1
In late July of the lunar calendar in 1993, I returned home from the county town to celebrate my mother’s birthday.
It was still hot, the early corn and soya beans had begun to be harvested, and the farmers were busy in the fields, with few idlers on the country roads.
As soon as I entered the village, I met a little boy at the end of the street who was playing alone. He was about four or five years old, wearing shorts and a vest. His whole body was tanned by the sun. The child has big eyes and double eyelids and is very cute.
I and a roadside is squatting peeling corn ears of the old lady chatted two, xu is not a stranger, a heard that I just came back from the county, the boy immediately chased me and asked: “You come back from the county? Is it busy there?”
I reached out and took the little, round, sweaty face of the child and teased him with a smile, “Whose child are you? Why don’t I know you?”
The child giggled and showed his small white teeth: “My name is Ming Ming.”
I think he is very lovely, continue to tease him to say: “the county can be lively, with me to play.”
The child unexpectedly readily ground one should come down: “in, you when walk, take an to go!” With these words they came heel to my door, till I got him a piece of cake, and then skipped away.
At that time, I thought, this child is not the dialect of the “white tongue”? Adults do not teach well, so there is no guard heart, it is easy to be lured away by traffickers. But think again, like my hometown this is located in the remote three county boundary, at ordinary times into the village of the stranger is very few, perhaps the adult to the child’s custody is not so strict.
Thinking of my previous visits to my hometown, I had never seen this child before, so I asked my mother, who explained, “That child has a hard life. I heard that his father was hit by a car and killed, and his mother ran away with him. No one cares about him, so my acquaintance brought him to your friend’s house as a son.
Xiao Peng and I are of the same family. He is four years older than me, but by generation I should call him Grandpa.
His mother had what the villagers call “yellow disease”, which is aplastic anemia. Her face looked like a sheet of yellow watch paper. She not only spent the family’s savings, but also owed a large amount of foreign debt. Not long after, the little friend also contracted tuberculosis, a cold will fall ill, squatting on the ground throat eyes hiss hiss, when serious like the spring nesting turtledoves cooing. Due to family poverty and illness, xiao Peng got married with a woman at his late age, and his wife even gave birth to two girls to catch up with the family planning — the family was short of a son.
At that time, I was working in the county, and I lived under great pressure. Every time I went back to my hometown to visit my parents, I came and went in a hurry, so I didn’t pay much attention to the child’s life experience. I heard from my mother and was glad that my little friend had adopted such a lovely son.
That Spring Festival, I went back to my hometown to get together with my parents. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, everyone will take turns to host and have a reunion wine.
In the afternoon, I went to call xiao Peng on my way. As soon as I entered the gate of the courtyard, I heard the laughter of the couple. The boy, in his new clothes and trousers, was hopping about the yard, chasing his two sisters, with a chubby face, and his little friends laughing their heads off.
The boy looked up and saw me limping into the yard. My large, watery eyes flashed for a moment, then he grinned with his teeth. “You’re back! I know you. The last time I gave you a cake, it was better than our house.”
I really like this drum nose drum face of the little boy, talk like blowing beans general articulate, mischievous in showing cleverness. I put out my hand to pat the child’s head, still coax him to say: “this time with me to go to the county town, go to the kindergarten, there can be many children, very fun!”
Unexpectedly the child shook his head and said: “the an don’t go, afraid the somebody else stole, again can’t see an pa an mama.”
The little friend daughter-in-law is in a side to smile to talk: “this guy ability arrive li, you Zha all coax not to walk.”
I also smiled, blunt small friend loudly say: “men, have seedling not worry about long, in the mind be strong?”
The little friend, with a happy face, said, “It is the boy’s turn to enjoy himself. He has all the good food in the house. Look how much fatter you are than when you came here.”
My little friend’s wife boasted: “My boy wouldn’t eat his ten years’ fallow meal. This boy is diligent. Follow me, I’ll do my best to dig up.
