Spring comes to the desperate place

Chapter 282 Banquet

There were a lot of things to do at the end of the year. Although Song Chunlin and his colleagues reported the matter to the Ministry of Revenue, it was still unknown when it could be resolved. So later Song Chunlin and Gu Fengyue used the name of the Marquis' Mansion to send supplies to the Charity Bureau again. At this time, there were still five abducted children left, one of whom was Liu Liu's brother, the boy in the woodshed in the backyard.

The uncle from the Charity Bureau told them that the child had lost all his family and had been dependent on his sister. This time he suffered an unexpected disaster. He was beaten half to death and his sister was missing. Now he is depressed every day and is immersed in self-blame and guilt.

"He tried his best, but he's just a kid, how can he fight against those adults? Now his sister has been sold to who knows where. He doesn't talk every day, and doesn't eat or take medicine. This is not a solution. We can only try our best to get some in him, but he always spits it out."

After hearing what Shumo said, Song Chunlin walked over and stood in front of the boy. The boy raised his head and saw a handsome young man looking down at him.

"I heard that you don't want to eat or take medicine. Do you know that if you don't eat or take medicine, your body will never get better?"

The boy lowered his head. It was obvious that he knew this, but his sister was suffering somewhere. How could he eat? What was the point of being healthy? He couldn't even protect his sister. He was really useless.

The boy thought about this and fell into self-blame again. Seeing this, Song Chunlin tentatively took out an orange.

"Here, these are oranges from the south. They are very sweet."

The boy was about to say no, but the next moment Song Chunlin stuffed a slice of orange into his mouth. He subconsciously bit it, and just as Song Chunlin said, the orange was very sweet. The sweet juice slid down his throat and strangely soothed his emotions.

"So sweet!" the boy exclaimed. He was surprised at first, but then his expression darkened. "It would be nice if my sister could have it too."

"Your sister will definitely be able to eat it, but what you need to do now is to take care of yourself first."

I don't know if the boy heard it or not. He squeezed the orange with a little force and scratched the orange peel. A fresh orange fragrance enveloped his fingertips. He sniffed it gently and felt refreshed.

"You are a brother. If you can't even take care of yourself, how can you guarantee that your sister will have a good life with you after you find her back?"

The boy seemed to be moved. Song Chunlin noticed it, so he continued: "You are just a child. It is normal that you can't beat an adult. But if you can't beat an adult for a while, you can't beat him forever, right? There is a saying that goes, don't bully the poor young. Today they dared to hurt you because they are cowards who only dare to bully those weaker than themselves. But you are different. You are not afraid of power and dare to go alone to ask for help. Although you didn't succeed, your courage is commendable. In Liu Liu's heart, you must be the bravest brother."

The boy pursed his lips and said, "I'm not. I'm so useless. They said in front of me that they wanted to sell Liu Liu...to the most remote and dirty place. I was useless and couldn't stop them. I tried, but they broke my arms and legs. I couldn't stop my sister..."

As the boy spoke, tears fell from his eyes. From his intermittent words, it was not difficult to guess what kind of cruel thing had happened to the brother and sister. But now he was willing to speak out, which was a good start.

The boy said something over and over again, Song Chunlin was listening beside him, Gu Fengyue came over silently to accompany him, the boy saw Gu Fengyue, suddenly struggled, fell off the chair to the ground, Song Chunlin wanted to help him, but he broke free, he dragged his bruised body, knelt in front of Gu Fengyue, and kowtowed to her continuously.

"Da Sima, please, please save my sister. My sister is only five years old. She can't be sold to that kind of place. She will die. Please, Da Sima, please save her..."

The boy kept kowtowing on the ground. Song Chunlin was afraid that his injuries would get worse, so he had to use mental suggestion to make him calm down.

Gu Fengyue helped him put the boy back on the chair. The boy was still muttering about saving his sister. The people from the Charity Bureau watched this scene and couldn't help shaking their heads and sighing.

Song Chunlin left a small bottle of spiritual spring water for the boy and then left. When he left, Shumo from the Charity Bureau looked at him hesitantly, but in the end, he said nothing.

On the way back, Song Chunlin asked Gu Fengyue what he thought, and Gu Fengyue was silent for a long time.

“Even if a five-year-old girl is sold, she will be safe for the time being, unless these people are so cruel that they will not even let go of a five-year-old child.” But judging by the extent of the boy’s injuries, the matter is probably in jeopardy. From what he said, the place where his sister was sold was definitely not a good place. It was most likely a bitter and cold land. Moreover, it has been almost a month since the child was sold, so even if they walked away, they were already in the north.

When they thought of this possibility, their hearts ached.

"If that's the case, then we need to send someone to the north to investigate. What does the emperor say?"

"My brother said that the emperor has sent more people to track down the whereabouts of those abducted children. But we tortured the traffickers for many days, and we only learned that they sold half of the children to the south and the other half to the north."

These two places are in opposite directions, making it very difficult to track them down. In modern society, with so many cameras, the probability of finding abducted children is not high, not to mention in ancient times when transportation and information were not well developed.

