CH 37.2

Names mentioned in this chapter:

– 苏秦 (Sū Qín) – Female Lead

– 黎川 (Lí Chuān) / 黎教授 (Lí jiàoshòu) – Male Lead

– 王琳 (Wáng Lín) – FL’s mother

– 苏正国 (Sū Zhèngguó) – FL’s father

– 波波 (Bō bō) – Abductee

– 李秀兰 (Lǐ Xiùlán) – FL’s stepmother

– 孟思思 (Mèng Sīsī) – Abductee

– 于雯 (Yú Wén) – Su Qin’s dorm mate/ classmate

– 言一晓 (Yán Yīxiǎo) – Su Qin’s dorm mate

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– 徐航 (Xú Háng) – Military Training Chief Instructor

Chapter 37.2 – The Truth

This novel is only hosted on Foxaholic, copies found elsewhere are either stolen or plagiarized.

Being a woman after all, although Li Xiulan is selfish, she has feelings for her son and Su Zhengguo too. As soon as Su Zhengguo got divorced, she clung on to him immediately and the two got married promptly.

Wang Lin was evidently not surprised to meet Su Zhengguo, but was obviously frightened. She grabbed Su Qin’s wrist, her palm was sweaty and she was shaking like a chaff.

Seeing Wang Lin’s oddity, Bobo put her arms around her shoulder and asked, “Aunty Wang? What’s wrong with you?”

Su Qin gripped her mother’s hand too and asked, “Mom? What’s wrong? Are you afraid of him? Don’t be afraid, you’re divorced now, he won’t dare to do anything to you. It’s good that he has a new life, at least he won’t bother us anymore.”

Wang Lin was so frightened that her lips turned purple. She pointed inside, opened her mouth wide yet unable to utter a sound for a long time.

Inside, Su Zhengguo soon caught sight of his daughter and ex-wife outside the window, and was shocked too. Following her husband’s line of sight, Li Xiulan saw his daughter and ex-wife.

Li Xiulan dropped the clothes and was about to walk out, but was pulled back by her husband.

Li Xiulan spoke cynically, “Su Zhengguo, why? Are you feeling guilty? Do you have a conscience? For you, I have avoided her for so many years and now that you are divorced, and have nothing to do with her, you are still partial towards her?”

Su Zhengguo lowered his voice, “Xiulan, she has cancer and is dying. Don’t agitate her.”

He is a human after all. Being husband and wife for so many years, and thinking that she is dying, softened his heart a little.

Li Xiulan shrugged off the man’s hand and strode towards the door. She looked smilingly at the petrified-face Wang Lin at the door, “Sister Lin, long time no see ah. I’ve married Zhengguo and will have the wedding banquet next month. Should I send you a wedding invitation?”

Wang Lin was so angry that she couldn’t breath and pointed at her “You, you, you” for a long time yet unable to utter a word while her hands shook violently.

Seeing her mother so angry that she was about to faint, Su Qin quickly stroked her back to calm her down and said, “Mom, be strong. Have you forgotten what I usually told you? The more downtrodden you are, the more pleased those who loathe you. Don’t be afraid.”

Wang Lin took a breath and tried to calm herself, but her voice couldn’t help trembling, “You … Li Xiulan, aren’t you dead?”

“Dead?” Li Xiulan laughed, “Aren’t I standing well here?”

Wang Lin was trembling with anger.

Heavens! She had been deceived by her husband for so many years! This mistress simply did not die of illness, simply did not die of illness at all! She even sent her own son to let her raise him! This vicious woman!

While the two were talking, the little boy came out of the store, threw himself into Wang Lin’s arms, hugged her thigh and happily called out, “Mommy.”

Li Xiulan pulled her son and scolded him in a low voice, “I’m your mother, you stinky brat. What nonsense are you yelling about?”

Wang Lin looked down and stared at the little boy, when an inconceivable notion suddenly set off in her mind.

When her daughter went missing at that time, her husband just brought this little boy back. Wasn’t all this too coincidental?