During the talk, the child rushed to embrace the little daughter-in-law’s leg, homeoptically kick legs climb into the bosom, prone on the face affectionate straight called “mother”, the little daughter-in-law hurriedly embrace the child, also “son darling” to kiss the small face.
That day, we all got together and drank from the afternoon to the evening. When our ears were hot, our conversation became thick. People talk about the misfortune of our generation. They just got married and caught up with the family planning policy. In order to have a son, they all became “extra-children guerrillas” and hid in hiding all day without knowing how much they had done. Speaking, we all envy the eyes to the small friends, have praised the couple good practice, blessed, “God opened the eyes ah!
After a few drinks, the little friend also felt dizzy. Sitting on the chair beside the old man, he touched the wine with everyone one by one. He drank until his head screwed up and his eyes turned up, and his mouth turned up with a simple smile.
Dinner I just know, small friends home children are our former old classmates small xi introduced, this spring just hold over. Although Xiao Xi didn’t join us, he is an honest person who knows everything. As a child, Xiao Xi was fond of playing with machine parts of the production team. He was also a well-known “know-it-all” in our hometown. In recent years, he opened a motorcycle repair shop in the town.
However, to my surprise, the child was abducted by human traffickers.
2
In the early spring of 1995, on a windy day, I was having dinner upstairs facing the street after work when I suddenly heard a woman’s voice downstairs, calling my name repeatedly. I pushed open the window and peeped out, only to see my friend’s wife pushing a bicycle and looking eagerly up the stairs.
I immediately go downstairs, have no firm footing, little friend’s wife stomp a foot to blunt me to say: “Oh, home big event! You quickly help to think of a way to see how ah! The child I want is stolen by a human trafficker. Your friend’s father has been arrested by the police. Let’s look for someone at once…”
I quickly asked: “where is the child, also let the police take away?”
“No, I’m hiding.”
I grumbled angrily at my little friend’s wife, “At this time of year, can paper hold fire? Give the child to the police.” But she was stubborn, insisting that she would not give up the child until she saw her man.
In the dark, the organs and units are off work, encountered such a tricky thing, where to find acquaintances ah. I realized the gravity of the situation as I was getting burned.
I know I can’t turn my back on Ben.
At the end of 1970s, I joined the army and went to war in the southern Border area of Henan. I was seriously wounded and picked up a life in the field hospital. The end of treatment was rated as “first-class disability”, and I returned to my hometown in the eastern Henan province to recuperate with two wooden crutches under my arm. At that time, the family was very poor, adobe grass house was about to fall down, my parents could not even afford to buy a new bed for my wife, and the wedding table was temporarily borrowed from the neighbors.
Fortunately, his wife can keep house, decided to build a new house around the kiln. During that time, xiao Peng and the village hair boys together in the wheat field to help my home, every day get muddy, also do not want a penny of reward. Especially the little friends, with my house two rows apart, spare time to my house to run, help to do chores. He was a bricklayer in the village. He took people with him to remove the bricks and burn them for us. Then he built the house and painted the walls and beat the floor.
After the completion of the three new houses in my family, my feelings with my little friend deepened. One night, the little friends gathered the boys in my yard, set up an altar, burned paper and incense, and knelt down to the south, swearing on oath: “Love is the same as the flesh and blood, just hair peach garden. One day, forever good hundred years!” As I was the youngest, we bought me a pair of cloth shoes, which, according to the old rule, would be coordinated by me, no matter who was involved.
Now, my little friend is having a big affair.
The first thing that came to my mind was a friend of the prison guard in the detention center. We used to be comrades in arms. I asked him to check the list of detainees on that day, and then personally went to the transfer number (a room set for new inmates to adapt to the environment of the detention center, usually transferred to a fixed number after 15 days in custody).
I suspected that the little friend was detained, so I once again commissioned his comrades to go to the detention center on the other side of the wall, but there was no one there.
