Yun Song Visits

Chapter 54

Returning to the present, Yun Song’s team quickly found information on the delivery rider with the red birthmark on her face.

The delivery rider was named Li Dongcai, born in 1995. The section for her parents’ information was blank.

Having found her, they naturally found the person associated with her.

A lonely elderly woman.

Abandoned in a vegetable market in the winter of 1995, she had been picked up by an old woman who was scavenging for leftover vegetable leaves that day and taken home.

The old woman had originally wanted to put her up for adoption, but that was the era of family planning¹. If a family with the means adopted this child, they would not be allowed to have their own. No one around had the means to raise an extra child, let alone one with such a large birthmark on her face.

So, the old woman raised the child herself.

Raising a child was not easy for her. Even before the child came along, she often had to scavenge for leftover vegetables. Now that she had a child to support, life was even tighter.

Regarding the child’s past, the neighbors’ evaluations were “smart,” “sensible,” “diligent,” “quiet,” and “filial.”

“That child was filial. When she was in high school, her grandmother was diagnosed with lung disease, and she immediately dropped out of school to earn money for her grandmother’s treatment.”

“If it weren’t for her, her grandmother wouldn’t have lived so long.”

Yun Song organized the child’s information, especially her photos, and sent them to colleagues in the technical group.

The identification photo was from a second-generation ID card² updated in 2017. At that time, the girl was twenty-one years old. A large birthmark occupied her right cheek, and her eyes revealed exhaustion. During this period, she was busy earning money for her grandmother’s medical bills.

Yun Song also sent Wu Jie’s photo to the technical investigation team: “Do a facial recognition comparison at the checkpoints. See when they appeared in Ping City and if they ever appeared at the same time.”

“With this birthmark and the identity information, the Ping City big data analysis should yield results very quickly,” the young apprentice said.

Yun Song, however, felt it might not be so simple. Many details suggested that the killer had already targeted Li Qingqing in 2019, while the crime occurred in 2024. Yun Song had a faint feeling that the other party might have been planning this for many years.

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Ming Donglai had not eaten for two days.

Her sister had sent her delivery, containing stir-fried pork with mushrooms from a small shop outside the residential area, but she couldn’t swallow it.

Her mother was still in the hands of a psychopath, and she was worried about it every single moment.

That psychopath wanted her to transfer the money, but most of the money was under her mother’s account. She had quite a bit in her own account as well, but it was still far from ten million.

She could take her mother’s bank card to the bank to withdraw money, but she could only withdraw twenty thousand yuan at most from an ATM.

The other side was constantly pressuring her. That psychopath was already contacting people for human smuggling³, planning to flee the country as soon as they got the money.

Ming Donglai could only pray that the police wouldn’t block her death application so she could get the money quickly. Once she had the money, her mother could come back.

She comforted herself, thinking that the psychopath was right; they had no personal grudge against her mother. Once they got the money, they could just run without killing anyone.

She didn’t know what she could do. She paced back and forth in the room, unable to settle down, and the lawyer had not called her either.

Finally, she simply followed her mother’s example and began to pray to the Immortal Lady.

“Immortal Lady, Mama said you are all-powerful. Please protect us, protect my mother so she stays safe, and protect my sister so she finds her way back. We can give up all the money, it doesn’t matter.”

She chanted this several times, and inexplicably, her heart felt a bit more settled.

In the afternoon, there was a knock at the door.

A middle-aged woman’s voice came from the other side: “Hello, we are commissioned by the gas company. We need to conduct a safety inspection of the gas facilities in this residential area.”

“Your family wasn’t home when we came for the inspection before. This is our second visit.”

Ming Donglai was familiar with this; there was a safety gas inspection every year.

She opened the door to find two workers dressed in gas company uniforms.

The other party apologized first, saying, “Sorry to disturb you. It’s mainly because the company is pushing us, and the entire neighborhood needs a quality inspection.”

The leader was a middle-aged woman who took out an instrument as she spoke.

Ming Donglai found it a bit strange. Weren’t they supposed to go to the kitchen to check?

Soon, the instrument lit up.

Ming Donglai’s eyes widened. The place where the instrument had just lit up was exactly where her sister, Ming Dongqi, had installed a listening device.

Ming Donglai’s mind was almost entirely consumed by worry for her mother, leaving her with little wit to spare for the present. At this moment, she was thinking that the gas company was truly impressive; their equipment for checking gas leaks could actually detect bugs.