A woman’s instinct can be terrifyingly accurate sometimes.

The four-year-old child hasn’t developed well, so he can’t speak very well and is even more ignorant about those adults’ matters. After Su Zhengguo brought him home, he let him call Wang Lin mommy and he did so obediently. Wang Lin treated him very well and in actuality, Wang Lin was closer than his biological mother in the four-year-old child’s heart.

Wang Lin’s glaring eyes were bloodred with anger, like a balloon on the verge to explode, “You, you! It was you who had my Su-su abducted and sold, right? Only when my Su-su disappeared that you were able to send your son over, isn’t it? You, this vicious woman!”

She raised her hand and slapped Li Xiulan on the face.

The slap was so hard that blood seeped out of the corner of Li Xiulan’s mouth and her cheek was burning hot with several fingerprints, obviously confused by the slap.

Li Xiulan reacted and wanted to hit Wang Lin like crazy, but was pulled back by her husband Su Zhengguo.

“How could you possibly think people are so vicious? Is Xiulan that kind of person?” Su Zhengguo grabbed the agitated Li Xiulan and shouted at Wang Lin.

Wang Lin’s teeth chattered, “She can even do such a thing of seducing other’s husbands, what vicious things can’t she do?”

Su Qin looked at her father and the mistress. Her heart was in turmoil. Staring at the mistress, she couldn’t calm down for a long time.

If it was really as her mother guessed, then all her previous lifetime’s misery was because of this mistress? The absurdity was that in her previous lifetime, she had lived half her life and until her death, she didn’t know that this Li Xiulan, was actually the one who caused her a lifetime of frustrations and dashed hopes.

“Su Zhengguo.” Su Qin’s tone lacked fluctuating emotions, and her gaze was as cold as ice too.

Su Zhengguo looked at this daughter in front of him and eventually felt as if she was someone different, especially those eyes, which were cold and hollow, as if filled with a dark aura.

“Su-su, take good care of your mother. Dad will come to see you another day.” Su Zhengguo said and was about to drag Li Xiulan away.

Su Qin’s hand reached into her pocket and took out the peppery water. While the two were not paying attention, she sprayed it into Li Xiulan’s eyes.

Leaning into her husband’s arms, the woman covered her eyes and screamed out.

Hugging Li Xiulan, Su Zhengguo said angrily, “Su-su, what are you doing! How can you treat your stepmother like this!”

“Stepmother?” Su Qin looked coldly at her once father, and the corners of her lips hooked up in a sneer, “Su Zhengguo, I have already said you are no longer my father and this woman, also degraded the word mother.”

The mall was crowded and people around soon came to watch.

Su Qin turned to pull her mother, “Mom, Bobo, let’s go.”

Until they walked out of the mall, Wang Lin’s face was still deathly pale.

She couldn’t stop trembling. Recalling the past, she felt herself stupid and dull-witted like a pig, being used without even realizing it. She simply couldn’t believe her former self was actually devoted to raising the mistress’ child? In fact listened to her husband and let her daughter, who just returned home with great difficulty, go to work.

How stupid was she in the past?

Everyone, including Su Qin herself, didn’t know what Li Xiulan did at that time to send her son back ‘home’.

She mingled openly in Sangzao Town and hooked up with the group of traffickers, and it was also she who bragged to the traffickers about Su Qin’s beauty, kind-heartedness, easy to abduct and also a clean little girl who had never come into contact with men.

Su Qin of the previous lifetime didn’t know all these, and when she was reborn, she didn’t know either.

In this lifetime, if she did not accept her mother, didn’t urge her mother to divorce and also did not meet Li Xiulan with her mother, she probably would be kept in the dark forever and might never know the ‘died of illness’ mistress was precisely Li Xiulan.

Is this what Heavens’ purpose in having her reborn? To let her see the truth of everything?

Once back home, her mother Wang Lin sat on the bed crying, while Su Qin went to take a breather on the balcony in an attempt to digest the shocking information.