After coming out of the detention center, his comrades revealed a message to me, saying that this case “is said to be supervised by the provincial government and involves 5 abducted children. Will those involved be detained in other places?”
Hearing this news, the tears of the little friend’s wife poured out, I also shook my head and sighed.
3
Expended very big effort, I just floundering entrust a person to contact captain zhu of criminal police force, make a phone call to ask, just know small friend is locked in detention room of public security bureau. Captain Zhu agreed that we should go to see xiao Peng, but only on the condition that the child be brought to the public security bureau and handed over to the police officer who was handling the case.
At this time is more than 10 o ‘clock at night, the county is more than 20 kilometers away from our hometown, are remote rural dirt roads, no car, this time to take the children back and out, it is a little difficult. Anxious to see our little friend, we decided to find someone else first.
In the northern spring, seasonal winds blow endlessly, blowing cracks in the hard dirt roads. In the dark streets, the wind blows more and more, yellow sand wrapped in waste paper plastic bags flying all over the sky. I limped my two crippled legs and led my little friend’s wife to the public security bureau. She pushed her bicycle and couldn’t see the way. Suddenly she bumped into the rubbish heap, climbed up and said to me, “I have never seen anything in my life.
County public security bureau in the center of the county, from the county west wall to the south turn to the east 500 meters, facing the main road facing the south of a large and spacious yard. By the time we arrived, there were still lines of armed police in the yard, and police cars whistled in and out.
When he saw Captain Zhu, he immediately came up to him and asked eagerly, “Where’s the boy? Have you brought the child?”
I had to accompany the smiling face to explain: “you see the day so late, and blowing a strong wind, the road to the child frozen scared, also bad account.”
Captain Zhu, with his hands around his waist and a dignified look on his face, immediately issued an ultimatum: “Get up early tomorrow before 8 o ‘clock, you must send the children to me on time. If it is past eight o ‘clock, procedures are followed and the person in custody is immediately taken to a prison.”
I quickly nodded to Captain Zhu and said, “I will do as you say. There will be no delay.” Captain Zhu waved to the opposite side of the corridor, gesturing to show us the detained friend.
On the north side of the corridor, next to the stairs, is the toilet. Next to the toilet, there is an empty room with a table and a bed. The bed is empty except for a hard board. The little friend sat hunched over the edge of the bed, his arms wrapped around the table leg, and was cuffed up. At the door squatted a few assistant policemen in security suits, playing cards in the yellow light.
Small friend a see us enter the door, say proudly: “the an don’t steal don’t rob, pull out 5000 dollars to want of child, commit what law?”
A child abduction case that I witnessed
I was afraid that the opposite captain Zhu heard this, emotional change, so I quickly glared at him: “You don’t say a word.”
When I asked my friend if he had eaten yet, a young security guard said without even looking up: “Go, there is a restaurant opposite, give him something to eat.”
When we came out from the public security bureau, it was 12:00 midnight. I urged my little friend’s wife and her brother-in-law who came here later to rush back overnight. The next day, I got up early and sent the child to Captain Zhu.
That night, we were up all night.
Xiao Peng, needless to say, spent the night in handcuffs in the police station’s holding cell, torturing herself with anxiety and anticipation until dawn; The little friend’s wife came home in the dark. It was after midnight. She couldn’t help crying for a long time, looking at the sleeping child under the quilt.
Xiao Peng’s wife grew up without a mother. She grew up with her father and brother and did not go to school for a single day. When she was old enough to talk about marriage, she had nothing to lose. With her big eyes and double eyelids, she was not only gentle and virtuous. She was good at steaming buns and rolling noodles, sewing clothes and making shoes, but because of her poor family composition, she was delayed for many years.
At that time, the little friend, who was suffering from asthma, crouched on the stone wheel at the crossroads, out of breath, and had no future in marriage, could only have one advantage — “the right root being red”. Although the two families were not from the same county, they were only two or three kilometers apart. The matchmaker came to the door and said several times that the little friend was in poor health and the girl cried like a tearful person, unwilling to live or die. It went on and on for many times, but at last he could not bear to see his father’s miserable face, and was forced to give in.