The two gas company workers checked the entire house and finally said, “You need to come in and take a look. Your gas pipes need to be replaced; the dimensions are not up to code.”

Ming Donglai entered the kitchen. As soon as she stepped inside, the other party handed her a piece of paper: “These are the areas you need to change.”

Ming Donglai looked down and saw writing on the paper: “Stay calm. We are the police in charge of your mother’s case.”

Ming Donglai looked up, and the other party nodded, saying, “Non-compliant gas pipe dimensions are no small matter. A slight oversight could lead to a major disaster. You aren’t professionals, so you don’t understand these things.”

Ming Donglai gave an “oh” and continued reading.

Only then did she learn that the police had already discovered her mother’s true identity, knew her mother was currently in danger, and had even found out about her biological sister.

She looked at the two “gas company workers” before her, unsure whether she should trust them.

Those two psychopaths had said they only wanted money, but if she called the police and the police found out, they wouldn’t want the money anymore and would drag her mother to hell with them.

This… was a gamble she couldn’t afford.

Fear began to rise in her heart. She worried that the police would force her to cooperate. What if they were exposed then?

She could only shake her head and say, “Thank you for the warning. I will find someone to replace the pipes.”

She wrote on the paper: “They have my mother. If they find out the police are here, they will definitely kill her.”

“How many of them are there? Who else is there besides Wu Jie?”

“Two people. There is another one named Li Hao. I don’t know who he is.”

“Where are they now?”

“I can’t say.”

“Was it them who killed the family of three at the scrap recycling station?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t go looking for my sister, either. It’s even easier for her side to be exposed.”

Yun Song wrote a sentence on the paper: “If you need help, you can find me anytime, anywhere.”

Aloud, she said, “You should also pay attention to safety when using gas. When you’re not using it, remember to turn off the main valve.”

After she left, Ming Donglai breathed a sigh of relief. Good, at least the police wouldn’t be an obstacle for them anymore.

She sent a delivery order to her elder sister, Ming Dongqi.

Consequently, half an hour later, her sister arrived again in her role as a delivery rider.

She needed to discuss with her sister whether or not they should cooperate with the police.

She herself didn’t actually know what kind of personalities those two psychopaths had.

Her sister had spent more time with them, so her sister should know what to do.

Ming Donglai had a faint feeling that her sister might be smarter than her.

Back then, her mother had almost died. They said they needed a body to perform a DNA test, and at that time, they could have sent her disfigured sister out to pose as her.

But her sister suddenly spoke up: “I won’t endure that kind of suffering.”

“You’ve already killed three people. Just disguise that middle-aged woman as Ming Qingfu…”

“That definitely won’t work. The DNA test between you and her wouldn’t pass then.”

Her sister pointed at her in the corner: “She can go. No one will make her do a DNA test.” After all, Ming Donglai herself didn’t need to prove she was Ming Donglai.

“No. That’s too much trouble. If something goes wrong, it will be hard for us to control.”

She had been in the corner at the time, guarding her unconscious mother, not knowing what to do.

Her sister wasn’t anxious. She looked at those two men with a cold gaze and said nonchalantly, “Think it through. I can’t guarantee that if you actually disfigure me, I won’t go mad once I get the money. You don’t have anything in your hands to threaten me with.”

After her sister finished speaking, the two men began to think. She also followed her sister’s logic and realized her sister was right. Indeed, if they let her return, they would have her mother as leverage.

And so, they didn’t kill her mother.

Ming Donglai felt instinctively that at that moment, if her sister hadn’t spoken up, both she and her mother would have died.

It was from that moment on that she felt her sister had likely been deceived by those two psychopaths and didn’t actually want her or her mother to die.

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Translator’s Notes

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1. family planning: Refers to China’s One-Child Policy, implemented from 1979 to 2015. During this era, strict quotas and heavy fines (social maintenance fees) for ‘out-of-plan’ children made adoption difficult, as an adopted child could legally count as a family’s one permitted child. ↩
2. second-generation ID card: Introduced in 2004, these digital cards contain embedded chips with biometric data. In China, they are essential for almost all aspects of daily life, including travel, banking, and digital tracking via ‘big data’ systems. ↩
3. human smuggling: The term ‘toudu’ (偷渡) specifically refers to illegally crossing national borders. In this context, the criminals are seeking ‘snakeheads’ (professional smugglers) to help them flee the country to avoid prosecution. ↩