Chapter 11

Chapter 11

We all suspected it was an adult posing as a minor to commit cyber-flashing and online sexual harassment.

Those photos were clearly taken from an adult’s perspective.

They investigated overnight, but the results showed the person on the other end really was a minor.

As soon as the girl entered the police station, she cried and repented. “I only added him because I was curious. I won’t do it again.”

She had been brought in by her mother, who clearly had no idea what was going on. Once she understood the situation, she slapped her daughter across the face.

“You’re a disgrace! Sending messages like that-how are you any different from a prostitute?”

“Get home! You’re useless at school, and all you do is spend all day chatting with random people.”

“I should have known…”

She used insulting words to describe her own daughter.

Since the girl was only thirteen, a female officer and I did our best to hold the mother back.

But the mother was agitated. She suddenly raised her hand and slammed her phone hard onto the floor.

Terrified, the girl ducked into my arms.

Watching this farce play out, I felt physically and mentally exhausted.

Was it really just my son’s bad luck? Was it just a coincidence that he’d run into such a statistical anomaly?

The girl trembled in my arms. Beside me, my son handed me a piece of candy.

I pressed it into her hand. She looked up at me with tearful eyes and said, “Thank you, Auntie.”

She seemed so sensible and obedient; I couldn’t possibly associate her with that person online.

Her mother was still making a scene.

I stood up and said to her, “You should be more concerned about how your daughter took those photos in the first place.”

“How? She’s just shameless, that’s how!”

“She has the nerve to take them, but I don’t even have the nerve to look at them!”

Qi An mimicked my movements, carefully covering the girl’s ears.

But she could still hear. Her eyes were wide open as she wept silently.

Feeling humiliated, her mother grabbed her to take her home.

“Let’s go. We’re going home.”

I couldn’t stop them. The female officer asked the girl, “Do you want to go home?”

She looked at her mother, who was pulling her, then looked at me. Finally, she nodded through her tears.

“I want to go home with Mommy.”

The female officer patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll have people monitor them.”

The case stalled again.

Even I began to doubt myself. Was I being too sensitive? Was this really just a minor incident that I had blown out of proportion in my head?

I started going to the police station less and less frequently.

Until one day, while picking up Qi An from school, I saw the retired Officer Liu sitting in a corner cafe.

The person sitting across from him was someone I knew very well.

Zhou Yanqing.

They were chatting happily, clearly very well-acquainted.

I didn’t go home. I took Qi An straight to the police station.

“Zhou Yanqing and Officer Liu are at a cafe together.”

Ever since the case began, most of my interactions had been with this female officer.

Now, she looked at me and asked, “Do you trust us?”

“I do.”

“Then wait for news.”

She patted Qi An’s head. “My daughter just started elementary school this year. I want her to grow up healthy and safe, too.”

As she spoke, she showed me a photo of her daughter. It was a birthday picture; the little girl was wearing a princess dress, being held by her grandparents.

So, I went home to wait for news.

I trusted that, as fellow mothers, we shared a heart that would never tolerate such things.

A month later, Qi An received another friend request.

He no longer used that account; it was logged in on my phone.

The person on the other side seemed to have snapped, sending a barrage of photos in quick succession.

My hands shook as I looked at the images.

There were boys and girls, ranging from eleven to eighteen years old-there were even adults.

All sorts of photos were crowded together.

That evening, I received the notification.

They had found the person.