In the long days of poverty, the little friend’s wife scrimped and saved, seeking for medicine to treat the little friend. Daily cooking is steamed two steamed bread – xiaopeng eat white steamed bread, their own corn buns. So after a few years, the man was cured of asthma. His big body was soon taken care of by his wife. He could do all the heavy farm work in the field, and he even built the walls on the shelves with the construction team during the slack season.
In addition, the couple’s feelings, not to mention: free love was not popular in the countryside that year, two men and women, who had not known each other before, suddenly got together, and a village often heard the sound of quarreling between the two neighbors. But this pair is very few however noisy, boon conjured love, let village dweller envy really.
A few years ago, after one after another gave birth to two girls, xiaopeng wife and pregnant, B super check is a boy, but is caught up in the rural family planning lifted the climax, Xiaopeng at that time has been the production team leader, to take the lead to complete the abortion and ligation down hard indicators, xiaopeng wife can only tearfully support the man’s work.
Happened to live in the back of the small happy to come, said he married the sister of the foreign country back home, take back a three or four years old orphan, said want to find a personal home to adopt, pay, look at the point to go. Blunt small happy so many years in the village person, small friends couple immediately agreed, full of joy, make up 5000 dollars, give the sister of small happy as reward, happily took the child back home.
The baby was healthy and lovely, but he was not afraid of life. As soon as he entered the house, he joined the family and had a good time with his two sisters. The couple halfway to get a son, as their own, the family raised the chicken laid eggs, two girls who do not call to taste a bite, have given their son to eat, before long, the child grew fat, all day round the knee father long mother short Shouting.
Now, she and her 100 friends had no idea the child would be stolen by a human trafficker. Now, not only to give the child back to others, but also their man was arrested by the police, this day also how to lead?
The next day early in the morning, the little friend’s wife has not yet light to get up, rubbing the red and swollen eyes for the neighborhood open a four-wheel tractor, pulling the children together to the county.
4
The night wind, the temperature of the late spring cold sudden drop, cold air directly face the face of the outside. The night before, the public security bureau, acting separately, not only caught the traffickers, but also rescued four other children, the youngest of whom was just over one year old, who had been trafficked to our county on the spot.
Early in the morning, the police gathered in the parking lot of the police station, waiting for us to deliver the fifth child who had been trafficked.
Xiaopeng wife in the public security bureau under the door of the tractor, with the child just into the yard, the police will go forward to take the child, the child timid to hide behind xiaopeng wife, arms around the leg of xiaopeng wife, how all refuse to go with the police.
At this moment, the courtyard not far from a ragged, grey-haired middle-aged man, to see the child, suddenly “wow” ground a cry ran over: “Clearly, Russia’s baby…” Then he fell on his knees and smacked the policeman’s head.
The man knocked his head a few times and then stood up and ran. But the boy still stood in the same place, looking dazed. It’s only been two years and the child doesn’t even know his own father.
The police coax to hold the child in the past, want to let the child and the real father recognize, but the child was crying, kicking disorderly kick, crying to small friend’s wife straight shout: “Mom, mom ah, you don’t go.”
Seeing this heart-wrenching scene, the little friend’s wife burst into tears and sobbed: “This child has gone, I got a disease…”
Old Fan, a policeman standing by, heard this. With a black face, he called out to his bereave friend’s wife, “Don’t keep thinking about yourself. Just look at my parents.
I have dealt with Old Fan several times and know him quite well. Old Fan grinned bitterly and muttered under his breath, “Last night, this middle-aged man was crying his eyes out. What a pity!”
