Chapter 4

A perfectly good young girl had been shaved bald—anyone in her shoes probably wouldn’t be smiling either. Seeing Qiao Xinyi lying in bed with a look of despair, Fu Qingshan knew he shouldn’t laugh, but he couldn’t help finding it amusing.

He pressed down the corners of his mouth and sat beside the hospital bed, comforting her, “It’s okay. Hair will grow back. Right now, the most important thing is recovering from your injury.”

The nurse hanging an IV beside them chimed in casually, “The weather’s hot, and too much hair can trap sweat and cause the wound to get infected. At first, the doctor said just to shave half, but then we found lice in her hair, so we had to shave it all.”

The nurse smiled and added, “Honestly, it’s better this way. When it grows back, it’ll be nice and clean.”

There was no mockery in the nurse’s tone—it was pure comfort. She had heard the girl’s situation from her colleagues and could only feel sympathy. Who would look down on her? Living in a household like that, and even being beaten into mental disability—how could she have stayed clean?

“I understand,” Qiao Xinyi smiled at the nurse. She was just about to ask how many days she’d have to stay in the hospital when Chen Dachuan walked in.

He came alone, representing the police to check on her, and also to update her on the progress of the case. He carried two cans of canned fruit and, the moment he stepped inside and saw Qiao Xinyi’s head—half wrapped in gauze and the other half completely shiny—he couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

But the three pairs of eyes glaring at him made him quickly press his fists to his lips, fake a cough, and walk over. He asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Nice and cool,” Qiao Xinyi replied seriously.

Chen Dachuan laughed out loud again. He thought to himself, Now that this silly girl isn’t silly anymore, she’s actually kind of funny.

Fu Qingshan glanced at the grinning Chen Dachuan and asked, “Any progress on the case?”

“There is. I came to talk to her about it.” Chen Dachuan straightened up and nodded. “We intercepted the suspects halfway and brought them back. At first, Chen Daniu and his wife refused to admit they swapped the babies, but after we applied some interrogation techniques, they finally confessed.”

“Back then, Chen Daniu and his wife were introduced by relatives to help out in the provincial capital. They worked for an elderly couple—cooking and cleaning. The old man of the house had hemiplegia, so they needed a strong man like Chen Daniu. His wife gave birth at a provincial hospital.”

“She gave birth in the middle of the night. That delivery room had three women giving birth at the same time—coincidentally, all three had daughters.”

“One of the mothers was a textile factory worker in the city, and her husband worked at the factory too—a dual-income household.”

“Another mother was a teacher, and her husband was in the military. Then there was Chen Daniu’s wife—three families in total.”

“For some reason, that night none of the other mothers had any family waiting outside the delivery room. While the doctors and nurses were out calling for the other families, and the two other mothers were unconscious, Chen Daniu and his wife took the opportunity to swap the babies.”

“They said they saw that the newborn they later called ‘Silly Girl’ had fair, delicate features and figured she’d grow up to be beautiful. A pretty girl could fetch a higher bride price, so they switched their own daughter with her and gave her to Silly Girl’s biological mother.”

“Then they thought, ‘That other family’s well-off—a teacher and a soldier’—so they swapped again, putting their daughter in that family, and took that family’s daughter and gave her to Silly Girl’s mother.”

“After they’d finished switching all three babies, they were worried they’d get found out. So they discharged early the next morning. The family they worked for didn’t want them anymore since they’d need to care for a newborn during postpartum recovery, so Chen Daniu and his wife packed up and went back to Gazi Village.”

“Oh, right—Chen Daniu also mentioned something strange. Neither of the other two mothers seemed to have any relatives visit them. When the couple left the hospital, they never saw any family members for the other two women.”

As Chen Dachuan spoke, he glanced at Qiao Xinyi.

After learning the truth, all the officers felt sorry for her. She was originally the child of a dual-income family in the provincial capital—no matter how modest their circumstances, it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as bad as what she experienced. A perfectly fine child had been beaten into becoming mentally disabled, and had spent all these years as a “silly girl.” She had never attended a single day of school, and Chen Daniu and his wife were so negligent toward the stolen child they raised that they hadn’t even registered her household status. She had grown to this age and was still an unregistered citizen.

“Silly Girl, don’t worry,” said Chen Dachuan. “We’ve already contacted the police in the provincial capital and asked them to help find your biological parents. As soon as there’s any news, they’ll notify us immediately.”

“You were born in a hospital in the provincial capital, so there’ll definitely be records. And we know your parents both worked at the textile factory—since they’re dual-income workers, it’ll be easy to investigate from either the hospital or the factory. We should be able to contact your biological parents soon.”

Qiao Xinyi wasn’t too concerned about whether her biological parents would be found, and she didn’t really care about being officially registered or not. She was a living person after all—at most, she could just apply for a new ID. But going to the provincial capital sounded good; that had been her goal anyway.

“Besides the child-swapping case,” Qiao Xinyi asked, “what about the charges for attempted murder and corpse trafficking, along with practicing feudal superstitions? How are those being handled?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, both Fu Qingshan and Chen Dachuan looked at her in stunned disbelief.

That was *not* something you’d expect someone who had never attended school to say.

“Ahem…” Chen Dachuan was clearly surprised. “You sure know a lot—even the charge of corpse trafficking?”

“She can read,” Fu Qingshan said calmly, not as a question. After all, if she couldn’t read, she wouldn’t have asked how to write his surname.

“I was born smart,” Qiao Xinyi raised her eyebrows proudly.

That one sentence was all she said—Chen Dachuan filled in the rest with his imagination.

“I heard from your village folk that you used to run to the village school every day,” he said. “You’d sneak into a classroom, crouch in the corner, and just sit there all day—more diligently than the kids who were actually enrolled.”

Although Silly Girl was considered mentally challenged, she was strong, and after a few kids and adults in the village suffered losses picking on her, no one dared mess with her anymore. Since she just stayed quiet in the classroom corner and didn’t disturb anyone, the teachers—knowing her background—felt sorry for her and never kicked her out.

Chen Dachuan sighed, “Everyone thought you were spacing out in the corner, but you were actually listening to the lessons, weren’t you? That’s how you taught yourself to read. You really are naturally smart.”

Thinking about how gifted she clearly was, he clenched his teeth. “Chen Daniu and his wife really deserve to rot. If you’d grown up with your real parents, they definitely would’ve sent you to school. The college entrance exams just resumed last year—if you’d taken them, I bet you would’ve gotten into university. Maybe even the best one in the country.”

Qiao Xinyi nodded solemnly. “Forget university—I might’ve gone to space.”

“Fly a plane? Or build one?” Chen Dachuan’s expression changed. “I didn’t expect you to have such grand ambitions.”

Fu Qingshan looked at Chen Dachuan like he was an idiot.

Even though Qiao Xinyi’s expression was dead serious, Fu Qingshan somehow sensed that her talk of “going to space” wasn’t meant in any literal, noble sense.

There was no way she meant flying or building airplanes.