However, when the police checked the security footage, they only found a recording of the kids being kidnapped. They weren’t able to catch a picture of the kidnappers’ faces, not to mention their car.
They first knocked out little Yu, and then took Shuishui. Lin Miao cried for help, but no one heard it since there were so many people at the park.
She must have been so desperate. There was a sea of people, but none of them were able to save them. She was still abducted despite all her efforts to cry for help. The kidnappers then disappeared at a bend in the road. There weren’t any cameras there.
The Yu family have already gone over the footage, and still, no new evidence was found.
“Without his medication, I’m not sure if the Young Master can last this long…” The doctor said, concerned.
Hearing this, the mother cried and collapsed on the floor again. The grandma quickly dialed the Master, pleading him for help.
The Master agreed. He made quite a lot of money searching people for the Young Master’s family, but more importantly, one of the children was from his village. He even personally drove her to the mansion, so he would sincerely help search for the two kids.
And not through preparing rituals to pray for god, like how he has done before.
The Master called others in his industry to see if they knew anything. He had many colleagues, some of which helped him to find a kid that shared the same birthdate as the Young Master.
Just when they seemed to have made no progress, someone reported a case anonymously.
According to them, there were two suspicious people at the grand intersection in the eastern part of the city. The caller reported them to be calling, saying something about hiding two kids on the phone. The license plate was SB1xxxxx.
The police rushed to the intersection, and they actually caught the two after some pursuing. However, they seemed clueless about the kidnapping, and adamantly denied being one of the kidnappers. They explained that they only ran because of natural reflexes.
The police weren’t giving up. From the information the Yu family provided, they knew that the kidnappers drove out of town to keep the kids away from the city.
The most likely place they would go to was their hometowns and villages, so they quickly assigned officers to investigate the backgrounds of the two people they just arrested.
There were still a lot of small media reporting this incident online. The mainstream media took a more conservative and neutral approach: [Renowned actress staying out of the industry just to wait for her children to come back.] Their main focus was to criticize ill-witted media outlets for transforming this story into a topic of entertainment to increase their popularity.
The mainstream media were still trying to ride on the wave of interest, just with a different approach.
Back at the mansion, the Yu family has found an appropriate solution to this. The father paid to take down all the reports about the Young Master’s mother on the web.
It was pretty effective and managed to diminish the attention toward the subject.
But public interest was still high.
A lot of the people weren’t optimistic about the issue. Firstly, little Yu’s health wasn’t very good. It was tough for him to be kidnapped and kept away from medical support for two days. Secondly, the attention from everyone would place immense pressure on the kidnappers and make returning the Young Master incredibly risky, so it was likely for them to just end him.
The netizens didn’t know that two children were kidnapped. Most people only knew that the Young Master was an only child.
On the other hand, the children, who were focused upon by all the netizens, were eating. Yep, they were still eating their rice, cured meat, and vegetables. Their food has already cooled down, but it wasn’t the time to be picky.
The two were accustomed to eating gracefully, so they chewed thoroughly and swallowed carefully. It was mainly because the food was already pretty cool due to the kidnapper’s long trip down the mountain.
The two young adults were freaking out, panicking even more as they scrolled through their phones. Their sixty million have vanished, basically everyone on the Internet knew about this. They weren’t able to get in touch with Third Uncle either.
The Young Master watched them while Lin Miao continued to eat quietly in the corner, trying to minimize her presence.
The young man looked at the two who were still eating. Unable to vent his anger, he remembered that the little girl bit her when they were kidnapping the Young Master. He was going to let it go because of the sixty million, but he needed to let out his rage at the moment, so he angrily walked towards the kids, intending to hit her.
The Young Master jumped up to protect Lin Miao.
“We weren’t going to make it difficult for you, but too bad, luck is not in your favor! Since we can’t get our money right now, we’re going to use you as our punching bags to let out our rage!” The man said as he was about to lift the Young Master off of the ground.
“Wait!” Lin Miao said, her voice crisp and clear.
The young woman also came forward.
Lin Miao took two hundred and fifty dollars out of her pocket.
“I’ll give you money, don’t hit us.”
This was from the five hundred dollars her mom gave her before she left home. She spent twenty taking her taxi to and back from the hospital, and another thirty to buy apples at the hospital, leaving her with four hundred and fifty dollars, which she kept safely since then.
