Chapter 12

Chapter 12

It was a crew hiding out in the suburbs.

They caught four people first.

After that, they caught the eight who tried to run.

Twelve in total.

Every last one of them was arrested.

All of them were men in their forties or fifties.

They pretended to be ordinary netizens.

They lay in wait for half a year-sometimes even longer.

They coerced and tempted minors into handing over nude photos.

Then they used those photos as leverage.

They threatened kids whose minds weren’t fully mature.

They forced them to trick more kids their own age into sending photos too.

In the end, they sold the whole batch overseas.

It was to satisfy the twisted appetites of certain groups.

A dark business chain, start to finish.

When I rushed to the station, everyone was already under control.

Zhou Yanqing was standing off to the side with a bunch of kids.

The little girl I’d just met was among them.

She blinked at me.

Her face was a mess of blue-purple bruising.

When she saw me, she called out in a tiny voice, “Auntie.”

I didn’t move.

I just watched as the police snapped handcuffs onto Zhou Yanqing.

Eleven children.

All of them were under his charge.

I’d thought Zhou Yanqing was being controlled by someone else.

That maybe that was why he’d been sending those jarringly wrong photos and messages.

But no.

He wasn’t being controlled.

He was the one controlling those dozen-or-so kids.

He gave every child the same script.

He told them who to add.

He told them to go talk to people.

He told them to take photos.

He told them to lure the other person into sending photos back.

He knew boys’ photos sold for more.

That was why more than half the group pretended to be boys.

He gathered up everything they received.

He bundled the photos together.

At set intervals, he copied them onto a USB drive.

Then he handed it off in person.

To middle-aged handlers-men in their forties and fifties.

…

He knew exactly what he was doing.

I grabbed his arm.

His school uniform hung loose and empty.

My fingers closed around bone.

“You’re fourteen. You’re only fourteen years old. What kind of wall could you not climb over-what kind of hardship could be so bad-that you had to do this?”

He gave a short laugh.

Then, out of nowhere, he changed the subject.

“Auntie,” he said, “my sister is smart.”

Only when he talked about his sister did his face finally look like it belonged to his age.

He spoke slowly.

“She has to go to school.”

“I want her to go to the best school.”

The girl hiding behind him tugged on my sleeve.

“Did we do something wrong?” she asked.

I looked at Zhou Yanqing.

He still had that calm, detached expression.

I shouted at him, “What about her? She needs to go to school too!”

“The dozen kids behind you-they all need to go to school!”

“When they grow up, what do you expect them to do?”

…

His mouth opened like he wanted to say something.

In the end, he shut it hard.

He lowered his head.

And they led him away.

Other than Zhou Yanqing, the rest of the kids were considered victims.

They made statements.

They were let out soon after.

Their parents waited outside.

Some of those parents didn’t understand anything until this very moment.

They had had no idea their son or daughter was being threatened.

Crying broke out everywhere.

“Is she out yet?”

“What now?”

“Whose photos did she send this time?”

In the middle of all that sobbing, that familiar voice carried right through the door.

It was piercing.

The girl came out last.

The bruises on her face were obvious.

I stroked the top of her head.

“What happened to your face?” I asked.

She answered without flinching.

“Mom hit me.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Not every kid was like Qi An.

Not every kid dared to tell me everything.

Not every kid could stop it at the very first step.

There were more girls like her.

They sent a photo to someone they thought was a friend.

And then they were threatened.

Step by step, they were forced to do whatever the other person wanted.

They didn’t dare tell anyone.

They didn’t dare tell their family.

So they swallowed it alone.

The only people they could talk to were other kids being controlled.

Kids who hadn’t even developed their own judgment yet.

Kids who could only be pushed forward, one step at a time.

Her mother was waiting outside.

A female officer stood with her back to me, arguing with the mother on principle.

I watched that officer’s back as she argued.

All I could do was pat the girl’s head.

“Grow up fast,” I told her.

Zhou Yanqing was sentenced to five years.

I was there on the day of the hearing.

He didn’t say a word.

He accepted it like he’d always known this day would come.

Those scammers in their forties and fifties had family members in the gallery.

But beside him, it was empty.

The only one there was Officer Liu.

Officer Liu was holding a little girl’s hand, standing behind him.

Officer Liu looked like he’d aged ten years overnight.

As I was leaving, he called me over.

He didn’t dare meet my eyes.

He explained awkwardly, almost apologetically.

“Yanqing and I lived in the same residential compound,” he said.

“It’s run-down. You wouldn’t even want to walk in.”

“He worked part-time every day.”

“It was all so his little sister could live a little better.”

…

I called Qi An over and told him to take the little girl by the hand and go on ahead.

But she didn’t move.

She just tilted her face up to look at me.

Her eyes were clear, black and white, sharp in their innocence.

Officer Liu nodded toward her.

“See? That’s his little sister.”

“She was assigned to her mother,” he said.

“After the mother started a new family, the kid couldn’t even stay in school.”

“It was Xiao Zhou who saved up money.”

“He got her out.”

“He paid for her to study.”

“I didn’t expect…”

As he spoke, his eyes turned red.

He hadn’t expected a fourteen-year-old kid to do something like this.

“Out of those ten kids,” he said, voice rough, “the youngest was only ten.”

He looked even more ashamed.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology came from the girl.

The one I most wanted to hear-

spoken by a six- or seven-year-old child.

“My brother did something wrong,” she said.

“So he has to be punished.”

Then she added, “My brother is actually a good person.”

“It’s because of me.”

I was afraid she’d start thinking she was a burden.

But the next second, she said, “I’ll study even harder.”

“I’ll make things better for my brother.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“I’ll make my brother apologize to them.”

At the entrance, a car stopped in front of us.

The window slid down.

A woman’s face appeared-makeup done exquisitely, expression sharp with impatience.

She frowned in disgust.

“Get in,” she said.

“You just had to come see that dead weight.”

“You and your brother-both of you.”

“Back then I shouldn’t have taken you.”

“I should’ve left you with your dad and the others.”

The girl acted like she hadn’t heard a single word.

She climbed into the car without speaking.

Then she rolled down the window.

And she waved at us.

The female officer spoke quietly at my side.

“Every family has its own scriptures that are hard to recite,” she said.

Then she advised me, “Just sweep the snow in front of your own door.”

After she said that, she turned to leave.

The autumn wind curled past.

It carried a faint candy sweetness.

And threads of perfume.

She must’ve just come from home.

Only then did it really hit me.

She wasn’t only a police officer.

She was also a mother.

And she was also a girl.

I asked, “What’s your name? I’ll send a commendation banner to your unit.”

She waved it off.

“Just call me the People’s Police,” she said.

(End)