The middle-aged woman replied after staring at Ji Meng for a while, her tone indifferent.

“Oh, that’s nice. It must be easy to take care of him. You’re really lucky, sister,” Ji Meng said.

“You’re quite lucky too,”

The middle-aged woman replied and then, with a hint of interest, glanced at Qiuqiu, who was finishing her writing during the break: “Your daughter is very smart.”

“She’s okay, she listens well.”

Ji Meng watched the middle-aged woman’s gaze shift to Qiuqiu, and her heart sank. She forced a smile and awkwardly replied, pretending to tidy up the notebook on the table to block Qiuqiu from view.

Seeing this, the middle-aged woman smiled and glanced at Ji Meng again, but didn’t say anything further.

After this encounter, Ji Meng no longer dared to look or ask too much, she patiently waited, hoping for news from the train police soon.

The wait felt a bit long.

Even after having dinner that Sister Wu had brought, no one came to check on the middle-aged woman and her man. The only person who came was a ticket inspector, who checked all the sleeper tickets.

Ji Meng felt a bit anxious, but she knew there was no hurry about this matter.

The investigation from above needed time.

If she acted anxious and it was noticed, it would lead to trouble.

Ji Meng tried to stay calm, focusing on keeping Qiuqiu company. She either watched her write pinyin or played with her with a string game.

After dinner, it got dark outside.

The lights on the train weren’t on, so Qiuqiu couldn’t continue learning pinyin, and Ji Meng could only tell her stories.

Qiuqiu loved listening to stories, asking questions as she went along, becoming more spirited.

After telling two stories in a row, Ji Meng stopped and held her to coax her to sleep.

The train was noisy, and the environment wasn’t ideal, making it difficult to fall asleep. However, Qiuqiu hadn’t napped during the day, and at her age, children usually needed more sleep. She obediently closed her eyes and fell asleep shortly after.

With Qiuqiu asleep, Ji Meng, however, did not dare to sleep.

She didn’t understand why no one had come to check on the human traffickers yet, especially since the train would reach the provincial capital station in just a few hours. Were they planning to handle it once they arrived?

Ji Meng couldn’t gauge the situation, so she kept her guard up, even refraining from closing her eyes.

However, spending an entire night on a train without a phone to pass the time was incredibly difficult. As it approached midnight, the train’s lights were mostly turned off, and everyone was asleep, causing her eyelids to grow heavy.

She could hardly hold on any longer and called out to Sansan, “Sansan, I need to sleep for a bit. Can you stay online and keep watch? If anything happens, wake me up.”

Sansan responded quickly this time: 【Host, go ahead and sleep. Sansan will keep watch.】

With Sansan’s reassurance, Ji Meng felt a little more at ease and quickly closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep.

However, her sleep was not restful. She was plagued by one nightmare after another—dreaming of Qiuqiu having her mouth covered with a drugged cloth, and of her trying to rescue Qiuqiu but being unable to move. In these moments, she felt utterly desperate, struggling to move but unable to do so, only able to kick her legs in frustration.

Just as Ji Meng was struggling with her legs rigid and tense, she suddenly heard Sansan’s voice, frantically calling her:

【Host, wake up! Wake up quickly! If you don’t wake up soon, you’ll be drugged!】

Ji Meng kicked her legs and jolted awake, turning her head to see a dark figure in front of her, waving something toward an elderly woman.

She was so startled that she nearly screamed but managed to suppress it by gripping her hands tightly.

【Host, it’s the human trafficker in the upper bunk across from you, he’s also a thief!】

【He got off the lower bunk shortly after you fell asleep and started from the front of the aisle. He waved a drug at someone and then started rummaging through bags, making his way toward us!】

【No wonder he was so generous with the food, it’s not his money! Host, quickly close your eyes and hold your breath, he’s about to wave the cloth at you. The cloth is drugged.】

As Sansan reported the situation, its electronic voice was still the same, but this time Ji Meng found it incredibly reassuring, keeping her from feeling overwhelmed with fear.

However, her arms and legs were still icy with terror. She followed Sansan’s instructions, closing her eyes and holding her breath.

Thinking of Qiuqiu lying beside her made her anxious again: “I’ve held my breath, what about Qiuqiu?”

It was a drug, would it harm her body?

Sansan seemed to realize this too and panicked a bit: 【The dose on the cloth shouldn’t be too strong.】

Who knows?

Ji Meng didn’t want to take any gamble. In the end, she steeled herself, pretending to turn over and pulling Qiuqiu into her arms tightly, ensuring the human trafficker wouldn’t have a chance to wave the cloth at the child.