She carried the money with her to the amusement park because she heard that they could buy stuff to eat. Since her brother always brought stuff for her, Lin Miao wanted to buy stuff for him too. She also wanted to buy some candy for the new year. Too bad, they were kidnapped before she could get to any of it.
She started thinking, then realized that the kidnappers just wanted money. She had two hundred and fifty in her left pant pocket, and the other two hundred in her shoe. It might come in handy when they go back to the city.
An idea also came to the Young Master’s mind when he saw Lin Miao take out her money, he quickly took his necklace off. “This is passed down from my family. Even though I can’t get you back your sixty million, this is probably worth a few hundred thousand dollars.” Of course, he was lying. His family didn’t have such a thing. The necklace was given by the Master as an amulet.
Upon hearing ‘a few hundred thousand,’ the woman immediately snatched the necklace from his hand. “Really, this one small piece?”
The Young Master continued, “You can go search it up if you don’t trust me. These fine jades are worth quite a lot. Plus, my parents are willing to pay sixty million for me, do you think they will let me wear a ten-dollar necklace?”
The young man was convinced. He took the money from Lin Miao’s hands with a mindset of ‘every little bit counted.’
The Young Master was quite mad at them for taking Lin Miao’s money, but he kept a straight face. “I told you the price so that you guys don’t get scammed when you sell the necklace, just don’t hit us please.”
Now that they have money, the two calmed down. They were doing all this kidnapping for money anyway.
Suddenly, the young woman noticed that Lin Miao also had a red string around her neck.
So she reached for the necklace.
The Young Master was afraid of her accidentally hurting Lin Miao. “Shuishui, give yours to her too.”
Lin Miao obediently listened and handed her necklace over.
If one was worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars, two would bring it to a million! The two adult’s faces were suddenly filled with ecstasy. Rich peoples’ wealth was unimaginable. This little thing was expensive enough to cover both of their wages for the rest of their lives.
The two left enthusiastically. Even though they were supposed to receive ten million by now, they still got one million in their hands in the end. How could they not be excited?
They have the children anyway, so the ten million would still be on its way to them. Plus, they have just made another million.
After they locked the door, the dog started barking. It was probably hungry.
The two could not wait to get their money. The man was a bit irritated, causing him to throw a kick at the dog before leaving with his older sister.
The dog lay on the ground and whimpered a few times. Its stomach was too big, so it was having trouble getting back up.
Lin Miao looked through the gap between the wooden boards and felt pity for the dog.
Weifeng has never been treated like this. Even when he did something wrong, the most that the village head did was to yell at him, and the dog would bark back every time: “Woof woof woof…”
Seeing the two adults leave, the Young Master said to Lin Miao, “Shuishui, let’s clean up. We might leave soon.”
The Young Master’s mother might be unreliable, but she would definitely not publicize this.
The only thing he could be sure of was that they were definitely not getting the money. If they weren’t successful the first time, they would almost certainly be unsuccessful the second time.
These people were probably not the type who would risk their lives for money. They seemed pretty likely to give up and walk away with their one million.
Lin Miao was confused, but she trusted her brother. He was someone who knew and understood everything.
So she nodded and quickly ate two more mouthfuls of rice.
It was a bright, sunny day.
The two peeked through the gaps between the wooden planks again. Some sunlight spilled through the tight space, warming their faces.
Seeing that they were up against the door, the dog started barking again.
The two confirmed that the two adults were long gone.
They quickly dug open Lin Miao’s handmade hole again.
The Young Master packed away the remaining sweet potatoes and food.
Lin Miao fed two sweet potatoes to the dog, distracting it.
And then they quickly crawled out of the hut. Lin Miao was experienced, so she went first and demonstrated for the Young Master.
To their shock, the dog, who was eating its sweet potatoes, dashed towards them.
It was supposed to be at the door, but he probably noticed that the two had slipped out of the hut on the other side.
The dog’s leash was tied to the hut because the kidnappers never expected them to escape any other way.
So they would be safe if they were fast enough.
Scared, the Young Master hastily crawled out of the hole and ran with Lin Miao.
However, it was impossible for anybody to escape the dog: how could two-legged creatures outrun a four-legged one?
