Baby

In mid-January, Jiang Shaohui asked the bureau for a three-and-a-half-day vacation, planning to go to Li Ruxue's hometown.

After packing his luggage, Tang Daihe sent Jiang Shaohui to the train station.Standing at the security checkpoint, Jiang Shaohui bid farewell to his wife and assured her: "I will bring Tang Li back, don't worry."

Tang Daihe nodded and watched Jiang Shaohui disappear at the train station.

It has been raining continuously for the past few days.The destination Jiang Shaohui was going to was a remote rural mountainous area, which took about eighteen hours by train.Jiang Shaohui couldn't sleep at night, and sat by the window looking at the rolling hills in a daze.He thought a lot along the way, and the more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt.

After getting off the train, you need to transfer to a bus for 5 hours, and then walk a 3-kilometer mountain road.Jiang Shaohui prepared a bottle of water and some snacks. Unexpectedly, there was a thunderstorm as soon as he got out of the car. This year's weather was a bit weird than expected.

The weather and terrain in the mountains are really bad and not suitable for walking.Jiang Shaohui stayed at the station for a while, and finally made an appointment to hitch a ride with a tricycle driver who was carrying goods up the mountain.

After experiencing wind, rain and mud along the way, Jiang Shaohui finally arrived at the village in the evening.Jiang Shaohui was drenched in the rain. He wanted to find a hostel to make do for the night and then visit the village head the next day.But when he was buying mineral water while sheltering from the rain at the small shop in the village, a middle-aged man with a short cut looked him up and asked, "Are you a foreigner?"

Although the man's Mandarin is poor, he can still understand it.Jiang Shaohui was taken aback for a moment, then took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and handed it over: "Yes, hello, may I ask your surname?"

The middle-aged man took the cigarette with a smile, and asked, "Hello. I'm Village Chief Li here. What's the matter with you here? From your accent, you're from the north?"

"Yeah." Jiang Shaohui nodded, "Actually, I came here...to find someone. I have a distant relative. I heard that they moved here a few years ago, so I came to visit and wanted to deal with some family affairs. .”

"Where is this, which family is it?"

Jiang Shaohui said Li Ruxue's name, and the village chief looked a little puzzled, so Jiang Shaohui said Grandpa Tang Li's name again.

The village chief's expression froze for a moment, and Jiang Shaohui's eyes became a little more complicated.

"Are you really their relative?" The village head confirmed with doubts, "What can I do with them? Is it urgent?"

"It's about Mr. Li's daughter, Li Ruxue, and his grandson, Li Li." Jiang Shaohui paused, and pleaded, "I wonder if the village chief can help me with this?"

A cigarette burned to the end, the village head threw the cigarette butt on the ground and stomped a few times, sighed and said: "Okay. But you come with me, I have to call their family first."

Jiang Shaohui followed the village head to his house first.The village chief's daughter-in-law invited Jiang Shaohui to sit down and drink tea. The village chief made a phone call with his landline at home, and 10 minutes later, he sat back beside Jiang Shaohui.

Jiang Shaohui looked nervous, and the village chief smiled and said, "They promised to let you go home tomorrow."

Jiang Shaohui breathed a sigh of relief, and the village head asked again: "But I don't look like a relative here from your accent?"

Jiang Shaohui knew that the village chief was testing him.He knew a long time ago that Tang Li's biological father owed a large amount of debt, and moved out of his hometown to avoid the debt. The village head may have misunderstood himself as one of the creditors.

Jiang Shaohui answered him: "It's actually like this. I'm Li Li's adoptive father. Recently his aunt brought him back to his hometown. I'm here to pick him up."

The village chief was silent, as if he was thinking about something.Jiang Shaohui had mixed feelings in his heart, and the village chief said slowly at this time: "Actually... well. I heard that his daughter went to work in the city very early, and the relationship between her daughter and the old man was not good, so she never came back. Home."

Jiang Shaohui's heart tightened: "Have you not been home?"