With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see anything, but she heard Sansan say that the human trafficker had paused because of her movement and was now coming this way.

In the next moment, she felt something swoosh past her face. She desperately held her breath, her entire body stiffening and refusing to move.

【Host, he didn’t wave the cloth at Qiuqiu, but your movement just now was very dangerous.】

Sansan, startled by Ji Meng’s sudden action, spoke with a hint of fear.

Ji Meng didn’t respond, besides Sansan’s voice in her ear, all she could hear was the rustling sound of the man rummaging through bags.

Ji Meng’s bag was right by her feet. She was terrified, but she didn’t dare to move even a little, clenching her fingers tightly and letting her legs and feet grow numb.

There wasn’t much in her woven bag—just Qiuqiu’s clothes. She had sewn her money into her underwear and the waistband bag, leaving only a few scattered bills from buying the train ticket inside.

After feeling around for the bills, the man didn’t find anything else. Clearly unsatisfied, he stood in place for a while before finally targeting the upper bunk.

Ji Meng cautiously opened her eyes and felt her heart race. The man sleeping in the upper bunk was the one who had helped her carry her bag earlier in the aisle.

She hadn’t realized it was him until he went to bed that evening.

Ji Meng felt something was wrong, a person with eyes similar to Su Cheng’s and a similar presence could not be an ordinary person.

She hugged Qiuqiu a little tighter, shrinking her body inward, while also tightening her grip on the homemade chili sauce she had taken out that night.

Just as she unscrewed the lid of the chili sauce, a loud crack was followed by a scream echoing through the carriage, quickly followed by a thud as a body hit the floor.

The man in the upper bunk had kicked the trafficker away, sending him sprawling into the aisle.

The trafficker had attempted to drug everyone by rummaging through bags, but probably fearing discovery, he hadn’t put much of a dose in.

With such a loud commotion, everyone in the carriage was awakened.

Dazed and confused after being exposed to the drug, it took a while for everyone to start discussing what had happened:

“What’s going on? What happened?”

“Go call the train police over, there’s a pickpocket here.”

Su Cheng got down from the upper bunk, swiftly walked to the aisle, and forcefully grabbed the man from the upper bunk opposite them, saying to the others,

“Pickpocket! A pickpocket!”

“Quick, check if anything’s missing!”

Now fully awake, the crowd gasped and hurriedly checked their bags.

“My twenty yuan is gone!”

“Mine’s two hundred!”

“Same here!”

“Call the train police! That damned pickpocket!”

The carriage was dimly lit, and the angry voices of the crowd rose and fell.

“Mom.”

The noise in the carriage startled Qiuqiu awake. She opened her eyes in panic, her expression a bit dazed, and instinctively hugged Ji Meng’s waist.

“It’s okay, Mom’s here. Qiuqiu, go back to sleep.”

Ji Meng quickly raised her hand to cover Qiuqiu’s ears and eyes, gently soothing her, not wanting Qiuqiu to witness such a scene.

Having just woken from a dream, Qiuqiu felt anxious and disoriented. She sensed that something was happening, but she trusted Ji Meng and was obedient, with her eyes and ears covered, she didn’t move around and quietly leaned against her mother.

Ji Meng glanced down at her, her serious expression softening for a moment, but then it turned cold again.

The middle-aged woman came down from the middle bunk.

Her “man” had been caught, yet she remained unfazed, quickly putting the baby on her back with the strap, trying to slip away from Su Cheng’s side.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Ji Meng opened her mouth, about to speak, when she saw Su Cheng, as if he had eyes in the back of his head, deliver a sharp kick that sent the middle-aged man to his knees. He then reached out with his other hand to block the middle-aged woman.

“I—I need to go to the restroom. The baby needs changing, and I have to take care of it,” she stammered.

“I have nothing to do with him, we just know each other. We’re from the same county, and I was just looking out for him. I didn’t know he was this kind of person,” the middle-aged woman said, her expression shifting slightly, her voice now flustered and anxious.

Su Cheng shot her a glance, his expression icy, and in a deliberately lowered voice, he said, “Wait for the train police to arrive.”

The train police came quickly. Not long after Su Cheng finished speaking, they arrived, accompanied by three or four plainclothes officers.

The commotion in the carriage was loud enough that people from the next carriage heard it and came over to watch. Soon, the entire carriage was filled with people, both in front and in the back.

