Exile with Storage Space: Family Fortunes in the Barren Lands-Chapter 572 - 533 Questioning (2)

The thin-faced woman said, "Yes, yes, young mistress, we really don’t have that ability. If we could truly command a leopard, why would we be doing this kind of work? It doesn’t even pay much."

The conversation seemed to have startled the leopard.

The leopard stood up, occasionally nudging the door with its head.

The people inside the house were too scared to breathe.

Miss Chai, aside from being in a panic, was particularly worried that the child in her arms might suddenly wake up and cry.

She gritted her teeth and steeled herself, deciding that if the leopard really broke in, she would throw the child out, and if worst comes to worst, she’d endure the hardship and buy another child.

Fortunately, the leopard just circled the wooden house and nudged the door but didn’t force its way in.

Everyone breathed a slight sigh of relief, hoping someone would pass by to shoot the leopard so they could escape.

With the leopard causing such a disturbance, the man didn’t dare to ask Miss Chai for money anymore.

All of them inhaled lightly, sitting in place without daring to move, their eyes only following the leopard’s movements outside the wooden house.

Guoguo glanced back at them and then continued peering through the gap in the wooden boards to watch the leopard outside.

.

Liu Laoda’s grandson was missing, and Liu Da Niu had cried herself unconscious several times.

Lady Liu was also heartbroken and anxious, but she had no idea what to do.

She didn’t know where to go to find the child.

Lady Liu continually comforted her eldest daughter, "Stop crying, Da Niu. If you cry too much, you will lose your milk. What’s the child going to eat when we find him?"

Liu Da Niu stopped crying and looked at her mother. "Mother..."

Several neighboring women also reassured her, "Your mother is right. No matter how sad you are, the child won’t come back on its own. Your husband Shuangcheng and your father are organizing the search. Just wait at home and don’t cry anymore. You’ll harm your health, and if your son comes back, he’ll suffer from it."

After being coaxed by several people in turns, Liu Da Niu finally stopped crying.

But her mood didn’t improve much. The tears just wouldn’t stop.

Everyone persuaded Da Niu to go back inside and laid her back on the bed.

With the Liu family losing a child, everything was in chaos, and the feast couldn’t go on.

Those helping out stopped cooking.

The laborers helping around also stopped working.

The Liu Family had no mood to entertain guests, focusing all their efforts on finding the child.

Prince Luling, his wife, and Li Yu En, who were in the middle of the feast, also lost their appetite. They sat inside listening to everyone discuss the situation, waiting for news.

Princess Consort Luling looked around and wondered, "Yu Zhu went to find two children; why hasn’t she returned yet?"

Even Li Yu En, who usually had a good appetite, seeing that no one else was eating, felt it inappropriate to continue and sat with her parents.

She said, "Third Sister must have taken Guoguo and Jingjing to play. Mother, you don’t need to worry about her."

Princess Consort Luling thought of Li Yuzhu’s cleverness and felt a bit more at ease. She began chatting with the nearby women about the Liu family’s missing child.

Liu Laoda’s three daughters, Er Niu, San Niu, and Si Niu, took care of things in and around the house. Liu Laoda didn’t want them involved in the search, instructing them to watch over the house.

Their mother needed to comfort their elder sister and couldn’t attend to the guests, leaving them as the only ones available.

Hu Shuangcheng and Liu Laoda, along with several men from the clan, hurriedly headed towards Qingshui River Village.

Hu Shuangcheng speculated that if his mother had taken the child, she would likely return to the Hu Family.

The group headed towards the Hu Family in pursuit.

Before even leaving Taohua River Village, near a stack of straw behind a villager’s house, they spotted Aunt Hu and her daughter Hu Dan Ni.

The two sat on the ground with disheveled hair, speaking anxiously to each other.

Aunt Hu was crying.

Hu Dan Ni was comforting her.

Liu Laoda, upon seeing them, was immediately enraged and rushed over, grabbing Aunt Hu and started hitting her, "Did you take my grandson?"

Hu Dan Ni chimed in, "You don’t even have a son, so how can you have a grandson?"

