lihua only wanted to send both children away.

If the money is a little less, so be it; in any case, she didn't want to see her ex-husband's children continue to stay in this house anymore.

The couple exchanged a smug look covertly.

In truth, the price they had agreed upon with the mountain hunter was eighty.

But they still wanted to haggle further to earn a little commission and reduce their own losses, so they deliberately described the hunter's family as very poor.

Sure enough, in order to send away these two children of her ex-husband sooner, Xue Lihua didn't bargain at all and agreed to let them adopt the seven-year-old eldest son for five.

Both sides exchanged money and children simultaneously.

It was just that when it came to handing over the children, Musheng didn't cooperate, wailing loudly and shouting "Mom" as he cried.

Xue Lihua leaned over to coax him, saying she would take him to buy candy, but was swatted away by Musheng's small hand: "You aren't my mom, I want my mom! Mom! Mom! Musheng wants to go home!"

Shuisheng was crying too.

At first, he was pretending to cry, just dry howling without tears.

But as he kept howling, tears really started to fall in torrents.

What to do!

His biological mother was selling him and his younger brother!

Would his stepmother really come to save them?

What if his stepmother couldn't find the bad guys and couldn't save him and his brother?

Xue Lihua was driven to distraction by the incessant crying and asked the couple: "What should I do? Do you have any way to get them out of here?"

"Yes, yes, we do."

The couple took out a square cloth and a small spray bottle, sprayed something liquid onto the cloth, and then covered the faces of the two wailing children with it.

The crying stopped abruptly.

Xue Lihua urged them impatiently: "Hurry up and go! Take advantage of the fact that it's work hours and there's no one on the road."

The couple left, each carrying a child.

Once they had completely walked out of the alley, Xue Lihua closed the courtyard gate and let out a long sigh of relief.

Finally managed to send those two little beasts away.

At least they won't come to annoy her anymore!

She then touched the three hundred and five yuan in her pocket and felt completely relaxed.

Tomorrow is Sunday, and her husband is off work; she would accompany him to pick out a bicycle first, then go to the department store together to look at couple's watches.

Little did she know, the couple had just left the alley and hadn't even reached the station when they were intercepted by Xie Yang.

Xie Yang had already removed her disguise, carrying two bags of food in her hands, pretending to be there for the first time, and had asked for directions several times along the way:

"Excuse me, how do I get to Xue Lihua's house?"

A helpful elderly resident pointed the way and casually asked which of Xue Lihua's relatives she was.

"Oh, actually, you can't really call me a relative," Xie Yang explained patiently. "I'm just here to see the two children... They used to live with me, but they were brought here by their biological mother a few days ago. Since Sister Xue is their biological mother, I'm naturally at ease, but I just missed them, so I took advantage of my time off to come and see them."

Main System: 【Host is 666! It would be a waste not to be an actress!】

Xie Yang had no time to retort, because she saw the couple.

She dropped the two bags of food and rushed over: "Who are you people? Why are you carrying away my two children? What's wrong with them? Why won't they wake up? Are you child traffickers?"

After scolding them, she beat them up mercilessly without hesitation, then called the police to report them for child trafficking!

The couple tried desperately to defend themselves: "We aren't child traffickers! We are from a village down the way, here to visit relatives."

Xie Yang questioned them in front of the police: "If you're visiting relatives, why are you stealing someone else's child?"

"We didn't steal them! That family didn't want to raise them anymore, and since we don't have children, they gave them to us to raise."

Xie Yang glared:

"Nonsense! I know that family; it's the children's biological mother. I am the children's stepmother, and we met just a few days ago.

Originally, these two children lived with me. After their biological father and grandmother passed away, the three of us relied on each other to survive. A few days ago, their biological mother suddenly showed up saying she missed the children terribly.

When a biological mother wants to take her children, a stepmother like me can't stop her. But in the few days since they left, I haven't been able to eat or sleep well, and I've been especially worried about them, so I took some time to come and see them.

I never expected that as soon as I arrived, I would run into you two child traffickers and kidnappers! You get caught red-handed and still try to frame others. Comrade Police! Not a word out of their mouths is true; you really should take them back and interrogate them properly. You might even uncover other evil deeds..."

The couple panicked instantly.

If it were just adopting the children they wanted for themselves, that would be one thing, but they had also helped the hunter introduce one.

To ensure the children wouldn't disobey, they even privately obtained sleeping pills. When the police asked, how were they supposed to explain that?

As soon as the police arrived, the couple's faces turned pale with fright.

Terrified of being locked up, they hurriedly spilled the beans and told the whole truth.

Consequently, Xue Lihua, who was having a sweet dream at home, had her door knocked down by the police and was taken away.

They said she had colluded with human traffickers to abduct and sell children.

Xue Lihua was stunned: "What human traffickers?"

The police thought she was playing dumb: "Wang Qiang and his wife have already confessed that you sold the two children to them at a set price; they kept one for themselves and resold the other to a villager in the same village. They have the receipt of your Trading in their hands. The two children were identified as having been drugged and are still in the hospital being resuscitated. Xue Lihua, leniency for those who confess! Start talking!"

Xue Lihua: "!!!"

For a moment, she was so angry she couldn't speak.

How did Wang Qiang and his wife handle things?

Wasn't it agreed not to mention the money? How did even the police find out?

"Comrade police, have you made a mistake? I am the children's biological mother; how could I possibly treat them like this? I am being framed..."

The police did not listen to her sophistry, looking only at the evidence.

Seeing that she refused to cooperate, they left her sitting in the interrogation room.

It wasn't until a colleague who accompanied the children to the hospital for examinations brought back a breakthrough: the older child clearly testified that Xue Lihua had indeed taken money from Wang Qiang and had been planning this for three or four days. The reason she brought them home was specifically to sell them to her rural relatives.

For the past few days, the two children had been locked in the house and forbidden from going out, given only two meals a day of thin, watery mixed-flour gruel that they could see their reflections in, leaving them too hungry to cry out and with no chance to seek help from the outside world.

At the same time, the search warrant applied for by the police was approved, and three hundred and five yuan was found in a drawer of Xue Lihua's desk. Among the bills, several of the ten-yuan notes had marks made by Wang Qiang.

With both human and material evidence confirmed, Xue Lihua and the Wang Qiang couple received the same treatment—they didn't even get a chance to step out of the police station door and were directly detained pending trial.