Chapter 38: The Human Trafficker

“Open your mouth, ah—” The doctor gestured with a small flashlight, signaling Mo Fei to open his mouth.

Mo Fei obediently complied.

The doctor glanced inside his mouth and asked casually, “How did this happen? You bit yourself pretty badly.”

“I was bravely fighting with criminals,” Mo Fei raised his freshly-stitched hand, responding with righteous conviction.

He absolutely refused to admit that he’d bitten himself during a sudden brake while snacking in the car.

The doctor cast a quick look at the officer standing nearby; the officer simply smiled, showing no other reaction.

The doctor understood and wrote out the prescription. “You’ll need two stitches. Afterward, remember to take anti-inflammatory medicine every day, keep your diet light, avoid spicy or irritating foods, and no smoking or drinking.”

Mo Fei gave an OK sign.

Lu Chunqiu had been waiting outside all along.

Her injuries required no treatment; she’d already told the officers everything that needed saying early on, except for Mo Fei’s impromptu lecture about criminal law.

The scene investigation was clear: only the burly man’s fingerprints were found on the watermelon knife.

It was obvious that four armed robbers had run into two tough opponents.

So, after treating their wounds and having them leave their ID numbers and contact information, the officers from West City let them go on their own.

Eggs still smeared Lu Chunqiu’s car, and she had no intention of driving for a while, so she simply hailed a taxi to take Mo Fei home.

Seated in the back, Lu Chunqiu still felt uneasy. “Robbery on the road has gotten so brazen. Driver, you should be careful too—someone might throw eggs at your car to trick you into stopping.”

The taxi driver was only too happy to chat. “Miss, no one in your family drove before, right? All seasoned drivers know this. Things used to be wild—people would throw eggs, or have an old or sick person stand on the roadside asking for a ride. It was all a ploy to make you stop and open your door. The moment you opened it, you could be gone.”

“All seasoned drivers know?” Lu Chunqiu couldn’t believe it. She turned to look at Mo Fei.

Mo Fei pressed an ice pack to his face, looking thoroughly miserable.

“Of course,” the driver said, keeping his eyes on the road while chatting, “Back in the day, drivers kept baseball bats and steel pipes in their cars. No one dared drive unless they could handle themselves. But with more cameras now, this sort of thing is a lot less common.”

“So, you two encountered this?”

Lu Chunqiu nodded. “Yes.”

“Nonsense,” Mo Fei interrupted gloomily. “Those people weren’t robbers.”

“Not robbers? Then what were they after?” Lu Chunqiu suddenly felt a chill.

Mo Fei glanced at the driver through the rearview mirror, then at Lu Chunqiu. “They were after people.”

Lu Chunqiu opened her mouth, unsure how to refute him.

After a brief silence, the driver’s expression grew serious. “Yeah, back then, plenty of people vanished along with their cars. Who knows where they disappeared to.”

For the rest of the ride, both Lu Chunqiu and the driver were quiet. Mo Fei’s mouth had been stitched, his U-lock confiscated by the police, and neither his spirits nor his body could recover.

When they finally returned to East City, neither had eaten, nor did they feel like cooking. They found a porridge shop near an old neighborhood and ordered congee.

Lu Chunqiu pulled Mo Fei to sit near the entrance and asked in a low voice, “What you said in the car—about people being snatched—were you serious?”

The shop was empty, and the owner couldn’t overhear their conversation.

Mo Fei nodded.

“How could that be?” Lu Chunqiu’s instinct was to doubt and refute, unable to believe such a thing could happen to her.

Mo Fei asked, “Do you remember the day I went to Director Wang’s team for an interview?”

Lu Chunqiu nodded. “I remember. That was the day your group found an arm.”

“Not that,” Mo Fei corrected her. “That morning, as soon as I left home, I ran into a gang of traffickers trying to abduct a child.”

“What?” Lu Chunqiu nearly lost control of her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Shredded pork porridge’s here!” The shop owner brought a bowl of congee to their table.

Both fell silent.

After the owner left, Lu Chunqiu glared at Mo Fei several times.

If he weren’t injured, she would have tugged his ear.

Why didn’t he report anything to her? If he ever became famous, she’d have to handle all his affairs.

“There was too much going on that day—I forgot,” Mo Fei looked innocent.

He’d rescued a child, smashed his phone, interviewed with a crew, switched ID cards, the crew found an arm, and he’d saved a foul-mouthed cat.

He truly couldn’t be blamed for not reporting everything.

With so much happening, he hardly knew where to begin.

“That’s not the main point,” Mo Fei slurped his porridge, his cheeks bulging with every mouthful. “The boy I found later in the team, Ji Xingyu, was also brought near the highway by traffickers.”

Lu Chunqiu was stunned.

Only after the shop owner brought her porridge did she, after a while, speak thoughtfully, “So, there are a lot of traffickers.”

Mo Fei nodded. “You’re driving a Golf. If they were after money, they’d target BMWs or Mercedes instead.”

“But I’m not young anymore—would traffickers even be interested in someone like me?” Lu Chunqiu touched her cheek.

No woman wants to admit she’s getting older, but compared to life and death, a few years don’t matter.

“That’s why I’m still suspicious,” Mo Fei drained his bowl and looked at Lu Chunqiu with shining eyes.

Lu Chunqiu pushed her bowl in front of him. “Eat, eat. After all this, just rest at home for a few days. I’ll explain everything to Director Qian.”

Mo Fei gulped down half a bowl in one go and let out a long breath. “You’d best not go out for a while either. I suspect this isn’t the first time it’s happened.”

Lu Chunqiu raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“The two officers who handled the scene barely reacted after seeing your car,” Mo Fei licked his lips, “The taxi driver who brought us home had the normal reaction.”

“Using eggs to stop cars is an old trick—like how, as an agent, you notice a male celebrity with long hair, you’ll pay extra attention and gossip about it, right?”

Lu Chunqiu thought it over and nodded in agreement.

“So, before us, someone else must have encountered this too,” Mo Fei set down his spoon, his eyes filled not only with thought but also with excitement. “The previous victims probably didn’t confront those people directly, otherwise that gang wouldn’t keep using the same trick.”

“The victims knew not to stop or use the wipers—they just drove away and reported it. The police already have records of this tactic, so they weren’t surprised.”

“Sister Lu, do you know under what circumstances traffickers target adults?”

“Abduction of women?” Lu Chunqiu offered the common answer.

“But I was in the car too—they could see me,” Mo Fei squinted and smiled. “Under what circumstances would traffickers target both men and women indiscriminately?”