Fortunately she was reborn in this lifetime and also luckily by chance, she went to the factory’s vicinity and met Bobo. All of this seemed like a divine arrangement that tied their fates tightly together.

The human trafficking transfer hub, Sangzao Town, Li Xiulan, abduction … connecting these clues together, twisted into an unexpected truth.

The human traffickers at the transfer hub had escaped, they inevitably would move their lair and after a period of silence, they were bound to start once again. Thinking of this, Su Qin’s heart could not calm down for a long time. She wants to do something, but her ability is limited.

Su Qin remembered Li Xiulan in her previous lifetime, the owner of a small factory in Sangzao Town. Thinking of this, she called the printing factory’s owner and asked him to help inquire about Li Xiulan.

The boss recited the name again before saying, “She ah. Our Sangzao Town’s flower ah, who doesn’t know her here? Little Su, there is something I have to tell you, this woman is not a good person. She often mingled with those hooligans in the factory.”

“Then, did she have any contact with the traffickers?”

The boss said, “I’m not sure, why are you asking about this?”

“Oh, wasn’t my father and my mother divorced? The partner he found is precisely that Li Xiulan. I want to know if her background is clean and as long as she doesn’t do anything illegal, I will accept her.”

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The boss rather sympathized with her, “How about this, let me call and ask my nephew. He mingled in those circles too and has some connections, I will ask him to ask around for you.”

Su Qin, “He has connections? How about this boss, you tell him that I’ll call him personally, how about that?”

The boss sent her his nephew, Xiao Shu’s phone number.

Su Qin texted a message to ask if the other party was the boss’ nephew. Only after the other party confirmed did Su Qin get to the point.

She wanted Xiao Shu to help check Li Xiulan has connection with the human traffickers. If there is, Li Xiulan is clearly the reputed ‘mastermind’.

Sangzao Town isn’t big and it shouldn’t be difficult to find out if there are some connections. There is no impermeable wall* in this world. Daring to take root there, those people must also have a ‘social circle’ locally.

[T/N: 没有不透风的墙 (Méiyǒu bù tòufēng de qiáng) – the walls have ears; no secret can be kept forever]

In order to let Xiao Shu do his best to help her investigate these matters, Su Qin agreed to give Xiao Shu a thousand yuan.

Money can make the devil turn a millstone. Xiao Shu certainly would not refuse. Moreover he is the boss’ nephew, who is unlikely to swindle her.

Just based on the boss’ heroism in saving Bobo, Su Qin trusts the boss’ character.

After Wang Lin finished crying, she called Su Qin in, held her hands and said, “Su-su, Mom has let you down. It must be that woman. That woman caused your abduction, otherwise, how could there be such a coincidence in the world? Mom was wrong, had been wrong from the very beginning. Selfishly thinking that by listening to him and properly managing that household for him, he would be able to treat me as well as before … I was truly wrong, helping the mistress to raise her son and even driving my own daughter away … “

Su Qin hugged her mother. Patting the back of her shoulders, she said comfortingly, “Mom, it’s all in the past. What we have to do now is to make money quickly and become formidable. Only by making ourselves formidable, we will have the ability and means to punish those two scums in the future.”

Thinking of the mistress’ family, Wang Lin hated them with a passion.

Although she had the courage to divorce, she didn’t have the courage to retaliate against her husband as she thought they would be unrelated in the future and each would live their own lives. But today, Li Xiulan’s appearance caused mass hatred to rise in her heart.

As the mother and daughter were talking, Bobo stared at the computer screen and exclaimed pleasantly, “Sister Su-su, Aunty Wang! Our match-up post is ablaze! Even MySpace has escalated too.”

Bobo has added all kinds of netizens to her QQ, and she had simply cyber-dating where she was tricked by human traffickers to Sangzao Town.

Her space has a mixture of people from all over the country. She was shocked at once when she saw Su Qin’s match-up post in MySpace and hurriedly told Su Qin the good news.

In the current QQ space, the daily log function is very popular. Netizens like to forward articles on the internet to their own space to enhance the space’s pretentiousness.

