Exile with Storage Space: Family Fortunes in the Barren Lands-Chapter 574 - 535 Report to the Authorities (2)

Mu Yuanxiu said, "Search ahead again, there must be more!"

"Let’s go!"

The two continued running forward.

Bright red paper fragments, scattered on the brownish-yellow dirt road, were very conspicuous.

Every mile or two, they could see a clump of paper.

Beside a patch of mixed woods, the paper fragments were especially numerous.

Moreover, the wheel tracks turned direction and veered into the woods.

"Into the woods?" Li Yuzhu was surprised, "I remember there’s no one living in front of the woods."

The road they just walked was leading to the marketplace, she had been walking this road for a year. She knew exactly what villages, fish ponds, and fields belonged to which village.

She remembered, past these woods were vast fields, and at the end of the fields lay a range of uninhabited barren hills.

Most of those fields belonged to the second house of the Chai Family.

"Let’s go check it out." Mu Yuanxiu pulled Li Yuzhu and ran into the woods.

Similar to what they saw on the road, every certain distance, they could spot some red paper scraps.

They chased forward along the paper scraps.

Through the woods, they saw large stretches of farmland.

Some fields were planted with winter wheat, lush and growing well. Other fields sowed with different seeds, just sprouting new shoots.

At this time, it wasn’t the busy spring farming season, and the fields were devoid of people.

On the path through the fields, fresh wheel tracks stretched ahead.

The two followed the wheel tracks and ran forward.

Around a few small trees, Li Yuzhu was surprised to see Guoguo’s big cat crouching in front of a small wooden house.

"That’s the house where the long-term laborer from the Chai Family’s second house used to live while guarding the melon field." Mu Yuanxiu pointed at the hut, "I came here last year with the village chief to buy melons."

"Guoguo’s leopard actually ran here! Since Guoguo took it home, it’s been squatting outside our backyard, yet today it appears here, it’s really unusual. Could it have followed Guoguo?" Li Yuzhu looked at Mu Yuanxiu.

Guoguo would use a small golden whistle Mu Yuanxiu gave her to blow a strange, unpatterned tune, and the leopard would follow her when it heard the tune.

Mu Yuanxiu held her hand, "It’s possible, let’s go ahead and see."

After the leopard came to the Li Family, Li Yuzhu and Mu Yuanxiu often brought some wild game to feed it, and even when Guoguo was not around, the leopard wouldn’t be ferocious to them.

They walked closer, and the leopard, hearing the sound, just glanced back at them and went back to dozing with its eyes closed.

As docile as a cat, no wonder Guoguo called it a big cat.

Li Yuzhu looked at the ground, where a large clump of red paper fragments was scattered right in front of the wooden house.

"Inside!" Li Yuzhu pointed at the door.

Just then, Li Jing’s voice came from inside the wooden house, "Aunt, Uncle, we’re here! And Guoguo is here too. Guoguo, quick, call Aunt and Uncle."

"Guoguo is also here," Guoguo replied.

Li Yuzhu and Mu Yuanxiu exchanged glances.

Mu Yuanxiu nodded, suddenly rushed forward, and kicked open the door.

The man known as One Tuft of Hair saw Li Yuzhu and Mu Yuanxiu coming, and was wondering why the leopard didn’t chase them, then heard the two children start speaking together.

So they found them.

He immediately lunged at Li Jing and Guoguo.

But he wasn’t as quick as the people outside.

Mu Yuanxiu rushed into the hut, and with lightning speed kicked him flying onto the ground.

Li Yuzhu also followed in, seeing Miss Chai holding the children sitting in the room, she was momentarily stunned.

"Aunt, Uncle!" Li Jing shouted happily.

"Aunt, Uncle!" Guoguo also called.

Li Yuzhu glanced at Miss Chai, ignored her, walked over, and hugged the two children to her.

"Are you alright? Did they hit you?" Li Yuzhu looked at Guoguo, then at Li Jing.

The two children’s hair and clothes were neat, Guoguo’s face was also clean, only Li Jing seemed to have cried, with traces of tears on his face.

"No," Guoguo shook her head.

"They didn’t hit me either," Li Jing said, "They tricked me, saying Mom was here, so I came with them, but there’s no Mom here."

Li Jing looked at Li Yuzhu, his lips pursed, appearing on the verge of crying again.

"Okay, Aunt understands, they are bad people." Li Yuzhu hugged them to her sides.

As long as they haven’t been bullied, it’s fine; now is not the time to educate the two children.

The important thing now is to send these child-snatching villains to prison to face justice!

"Behave, or I’ll throw you to the leopard for lunch!" Yuanxiu removed the headscarf cloth from the hair of the one-tuft-of-hair man and tied his hands behind his back.