Su Cheng glanced around, his gaze passing over Ji Meng, who was nervously hugging her daughter in the corner. He paused briefly, then stopped wasting time and directly told the train police:

“This person has been searching through the entire carriage since 2 AM, stealing quite a bit of money and tickets.”

As he spoke, he pointed at the middle-aged woman: “She is with this woman. I suggest you pay special attention to the child on her back. A child this age hasn’t cried or made noise since this afternoon. It’s unusually quiet, they could be human traffickers.”

“Human traffickers!”

“How could they be human traffickers!”

“This is too scary!”

The carriage erupted into another round of commotion. The elderly woman in the lower bunk opposite, groggy from sleep, turned pale as a sheet upon hearing the words “human trafficker.” Instinctively, she tightened her hold on the chubby child sleeping beside her.

The middle-aged woman and the man, who were human traffickers, changed color dramatically at Su Cheng’s words.

They exchanged glances at the blocked aisle, and the middle-aged woman’s expression hardened. She quickly reached into her pocket, throwing a handful of white powder toward the crowd. With her other hand, she shook out a sharp knife and lunged it directly at Su Cheng.

No one expected them to resist at this moment, and everyone hurriedly closed their eyes and covered their mouths and noses in shock.

Su Cheng reacted quickly, realizing the danger, and swiftly closed his eyes and held his breath while kicking the middle-aged woman in the waist.

His kick was fast and powerful, no matter how skilled the middle-aged woman was, she couldn’t withstand it. She was knocked into the cabinet in the aisle and fell against it.

But at this moment, the male trafficker took the opportunity to resist and escape, grabbing the hammer he had hidden under the aisle and smashing the train window to make his getaway amidst the chaos.

“He’s going to jump out the window!” a passenger who hadn’t been affected shouted in alarm.

Su Cheng suddenly opened his eyes. As the human trafficker climbed to the edge of the window, he grabbed his foot and pulled him down. The plainclothes police immediately moved in with handcuffs to apprehend him.

The human trafficker was taken away to the service room, and the first person who had discovered them followed to give a statement, but the carriage never quieted down after that.

Everyone was on edge, fearing that the trafficker might have accomplices. When they heard that someone had been caught pickpocketing in another carriage, it made everyone even more anxious.

In addition, many people had their money stolen, and they were clamoring to get it back.

The noise rose and fell, even louder than when they first heard about the trafficker.

The train staff hurried over to calm everyone down and clear the aisle.

After two noisy hours, around 3 AM, the train finally arrived at the provincial capital station.

Ji Meng got off the train with Qiuqiu, and Xu Qiaoyun was already waiting on the platform of their carriage. Seeing them, she waved and shouted, “Ji Meng! Are you all okay?”

“Wu Fang didn’t tell me about the trafficker in your carriage. I only found out when they caught the person. I wanted to come see you right away, but then there was an incident in another carriage, and the leader sent me over there…”

It turned out that when Wu Fang saw the note in Ji Meng’s lunchbox, she panicked and went directly to find the train police.

Encountering human traffickers is a serious matter and must be reported immediately.

Once the authorities heard about it, they promptly arranged for the train police to change into plain clothes and check each carriage, while secretly monitoring the human trafficker couple to see who they interacted with and how many accomplices they had.

In order to avoid alarming the human traffickers, it was best for as few people as possible to know about the situation.

Concerned that Xu Qiaoyun might panic, the higher-ups asked Wu Fang to keep this matter under wraps for the time being and assigned Xu Qiaoyun to other tasks, leaving her with no time to look for Ji Meng.

It wasn’t until they had caught the traffickers that Wu Fang informed Xu Qiaoyun about it.

Xu Qiaoyun was furious and immediately argued with Wu Fang.

“Fortunately, you guys are fine. If something had happened, I really…”

Xu Qiaoyun looked guilty, saying that she had promised to take care of everyone, but it had turned out like this.

“It’s okay, sister-in-law. Don’t blame Sister Wu. She’s just following orders, worried that alarming the traffickers might make us less safe.”

The incident had passed, and Ji Meng didn’t want to dwell on it any longer.

Wu Fang’s actions were understandable, she had to follow the orders from the higher-ups, and given the situation, informing Xu Qiaoyun would only cause unnecessary worry.

“By the way, sister-in-law, did the other carriages also have pickpockets? Are they part of the same group?” Ji Meng changed the topic to avoid discussing Xu Qiaoyun’s guilt.