This post of Su Qin mentioned the actress Qi Peipei and the substance was good enough too. Even if many netizens didn’t like fashion styling, they were willing to forward it for their favorite celebrities.

The match-up post was hugely popular, which had a lot to do with the fact of her seizing the opportunity. She brought the people’s future concept to the present, while the novel descriptions and avant-garde match-ups in the article were naturally sought after by everyone.

With two computers at home, Su Qin and Wang Lin shared the work. One served as Taobao’s customer service and the other as the match-up articles’ editing, while Bobo was responsible to cook for the two as she watched and learned from the sidelines.

Su Qin has experiences accumulated in her previous lifetime. The fashion styling articles were written quickly and in order to cultivate the users’ reading habits, she intends to update them once a week.

With Bobo’s help managing Taobao, she can use the spare time to write match-ups articles and business plans when she returns home every week.

During this seven-day vacation, Su Qin ‘rested’ for three days.

On the fourth day, she began to bring her books and stationery to Li Chuan’s company to ask him for tutoring.

Every night, Li Chuan would ride the battery-assisted bike to take the girl home.

After the incident in Sangzao Town, Su Qin would notice the hard bulge in his trouser pocket whenever he rode the battery-assisted bike.

On the last day of the National Day holiday, Li Chuan sent the girl back to school.

There was a fruit cart peddler selling in front of the school gate, so he brought Su Qin over, parked the bike on the roadside and walked towards the fruit stand.

Taking off the helmet, Su Qin followed him in small steps with her backpack.

Li Chuan picked up a fist-sized orange, took out the foldable army knife from his pocket, cut out a small piece then turned around and handed it to Su Qin, “Taste it, is it sweet?”

Su Qin carefully took the piece of orange, lest the sharp blade would cut her fingers. Stuffing the orange into her mouth and tasting it, she sucked it lightly and murmured, “Sweet.”

Li Chuan shoved the knife into Su Qin’s hand, took out his wallet and said to the boss, “Six pounds of oranges and six pounds of grapes.”

Su Qin hurriedly said, “Teacher Li, that’s too much.”

“It’s good to eat more fruits.” Li Chuan took out a few hundred yuan from his wallet and stuffed it into her hand, “Pocket money.”

“ ….. “ Su Qin was shocked by the man’s actions. He had never given her any money in the past, at most bought her something.

But now, what’s the situation with stuffing her the money?

She shied away hurriedly and stuffed the few hundred yuan back into Li Chuan’s hand, “Teacher Li, you’ve been so good to me that I don’t know how to repay you already and you still gave me money. Really … I can’t accept it.”

“Take it.” Li Chuan stuffed the money with the heavy fruits into her hand, his tone was not very courteous, with irresistible sternness, “Worry less about your work in the future. I will take more care of your livelihood. Take the money as a loan and pay me back when you make money later, this is not for nothing. You are my student, isn’t it perfectly justified for the master to treat the student well?”

Seeing the man’s stubbornness, Su Qin no longer refused. She intended to save all this money and recorded everything in the notebook he gave her. When she made money in the future, she would pay him back slowly.

If she is not a soul in her thirties, she probably would have pledged herself to him already?

Su Qin didn’t know what Li Chuan thinks, but she could sense that Li Chuan’s treatment was not as simple as doing a long-lasting public welfare, more like …

She dared not ponder deeper. After all, Li Chuan is very outstanding and she didn’t think Li Chuan would like a little young girl like her.

Li Chuan sent her to the school’s entrance and told her, “By the way, come to my company if you have any problems in the future. I have already applied for a study deferral from the school, so I would not be there anymore.”

“Ah? Study deferral? But you’ve just started your PhD ah.”

The man’s behavior shocked Su Qin.

Li Chuan smiled and said, “The company is too busy and I can’t attend to other things at the same time.”

“Then, will you still go back to study later?”

