Chapter 125: Another Child Is Missing

Yang Jiuhong’s eyes were already bloodshot with rage. She no longer cared about Li Jinhua’s arrogance and overbearing attitude. Instead, she charged forward and grabbed Li Jinhua by the collar.

“Give Ping’an back to me! Give my Ping’an back! Where did you take my son?!”

“I’m telling you, Ping’an is my life! If anything happens to him, Li Jinhua, you’re coming with him!”

“Say something! Where’s my Ping’an?! Tell me now—!”

The collar dug into Li Jinhua’s neck, making it hard for her to breathe. She kept trying to push Yang Jiuhong away, but no matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t break free.

“You’re crazy… you’ve gone crazy… you lunatic… it wasn’t me… it wasn’t me… I… I haven’t even… left the compound… how… how could I…”

Li Jinhua’s face turned beet red from the lack of air. Her words came out in broken gasps.

But Yang Jiuhong didn’t listen at all. She just kept furiously demanding to know where her child was.

That kind of panic-stricken fury, the kind that comes from not being able to find your child, could only be understood by a mother who’s experienced it herself.

Wang Chunling had once stabbed Li Jinhua with scissors for the sake of her daughter.

Now Yang Jiuhong, for her son, looked ready to trade her life for a life—determined to drag Li Jinhua down with her.

The commotion drew other women over.

One woman, just as outraged as Yang Jiuhong, shouted,
“Li Jinhua, you really have no conscience left! Selling children has become a habit for you, hasn’t it?!”

Another tried to be more rational,
“Yang Jiuhong, calm down a little. Maybe it’s not what you think? It might not be Li Jinhua’s doing.”

The truth was, that entire afternoon, Li Jinhua had stayed inside the compound. She hadn’t left once.

But Yang Jiuhong had already lost all reason. She wasn’t going to listen. She took anything Li Jinhua said as lies, obsessed only with finding out where her son had gone.

As the situation began spiraling out of control, and no one could calm Yang Jiuhong down, the women hurriedly went to call Song Hongmei.

By the time Song Hongmei arrived, Li Jinhua was already beyond red in the face—her complexion had turned a sickly gray from the lack of oxygen.

Song Hongmei immediately stepped in,
“Pull them apart! Get them apart right now! Are you all trying to let this end in someone’s death?!”

At her command, the women quickly took action. A few of them pulled Yang Jiuhong away with great effort.

One woman even took the chance to kick Li Jinhua while she was down—believing she deserved every bit of it.

Li Jinhua collapsed to the ground, limp, coughing violently.
Cough, cough, cough! “This is… this is a curse… I… I haven’t left the house for three days… cough cough… I haven’t even seen your son… cough…”

But Yang Jiuhong angrily shouted back,
“I don’t believe her! She’s always been a liar! Sister Song, please, I’m begging you—help me find Ping’an! He’s only four years old this year! He’s still so little—where could he have gone? I’m begging you, please save my Ping’an…”

Her voice cracked, and soon tears streamed down her face uncontrollably, causing everyone nearby to feel a painful ache in their hearts.

While comforting Yang Jiuhong, Song Hongmei began organizing a search.
“You all start searching the compound—go house by house, check every corner. I’ll go find the duty soldiers and have them send men to help. Yang Jiuhong, hold on, stay calm, and try to remember—where might the child go? With so many of us, we will find him.”

For the rest of that long period, the compound was in chaos. Everyone was looking for the child. Chu Yue joined the search too, bringing Lu Yuanbao along.

Inside and outside the compound, they searched again and again—but there was still no sign of the child.

Some of the women began to doubt, whispering among themselves,
“Could it really be that Li Jinhua sold the child again?”

When everyone heard those words, they felt a chill run down their spines, and instinctively thought of their own children.

This was exactly the seed of suspicion that Chu Yue had planted, now quietly taking root and sprouting in everyone’s heart.

Fortunately, the ending wasn’t a bad one.

“Found him! Found him! We finally found him!”

Yang Jiuhong’s son, Ping’an, was brought back — along with him were Tiedan and Tieniu from Zheng Yue’e’s household.

It turned out that Tiedan and Tieniu had been bored and decided to go play on the mountain. Ping’an had run into them by chance and threw a fit wanting to go along.

Since the three kids often played together, Tiedan and Tieniu brought him along.

But the three of them had snuck out without telling their parents, which led to this whole misunderstanding.

When Yang Jiuhong saw her child, she first grabbed him tightly in her arms, crying uncontrollably, and then, overwhelmed by fear and anger, she started spanking his butt repeatedly.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

“This is what you get for sneaking off! For not listening! You scared Mommy to death, do you hear me?!
Do you know how much trouble you caused?
This is what happens when you don’t listen and run off like that!”

Ping’an wasn’t the only one getting punished.

When Zheng Yue’e saw that the three kids had come back together, she immediately figured out what had happened.

She picked up a wooden stick lying by the roadside and shouted furiously at Tiedan and Tieniu:

“You two little brats! How dare you sneak out?! And even bring such a small kid with you!
Do you have any idea how much chaos you caused today?!
I swear I’ll beat you to death—beating you would serve you right!”

Tiedan and Tieniu had always been doted on by Zheng Yue’e, and this was the first time they’d seen her so angry. They were so frightened they stumbled and fell to the ground.

Seeing the wooden stick swinging down, the two boys scrambled to their feet and ran for their lives, scared out of their wits.

“Aaaah! Don’t hit us—don’t hit us—Mom, please don’t hit us!”

“You dare run?! Let’s see where you think you’re going!”

The scene descended into chaos—the children’s cries, the mothers’ shouting, all mixed together in a loud, messy commotion.

But someone still felt the chaos wasn’t enough.

Li Jinhua, having held in her anger all day, finally had a chance to let it all out now that the truth had come out.

She stormed over and shouted at Yang Jiuhong with arrogant glee:

“Yang Jiuhong! Now you know how your son really went missing, huh?
And you had the nerve to accuse me of kidnapping him!
I demand an apology! You owe me compensation! You need to write a big-character poster to apologize to me publicly!”

Yang Jiuhong, her eyes swollen from crying, stood up clutching her still-sobbing son in her arms.

She looked completely disheveled and exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster, but when she looked at the smug and overbearing Li Jinhua, she showed no intention of backing down or admitting fault—instead, her tone was firm and unyielding.

“Li Jinhua, I will not apologize to you.”

“You—You—What do you mean by that?! You still won’t admit your mistake?
Saying something like this in front of Sister Song, you dare?!”

“Even if you asked me to say it a hundred times, I’d still say it—I’m not going to apologize to you.”