“I heard that they are. It’s because they have many people committing crimes, and the train police don’t have enough staff. They had to request support from above and, considering passenger safety, decided to wait until they were close to the final station when the carriage wouldn’t be so crowded to carry out the arrests.”

“I’m not too clear on the specifics, the investigation is still ongoing. However, there is some information regarding the child that the woman in your carriage took.”

Xu Qiaoyun shared what she knew.

The middle-aged woman and the human trafficker were indeed not a couple. The trafficker had originally worked in logistics at the Third Machinery Factory in Yong County but was fired for stealing property from the factory. He ended up sweeping the streets for a living, which is how he got to know a gang of pickpockets and the middle-aged woman.

The middle-aged woman was unemployed and had previously survived by making matchboxes. By chance, she met the human trafficker’s leader, Sister Hong, who recruited her as an accomplice.

This time, they received a task from Sister Hong, planning to make a big fortune in the provincial capital. When they set off, feeling impulsive, they passed by the county hospital in Yong County and stole a baby boy who had just been born three days prior. The baby could be used to divert attention or to present to Sister Hong as a merit.

The baby cried a lot, and since the middle-aged woman didn’t know how to care for children, she was afraid he would cause a scene and attract trouble, so she added drugs to his rice flour to keep him quiet.

They were very careful along the way and never expected to be discovered.

It turned out that the pickpocket gang and the human trafficker gang were collaborating in their crimes.

After hearing this, Ji Meng felt a chill run down her spine. She understood why the train police hadn’t arrested anyone immediately, with these two groups, acting rashly could easily alert them. In the crowded carriage, who knew what might happen?

Once blood was shed, there would be no escape.

This time, they were fortunate. The man in the middle bunk was formidable, and there just happened to be reinforcements from the police station who boarded the train during the last stop, allowing them to catch all of them at once.

Ji Meng realized why things got strict afterward, it was truly terrifying, a lawless situation. She couldn’t help but advise Xu Qiaoyun:

“It’s too frightening, sister-in-law. When you get back, you should discuss with Brother Wu about switching to ground work for now. It’s really dangerous on the train.”

“It is quite scary. After this, I’m considering it,” Xu Qiaoyun nodded in agreement, still shaken.

She had been working at the train station for nearly ten years now and felt that more and more people were trying to take shortcuts, leading to an increase in incidents.

“Don’t worry about me. After so many years, I have some experience and should be fine. How about you? It’s only a little after three, why not find a guesthouse to rest for a bit?”

The earliest bus to the city center from the train station was at 4:30, leaving them with over an hour, making it difficult to arrange anything. Xu Qiaoyun could temporarily rest at the employee dormitory, but it wasn’t a private room, and there were other colleagues resting, making it inconvenient to take Ji Meng and Qiuqiu there.

“No need. Qiuqiu and I can just grab some breakfast at a nearby restaurant, and that should be enough time. Sister Qiaoyun, you haven’t had breakfast yet, have you? Would you like to join us?” Ji Meng glanced at her watch and then looked around, noticing a breakfast shop that was open not far away. A thought crossed her mind as she spoke.

Xu Qiaoyun followed Ji Meng’s gaze in the direction she was looking.

The platform buildings are public property. After the news encouraging individual entrepreneurship was published in the capital last year, the train station decided to rent these spaces to the families of the station staff to create revenue and solve employment issues for the children of the staff. They sell food and local specialties.

Xu Qiaoyun frequently traveled to this area for work and had tried the food a few times with her colleagues, it was quite good, and she didn’t have to worry about safety at the train station.

So, she smiled and said:

“I won’t go. I need to wait for the window to be fixed before the train departs, and I’ll rest for a bit to prepare for my work on the train.”

“Take Qiuqiu to have something warm to eat. The breakfast at Yunhe’s place is pretty good, their soup dumplings are the best. You can buy some for Qiuqiu to try.”

“Okay, then you focus on your work, Sister Qiaoyun. I’ll treat you to a meal when I return to the county.”

“Qiuqiu, say goodbye to your aunt.”

After Qiuqiu said her goodbyes to Xu Qiaoyun and Ji Meng watched her leave, she took Qiuqiu’s hand and headed toward the breakfast shop. As she turned around, she paused for a moment.

Not far away, Su Cheng stepped down from the train, propping himself against the door. As if sensing something, he looked up and glanced in her direction.

Their eyes met.

His gaze was still sharp as a blade, as if he could see right through her.

Ji Meng’s heart fluttered inexplicably for a moment. After hesitating for a moment, she smiled and greeted him: “Have you finished taking your statement?”