The dog leaped for them. Seeing that they couldn’t dodge, the Young Master blocked Lin Miao, who was closer to the dog, with himself, his back facing the dog.
The two shivered as they hugged each other, but then, they realized the dog didn’t bite them and whimpered at them instead.
Lin Miao came out of her brother’s arms and saw a ring of wounds around the dog’s neck due to the rope. She could see the red flesh; it was very scary.
Seeing that the dog wasn’t going to attack them, the Young Master was about to pull Lin Miao back and run away.
Lin Miao resisted. Afraid of provoking the dog, she whispered to the Young Master, “Gege, I don’t think it wants to bite us… And he’s so pitiful…”
Lin Miao extended her hand to touch the dog as she spoke.
The Young Master was concerned. Dogs were dogs, what if it suddenly went crazy?
But it was too late. Lin Miao carefully patted the dog’s head, “Your neck must hurt… Don’t bite us, okay? I’ll untie the rope for you…”
The dog whimpered again and rubbed its head against Lin Miao’s little hand.
The Young Master watched by the side, ready to carry Lin Miao and run away if anything goes wrong.
Lin Miao turned her head around to face the Young Master. “Gege, he won’t bite us… Can I untie the rope on his neck? It looks really painful…”
Dogs weren’t like people, they wouldn't deceive and were straightforward in terms of their emotions. They wouldn’t trick others.
The Young Master stared at her face. He knew what she was thinking. Fine fine, whatever, how bad can adding another variable to this mess be?
Not wanting the dog to bite Lin Miao, the Young Master nodded and said, “I’ll do it.”
Lin Miao shook her head, “Gege, I’ll do it, I’m more familiar with the dog. Stay back.”
How could the Young Master watch her place herself in danger from afar?
Lin Miao continued. She turned around and knelt down. Patting the dog’s head with her hand, she comforted it in a soft tone, “Don’t worry. I’ll gently untie it very gently, very, very gently. It won’t hurt after that.”
Lin Miao didn’t start untying the knot right away, instead, she spent a while to comfort the dog, using that time to think of a way to untie its rope leash.
She then quickly set the dog free when it laid down on the ground.
Fortunately, she didn’t aggravate the dog.
The Young Master let out a breath of relief and then tried to pull Lin Miao away.
The dog also stood up and followed them.
“Gege, can we bring it back? He seems quite friendly. If we leave him here, he will be beaten up again.”
The Young Master struggled to find a good word for this situation. He felt that it was unreal. Lin Miao seemed to have turned an evil dog into a good one.
But what could he do otherwise now that Lin Miao asked? “Fine, he could come home with us as long as he doesn’t bite.”
It wasn’t bad for them to have a dog if it didn’t bite.
Lin Miao was happy. Patting the dog’s head, she said, “Dahuang, you can come back home with us now!”
The Young Master felt like the dog could understand what they were saying, so he added, “Don’t bark now, alright?”
“Woof! Woof! Woof!”
The Young Master: “...”
He definitely thought too much of it; this creature had no idea what they were saying at all.
Fortunately, it didn’t bark anymore after those three times.
The two kids along with the dog trekked through the dense grass, away from the dirt hut.
The sky was blue and the sunshine felt warm on their faces. The forests and valleys around them were all kept lush and primeval. If it wasn’t for the kidnapping, this would have been a great tourist destination.
Soon after, they realized that they were under a cliff. No wonder it was so remote. No one would let their livestock graze down here.
Suddenly, they heard other people’s voices.
The Young Master quickly pulled Lin Miao aside to hide in a bush.
Lin Miao also told the dog to hide, speaking to it nervously, “Don’t bark, okay?”
By then, they were able to identify what the people were saying. “Sis, did that person betray us? How come the police were able to arrest Third Uncle that quickly?”
“We can’t afford to care so much about that right now. We will be in prison if the police find them. Let’s first throw them in the dam, we could just deny everything if the police can’t find the children! Didn't Third Uncle say he could buy us some time? Let’s use that time to clean this up.”
“Sis, let’s just split these amulets between us.”
Lin Miao covered her mouth, listening as the two adults passed them.
Once they were far enough, the Young Master told Lin Miao to run. They weren’t very far from the dirt hut, so they would catch up to them pretty fast once they found out.