“It depends. We will talk about it when we have time.” Li Chuan’s gaze fell on the girl’s hand and said, “Take the knife and carry it with you at all times, okay?”

Mentioning this, Su Qin realized that she was still clutching Li Chuan’s knife in her hand.

Su Qin thought of the situation in Sangzao Town, sucked a breath and nodded, “Got it. Teacher Li, you should go back early too and pay attention to safety on the road.”

“En.”

Li Chuan watched the young girl enter the school before turning around and walking towards the parking place.

The phone in his pocket rang. Gripping the handphone between his ear and shoulder, he took the helmet hanging on the handlebar and said, “Hello.”

Zhang Cheng on the other end of the phone said, “Old Li, the top has suppressed this matter. The newspapers are not allowed to report on the current matter of this human trafficking transfer hub. According to my investigation, that human trafficking transfer hub is really connected to a trans-border trafficking syndicate.”

“Why are they not allowed to report it?”

“After all, the human trafficking transfer hub was located near Yunyang City and even the culprits had escaped, which caused communal panic.”

Li Chuan could not understand this kind of news suppression, presenting a false sense of peace? Won’t this kind of news raise parents and children safety awareness?

Those groups of children who are protected in the ivory tower are naive and simple. How could the school’s [Safety Handbook] supervise them? Perhaps those children have already fed up with the [Safety Handbook] and the teachers’ advice. If they are not made aware of the sense of crisis, they won’t understand that danger is lurking around them and will feel that the hammer can’t bash them.

Zhang Cheng added, “By the way, Old Li, I stayed in Sangzao Town for a few days and found that Su Qin’s stepmother is really not a thing.”

[T/N: 不是个东西 (Bùshì gè dōngxī) – condemn words implicating you are not even a thing nor a person.]

“Huh?”

“Didn’t I look for informants to inquire about the matters, those informants know a little and told me that Su Qin’s stepmother has extensive connections. I looked for her to ask about some information and she actually charged me a thousand yuan! This old woman, a bloodsucker, pei. Luckily Su Qin and Aunty have moved out now, otherwise, they might be tormented.”

Li Chuan didn’t know that Su Qin actually had a stepmother.

Su Qin returned to the dormitory with big and small bags. After washing the fruits, she put them in the enamel bowls and waited for her roommates’ return.

Meng Sisi and Yu Wen went upstairs with their bags. The two girls were ‘chattering’ about something and Su Qin could hear their voices from afar.

As soon as the two came in, they saw Su Qin sitting at her desk doing homework and dropped their things excitedly to go hug her.

Sitting beside her, Meng Sisi wrapped her arms around her neck and said excitedly, “Ahhhhhh, Sister Su Qin, guess who I met in Hong Kong this time?”

“TVB’s peerless superstar?”

“No, no, no, no …. Xu Hang, Instructor Xu!” Meng Sisi spoke with delight, “Heavens, Sister Su, you don’t know how handsome my Instructor Xu is in a suit! He! Is! Too! Handsome!”

Yu Wen on the side rolled her eyes and said to Su Qin helplessly, “She has been harping on about this since the plane landed this morning. She, has gone crazy!”

“And I’ve even got Instructor Xu’s phone number! He even wrapped his arm around my shoulder at that time in the mall and walked for a while, but he just disappeared soon. Hey, no matter what, I think, I still have predestined fate with him!”

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Su Qin thought about the situation she described, perhaps Xu Hang was on a special mission at that time?

Yan Yixiao grabbed a few copies of the [Safety Manual] delivered by the dormitory superintendent Aunty and rushed in with a backpack on her back as she muttered,

“Annoyed to death, annoyed to death. Some of our dormitory leaders were called over by the dormitory superintendent Aunty to listen to her nagging about safety issues. I don’t get it, what’s the point of issuing the [Safety Handbook] once a month ah? What walking in a group after school, so annoying ah? I just don’t believe someone can abduct me in broad daylight, just know that’s alarmist talk. Really ….. “

“If the human traffickers want to abduct you, there are really ways to make you disappear under the public gaze.”