The Rescue Team

Chapter 36

In 1993, on a very foggy morning, Yun Song went out for her morning run. By noon, she still had not returned.

Her roommate felt something was wrong. Yun Song was terrifyingly self-disciplined; how could she possibly skip class? Consequently, the roommate reported her missing to the police.

Grandmother had already experienced the trauma of having her daughter and son-in-law murdered in their home. Now that her only granddaughter was missing, she felt as if she had been transported back to the afternoon her daughter was killed.

Back then, she still had Yun Song’s grandfather by her side, and she had a child like Yun Song who needed care.

She had been able to pull herself together then, forcing herself to handle her child’s funeral arrangements.

But now, she was all alone.

The police searched for several days, but they likewise could not find a trace of her.

Yuncheng Medical University was also helping with the search, yet they still came up empty-handed.

Perhaps… perhaps the scope was too small. The old woman walked along the streets. The roads were crowded with people; perhaps one of them had seen her Yun Song, but they didn’t realize it themselves.

Grandmother thought back to the incident with her daughter and son-in-law. She remembered… she remembered that the newspapers had covered the story back then.

In the past, she hadn’t dared to look at them, but now, she had no other choice.

She searched everywhere for the old newspapers, finding every related report. Then, clutching these papers, she went to find the original reporters and the newspaper offices, begging them to help once more.

Parents dying in the line of duty, followed by their child mysteriously vanishing after getting into university – it was certainly a news story.

Soon, both the Ping City Morning News and Evening News reported on the matter, and the police received some new leads.

However, most people only said they had seen her running that morning; there were no other useful clues.

The public mostly suspected that she had already been murdered.

People cannot focus on one thing forever. After half a month, the matter completely vanished from the public eye.

Grandmother, however, received a new lead. A close friend suggested she go see The Fortune Teller¹.

“There’s no other way now. If they are useful, it’s worth spending a little money.”

And so, Grandmother went to find the so-called Fortune Teller.

At first, The Fortune Teller shook his head upon seeing her. “I know what you’ve come to ask, but I cannot interfere in these matters. Go back.”

How could Grandmother possibly go back? She returned to see him repeatedly. The Fortune Teller simply let her sit in the living room.

There was a dull, simple-minded young girl in the living room as well. She was The Fortune Teller’s child, twenty years old this year.

The Fortune Teller didn’t speak to Grandmother at first, but after seeing her bring food for his child, he began to talk to her.

“This is my girl. She has a hard life. Because I opened my Heavenly Eye², Heaven brought punishment down upon my child. She was born lacking a soul.”

Finally, The Fortune Teller sighed.

Grandmother didn’t pay much mind to such superstitions at first, but gradually, as she spent more time there watching others come to plead with him and eventually kneel in gratitude, she began to believe.

The Fortune Teller was eventually moved by her persistence and agreed to her request to help see where her granddaughter was.

“She is already dead,” The Fortune Teller said. “She was originally an immortal descended to the mortal realm for Undergoing Tribulation. Now the tribulation has failed. The person is dead, but the soul remains.”

“I knew when you arrived that I shouldn’t interfere in this,” The Fortune Teller sighed. “This business of immortals descending for tribulations… I am a mere mortal. If I interfere, I’ll end up dying a miserable death in the streets.”

Grandmother felt a pang of guilt; she couldn’t force someone else to choose a miserable death.

The man then said with an air of detachment, “Forget it. Everyone must die eventually. Better to lend a hand.”

Grandmother followed him into a dark room. There was almost no light inside. Immediately, The Fortune Teller began his ritual.

Grandmother’s heart was in her throat.

Soon, she heard a voice.

“Grandmother, it hurts so much.”

Grandmother broke down instantly. “Grandmother is here! Where are you? Tell me where you are!”

The Fortune Teller suddenly shouted, “Oh no!!!”

He suddenly ran out, and Grandmother hurried after him. In the living room outside, the young woman who had been sitting there had collapsed.

The Fortune Teller was so anxious he was shedding tears. He hit himself on the head, cursing, “Stupid! How could I be so stupid!”

Grandmother was also frightened. “What’s wrong? Don’t scare me.”

“It’s all your fault!” The Fortune Teller turned his anger on Grandmother. “I told you I wouldn’t interfere in your business, but you insisted on begging me. Now look what happened! I’ve lost my daughter to this!”

“What exactly happened? I just heard Songsong’s voice…”

“Forget it, you’re an old woman, you wouldn’t understand these things. I didn’t realize it at first, but your granddaughter only had one soul left, and my daughter’s body just happened to be missing a soul. Once I summoned your granddaughter here, she went straight into my daughter’s body and took it over.”

“What?” Grandmother didn’t understand. She wanted to wake the girl up.