There was an overgrown path up the cliff. It was pretty difficult to navigate past it, but they couldn’t care less. The two young adults were catching up to them.
The two kids and the dog ran up the path.
There was a forest on top of the cliff.
The Young Master slowed down. There were probably a lot of villages along the edge of the forest.
But, if they were to meet other people, would they help them?
A countryside girl and some other villagers, perhaps they might even be related.
The Young Master pulled Lin Miao deeper into the forest. Since the police have already arrested the Third Uncle, they probably contacted the local police departments here too. They just needed to make sure to not get caught by the young man and woman before the police could get to them.
As always, Lin Miao followed the Young Master.
They ran into the forest with the dog following behind them.
It turns out that the Young Master was right. The police, now having arrested the Third Uncle, did contact the local police at his home village to initiate a search operation.
But there was one problem. The so-called “Third Uncle” wasn’t actually related to the two young adults; they just worked in the same factory.
Therefore, the police were launching a massive search party in another village and another mountain.
The unravelling of the information caught the Yu family off guard, but all the netizens’ attention wasn’t that bad, relatively speaking. After all, it has been a pretty horrible situation already, and it couldn’t get any worse.
The Young Master’s parents were both at Third Uncle’s home village, searching the mountains with the police.
Meanwhile, the kids, hiding on another mountain, had already waited for four hours.
They found a pretty concealed cave and hid in it. The Young Master anticipated a pretty big search party, and so thought they didn’t need to be out conspicuously.
Lin Miao treated the dog’s wound with some basic bandaging after comforting it to prevent it from barking.
The Young Master went out to check the surroundings to see if anyone was coming for them.
Water was dripping down from one side of the cave. Lin Miao found a big leaf and then creased it into a cone to collect water.
After collecting half a cone of water, she passed it to the Young Master, “Gege, Gege, have some water.”
The Young Master was quite anxious. Something had to be wrong. The police should be here by now, but there weren't any sounds apart from bird tweets.
“Shuishui should have some first.” The Young Master passed the leaf back to Lin Miao. There was no way he had somehow guessed wrongly, right?
He began to think again.
The police have already arrested the one who went to take the money which was the Third Uncle.
The others panicked and wanted to drown them in the dam so the police could never find them.
But the third uncle’s background should lead them here, right?
The young man got the dog from his house, which meant that it was his home village.
The other man was also referred to as Third Uncle, which meant that he had to live here as well.
How could the police not be here? This made no sense, absolutely no sense.
The more the Young Master pondered, the less rational he felt this was. Even if Third Uncle didn’t name his accomplices, the police should still be able to track them down, right?
However, the police still didn’t come, and the sky was already darkening. Fortunately, the two kidnappers weren’t able to find them as well.
Little did they know, those two adults were waiting at the road on the edge of the forest for them.
Lin Miao’s survival skills were sufficient. Even though she never had such an experience before, some things came naturally to countryside children. Lin Miao collected some leaves and dried them all up under the sun in the afternoon so she had some material to make a bed.
The Young Master helped Lin Miao carry the leaves back into the cave. It was almost certain that they were going to sleep in the cave for the night.
The two kids slept on the dried leaves with the dog beside them.
Meanwhile, people in the third uncle’s village were continuing their blanket search overnight.
They obviously did not find the Young Master and Lin Miao.
Third Uncle and his accomplice still refused to say where the other people were.
The police were unable to find anything useful from Third Uncle’s phone contacts or his call history.
Some other officers were busy investigating the backgrounds of the kidnappers, hoping to locate the other kidnappers this way. However, Third Uncle became an unemployed wanderer half a year ago, so the police weren’t able to conclude much.
A lot of the people have already begun to lose hope. If they weren’t able to find anyone through this extensive search, they were probably never going to find them.
The next day, when the Young Master woke up, he found that Lin Miao and the dog were gone.
The Young Master had experienced this before but was still scared.
The Young Master rushed out of the cave and then saw Lin Miao running back with the dog, carrying a bunch of round and muddy objects within her clothes.
“Gege, here are some sweet potatoes I dug up.” Lin Miao said, running towards him.
She wanted to check her brother’s temperature after dropping all the sweet potatoes on the ground, but she realized that her hands were muddy!
So, she stood on her toes and touched foreheads with the Young Master. Her mother used to do it a lot.
