Chapter 152

If you lined up all the human traffickers that Grandpa Jin helped put behind bars over the past twenty-some years as an undercover agent, they could probably circle Huazi Village twice hand in hand. To protect this invaluable informant, the police never released any information about him, even after Grandpa Jin “washed his hands clean” and retired from undercover work a couple of years ago.

They were worried that if any of the traffickers’ accomplices were still at large, they might hold a grudge and come after Grandpa Jin for revenge.

Originally, Grandpa Jin had planned to keep a low profile, live out his remaining years in peace, and take his secrets with him to the grave.

Unfortunately, the saying “Good people are rewarded” didn’t seem to apply to him.

Half a year ago, he was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer.

The doctors didn’t say exactly how long he had left, but he clearly heard what they told his adopted son, Cao Dong.

What did they mean by “Let him eat whatever he wants and keep him happy”?

Wasn’t that just a death sentence?

Faced with the reality that his days were numbered and he could meet his maker at any time, Grandpa Jin began to feel that before he left this world, he should leave something behind.

But what could a man like him, who had lived his life like a rat in the gutter doing shady things, possibly leave behind that was of any value?

The answer came to him the moment he saw the news of Hua Yushu reuniting with his biological father.

More than twenty years ago, Grandpa Jin had faked madness, pretended to be drunk, and deliberately got into a fight to get himself arrested. In reality, it was all a ruse to report a crime to the police station. That incident accidentally landed him the role of an undercover agent assigned to Huazi Village.

Over the years, Grandpa Jin gradually climbed the ranks from a lowly thug collecting protection fees for his boss to a local “big shot” collecting fees for himself. Aside from a brief stint in jail during the anti-crime campaigns a few years back—just a show put on by the police to protect his cover—on the surface, Grandpa Jin seemed to be thriving in Huazi Village. He had become a notorious “village tyrant.”

But in truth, Grandpa Jin had been using the beggars of Huazi Village as his eyes and ears, gathering intelligence on human traffickers and helping the police dismantle dozens of trafficking rings. His contributions to the anti-trafficking efforts in J Province were nothing short of monumental.

When Wei Sheng and his team first visited Huazi Village, they were worried there might still be traffickers lurking around. After all, child snatching had been a persistent issue throughout history. But from the moment the production crew entered the village to the day they wrapped filming, they never heard a single rumor about human trafficking. Even during the anti-crime sweep in recent years, the crimes uncovered in Huazi Village were mostly theft and robbery.

It wasn’t that Huazi Village had no traffickers. It was that the ones who were involved had all been sent to prison by the undercover Grandpa Jin.

Over the years, every time he saw news of a trafficker being arrested thanks to his efforts, Grandpa Jin couldn’t help but feel a secret thrill. He’d think to himself, “Damn, I’m amazing. I’ve taken down so many traffickers and saved so many families. My karma must be stacked sky-high! In my next life, I better not come back as a thug. With all this good karma, I should at least be reborn as a billionaire heir, right?”

But no matter how amazing he was, that would all have to wait for the next life.

He didn’t have many years left in this one.

Though he’d been careful to keep his undercover identity hidden out of fear of retaliation, Grandpa Jin meticulously reviewed every anti-trafficking operation he participated in. The information he gathered on traffickers and kidnapped children filled three thick notebooks.

Some of those children had already been reunited with their birth parents. Others, like Hua Yushu, were still searching for their families for various reasons. There were also notes on traffickers still at large, and those who had already been caught. In the past, Grandpa Jin had anonymously posted bits and pieces of this information online, not knowing how many people had actually seen it.

But now, with only a short time left to live and no wife or children to worry about, he no longer feared posthumous retaliation. He decided to find a trustworthy media outlet and release everything in one go.

He didn’t want to die quietly, as if he had never existed.

He wanted the world to know that he, Jin Lei, was a true good man—not a village tyrant, and certainly not some lowlife thug.

The officers who had worked with him over the years had either died in the line of duty, retired early due to injuries, or, in the case of the last one, had only recently retired with honors.

When that retired officer heard that Jin Lei had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, he sighed deeply and agreed to Grandpa Jin’s request. He reported the situation to the authorities and asked for the declassification of the most successful undercover agent in the history of the police department—Jin Lei, who had operated in Huazi Village for over twenty years.

Jin Lei’s selfless contributions to the anti-trafficking cause should not be forgotten.

Upon hearing the news, Wang Qun immediately called the entire production team to work overtime. They decided to produce a special episode dedicated to Jin Lei.

The J Province News Group quickly followed suit:

The television news channel announced plans to film a documentary about Huazi Village and Jin Lei.

For several nights in a row, the evening news team camped out in Huazi Village, gathering stories about Jin Lei.

The provincial daily published a special commendation from the Public Security Bureau leadership, praising Jin Lei’s heroic deeds.

The J Province Evening News released four full-page special editions, printing every word of Grandpa Jin’s handwritten notes on kidnapped children. The notes detailed where the children had likely been taken from, who handled the transactions, where they were sold, and when they were rescued. The full content was also reposted on the official Weibo account, in hopes of helping these long-forgotten children find their way home.

In no time, the name “Jin Lei” echoed across the country.

Only then did people understand why, despite years of poverty alleviation efforts, Huazi Village remained untouched.

It turned out that in those dark corners where the sun never reached, the elderly, the disabled, and the lonely beggars who wandered the streets with broken bowls were quietly serving as Jin Lei’s informants, helping him gather clues on countless traffickers.

“Even thieves have their own code of honor”—that must have been written for the beggars of Huazi Village.

