Madness of the Heart

"Southwest? Or the southwestern border?" Mingshu put his right hand into a fist on his lips, "Why would Luo Xiangfu send street photos to that kind of place?"

Yi Fei said: "Da Xu has already brought his brothers from the field team there, but the traffic in the southwestern border is very inconvenient. Da Xu and the others are worried about scaring the snake, so they dare not rashly use the power of the local police. They haven't reached Shetu Village yet."

"Striking grass to startle snakes?" Ming Shu grasped the key words in Yi Fei's words, "So you think that Luo Xiangfu sent the photos to cooperate with some forces in Shetu Town?"

Yi Fei nodded, "To be precise, I think it may be human trafficking. Luo Xiangfu took photos and sent them, which is equivalent to helping local people screen targets. Other than that, I can't think of a reason for him to send photos."

Ming Shu frowned, and was silent for a moment, "Human trafficking is unlikely."

Yi Fei raised his eyes, "Huh?"

Mingshu swiped his thumb on the phone and found the location of Shetu Town, "Over a mountain here, it is a foreign country. I have been to many border villages and towns, and the people in these places have some characteristics, that is, they do not have a strong sense of national belonging and live together , In terms of folk customs, it is greatly influenced by neighboring countries. Neighboring countries still implement the system of monogamy and multiple concubines. Shetu Town, no, it should be the villages and townships below Shetu Town, and it is likely that the illegal monogamy and one wife Multiple wives and concubines."

Yi Fei was puzzled, "This doesn't conflict with my judgment. If one husband has many concubines, and many women serve one man, wouldn't the local demand for women be stronger?"

"But this kind of place is generally poor." Mingshu put down his phone, "and it should be very poor. They have the demand to buy women, but they don't have the financial strength to buy women from big cities."

Yi Fei's pupils tightened.

"Understood? People in Shetu Town may buy women from neighboring countries, or sell their own women to neighboring countries-this may not be considered a business in the hearts of the local people, but it is just a long-standing habit. Another possibility is that they will carry out human trafficking in the same remote and backward places.” Mingshu continued: “As for the human trafficking in big cities, I think this possibility is very small. Criminals will weigh the cost of crime and economic benefits In this day and age, abducting a confident, beautiful, and educated woman from our Dongye City and then selling it to the southwestern border is too risky, and Shetu Town can afford the high cost of population trading, I'm afraid Only their local snakes, or some kind of 'prince'. If you were a human trafficker, would you do such a high-risk, low-reward business?"

Yi Fei rubbed his forehead and thought for a while, "It makes sense, but if it's not for human trafficking, what is the purpose of Luo Xiangfu sending the photos?"

"Don't worry." Mingshu patted Yi Fei on the back twice, sat down, opened the notepad he carried with him, and said while writing: "Now we have one more clue. First, the person who killed Luo Xiangfu Similar to Lu Kun and Li Hongmei, they thought Luo Xiangfu deserved to die because they hated the group of elderly street photographers. However, this murderer is obviously more "professional" than Lu Kun and Li Hongmei. Lu Kun is a typical passionate crime, and Li Hongmei struggled There is a plan, but there are also elements of passion. The murderer is very calm and hides himself almost perfectly. He has not shown his feet until now. He has the characteristics of a serial killer."

Yi Fei said: "Well, we have been looking in this direction before."

"Second, the person who killed Luo Xiangfu is related to Shetu Town." Mingshu's thinking became clearer, "If this is the case, then we can only completely overthrow the past thinking. Objectively speaking, the first situation is similar to finding a needle in a haystack. This situation is actually more conducive to us finding the murderer. By the way, does Kang Yu know about Luo Xiangfu sending photos to Shetu Town?"

"I asked Kang Yu and Luo Xiaolong, but they didn't know about it." Yi Fei said, "However, Kang Yu gave a piece of information that might be useful. At the beginning of last year, Luo Xiangfu traveled to the Southwest in the name of collecting folk songs."

Mingshu asked: "Have you ever been to Shetu Town?"

Yi Fei shook his head, "Kang Yu doesn't know."

"I've been to the Southwest, and I sent photos to the Southwest..." Mingshu paced back and forth, tracing the local customs and bad habits in his mind, and the beautiful women photographed by Luo Xiangfu flashed before his eyes, and suddenly said: "I thought of a kind of possible."