"When his daughter just got married more than ten years ago, that scandal happened in the family. She must have no face to go home again!" The village chief thought for a while, and then said, "As for the grandson you mentioned, I have never seen him." Pass."

Jiang Shaohui was silent.

It seems that Li Ruxue's family affairs are more complicated than he imagined.If it was really what the village chief said, why did Li Ruxue say that she wanted to take Tang Li back to her hometown?

Jiang Shaohui tentatively asked the village head some questions, but the village head kept silent about the family.Maybe Li Ruxue's family is not very popular in the village.

Jiang Shaohui thanked him and planned to visit the village head the next day, but was invited by the village head to stay.Jiang Shaohui wanted to politely refuse, but the village head advised him with a wry smile: "You should stay here. It's getting late, and there is no good place to live here. Go back early after you talk to them tomorrow morning. The weather this year Strange, the rainstorm is coming in a few days, the road should be closed."

Jiang Shaohui had no choice but to stay down with great kindness and embarrassment.The village chief made a bed for Jiang Shaohui and dried his clothes for him.Jiang Shaohui lay on the bedcloth of straw at night, listening to the sound of water flowing outside the window on a rainy night, but he couldn't fall asleep.

The rain was pattering, and a dull thunder flashed in the sky from time to time.The uneasiness in Jiang Shaohui's heart became more and more intense.

Early the next morning, the village head took Jiang Shaohui to Li's house.When there was still a mile to go, the village head stopped, pointed to the front and said, "Go straight and you will be there on the right. I can only take you here, and I will go back first."

Jiang Shaohui gave the village chief another pack of cigarettes to express his gratitude.

Arriving at the door of Li's house anxiously, Jiang Shaohui took a deep breath, and before he could knock on the door, the dirt dog tied in the yard suddenly barked wildly.

Jiang Shaohui hurriedly took out the ham sausage from his bag, opened it and threw it to the dog to appease him. The dog sniffed the ham sausage on the ground, picked it up immediately, walked back to the vegetable shed and lay down.Jiang Shaohui was about to reach out to knock on the door, when the window on the second floor opened suddenly, and a rough female voice rushed into Jiang Shaohui's ears: "Who is it!"

Jiang Shaohui quickly responded: "It's me, Jiang Shaohui! The one that Village Chief Li called yesterday."

The woman upstairs noticed the source of the sound, looked at Jiang Shaohui with puzzled eyes for a while, and finally closed the window again and left.

After 10 minutes, the door in front of Jiang Shaohui was opened. The person who opened the door was a bald and shirtless boy, probably about ten years old.

"Come in!" The little boy opened the door for Jiang Shaohui, turned around and ran away.

Jiang Shaohui stepped over the threshold and found an old man sitting in the living room, who should be Tang Li's grandfather.And sitting next to him was a slightly fat woman with long hair who was knitting a sweater with a needle and thread in her hand.She was the one who yelled on the second floor just now, it's not clear who it was.

Jiang Shaohui first nodded respectfully: "Hi, I'm Jiang Shaohui, and I'm Li Li's adoptive father."

The old man and the woman exchanged glances, and the woman raised her eyebrows and said, "Li Li?"

"Yes."

"We don't care about that bastard. What are you here for?" The woman's eyes suddenly changed, "Isn't it because of that unfilial son surnamed Li! Didn't he die with his wife for several years? "

The woman's words were too direct, and Jiang Shaohui was a little embarrassed for a while: "...No. Actually, I came here this time for Li Ruxue."

"What's wrong with her again?" The woman snorted coldly, "Let's just say it first, that person has nothing to do with our family!"

Seeing the woman's resolute attitude, Jiang Shaohui's heart suddenly jumped wildly.Could it be...

"After Li Li's parents passed away, I adopted him. He has been living in my house for the past few years. But recently, Li Ruxue found us and met him." Jiang Shaohui felt his voice tremble, "In July , She said that she wanted to take Xiao Li back to her hometown to meet his cousin, and she never contacted us since then. That's why I came here to visit, may I ask..."

Before Jiang Shaohui finished asking, the woman suddenly sneered.