Old Fan told me that the man was from Linyou County, Shaanxi province. Two spring years ago, when he wanted to go to market in the county seat, his younger son chased him all the way after him, holding his leg and crying. The son was the only one in the family, and the couple indulged him by nature. Glancing back, he saw that his wife’s thin figure was standing on the ledge of the opposite hill. He waved at her and took his son down from the plateau, calculating that he would buy a tasty morsel for his son who had only just left the plateau.
The county town is not big, the spring wind blows dust flying, even the sky is chaotic red sun. He walked with the child to the county cinema, spied a crowd of people watching chess huddled on the roadside, and approached curiously. He became a notorious table-tennis spectator, forgetting his son behind him as he watched the games between people.
a plate of residual chess, he suddenly remembered his son behind, looking back to shout, but no response, heart a tremble, hurriedly squeeze out of the crowd to find. Let him cry out, his son has no trace.
That day he in the county like crazy, running through the streets, all the way calling for his son, until sunset Xishan also did not find. When his son was lost, he dared not go home. At night, he huddled under the eaves of the shop and squinted for a while. Then he got up and went to the public security bureau to report the case.
For two days he did not eat or drink, but dragged his tired legs back to Table-land. He saw his wife standing at the door and anxiously looking about. Seeing him return he asked, “What happened to Eva?
He fell to his knees, burst into tears, and fanned his face with both hands. His wife froze for a moment, to recover, “Wow” to a scream, ran toward the plateau and ran.
That night he and his tope tope were busy looking for his wife again. Until dawn, just in a ditch in a good distance to find a person, his wife unkempt face, tears, mouth “Eva, Eva” to mumble, since then madness, who do not know, always want to run down the river, wind and rain do not know to go home.
He was so hungry that he gave up his face to beg for food. He went to the surrounding cities, counties and villages along the way to look for his son. He did not know how much he had endured, how many pairs of shoes he had worn out, and there was no news of his son.
Two years, in order to find the lost son, the family land has long deserted, his wife crazy no one to take care of, he rush about all day, the once warm home, so suddenly collapsed.
I felt a pang in my heart and suddenly remembered my lost childhood. I had heard more than once from my grandfather that when I was a few months old, my father drove a truck to pull ore in the mountains of Western Henan. My grandfather and my mother took me to find my father. At night, when We were transferring at zhengzhou bus station, the box office was dimly lit and people came and went in a chaos. Grandpa went to buy a ticket, mother hugged me tired, conveniently wrapped my bedrolls on the seat beside me. But in the blink of an eye, I was gone. At that moment, my mother like crazy, cried my name, saw the arms of the child, came forward to cut and pull. Grandpa quickly called to the station public security, blocking the entrance and exit by search. Finally, in a dim corner of the box office, I caught a glimpse of an old lady with little feet, hugging her bedroll, in which I lay fast asleep. The old lady explained that, seeing the child left behind, she picked it up and cradled it in her arms to sleep.
Years later, grandpa recalled that scene and said to me with a wry grin, “If I don’t find you that day, I’ll be damned!” Measure each other by his own measure, the present Guanzhong man is really let a person feel sad.
In order to appease the crying child, the police specially bought a bag of apples from the street and let the man take the apples to get close to his son. The child with small hands to choose the two largest, crying to the little friend’s wife said: “Mom, you give my sister back.”
Perhaps the sensible child has been from the incomplete memory to find the shadow of his own father, also no longer make. Small friends also came out, the couple took the child’s small arms, “son lovely” crying, tears streaming down her face.
I could not bear to look directly at it, but urged the couple to leave the public security bureau.
I was also afraid of complications — in those days, the police were often the victims of child trafficking and rarely held criminally responsible, as long as there was no abuse.
5
More than two months later, the public prosecutor’s office promptly started the procedure and sentenced Wei Keqing, the principal offender of stealing, abducting and selling children, to death.
Xiao Xi’s sister and brother-in-law as the child abducted referral, from which profit, indirectly become an accomplice of the criminal, was also arrested and sentenced to prison, respectively, three to five years in prison.
Xiao Xi was exempted from criminal punishment because she did not know and was not involved in the sale of children for profit.