As the person in charge of the field team, Xu Chun spent very little time in the Criminal Investigation Bureau. Basically, whenever a case was handed over to the serious crime team, he had to take the lead and lead his brothers out.

He has been to this land in the southwest many times, looking for clues of drug dealers, smugglers, and human trafficking... In short, he is half acquainted, and even driving in the rolling mountains does not need to hire a local driver.

But this time, the difficult mountain road to Shetu Town trapped him, a veteran field worker with rich experience.

Shetu Town belongs to Liuqi City. Liuqi City is a city in name, but its size is less than one-tenth of Dongye City, and its economic development level is at the bottom of the country.

From Liuqi City to Shetu Town, only one-fifth of the road is connected to the highway, and the rest are all dirt roads. To drive in, a car has to climb over mountains and ridges.

The summer in Dongye City is the rainy season in Shetu Town. The heavy rain washed away the only road, and the stones and broken tree trunks rolled down from the mountain lay across the ground. It was afternoon, but the sky seemed to be sinking like it was about to collapse.

"Boss, what should we do?" A member of the team said, "If the goddamn gets in, there will be ghosts!"

Xu Chun barely drove a few steps forward with the headlights on, finally stopped, and wanted to report to Yi Fei, but there was no signal on the phone, "Fuck! Going in now will cost you your life. Go to Qiantan Town for a rest, the rain is heavy Act when you are young."

Qiantan Town is located between Shetu Town and Liuqi City, with a good geographical environment, not as closed as Shetu Town.

If the residents of Shetu Town want to come out of the mountains, they must pass through Qiantan Town, and many people will stop in Qiantan Town for supplies.

Although the distance in a straight line is not far, the high mountains almost separate Shetu Town and Qiantan Town into two societies.Most of the people in Qiantan Town hate the people of Shetu Town, and even regard them as "foreigners", fearing that they will bring their weird habits to their own town.

The sky is getting more and more cloudy, and the rain seems to be dragging down all the black clouds in the whole sky.

Xu Chun drove wildly, the team members swayed left and right in the car, and someone shouted from time to time: "Boss, do you want to bump us to death?"

Suddenly, the off-road vehicle slammed on the brakes, and the team member who had just complained almost hit the window glass, "Boss, you..."

"There's someone over there." Xu Chun slid down the car window, and the dense rain like steel needles rushed into the car in an instant.

Everyone quickly looked out of the car window, and saw a woman lying in a mud puddle not far away, not dying, struggling slightly.

"Help people!" Xu Chun yelled, opened the car door and broke into the rain.

The woman was dying, unconscious, and when she was rescued into the car, her pale lips parted and closed, and she said angrily, "Luo, Teacher Luo..."

The team members rushed her to the only hospital in Qiantan Town.When going through the hospitalization procedures, Xu Chun found her ID, a stack of envelopes and photos from her bag.

Her name is Wen Li.

And the mailing address written on the envelope was Dong Ye City.

Three days ago, in Shetu Town, there was no heavy rain.

Wen Li bowed and stood beside the letter basket at the town post office, wiping his sweat with one hand while rummaging through the letter basket.

"Don't look for it. Look at your hands are so dirty and sweaty. After a while, you will stain other people's letters and ruin them. If they can't find you, they have to come to me for trouble." A short and thin staff member was impatient. Said: "All the letters from your village were delivered the day before yesterday. If there is no letter, there is no one. If you dig out all the letters with me, it is impossible to have them. Save your energy. In such a hot day, don't be here with me. Heatstroke here! Go back early, and a few hours later, when the heavy rain falls, you won’t be able to go back even if you want to!”

Wen Li read every letter, and there was indeed no letter from Teacher Luo.

She had no choice but to straighten up, and asked unwillingly: "Sister, could it be that the distribution was wrong, and the ones from our Maoyi village were distributed to other villages?"

"Hey! I said what's the matter with you little girl? Are you questioning our work?" The short and thin woman stood up from the wicker chair and looked Wen Li over, "I have worked here for more than 20 years. There is nothing wrong! If you don’t believe me, don’t go back tonight, just stay here and see how I divide and send letters tomorrow!”