The woman with the gaunt face sat in a corner, trembling with fear, not daring to move.

There’s a leopard guarding outside, going out means courting death.

The small wooden hut was cramped; after Li Yuzhu and Yuanxiu walked in, they found it hard to turn around.

Yuanxiu picked up the bound one-tuft-of-hair man and threw him at the door of the hut.

One Tuft of Hair wet himself on the spot.

Because when he looked up, he saw the leopard’s face; only half a foot separated their faces.

With one bite, the leopard could snap his head off.

Oh, mother, don’t scare people like this!

One Tuft of Hair flipped his eyelids and fainted out of fright.

The dozing Hu Baozi only lifted his eyelids, then closed them to rest again.

He didn’t even look at him.

As for the gaunt-faced woman inside the hut, seeing the man bound and thrown in front of the leopard, she was too scared to move, repeatedly saying, "It’s not my fault, it was... it was his idea, my man’s idea, it’s not my fault..."

Yuanxiu glanced at her and merely said, "Shut up first, speak only when asked! If you mumble on, you’ll accompany the leopard too."

The gaunt-faced woman immediately dared not make a sound.

As for Miss Chai and her maidservant, upon seeing Li Yuzhu and Yuanxiu, instead of being happy, they looked disgusted.

Li Yuzhu calmed the two children, holding them in her arms, then turned to look at Miss Chai.

And she noticed, too, that the child Miss Chai was holding was Liu Da Niu’s son.

"Isn’t this Chai Erniang? What are you doing here? Oh right, what are you doing with Liu Da Niu’s son? Da Niu’s son disappeared, and it turns out you stole him?" Li Yuzhu looked at her coldly.

Yuanxiu went over and, without a word, snatched the child back from Miss Chai’s hands.

Spotting the child sleeping soundly, he handed him over to Li Yuzhu.

The child had no external injuries, but who knows if there were any internal ones.

Li Yuzhu was worried they had done something to the child, so she immediately started checking the child using her personal space.

Many child traffickers, upon getting a crying child, especially a speechless baby, would drug them to keep them quiet.

Those people don’t care if the drugs cause disabilities or turn the children into simpletons, as long as they make money.

Li Yuzhu took a blood sample from the child and began testing it with equipment from her space.

Whether drugs were used, it would be clear with a test.

Miss Chai, caught buying a child by acquaintances, began to panic.

If this gets out, she could be dismissed by the Luo Family!

"Li Yuzhu, you’re slandering me. I didn’t steal the child. I... I found him; it’s this couple who found and left the child! I felt sorry for the child and picked him up to take care of him," Miss Chai said, pointing at One Tuft of Hair and the gaunt-faced woman, "If you don’t believe me, ask my maid."

The maid beside Miss Chai nodded repeatedly, "Yes, we found him; they stole the child and dumped him here. Seeing the child pitied, we picked him up."

Li Yuzhu didn’t believe their nonsense, "Chai Erniang, aren’t you due in a few days? How did you manage to come to this wild place? It’s so bumpy here, aren’t you afraid it will trigger labor? Oh, and you just happened to find a child here?"

Miss Chai wasn’t actually pregnant, she said it deliberately.

"I found him! Li Yuzhu, stop slandering me!" Miss Chai exclaimed furiously.

The gaunt-faced woman, who struggled to snatch the child back, not only didn’t get the money but was also being falsely accused by Miss Chai, wouldn’t stand for it.

She looked towards Li Yuzhu and said, "Madam, she’s lying! She wanted to buy a child, we found one to give to her, while she said she would give us a hundred taels."

"Did I give it?" Miss Chai sneered.

"You were about to, but kept stalling, even my husband knows about it!" the gaunt-faced woman pointed at the maid beside Miss Chai, "It was her who found us, saying she wanted to buy a child, and specifically asked for a healthy newborn male infant."

"You’re lying!" the maid from the second branch of the Chai family shouted loudly, "I never contacted you!"

"You’re the liar! I haven’t lied! Whoever lies will be abandoned by their husband and never remarry, their whole body covered in sores, dying a stinky death!" the gaunt-faced woman cursed, refusing to bear the crime for others.

This vow was malicious.

Miss Chai and her maid both dared not say a word.

Li Yuzhu glanced at them and said to Mu Yuanxiu, "Yuanxiu, they’re each claiming their own innocence. I think we should report this to the authorities and let the government investigate. The government office has its ways of finding the truth; first report to the Pavilion Chief."

Village matters are reported to the village chief, but serious cases like this, which reach a criminal level, are reported by the village chief to the Pavilion Chief, and then by the Pavilion Chief to the county government.

The current incident involved people from several villages, so only the Pavilion Chief could handle it.

Child stealing and selling, trafficking young fertile women, are crimes on par with murder, arson, and grave robbing.