The old lady is reborn

From then on, Ding Qing fell into a state of constant self-torture.

Sometimes she felt that she should just grit her teeth and live on. What if this woman was lying to her? What if her parents and brother were trying to find her?

Then she couldn't give up hope of living.

Even if what the person claiming to be her sister said was true and her parents and brother were all dead, she had to live on, at least someone had to seek justice for them.

Whenever she thought like this, when she wanted to strive to survive, Ding Qing would seize the opportunity to make good buns.

This is her expectation, her yearning for life.

It was her only connection with the outside world under strict supervision. She wondered if anyone could detect something wrong through the buns.

She once thought about putting some things in the buns, such as small strips of cloth.

But she had never been to school, so what could she write on the strip? She couldn't read.

After her family got better, she was too old to go to school anymore.

But she tried, using a thin wooden tip dipped in her fingertips’ blood to draw vertical lines on tiny strips of cloth at night.

There is a bun drawn on the top, a horizontal line representing the separation between the ground and the underground, and three little men hanging by ropes drawn below.

The drawing was extremely simple and ugly. She carefully hid the strip of cloth in her sleeves. When making dumplings, she quietly held it in her palm and wrapped it with meat filling little by little when no one was paying attention.

But she didn't know whether the patterns on these small strips of cloth would still remain after the buns were steamed. After all, she had never tried it before.

I don't know if anyone will notice that picture.

She buried the small strip of cloth three times in total...but there was no movement.

Were they all bought by the people who packed them? When you eat a piece of cloth at home, you just curse and spit it out?

Or even if the food was eaten in the store, the pattern on the fabric was gone? So the traffickers just compensated with a basket of steamed buns and that was it?

But sometimes the torture she suffered was so terrible that she felt it was extremely painful to live.

The person who claimed to be her sister told her that she had experienced all this at a younger age. Ding Qing sometimes wondered, my God, how did she survive?

Every time this happened, she almost gave up on herself, thinking that maybe death would be easier and better.

Even if my parents and younger brother were still alive, wouldn't it be a shame and embarrassment for them if I returned to them alive like this?

If they died, I would die earlier, maybe I could catch up with them on the road to the underworld. What's the point of living alone in this world?

Now that things are like this, do I still expect to marry into an engaged family like before?

Ding Qing tortured herself in this repeated uncertainty. People who eat buns can only feel the delicious buns and the buns that can be swallowed with difficulty... Behind them is a woman who wants to live, or a woman who can't hold on.

……

This steamed bun shop recently has a regular customer, Xiao Shitou.

Every time he comes, he orders a basket of buns. If there is someone willing to share the purchase with him, he will buy half a portion.

Huai'an told Xiao Shitou to come here to buy buns every day and record the dates to see if they tasted good or not, and to ensure that they always tasted the same.

Little Shitou had been here for seven days, and he was a little skeptical. He couldn't tell if the food was good or not. Did he misunderstand it?

When he took his first bite today, he suddenly understood the meaning of those instructions.

Xiao Shitou left with the buns in his pocket, then thought about it and bought two more baskets to take away. He calculated the day and went straight to Jingzhao Yin.

On the day of the gang fight, Huai'an had already become suspicious of the bun shop.

In Huai'an's opinion, apart from the waiter selling buns outside who looked like a businessman, the three people sitting in the back looked more like vigilant gatekeepers than the boss and his helpers.

Little Stone reported to Huai'an: "I asked the guy selling buns. He has worked in this shop for two months. When the previous guy left, he told him that he could not work for more than three months."

Huai'an asked again, "Did you hear anything suspicious?" Little Shitou was young, and he knew how to talk to people based on their personal opinions. He could find out some gossip and family gossip, and people would just bring it up without warning.

Little Stone reported back: "The neighbors around here said that this store said that all the buns were sold out a few days ago, but there were still a few male diners going to the store to eat buns.

There was a man who came to buy buns, saying that he had eaten them once before and they were so delicious that he came back again. However, he didn't get to eat them because the store wouldn't let him in.

But this person saw that someone could eat directly in the store, so he started making a scene. "

Huai'an tasted the buns, thought about these things, and asked the painter Zou Tong: "If there is something that I don't have any evidence for, but they want to search my house, what should I do?"

Zou Tong smiled: "Don't ask me, we are in the police station according to the rules, we are not those playboys who do whatever they want."

Huai'an stood up and walked out: "Please ask for leave for Wanku. I'm going to do something bad."

Huai'an wanted to call Jingzhong and others, but he felt that this might be bad for their reputation. If they returned empty-handed, it would be nonsense. Forget it, I'd better do it alone.

As she is already married to Anyang, if the prince consort plans to do anything wrong, he must inform her first.

After hearing this, Anyang said, "Since the prince consort is planning to smash the store, he can't use people from the Nan'an Marquis's Mansion."

She called her guards and handed them over to Huai'an, and then told him, "Be careful."

Along the way, Huai'an instructed the guards: "Just smash and search the store thoroughly, don't hurt anyone. I will compensate for the broken items and delayed business, so don't worry."

When he got here, Huai'an realized that it was not easy to be a qualified playboy. For example, there must be a reason to smash the store.

But Huai'an couldn't say anything to find fault, so he waved his hand without giving the bun shop any preparation or a reason, and went straight up to smash and search the shop.

After the guards discovered the entrance to the basement, they reported it to Huai'an, who sent someone to go to Jingzhao Yin.

The guards detained everyone in the bun shop and rescued three people including Ding Qing from the basement.

The Jingzhao Yin Police Station worked around the clock, conducting surprise interrogations. Once there was a breakthrough, they took immediate action to arrest and interrogate each person, and all the human traffickers' strongholds along the Kyoto line were uncovered.

A total of 47 people were rescued from 14 hiding places, 35 of whom were trafficked to Kyoto from other places and were to be "transferred" from Kyoto to other counties for "shipment."

Among the forty-seven people rescued, except for two who were slaves who were "stolen" by human traffickers and resold, the rest were all civilians.

...While Ding Qing was recording his confession, Huai'an sat aside.