Chapter 228 - Lefty

Shao Xi was stunned as he looked at Shao Qihai and the car. “What’s going on…”

“Little Xi, why are you kids out? What’s going on? What happened? Where are Little Dong and Little Nan?” Shao Qihai saw Shao Xi heave a sigh of relief and quickly went forward.

“Little Nan and Big Brother were kidnapped.”

“What?” Shao Qihai’s expression changed. “What’s going on?”

When he heard what had happened, Shao Qihai’s expression turned even uglier. “They must have made a fake license plate and deliberately let you get in the car… Which way did they go?”

“That way. They should be leaving the city.” Shao Xi pointed. “But if we chase after them now, it won’t be so easy to catch up.”

Even if he couldn’t catch up with them that easily, he had to. After reporting the case, Shao Qihai took the initiative to look for Ji Buwang for the first time. He sent Shao Xi, Little Bei, and Xiao Wu to the Ji Family and asked him to help take care of them. Although he didn’t get along with Ji Buwang, he still trusted him.

After entrusting the children to Ji Buwang and ensuring their safety, Shao Qihai embarked on a search.

Of course, he didn’t forget to inform Mu Jingzhe. She had to be the first to know this.

Ji Buwang took on the responsibility of taking care of Little Bei and the rest, telling them not to be rash and try to look for their brothers themselves. He was also anxious, so he started helping with the search.

When Mu Jingzhe heard that Shao Dong and Shao Nan had actually been kidnapped and the other three kids had almost been kidnapped as well, she was shocked.

This was a plotline that didn’t exist in the original book, so she didn’t have any clues to go by. Besides, because of her appearance, the plot had changed beyond recognition. Everything was filled with unknown variants. The advantage of reading the original book was completely gone.

Mu Jingzhe also embarked on a search. However, after searching the entire night, she still didn’t find anything. The car seemed to have vanished, leaving behind no clues.

The police had already launched an investigation, asking about their situation and if they had offended anyone, but neither Mu Jingzhe nor Shao Qihai could guarantee that they had no enemies.

Now that Mu Jingzhe was a businesswoman, she wasn’t sure if she was in someone’s way. Shao Qihai felt even guiltier. He had clearly been certain that there had been no danger before, but what if there had been?

They thought of everything they could think of and brought up all the people that came to mind, including Zhao Lan, Shao Qiyun, and the others. However, Zhao Lan had been staying in the village and hadn’t gone out, and there was nothing unusual about Shao Qiyun’s movements either.

The longer the kidnapping dragged on, the more dangerous a situation the children would be in. It had been one night and more than ten hours. Anything could happen. Both of them felt like they were going crazy.

As they were feeling anxious and desperate, the art school suddenly received a letter from the kidnappers that was addressed to Shao Qihai and Mu Jingzhe. It was said that the letter had been stuffed through the door, but nobody was sure when it had been stuffed.

The teacher who opened the door knew Shao Qihai and Mu Jingzhe’s names and was aware of what had happened, so he immediately brought the letter over.

It was a threatening letter asking them to raise money to get the children back. The kidnappers were demanding 200,000 yuan, 100,000 yuan for each of the two children. If even a single cent was missing, the two kids could forget about returning home.

The payment time was six in the evening. For every ten minutes the payment was late, a finger would be chopped off.

The kidnappers would call the art school at six o’clock sharp to inform Mu Jingzhe of the exact address.

They didn’t say anything about not calling the police or anything like that. They only said that they would release the children once they received the money. They only had one request—that Mu Jingzhe deliver the ransom.

Probably to prove that the kids were in their hands, there was also a photo in the envelope. In the photo, Shao Dong and Shao Nan were tied together, looking disheveled.

Mu Jingzhe’s heart ached when she saw this. She could only comfort herself by thinking that at least they were still alive.

Although this was bad news, there was finally news. Shao Qihai and Mu Jingzhe had a tacit understanding this time. They had to prepare themselves for both scenarios. Raising 200,000 yuan at one go was indeed difficult, but they had to think of a way to do it.

They didn’t dare delay because they didn’t dare gamble.

Li Zhaodi and the rest also came to help look for the kids. When they heard that she needed to raise money, they gave all the money they had at home to Mu Jingzhe without a second thought. They didn’t have a habit of saving money in the bank, so all they had was cash. There were quite a lot of coins, so the money came in a big bag.

Other than Li Zhaodi, many people from the village also came to help with their savings. Not only did Li Fang, Mai Miao, and the rest lend their money to them, but even Mu Xue did. However, Zhao Lan and the eldest Shao Family branch didn’t do so. They didn’t even come out to help look for them. Instead, they complained to everyone that they didn’t have any money.

There were outrageous people like Zhao Lan, but most people were warm. Mu Jingzhe was still hesitant about borrowing money, but in the end, they brought it over.

Mu Jingzhe was moved. This was something completely unimaginable in modern times, but she had encountered it after transmigrating.

“I’ve noted down all the money they brought over.” Li Zhaodi handed the notebook to Mu Jingzhe. She was glad that in order to learn how to keep accounts, she had learned how to read from Mu Jingzhe and the kids. Although the number of words she knew was limited, she could take care of book-keeping now.

Mu Jingzhe flipped the notebook open and saw familiar names: Mai Miao, Guilan, Chunju, Shuihua…

These names hadn’t appeared out of nowhere. They had all accumulated bit by bit thanks to Mu Jingzhe’s actions.

With the money that they had gathered, along with the money that Mu Jingzhe, Shao Qihai, and Shao Qiyang had amassed and the money they had borrowed from Ji Buwang, they really managed to raise 200,000 yuan.

“Thank you. I will remember this kindness. I will definitely return it to you in the future.” Shao Qihai thanked Ji Buwang individually.

Ji Buwang shook his head. “You don’t have to return it. I did it willingly. I also hope that Little Dong and Little Nan will return safely.”

Although they had gathered enough money, they didn’t relax at all, afraid that an accident might happen.

Apart from wanting to save the children, it would be best if they caught the suspects as well. However, while they were discussing their plan of action, an old police officer kept looking at the letter sent by the kidnapper. His expression was strange.

Although he didn’t say anything in the end, they avoided Mu Jingzhe and held another meeting. After that meeting, Mu Jingzhe could clearly sense that their expressions were even more solemn.

Mu Jingzhe asked them why, but no one told her. Later on, Shao Qihai went to the roof and secretly climbed to the window to hear the latest news.

“Jingzhe, I heard from them that this might not be the first time these kidnappers have committed a crime. Based on the handwriting of the kidnappers, the letter was written by a left-handed person. This year, there was an unsolved left-hander kidnapping case in the province. They specifically targeted children from rich families to ask for ransom. Similar to this case, they kidnapped children to ask for money.

“But… regardless of whether the families paid or not, the children ended up getting killed.”

He’d heard the police officers argue that it might not be the left-handed gang, but there was no guarantee that it wasn’t.

Because the influence of the left-handed gang kidnapping cases was very bad, it had only been reported in the news once. In fact, this gang had already committed several crimes, and every single one of the hostages had been killed without exception. After a while, their bodies had been found elsewhere.

The areas where the bodies had been found were all over the province, and there had been no fixed location. Furthermore, the crime scenes weren’t the original crime scenes, which was why they hadn’t been able to find the suspects. They still didn’t know where they were or how many accomplices there were. The only common clue was that the threatening letter sent over was written by a left-handed person, thus the name ‘left-handed gang’.