“According to statistics, over the past twenty-seven years, Jin Lei and his associates assisted the police in dismantling seventy-three human trafficking rings and helped rescue nearly two thousand kidnapped women and children!”

This staggering data shocked every netizen who read it.

Jin Lei didn’t just save those two thousand people. He saved the thousands of shattered families behind them.

Who would’ve thought that a so-called “village tyrant” and “rural entrepreneur” was actually the police’s top undercover agent?

Truly, a village tyrant who doesn’t aspire to be an entrepreneur is not a good undercover agent!

Netizens were both moved and amused. When they heard that after “washing his hands clean,” Jin Lei had started a flower and seedling business with a group of former thugs, they didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Whatever the case, buying flowers to support him was the right move!

While netizens were showering Jin Lei with praise online, they also tracked down the Huazi Village flower shop and bought out the entire inventory overnight.

Those who were a step too late and missed out kept bombarding the shop’s customer service: “Restock now! Raise the prices if you have to, just use the money to treat Grandpa Jin!”

This was the man who had rescued over two thousand abducted women and children. In ancient times, that kind of merit would have earned him a temple and a golden statue. How could someone with such boundless virtue be struck down by a terminal illness?

Even if it was terminal, they were determined to get Grandpa Jin treated!

No money? What, are those flowers in your village just sitting there waiting for Chinese New Year?

What? You’re sold out? Then dig up the roses and peonies from the fields and sell those! It’s transplant season in early spring anyway. If you can’t ship now, we’ll pay in advance and you can deliver later. Just get the money together and treat Grandpa Jin!

Cao Dong, who was in charge of the e-commerce side of things, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He had to set up an auto-reply for customer service: their village only sold cut flowers, not seedlings. Also, his godfather did have money for treatment.

But late-stage lung cancer wasn’t something money could fix. If throwing money at it could buy Grandpa Jin a few more years, Cao Dong would bankrupt himself without hesitation. The problem was, where could he find a miracle doctor who could cure terminal lung cancer?

He had already taken Grandpa Jin to the most renowned oncology hospital in the country. But the experts there said the same thing: when he was younger, Grandpa Jin had wrecked his health—smoking, drinking, never taking care of himself. He had lived wild and free in his youth, and now, in old age, his body was like a sieve, leaking from every direction. There was nothing left to patch up. All he could do was wait for the end.

Cao Dong used to wonder why his godfather, who wasn’t poor, had never married or had children. He always seemed to drift through life, taking each day as it came. But now, he finally understood.

Being an undercover cop wasn’t some noble fantasy.

Even the regular anti-trafficking officers faced danger. Word had it that over a decade ago, a local officer who was especially effective at cracking trafficking rings had his own child snatched off the street in retaliation. The kid was never found…

Maybe Grandpa Jin knew that if he ever married and had children, and his cover was blown, his wife and kids would never be safe. So he chose to live alone, making sure that if something happened to him, no one else would suffer for it. One man full, the whole family fed.

Cao Dong used to think his godfather was a bit of a disappointment—an old man still living like a street punk, never planning for his later years.

But now he got it. When someone doesn’t even know if they’ll live to see tomorrow, what else can they do but live for today?

Cao Dong was proud to have a godfather like that. And because of that pride, he felt even more heartache for Grandpa Jin.

Before he could figure out what he could do for his godfather, the Hua Yushu family, who had recently reunited, formally invited Grandpa Jin to their home.

Xue Changan and his wife gave Jin Lei the seat of honor. Hua Yushu, a grown man, brought his son along, and the two of them knelt before Grandpa Jin, knocking their heads to the floor three times with resounding thuds. Then they started calling him “Godfather” and “God-grandpa.”

Cao Dong: “…” Wait, are they trying to steal my godfather?

This was a decision the Xue family had made. For the sake of rescuing trafficked children, Grandpa Jin had lived his whole life without a family. They couldn’t let him pass away without even one descendant to carry his ashes.

So what if he had no biological children? From now on, Hua Yushu would be his son.

Watching the livestream, netizens couldn’t hold back their tears.

What no one expected was that soon after, the children Grandpa Jin had rescued all those years ago began reaching out to the show’s production team. One by one, they found their way back to him.

How could anyone say he had no children? They were all his sons and daughters.

In no time, Grandpa Jin’s home was packed with unfamiliar but grateful faces. The gifts they brought couldn’t even fit in one room. A whole crowd of sons and daughters lined up to show their filial piety, pushing the official godson, Cao Dong, out into the courtyard.

Maybe it was because he had finally laid down the burden in his heart, but two weeks later, Jin Lei passed away peacefully in his own home, surrounded by over a hundred children.

He died without a single regret, feeling that his life had been nothing short of legendary. Even at the end, over a hundred children came to see him off. With all the paper money they burned, wouldn’t they end up scorching a hole in his grave?

That winter, Comrade Jin Lei was posthumously honored as one of the “Top Ten Most Beautiful People of J Province.” He had fulfilled his final wish: to let everyone who saw his name know that Jin Lei was not some thug, but a good man.

Though, if he were watching from above, he might not be too thrilled about the way people were remembering him.

Because he had run a flower and seedling business during his lifetime, visitors assumed he must have been a gentle, flower-loving old soul. So every person who came to pay respects brought a potted plant. In less than two years, the entire cemetery was covered in blooming flowers.

Jin Lei: “…”

Nonsense! My true loves were cigarettes, booze, and tea!

But if he really was watching from the afterlife, there was one thing that would have brought him comfort: before he died, he publicly released all the information he had gathered over the years on trafficking cases. Thanks to those records, dozens of families were able to find their missing children.

(End of Chapter)