The Fortune Teller said, “Old woman, don’t be reckless. You’ll end up killing my daughter too in a moment. When she wakes up, don’t let her realize she’s in someone else’s body.”

“What?” Grandmother felt as if her brain hadn’t been working properly these past two days. She felt as though her consciousness was being shrouded by something.

She could hear what he was saying clearly, but she couldn’t seem to comprehend it.

“The memories of her death were too painful. She must have forgotten them by now.”

Sure enough, when the young girl woke up, she looked directly at Grandmother and called out to her. Her expression and the look in her eyes were clearly those of her granddaughter, Yun Song.

Grandmother looked at the person before her. Her brain felt frozen, and for a moment, she didn’t know how to react.

“Grandmother, what are we doing here?”

Grandmother knew she couldn’t mention the disappearance, so she could only say, “I came to visit an old friend.”

“Then let’s go home.”

Grandmother followed her new granddaughter home, but she felt that something was wrong.

The Fortune Teller and his wife soon followed them to her house as well.

She felt that something was very wrong, yet she couldn’t put her finger on it. It felt like a dream, where everything seemed right but also somehow off.

It continued until she discovered her water had been drugged.

Every time Grandma drank the water, she would secretly go and spit it out. The family of three soon noticed this and locked her away.

Fortunately, they locked her in Yun Song’s room. One of the windows in Yun Song’s room was broken, and Yun Song had often used it to sneak out when she was a child.

Grandma opened that window and climbed out.

By the time she reached a small shop outside to call the police, the family of three had already fled.

Grandma had very little money left, and she had completely lost hope.

It was at this moment that she received a phone call from her granddaughter.

On the other end of the line, Yun Song said she had escaped and told her to bring the Ping City police to come and get her.

She told her to bring as many police officers as possible, as this was not a problem that a standard police report could solve.

Grandma immediately asked the school for help. The school contacted the Ping City Public Security Bureau³, which quickly formed a rescue team and rushed to Guangcheng.

While Yun Song was at the Guangcheng police station, the Ping City rescue team had already reached the provincial government and the Provincial Public Security Department that oversaw Guangcheng.

Thus, while Yun Song was at the small local station looking for milk powder to feed the baby in her arms, an order had already come down from the Provincial Public Security Department. It required the local District Public Security Bureau to form a rescue team to cooperate with the Ping City rescue operation.

Yun Song was only twenty years old this year. The reason she needed the Ping City police to come was not because she knew the officers there, but simply because in cases like this, it was actually easier to handle from a different jurisdiction⁴. Sha Niu’s Mother had once said that Wang Xia had tried to find a way to get the police involved, but in the end, the police still hadn’t taken her away.

It wasn’t that she felt the local police were unwilling to help, but rather that they were powerless.

She had heard from Sha Niu that one time the police did come, intending to take Wang Xia away.

Wang Xia’s husband had held their two children and confronted the police, saying that if the police took his wife, he would take the two children and die with them.

The other villagers weren’t innocent either. They began cursing the police for trying to tear a family apart and for trying to drive a family to their deaths.

The village elders began to drive the police out. As soon as the police tried to stop the elders from pushing them, these people would immediately lie on the ground, crying and screaming that the police were murdering them.

Only three police officers had come that time. What could they possibly do in the end?

Yun Song had decided then and there that she had to get the Ping City police to come.

She had actually hoped for a dozen or so people, which, combined with another dozen from the local Guangcheng force, would form a team capable of rescuing the people inside Xinghua Village.

In reality…

Yun Song looked at the rescue team of fifty people, many of whom were SWAT officers, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

She brought out all the information she had previously gathered.

“There are 58 households in Xinghua Village, totaling 528 people. Among the trafficked women, the oldest is 62 years old. Excluding myself, the youngest is twenty-three, and she has been in the village for six years.”

“According to the villagers’ conversations, a total of eight Outsider Wives have died in Xinghua Village for various reasons.”

“The village has purchased a total of eight children. Six of them have grown up, married, and had children of their own.” Yun Song had written down exactly which families these children were in and what their current names were.

Yun Song had avoided speaking in the village unless absolutely necessary. Back then, she was the Immortal Lady, and after all, traditional wisdom suggested that no immortal was a chatterbox.

During that time, she mostly listened. In the process of listening, she had collected a wealth of information.

With so much information, the rescue operation was launched with lightning speed.

By the afternoon, there were already over a dozen police cars parked where they were staying.

Yun Song had Grandma stay behind while she herself returned to Xinghua Village with the rescue team.

The author has something to say: The rescue plan was inspired by a real case. (The case of a female graduate student trafficked in the 1980s⁵.)

Translator’s Notes