Chapter 302: Kidnapping Sold Wholesale?

This shows it wasn't their first time doing this.

And the place they stopped must have been a surveillance blind spot they'd scouted in advance.

At this point some people might wonder: are there really surveillance blind spots near a train station?

With such a huge flow of people, surely coverage has to be a hundred percent.

Then you'd be taking it for granted.

Put it this way — the busier a place like a train station, the more the businesses around it dislike installing surveillance.

Even when they do install it, most of it is just for show.

First question: what kind of business is most common around a train station?

Flophouses have to rank number one.

Those guys holding up signs and hustling passengers are mainly making their money off the flophouses.

Rent, utilities, hiring people to drag in customers — knock all that out, and the rooms themselves are dirt cheap, so how do they actually make money?

Anyone who's been around knows.

In any city, the moment the vice squad moves, the first to get hit is always the flophouses in front of the station.

With a business like that, would they dare put up full surveillance coverage?

And then there are those restaurants that sell dog meat under a sheep's head, the ones that specialize in fleecing out-of-towners — they love setting up shop near the train station.

For a place like that, installing surveillance would just be asking for trouble.

Don't worry — the moment the police go check the cameras, nine out of ten will have just happened to break down. Real coincidence.

Later, after crackdowns and cleanup campaigns, this kind of situation across the country gradually became rarer.

But in 2009, whether it was the station-front flophouses or the restaurants, they were right in their boom years — the crackdowns were still a long way off.

"So then, where did they take you?" Yu Dazhang pressed on.

Based on his reasoning, since the other side had used a minivan for the abduction, they probably hadn't left the city.

"I had a bag over my head at the time, couldn't see a thing, and couldn't even estimate how much time had passed."

Fang Peng said, a little helplessly:

"But I could tell the vehicle drove for a long time — at least a little over two hours. After it stopped, I was transferred into another vehicle."

"The second one was a cargo truck. I could sense other people in the truck bed. Since my head was covered, my hands and feet were tied, and my mouth was gagged, I could do nothing but leave it to fate."

Feels like the next stop is a scam compound in northern Myanmar… Yu Dazhang muttered to himself.

Though this was a lot more blunt and crude than what they did over there — just snatching someone off the street and into a van. You could say there was zero technical skill involved.

Even though Yu Dazhang thought the whole thing sounded a bit far-fetched, he didn't interrupt — he wanted to hear what came next.

"At that point something struck me as odd — the reactions of the other people in the truck bed were off."

Fang Peng went on:

"Normally, if someone was tied up the way I was, they'd struggle a few times, realize they couldn't break free, and give up. But these people kept writhing, trying to get loose."

"Since the truck bed was sheet metal, the noise was especially loud. They kept at it for a long time before finally stopping."

Not normal people? Hearing this, Yu Dazhang had a preliminary guess forming in his mind.

Just as Fang Peng had said — if they were normal people, they definitely wouldn't have kept struggling like that.

Once you've already confirmed you can't break free, conserving your strength is the best move. Even Fang Peng, who wasn't exactly a genius, knew that.

There was one more thing.

Those people were repeat offenders — or rather, professional kidnappers. Fang Peng was just one of many victims.

Seeing Fang Peng glance at the cigarette butt on the ground, Yu Dazhang turned and gave Liu Miao a look.

Liu Miao caught on, walked across, and lit Fang Peng another Huazi.

Recollecting takes a lot out of the brain — smoking helps boost thinking and memory.

After taking a drag, Fang Peng glanced at Yu Dazhang with gratitude, then said slowly:

"After a long while, two more people were stuffed into the truck bed one after another. Same as the ones before — they kept struggling nonstop."

"But this time those guys didn't let them keep making a fuss. They beat them until they calmed down, then stopped."

"Once they were sure no one was struggling anymore, they left the truck bed, and the cargo truck started up and drove off."

Yu Dazhang did the math in his head — at that point, counting Fang Peng, there were probably about six or seven people in the truck bed.

Kidnapping is a criminal case in the first place — a serious violation of someone's personal freedom and personal rights.

Kidnapping this many people at once — that already counts as a major case.

He turned to look at Ma Jian and Liu Miao again, and saw that neither of them looked too good either — clearly thinking the same thing he was.

"This time the vehicle drove for a long time. Later I was both sleepy and hungry, and drifted off without realizing it."

Seeing no one across from him cutting in, Fang Peng kept recalling:

"I don't know how long I slept. I was jolted awake by a bout of bumping — felt like the truck was driving over rough, uneven dirt road, jostling me until my whole body ached."

"That stretch went on forever. I felt like my whole body was about to fall apart, until the truck finally stopped."

They've arrived… Yu Dazhang had a premonition this was the final stop.

Just listening to Fang Peng's account made him feel uncomfortable all over. He'd seen those box trucks before — a person locked inside is like a sealed-up can of meat.

Let alone with a bag over your head, a gag in your mouth, and your hands and feet all bound.

Just thinking about that feeling is enough to make you miserable.

Sure enough, what Fang Peng said next matched his guess exactly:

"The truck bed doors opened and a group of people rushed in. I could tell these guys weren't the same bunch that had grabbed me before."

"Two of them hauled me out of the truck bed onto the ground, untied the rope around my legs, then dragged me along between them."

"I remember it clearly — the air outside the truck was really fresh, with a scent of plants and grass. You don't get that in the city."

"Moreover, the surroundings were very quiet; I even heard the chirping of insects and the rustling sound of wind blowing through the leaves."

Having said this, Fang Peng stopped and took a drag of his cigarette.

We've arrived in the countryside... Yu Dazhang summarized this in his heart.

After traveling for a long time on a bumpy dirt road, he got off the vehicle, smelled the fresh scent of grass and trees, and heard the chirping of insects.

Obviously, this meant they had entered a village.

It was just unknown whether it was a mountain village, a rural village, or perhaps a small town.

Unfortunately, Fang Peng could not specify the exact time or the direction of the vehicle's travel; otherwise, he could have inferred the approximate location based on these two points.

At the same time, he also reached a preliminary conclusion: these kidnappers had no intention of releasing anyone.

If it were a kidnapping gang that released people after extorting the ransom, they would not have dragged the victim so far away.

Finding any hiding spot within the city would have been far better than all this trouble.

What happened next was easy to guess: Fang Peng and the other kidnapped people were imprisoned in the village.

Most likely, they were locked up in a place like a cellar.

The basement Fang Peng dug was designed to mimic the structure of a cellar.

That's not right!

Yu Dazhang suddenly recalled what Qian Cheng had said earlier:

The suspect had implemented anti-settlement treatment for the basement, embedded steel bars into the walls, and applied soil particle solidification.

Although Yu Dazhang did not know how to dig a cellar, he knew that digging a cellar certainly did not require such techniques.

Just as he was considering whether to ask about this issue first, the Fang Peng opposite him took two drags of his cigarette and spoke again:

"Those two men carried me for a stretch of road, then we entered a room, and after that, I began walking down a set of stairs."

"After walking down about ten steps, I heard the sound of an iron door closing behind me, followed immediately by someone removing the black bag over my head."

"Since I hadn't been exposed to light for so long, I squinted my eyes and adapted for several seconds before I could clearly see the scene before me. What was in front of my eyes..."

"... was a prison."

(End of this chapter)