"That's not what I meant." Wen Li was anxious, "Teacher Luo sends letters to the children and girls every month. You have distributed them several times. You must know it well, but he hasn't sent a letter this month. I ..."

"Aren't you going to ask yourself?"

"I don't have his contact information."

"That's weird. He sent a letter to your village, but there is no address on the envelope?"

"Only the address of the post office. Mr. Luo said that we are not allowed to take the initiative to contact him."

The short and thin woman waved her cattail fan slowly, "There's nothing you can do about it. Hey, isn't it just a bunch of photos? If you don't send them, you don't send them. It's not money. When he didn't send you photos before, didn't you live well?" OK?"

Wen Li bit her lower lip, seeing that she couldn't find the letter, she had to turn around and leave the town post office.

It was the rainy season, and Shetu Town was very hot and humid. Wen Li was wearing long-sleeved trousers and a straw sunhat on his head. After walking in the sun for a while, he felt that he couldn't take it anymore, and hurried to a shade tree , Take out the water in the back basket to quench your thirst.

Shetu Town is separated from neighboring countries by a mountain, far away from the central city with developed economy and culture in the country. People muddle along, their vision is blocked, and the situation in the town is relatively good. However, the villages below follow the bad habits of the past hundreds of years .

Poverty is not terrible, what is terrible is being poor without thinking.

is forgotten by the whole society.

Wen Li is not from Shetu Town, but a volunteer who came here three years ago to participate in poverty alleviation.

When she first arrived, she was ambitious, and after staying for a month, she gradually began to doubt her ability to help the people who lived here.

Over the years, she has taken root in Maoyi Village and Maoer Village, and witnessed the girls here being sold to neighboring countries and being manipulated by men at will.

Both villages practice monogamy and multiple concubines, which is against the law, but no one manages them. Many girls who are taken as concubines are under 14 years old. When they marry, they must bow down to their husbands to show their loyalty.

The right to education is a fantasy for them, and the vast majority of them no longer see themselves as human beings even after long-term cultural brainwashing.

This means that they will not fight for any rights and futures for themselves, and they will not even discover their beauty as women.

Wen Li wants to help them, but doesn't know where to start.

There is an old saying in the folks, "Teaching a person how to fish is not as good as giving him a fish".But Wen Li tried to raise donations for them, taught them to read, and even asked handicraft experts to teach them how to make souvenirs with hometown characteristics, but their eyes still had no light.

Wen Li understands that the root cause lies in their ideology. They are already slaves of patriarchy and patriarchy. If their thinking does not change, it is useless to even teach them how to fish.

How can thinking be changed?

Take them to see the outside world?

To make them understand how normal women live?

The former couldn't do it, and they couldn't leave the mountains at all.

The latter can be given a try.

Wen Li kept explaining to the women in the village what the city looked like and what women of the same age were doing every day.

But very few people are willing to listen, and even fewer are willing to think after listening.

At the beginning of last year, Wen Li was desperate for the status quo.She felt that she had done everything she could, and she still couldn't change this place—even one person.

She planned to leave Maoyi Village and Maoer Village, and never set foot in Shetu Town again.

But just as she was preparing to leave, an elderly tourist group came to the village.

They come from all over the country. They are all men in their 60s and [-]s. They form a group in Liuqi City. Many of them carry professional cameras on their backs, saying that they want to take pictures of the beautiful mountains and rivers here.

There are few guests in Shetu Town. As a poverty alleviation volunteer, Wen Li is one of the few people in the town who can speak Mandarin fluently, so he was called by the town cadres to lead everyone to visit.

Wen Li's ambition was no longer in Shetu Town, and he led the team reluctantly. On the way, he was spoken to several times by a man surnamed Luo.

"Your outfit is very distinctive, you can be a model for me," the man said.

Wen Li has good facial features, and his appearance is not particularly attractive in the city, but in the beautiful mountains and rivers of the countryside, he looks particularly outstanding.

She was not against taking pictures, and chatted with the man casually after the shooting.

The man claims that his biggest hobby is street photography. Whenever he is free, he goes to the street to photograph beautiful girls.

Wen Li knew about street photography, but was still a little surprised to hear the man say that, "Are you in your 60s?"