Mm, still normal! Another great day!
All is good as long as he could make it past the night without catching a cold!
The Young Master paused and then found his mood had uncontrollably lightened.
He then saw a porcelain bowl under the rock part of the cave that was dripping water. The slightly damaged bowl was full of water.
“I found it!”
Hearing the chirping of the birds was like a return back to her village. She woke up when the sky was still a bit dim because she would usually pick mushrooms then.
Since she wasn’t able to fall asleep again, she quietly went out with the dog to look at the surrounding area.
Lin Miao was a countryside girl. Even though she had been living in the city with the Young Master for a couple months now, her going back to the mountains was like fish returning into water. She was still shy and acted carefully in the mansion, afraid that people might not like her, but now, they were in her home ground, so she did everything the way she understood it.
The Young Master looked at her and thought that maybe the scammer wasn’t a complete liar.
He raised his hand to wipe her sweat, “Don’t go out by yourself next time, bring me with you.”
Lin Miao nodded. At that time, she didn’t want to wake her brother up because he was sleeping so soundly.
Then, she placed all of the sweet potatoes beside the porcelain bowl and poured some water out of it to wash them.
The Young Master joined in to help, trying to wash them like Lin Miao.
After washing four sweet potatoes, Lin Miao gave one to the dog, and then said, “Gege, we can eat this raw. My mom said it’s really good for our bodies. It’s just a bit hard to digest so we have to chew slowly.”
The two began munching on their crispy sweet potatoes—they were pretty good.
The Young Master thought it tasted like a yacon, just inferior in texture, drier, and less sweet...
But looking at Lin Miao enjoying it like a delicacy, the Young Master felt that it was overall pretty good.
After the two finished their sweet potatoes, Lin Miao quietly waited for the Young Master to do something. From her perspective, the Young Master knew more than her and was far better at things. She was only able to do little things, so she relied on the Young Master to decide.
The Young Master looked at the sky. It was gloomy and highly probable to rain. If it rained… The Young Master was worried; what were they going to do...
Even though it would make it harder for the kidnappers to find them, it would also make it more difficult for the police to rescue them.
Lin Miao was also worried. She saw the ants crawling out of their nests, signifying that it might be a big storm too.
“Gege, let’s get some more food.” Lin Miao suggested, “What do you want? Radish or sweet potato?”
The dog was still eating.
The Young Master looked at Lin Miao’s pink coat and then took his own off. His coat was white, but it became dirt-colored because he went through the dirt hole yesterday.
“Shuishui, wear mine so that it’s not as obvious.”
Then, the two headed towards the place where Lin Miao found the sweet potatoes.
Even though they were pretty deep into the forest, they still trekked carefully through the woods.
It was the Young Master’s first time seeing sweet potatoes growing in the ground.
Lin Miao demonstrated to the Young Master. She first dug around the root with a stick and then pulled it out of the ground. There were three individual sweet potatoes growing from the plant.
The dog also dug one out of the ground with his claws.
The Young Master laughed uncontrollably at it. No wonder it switched sides, its intelligence wasn’t like that of an average dog.
The two enthusiastically pulled out a dozen sweet potatoes and returned excitedly.
Lin Miao stopped by at the mountain and yelled, “Chestnuts!”
Chestnuts were covered with spikes, but its outer skin would burst open upon being cooked, uncovering the fruit inside. “Gege, be careful. Don’t get pricked by them.”
“Yes, you too.” The Young Master said.
The two were pretty lucky. They decided to pick some chestnuts too.
They piled the chestnuts beside the bowl back in the cave.
Lin Miao got a rock, smashed the outer shell open, and took out the fruit. “Gege, this is better than the sweet potatoes.”
The Young Master tried a bite, and it was really good. Then, he opened one himself with a rock like Lin Miao. “For Shuishui.”
Suddenly, rain started pouring outside.
They felt as if they were behind a water curtain.
The dog also went over to them, wanting some chestnut for itself.
Lin Miao opened another one and fed it to the dog. She then asked again, “Gege, can we bring it home?”
“Of course.” The Young Master said.
He was truly astonished by this dog. It was by far the smartest dog out of all the ones he had seen.
However… the Young Master looked at the rainstorm outside, he still wasn’t quite sure if this rain was helpful to them or not…