On April 29, wei Keqing, the principal perpetrator of the most serious crime, was sentenced to death and paraded through the streets of the county town by armed police on a truck. That morning, standing on the balcony of the second floor facing the street, I watched the convoy of cars passing slowly with their sirens wailed. Wei Keqing was tied up and stood in the back of the truck in the middle. His head was shining blue in the sun. His face was full of flesh and fear, and from time to time he raised his head and scanned the streets with fierce eyes to see the noisy crowds, then he was held down by the armed police standing on either side.
In the afternoon, the court posted a notice announcing the crime of wei Keqing, a middle-aged farmer who was born in our county, and who had been wandering in Linyou County, Shaanxi province, looking for an opportunity to commit a crime. That yao’s father with a young son went into the town, in a crowded the cinema reading chess, let the child out of his sight, traffickers Wei Keqing will take a few fruit to seduce, obviously will not sensible child tricked step by step to the nearest street corner, then up quickly escaped from the town.
Wei Keqing took Ming Ming to our county by train overnight, and sold it to xiao Peng the next day through the matchmaking of acquaintances. Faced with thousands of yuan at his fingertips, Wei Keqing was so greedy that he returned to Linyou County again and took the same risk to kidnap another four children. In particular, the last one, who had just turned one, had been snatched in broad daylight from a roadside villager’s cradle and sold to a family in a neighboring village in our county.
This case caused shaanxi police to pay close attention very quickly, put on record secretly traced to Henan, with the cooperation of the public security organs in my county, successfully rescued 5 abducted children.
6
In the Spring Festival of 1996, I went back to my hometown as usual to spend the Spring Festival with my parents. Once again, I walked into the home of my little friends. There was no pleasant laughter two years ago. See me enter the door, small friends wife stood up to give me a seat, strong put on a smiling face to say grateful words: “the ans stalls so big thing, if it weren’t for you on tiptoe two legs to run in the middle of the night to find acquaintances, your friends might not come back, even the festival are uneasy.
I advise the couple: “This time all should pay to buy a lesson.”
“His grandma, the an half life peace and order, the tree drop a leaf is afraid to hit the head, did not expect to call the police handcuffs pull a few streets, with noisy like, really throw a dead man…” “The little friend answered.
The little friend’s wife then said: “I have two thin faces. I came back from the county town that day just like I stole someone else’s house. I really want to see a crack in the ground and I dare not go out for several days for fear that someone would poke my spine!”
“Do you regret it?” I asked them.
‘I’m so sorry! You know it’s a child stolen by a human trafficker, I wouldn’t give you any money.” “After finishing this, the young man thought again and squeezed a word out of his teeth:” The human trafficer should be killed. It’s not enough to kill him!”
“A child is a piece of flesh that falls from his mother’s body. Come to think of it, if I lay my head on it, the baby would go mad.” The eyes of the little friend’s wife were red again, and the uncontrollable tears rolled down her cheeks. She sobbed and said, “Poor child, I don’t know what to do when I go home. I wish his family could be together and have a good life…”
During the Spring Festival, I could not bear that the couple would be sad again and change the topic.
Afterword.
After all these years, the matter has been weighing on my mind. When be abducted and sold obviously, the child that this returns a family again also fast 30? I wonder if he will fit in with his broken family when he comes home. How is his life going now?
Some time ago, my hometown sent a message to me: xiao Peng’s son will get married at the end of the month.
In the face of the “lost” son, the couple regret, a long time to free from the shadow. In their middle years, the couple finally decided to give birth to their son, despite the pressure of family planning and paying a heavy fine.
Therefore, I decided to write about the case of child abduction in the hope that I can do my bit to wake up those who buy children — do not build their happiness on the pain of other people’s families, once you buy the children of unknown origin, will become a harm, its behavior is like an accomplice.
Because the reason is very simple, without the financial incentive of the buyer, which will be the dealer’s madness.
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