"So what if you're in your 60s?" the man said straightly, "You can also discover and appreciate beauty in your 60s! For me, I didn't have any hobbies in the first half of my life. I only knew how to make money to support my family so that my wife and son can live comfortably. Life. As for myself, I have a little hobbies, and I don’t have a little idea. I’ve lived to this age, and I suddenly figured out that I have to have hobbies!”

Wen Li was vaguely inspired.

"Come on, little girl, let me show you the photos I took." The man said, pointing out the photo album in the camera, and showing Wen Li one by one, "Isn't it beautiful? I took them all. Every time I look at Seeing that they are so energetic, I feel that I am also alive!"

Wen Li looked at the bright women in the photo album, and suddenly thought of those women in the village with dull eyes.

For a long time, she has been committed to telling them the beauty outside and describing the life that modern women should have.

But she doesn't have the most intuitive image in hand!

The stars on TV are bright and bright, but that's too far away, and something that's too far away isn't shocking enough.

Isn't it just these pictures of ordinary women that she lacks?

When they see these pictures and stimulate their senses over and over again, will their minds change?

Would they still think that they were born to be bound in this small village and dedicate their lives to their husbands, fathers, and brothers?

Wen Li suddenly felt that her blood was burning angrily. She told the man emotionally what she had seen and heard here, as well as the efforts she had put in. Her eyes turned red several times until tears fell uncontrollably.

The man was confused at first, then gradually became more focused, and finally nodded frequently, took out a pack of tissues, and handed them to Wen Li.

"I used to be a teacher." The man said, "It's just a teacher with no skills. If I don't teach well, I can only draw blackboard posters. But..."

The man's tone changed, "I still remember what the old headmaster said to me when I left school to find another way out. He said—teaching is educating people, but educating people is not limited to schools. Ronaldinho, teachers are poor, you have to I will not stop you from seeking a future for your wife and children, but I hope you will remember that when you have the ability in the future, you should help those who you can, which is also a form of education."

Wen Li whispered: "Teacher Luo..."

"Is there a photoshop in town?" the man asked.

"Yes!" Wen Li excitedly said, "I'll take you right away!"

That day, the man developed and printed all the photos in the camera, and Wen Li showed them to the women in the village.

Before leaving, the man said, "I still have a lot of photos at home. I will organize them when I go back and send them out once a month. I hope they can help the women and children here."

"Yes!" Wen Li burst into tears, "Mr. Luo, can you give me your contact information?"

The man hesitated for a while, then declined politely: "I don't want my family to know, my wife...may not understand."

Because of the photos and the renewed hope, Wen Li did not leave Shetu Town as planned. When the men were not at home, she looked through the photos with the women and told them repeatedly that you were not born to be like this.

The visual stimulation is amazing, no one will not be moved by the beauty and vitality, and look forward to and yearn for it.

The process is slow, but it is happening—Wen Li has noticed that the eyes of young women and little girls change first, and then older women look at the photos with bright eyes, as if imagining themselves wearing beautiful clothes. Clothes, put on trendy makeup.

They asked cautiously: "Are the people in the photo really the same age as us? Are they not celebrities? Just ordinary people?"

"Yes!" Wen Li said: "They are all ordinary people in big cities, ordinary people just like us!"

The atmosphere in the village and town is slowly changing. What the women look forward to most every month is to receive the photos sent by Teacher Luo.

In the past six months, there are not only western-looking and confident women in the photos, but also cute and beautiful children.

Teacher Luo said in the letter: It is difficult to change the previous generation, but it is much easier to change the new generation. Please also show the children pictures of children of the same age, and hope that they will have dreams since they were young.

More than a year of nurturing has begun to bear fruit. A 13-year-old girl refused to get married and fought hard. With the help of her mother, she fled from Maoyi Village to the town government of Shetu Town. Now she is studying in Liuqicheng, which belongs to Shetu Town.

Wen Li really wanted to tell Teacher Luo about this, but he couldn't get in touch with Teacher Luo, and this month, Teacher Luo's letter was delayed.

"Did something happen to you?" Wen Li anxiously said to himself under the shade of a tree, and finally made up his mind when a dull thunder rolled across the sky——

"I'll go find you!"