"Then you went to the wrong place!" The woman put down her needle and thread and sneered, "That bitch hasn't been home for 18 years!"

Jiang Shaohui was taken aback, and subconsciously wanted to refute, but the woman impatiently picked up the broom beside her: "Okay, if you came here just for this matter, then go back quickly! Don't come here again!"

Jiang Shaohui looked at the silent old man with pleading eyes, and hurriedly said: "But this is what Li Ruxue said personally—then may I ask again, where does Li Li's cousin live now? Can you give me his contact information?"

"What uncle? I've never heard of that bastard having a cousin!" The woman put her hips on her hips and smiled, "I think you were deceived by her, anyway, it's not like this bitch hasn't done such a bad thing !"

Jiang Shaohui was like five thunderbolts, and his last hope was buried in the waves.

The woman threw away the broom and issued an order to evict the guest, "Okay, if you don't leave, I will drive you away!"

"But...how is this possible." Tang Daihe frowned and murmured in a trance, "She is so courageous, she——deceived all of us."

Jiang Shaohui stood under the eaves, looking at the rain falling in front of him, his face pale: "Honey, did we... make a big mistake?"

Tang Daihe's heart ached, she closed her mouth and said nothing, there was a suffocating silence between the two of them.

Jiang Shaohui's fist was clenched suddenly, and then slowly loosened.He took a deep breath, and said softly as if comforting Tang Daihe and himself: "It's okay. She doesn't have much money on her body, where can she go? With my resources and abilities, we will narrow down the scope one by one, slowly Look slowly, one day you will definitely find it! A living person can be hidden by her? I don't believe it!"

The corners of Tang Daihe's eyes were a little red. Hearing Jiang Shaohui's words, he also nodded vigorously with tears in his eyes.

"Well, we will definitely find it. At that time, we must stay far away from her, so that she will never see Tang Li again! This person is too scary, it's just—too scary..."

Jiang Shaohui sighed, put the phone to his lips and kissed it lightly: "Honey, don't worry. When I get home, we will find someone, for sure."

"Well, come back early. I'll wait for you."

There has been a lot of rain this winter.

The road down the mountain was slippery, so Jiang Shaohui asked a trucker for a ride.This time it was a pickup truck with [-] kilograms of rice in the back of the truck.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Jiang Shaohui listened to the driver chatting in dialect all the way, but he didn't have the mood to respond.

"It's raining endlessly! This is the only way up and down the mountain, but when it rains, most of it is closed!" The driver complained irritably, "When it rains, the road is slippery, and people dare not drive, right? In this ravine, Everything is missing, and the most important thing is the mountain! Didn’t there be an accident last year? It even appeared on the Central News! It was said that there was a flood in summer, and a landslide occurred in the mountain, killing more than a dozen people..."

The wipers are constantly cleaning the mist covering the windshield, and the vision becomes clear for a while and blurred for a while.

Seeing that Jiang Shaohui hadn't spoken, the driver thought he was frightened by himself, so he smiled and comforted him: "But it's okay, don't worry. It's impossible for this road to landslide now. The rain is still light, not so severe. to the point..."

Jiang Shaohui stared blankly at the road ahead, and suddenly saw something and pointed sharply: "There is someone in front!"

The driver was busy talking, but didn't react for a while.Not far ahead are two barefoot children playing and laughing in the rain.Seeing that he was about to hit him, Jiang Shaohui shouted anxiously: "Stop! There is someone in front! Stop!"

The driver looked up in a panic, slammed the steering wheel and honked the horn: "Fuck——what the fuck is this son of a bitch!"

Thick fog and rain washed over the windshield, blurring the eyes of those in the car.The driver slammed on the brakes with a pale face, but the car body flew forward uncontrollably——

The car skidded!Jiang Shaohui's eyes turned white, and he grasped the handrail of the car tightly.The child in front of the car realized something and started screaming and shoving to run out.The driver's face darkened, and he subconsciously flicked the steering wheel, trying to force the car to change direction—boom!A miserable white light shone on the mountain road, and the sky was instantly pierced by thunder.