Legally Stealing a Child!

In the courthouse lobby.

Li Youcai paced anxiously beside the public phone.

His breathing was heavy and ragged. Sweat poured down his forehead, and he looked ready to explode.

"Impossible. The boy was fine at home when we left yesterday. How could he just disappear..."

"That lawyer and Wang Mei were both in court yesterday afternoon, and today's only the first day of the recess... No matter how you look at it, they couldn't have had time to reach Li Family Village."

"Unless that lawyer went straight there after court recessed..."

Anxiety gnawed at Li Youcai. Every thought became a red-hot chain lashing his heart.

He wanted his grandson.

He needed his own grandson to carry on the family line! Someone to inherit his "family business"!

If... if anything had happened to the boy, he might get so angry he passed out.

With that thought,

he shifted from foot to foot like a fish in a hot pan.

After a long while...

"Beep, beep, beep~"

The phone rang again.

The sound struck Li Youcai's nerves. His heart clenched, and he snatched up the receiver.

"Hello?!"

"Youcai, I just went over to Erniu's second uncle's house."

There was a hint of confusion in Old Zhang's voice. That alone made Li Youcai and Liu Cui uneasy.

"And then?"

"Did you see our Dahu?!" Li Youcai demanded.

"Is Dahu playing at home?!" Liu Cui asked urgently beside him.

Logic told them the boy had to be home. There simply hadn't been enough time for him to vanish in less than a day.

But the truth was...

"He's not at Li Sheng's place. His second uncle said he went to find his mother," Old Zhang told them.

Not... not there?

The boy was already with his birth mother?!

How was that possible!!!

Li Youcai and Liu Cui stood frozen, as if struck by lightning.

They had only come into the city at noon yesterday.

Everything had been fine when they left. Even counting the Trial Hearing, it hadn't been a full twenty-four hours... How could the boy be gone already?!

Unless...

The defendants had skipped dinner after the Trial Hearing adjourned and driven straight to Li Family Village.

And...

Li Sheng and Li Li must have gotten something out of it too. They had deliberately let the boy go. Otherwise, they never would have said it so readily!

He had trusted them enough to leave the boy in their care so often, and they had "sold" him out in a single night.

Li Youcai's face flushed red. Veins bulged across his forehead, throbbing like writhing worms.

They had skipped dinner to rush to his hometown and steal the boy...

And this was a lawyer?!

What kind of lawyer did that!!!

His face reddened further. He breathed heavily, his chest heaving as blood rushed to his head.

He was furious!

Furious that the Trial Hearing had ruined his dream of getting rich in a hundred days!

Furious at the sheer nerve of it. While he had still been replaying the Trial Hearing in his head, they had driven to his hometown to steal the boy...

And that phone call in the corridor made him angrier still.

They had definitely meant for him to hear it!!!

"Bastards..."

Li Youcai trembled with rage, forcing the word through clenched teeth.

He could barely breathe. His vision filled with black spots, and he staggered.

Liu Cui noticed something was wrong and jumped in fright.

"Grandpa! Grandpa, what's wrong? Don't scare me!"

Liu Cui wailed. Li Youcai spent the last of his strength roaring one more time before toppling stiffly to the floor.

"Bastards!!!"

His shout rang out.

Then everything went black, and he collapsed.

Liu Cui dropped to the floor in fright, her wails growing shriller.

"Someone! Come quick!"

"Help! Please help! He's dying! Somebody help us..."

Her piercing cries echoed through the lobby, drawing everyone's attention.

In the distance,

prosecutor Wang Wei was about to leave when he heard the commotion. The moment he saw someone lying on the floor, the troubled look on his face vanished.

"What happened?"

He hurried to Li Youcai's side and gave him a quick examination.

Finding no external injuries, he pressed a finger firmly beneath Li Youcai's nose.

A few seconds later...

"Cough! Cough!"

Li Youcai broke into a fit of coughing. His eyes slowly opened, and he gulped down air.

"What happened to you?" Wang Wei asked with a relieved breath, his brow furrowed.

Li Youcai ignored him. He sat on the floor, staring blankly at the wall.

Ten years ago, he had scraped together his savings and borrowed money to buy a daughter-in-law from human traffickers.

And in the blink of an eye,

his son had died because she tried to run away? He had paid for her—a full five thousand yuan! They had bought her. What right did she have to run?!

Now even his only grandson was gone...

Why!?

Li Youcai felt as though heaven couldn't bear to see him happy. Then an idea struck him.

"Prosecutor, you've got to stand up for a farmer like me!"

Li Youcai burst into tears. Though he had only just regained consciousness, he threw his arms around Wang Wei's leg and wiped his tears and snot on the man's trousers.

For his part,

Wang Wei had been about to leave when Li Youcai ignored him, only to find himself grabbed the moment he stood up. He grew impatient.

"Calm down and tell me what happened!"

Li Youcai covered his face and sobbed:

"Someone stole my grandson! How am I supposed to live with that..."

His grandson had been stolen?!

Wang Wei's expression changed, and he snapped to attention. "Who took him? Do you have a suspect?"

"It was that defense lawyer!" Li Youcai said. "Wang Qiang killing my son wasn't enough. Now that lawyer's stolen my grandson too! How am I supposed to live?!"

He wept bitterly, his resolve hardening.

Steal his grandson?

He would report him. He had to!

That was his own grandson, snatched away like a child taken by traffickers the moment he let his guard down...

What if someone else had bought the boy!?

So Li Youcai would make Xu De learn what prison was like!

Xu De had represented that ungrateful woman and ruined his compensation claim. Now he had even stolen his grandson. Li Youcai would make sure he tasted prison food!

"Xu De?"

Wang Wei froze, then his expression turned grave.

Defendants had stolen a plaintiff's child to use as leverage during a lawsuit before.

"Are you certain it was him?!" Wang Wei asked sternly.

"Yes, it was him! Someone in the village saw him!" Li Youcai said, smearing Xu De without a second thought.

"All right. I understand."

Wang Wei nodded solemnly and started toward the exit. But after only a couple of steps...

He stopped short.

A stunned look crossed his face.

Wait. Xu De had stolen the child? No—or rather, the defendant had?

If it was the defendant, then Wang Mei had taken him. Legally speaking, even a birth mother couldn't steal her own son from his father's family. But...

Then again, Li Erniu was dead. Wang Mei now had sole custody!

Wang Mei and her lawyer had brought her own child to her side during the night.

Could that...

Really count as theft? As human trafficking?

For once,

Wang Wei found his mind stalled by a legal question. He stood frozen for a long moment.

Beside him, Li Youcai had already been thinking about how to press charges once Xu De was arrested. Seeing Wang Wei stop, he asked suspiciously:

"Officer Wang, what's wrong? Go arrest them!"

"What if they get away?!"

Wang Wei came back to himself and looked at him uncertainly. "Are you sure... Wang Mei and Xu De stole the child?"

"It was those two!"

Li Youcai stamped his feet. "The boy must be with them right now! Hurry up and bring him back!"

Wang Wei opened his mouth, then closed it. For a moment, he didn't know what to say.

Finally, he drew a deep breath and said something that sounded absurd even to him.

"Mr. Li, they may have stolen your grandson, but what they did..."

"May be legal."

"I have no authority to intervene."

Li Youcai and Liu Cui: ?