"My daughter’s son is my grandson! He’s just been added to the family tree! You wicked old woman, did you steal him? Give me back my grandson!" Liu Laoda hit both Aunt Hu and Hu Dan Ni.

Their screams pierced the air.

Seeing her brother Hu Shuangcheng standing silently to the side, doing nothing to help, Hu Dan Ni shouted angrily, "Shuangcheng, they’re hitting our mother! Why are you just standing there? Come help us!"

"Where did Black Dog go? What did you do with my son Black Dog? Sister, where did you take him?" Hu Shuangcheng, who seemed to have been in a daze, suddenly snapped awake and began jumping in panic.

He hadn’t seen his mother and sister with his son.

After the child went missing, Hu Shuangcheng followed Li Yuzhu’s advice and inquired with everyone.

The first person who took the child from Liu Da Niu was an elderly neighbor woman living across from the Liu Family.

He first asked the old woman who she passed the child to after taking him.

The old woman said she gave the child to her newly married granddaughter-in-law to look after. He then inquired further, and that new granddaughter-in-law said she held the child for a bit before passing him to an aunt.

Continuing with these inquiries, a twelve or thirteen-year-old boy finally said that his six-year-old sister held the child for a while.

Hu Shuangcheng promptly asked the six-year-old girl, who said someone gave her five coins to carry the child to the back door of the Liu house.

She recognized that it was Da Niu’s mother-in-law, Hu Shuangcheng’s mother.

Finally, it all came out.

Hu Shuangcheng immediately informed father-in-law Liu Laoda of the situation. Liu Laoda was furious, stomping his feet, and led several of his clan brothers and nephews with Hu Shuangcheng towards Qingshui River Village.

Unexpectedly, they found the people so quickly.

But they did not see the child.

"Where is the child?" Hu Shuangcheng ignored familial bonds and, along with Liu Laoda, angrily demanded that each of them tell the truth.

Aunt Hu burst into tears, "The child... The child is missing, missing."

Hu Shuangcheng turned pale with shock and asked, "Mother, what are you saying? Didn’t you take the child from a six-year-old girl’s hands? How could he be missing?"

"Tell us how he went missing." Liu Laoda pulled Aunt Hu by her hair, shaking her vigorously.

He used so much force that several strands of Aunt Hu’s hair came out.

Aunt Hu could only cry, speaking incoherently.

Hu Dan Ni said, "Let go of me, and I’ll tell you!"

Hu Shuangcheng released his grip, glaring at her, "Then quickly, speak!"

Hu Dan Ni tidied her hair, "Mother just wanted to see her grandson. You always stopped her from seeing him, so we had to find a way to have someone bring him out. But who knew..."

"Who knew what? Speak!" Liu Laoda kicked Aunt Hu to the ground, picking up a stone as he looked at the two, "If you don’t say where the child went, I’ll kill you today!"

Aunt Hu and Hu Dan Ni looked at the men behind Liu Laoda and then at the stone in his hand. Too frightened to conceal anything, they told the whole story honestly.

The truth was, Aunt Hu couldn’t bear not being able to see her grandson, not having his name on the Hu Family Tree, nor even holding him once?

Aunt Hu and her daughter plotted, taking advantage of the confusion of the Liu Family’s full-month banquet. They had someone bring the child outside the back door of Liu’s house.

The child was only in her arms for a short while. She hadn’t even seen his face clearly, when a woman ran up and took the child.

They were too afraid to shout that the child was being taken, lest the villagers hear and raise an alarm.

They couldn’t just shout out that someone had taken the child. They feared the humiliation more than the ordeal.

They gritted their teeth and chased the woman, but since they were near the Liu Family’s area, they couldn’t risk crying out about the kidnapping.

This was a tremendous injustice, the child was gone, and they were being accused of kidnapping.

"Where’s the child?" Hu Shuangcheng roughly shook Aunt Hu and Hu Dan Ni, demanding to know.

Aunt Hu cried and pointed in a direction, "A woman ran off with him. She was wearing a black headscarf."

But Liu Laoda didn’t believe them.

"Nonsense! I won’t believe your lies!" Liu Laoda pulled at Aunt Hu, threatening to tear her apart if she didn’t come clean.

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