The truth of the matter

Everything in Li Tao's explanation seemed to fit the clues.

Lu Xingchen continued, "Mr. Li, may I ask where your father, Mr. Li Qiang, is now?"

Li Tao looked as though he were reminiscing. "My father has passed away."

"I'm sorry." Lu Xingchen readily apologized, then raised the point that puzzled him. "Your family seems fairly well-off, Mr. Li. Was no one looking after Auntie Wang when she had that high fever?"

"We weren't as well-off then as we are now. My father and I were working away from home, so my mother had no one to turn to for help when she fell ill." Li Tao looked deeply remorseful.

"If my father and I had noticed sooner, my mother wouldn't have..."

Lu Xingchen and Huo Chuyun exchanged a glance. Li Tao's answers were watertight.

Because Zhao Zhiyan was feeling somewhat unwell, Wei Wenxu said he would stay in the living room to look after his wife.

The three of them went to Wang Xiuli's room. It was clean, spotlessly clean, including her bedside table, which had nothing on it.

Li Tao seemed deeply saddened by his mother's disappearance, yet he could have someone clean the room she had lived in until it was spotless.

Would an ordinary person bear to disturb the furnishings in this room? After all, it held traces of his missing mother. Didn't Li Tao want to keep something to remember her by?

The fever had damaged Wang Xiuli's brain, leaving her mentally impaired and with difficulty moving. Given how much Li Tao cared about his mother, he couldn't possibly have failed to take her to a doctor.

The bedside table was the closest place to Wang Xiuli. Why wasn't there a single bottle of medicine on it?

Everything was so strange, yet also reasonable.

Just then, a baby's cries came from the second floor.

From time to time, a gentle female voice could also be heard soothing the baby.

Seeing the two of them look curiously toward the room next door, Li Tao explained with a smile, "The servant is looking after my daughter. She was only born recently."

Lu Xingchen took the opportunity to ask, "What about your wife, Mr. Li? Why haven't we seen her?"

A look of sorrow appeared on Li Tao's face at just the right moment. "The child's mother died in childbirth."

Just as he finished speaking, the gentle female voice next door happened to stop, then resumed as normal a second later.

Lu Xingchen felt that Li Tao was wearing a mask, able to feign every emotion at precisely the right moment. He keenly picked up on something, and this time, he continued questioning without offering an apology.

"Mr. Li, Tuanjie Village wasn't developed before, but now signs of modest prosperity are everywhere. I'm curious-how did Tuanjie Village become wealthy?"

Li Tao's expression froze at the question before he said, "...Tourism, of course."

"Really?" Lu Xingchen smiled at Li Tao, cutting straight to the flaw in his logic. "Wasn't it only after Tuanjie Village's economy picked up that tourism followed?"

"How did tourism develop when Tuanjie Village used to be so run-down and poor?"

Li Tao struggled to maintain his expression and spoke through gritted teeth. "What makes you think Tuanjie Village used to be run-down and poor? Fine! Even if Tuanjie Village wasn't developed before, its surroundings were beautiful and unpolluted. Why couldn't tourism develop?"

Lu Xingchen watched Li Tao lose his composure with a sly smile and said nothing. Beside him, Huo Chuyun gave a derisive laugh.

"Mr. Li, are you saying tourists used to cross all those mountains and travel all that way just to sightsee in an ordinary village like any other?"

Indeed, when Lu Xingchen had flown to Tuanjie Village, he had noticed that it lay right in the middle of a vast expanse of desolate mountains. Once someone entered Tuanjie Village, it was very hard to get out.

Imagine a girl being trafficked here. She wouldn't be able to find her way out of these mountains at all.

Even if she escaped, the villagers, who knew the area around Tuanjie Village well, could easily catch her and bring her back.

She would never escape, forever trapped here.

"Li Tao, where have you hidden Wang Xiuli? As a university student in the nineties, Wang Xiuli had a bright future ahead of her. She would never have come to a place this desolate and uninhabited. Her first husband, Li Gang, trafficked her here, didn't he? Although she couldn't have children, she was pretty, so your father, Li Qiang, took her!"

Lu Xingchen stared coldly at the butcher before him. "As for how your village developed, if I'm not mistaken, you made your fortune trafficking women."

Huo Chuyun instinctively moved to guard Lu Xingchen's side and said with certainty, "Your entire village is in this together."

The mask on Li Tao's face gradually shattered. Forcing himself to remain calm, he said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"It doesn't matter if you won't talk. You weren't the one who put up those missing-person notices. You're looking for whoever posted them too, aren't you?"

Lu Xingchen strode forward and, while Li Tao was still stunned, deftly pinned him against the wall with his arms behind his back. "Chuyun, go next door and bring that young woman here!"

Li Tao was held so tightly that he couldn't move. How could a boy as thin as Lu Xingchen be so strong? He could only rage helplessly, "What are you trying to do?"

Huo Chuyun nodded and went next door, bringing out the young woman who had poured water for them in the living room earlier.

Her name was Wang Meng. Clutching the baby girl in her arms, she looked on with disbelief. Seeing the always-brutal Li Tao restrained so easily, she couldn't help bursting into tears.

"Boo-hoo..."

Sobbing out her story, Wang Meng dropped to her knees with a thud and accused Li Tao of his crimes.

"Please, help me and my aunt. My aunt was trafficked to Tuanjie Village the year she got into university. Our family searched for her for years. We even thought she was dead."

"I finally found a lead and learned she was in Tuanjie Village. I was too foolish, too impatient. I came alone, thinking only of taking my aunt away. I didn't know the villagers had been in this together all along. They trapped me here and reduced me to a breeding tool."

"This baby girl is my third child. Li Tao smashed my first two baby girls to death. He wants a son, but his sins are so great that he still hasn't gotten his wish."

"This beast remembered that my aunt gave birth to him with her first pregnancy, and now he wants to use his own mother's womb to have a son. Li Tao, you're an animal!"

Lu Xingchen handed Li Tao over to Huo Chuyun to restrain and helped Wang Meng up. "So you posted those missing-person notices, and the bloody numbers were your distress signals?"

"Yes." As though she finally saw hope, Wang Meng cried until her tears mingled with her snot. "This beast wanted to do something vile to my aunt. This was the only way I could think of."

Lu Xingchen took a few tissues from his pocket and handed them over. "Where is Auntie Wang being held?"

Wang Meng shouted, "The basement! My aunt isn't mad at all. Li Tao locked her up a few days ago. When my aunt refuses to submit to this beast, he won't give her anything to eat!"

"My aunt hated Li Qiang for all those years, but she never mistreated Li Tao, even though he was a child she was forced to bear!"

"Li Tao, you're worse than an animal! How dare you treat my aunt like this!"

"You'll die a horrible death!"

Wang Meng hated Li Tao so much that she kicked him while holding the baby.

Still not satisfied, she slapped him across the face as well.