Just as Gu Fengyue said, the emperor kept sending more people to investigate, but finding these children in such a vast sea of people was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

On New Year's Eve, the children of the Charity Bureau had a very rich New Year celebration. However, once the festival was over, the joyous atmosphere dissipated and everyone was wondering if they could do the same thing next year and have a meat meal during the New Year.

Because of Zhou Daya's incident this year, the Song family severed their ties with the Zhou family. Now the Song family's daughters-in-law have a rare commonality in common, which is that they don't need to go back to their parents' home for the New Year.

The two old men of the Zhou family were still eagerly waiting at home, from sunrise to sunset. In previous years, Zhou Ning and Song Chunsheng would come early and give them a lot of New Year gifts, but this year, let alone New Year gifts, even Zhou Ning himself was not seen.

The Zhou family has had a rather quiet New Year's celebration in recent years. In previous years, Zhou Ning and Zhou Daya, two married women from other families, would come back to pay New Year's greetings. However, this year, Zhou Daya's husband was beheaded and she herself was exiled. Zhou Ning also seemed to have made up her mind to sever ties with her natal family, so she didn't come here at all.

Grandpa Zhou looked at the sky which was gradually getting dark and sighed helplessly. Grandma Zhou had a gloomy face and ignored the crying great-grandson in her arms. However, Zhou Erniu couldn't bear it anymore, so he took his nephew in and took him home to feed him rice porridge.

After the youngest child in the family went down, Grandma Zhou spoke sinisterly, "I've long said that he was an ungrateful person. Look, all the others in the family are in trouble because of him. When he was born, I said to throw him away. He's a jinx who came to bring bad luck to our Zhou family."

The curse was not directed at Zhou Daya, but at Zhou Ning. Grandma Zhou had not yet realized that if Zhou Ping and Zhou An had not first thought of harming their nephew, they would not have been arrested. The same was true for Zhou Daya. For the sake of a man, she dared to murder three children. With such a cruel heart, she was still able to keep her life, which was already a break.

But people are never satisfied. The Zhou family's reputation in the past two years has been basically supported by these two children who married out. Now that neither of them comes, the Zhou family is cold and deserted, and there is no New Year atmosphere at all.

Compared to the deserted Zhou family, the Song family is much more lively. A group of human cubs can turn the world upside down. After Song Chunlin's last counseling, Song Chunxiao no longer rejects Dabao, but still doesn't talk to Dabao.

After the last incident of losing their child, the Song family no longer planned to let the children go out on the streets. They only allowed them to play outside the house. In order to prevent them from being bored, they specially spent a high price to purchase hundreds of lanterns so that they could enjoy the lanterns without leaving the house.

In addition to the lanterns, Song Chunlin also assigned them homework, and they could only go out to play after finishing it every day. At least this made these little guys stay at home obediently until the Lantern Festival.

As soon as the Lantern Festival was over, news came from the capital that there was finally news about the children who were sold. Someone had caught their buyers in Suzhou. The buyers could not stand the beating and easily confessed. The detectives who were investigating followed the clues and found several children who had been trafficked there. However, there was no news about Liu Liu among these children.

"Among the children they found, the youngest was seven years old, and there was no five-year-old girl."

"What about the others? They can't just have this one line, right?"

Gu Fengyue comforted him: "I have sent people to look for her. I believe we will get news about Liu Liu soon. Since we can find one buyer, we will definitely be able to find the next one."

"I hope so." Song Chunlin seemed a little depressed. In order to make him happy, Gu Fengyue even took him to a private flower-viewing banquet.

It was the first time for Song Chunlin to attend such a flower-viewing banquet. He was very curious about everything at the banquet. The banquet was initiated by Mrs. An Huaibo, who was also a boy. He was An Huaibo's second wife and had a son and a daughter. He was quite popular among the ladies.

There are not such strict regulations on the separation of men and women at Dajing's banquets, and it is very common for men and women to sit at the same table. Song Chunlin thought he was going to sit at his brother's table, but he didn't expect Gu Fengyue to pull him directly to sit next to him.

Knowing that he was confused, Gu Fengyue explained to him: "Here, it doesn't matter whether you are a man or a woman, only your status and position are important. Look at the opposite side, the young lady is also sitting with her fiancée."

Song Chunlin looked across and before he could find the young lady, someone outside said that Marquis An Huai's wife had arrived. Everyone else stood up and prepared to greet the wife, but Gu Fengyue and Song Chunlin did not move. Instead, they sat in their seats calmly. With their status and position, they did not need to greet the wife.

"No need to be polite, please take a seat." A clear and pleasant voice like an oriole was heard. Song Chunlin looked towards the door curiously, and saw a man in gorgeous clothes walking slowly towards him. His long hair was tied up, and he only wore a jade hair crown on his head, without any other accessories. At first glance, he looked very simple and elegant, but Song Chunlin could see that his hair crown was extraordinary. Just looking at the color, he knew it was not an ordinary item.

Mrs. An Huaibo looked in their direction, and seeing that Song Chunlin was curious about her face, she paused slightly and smiled at him politely.

"This must be the archer who protects the country that His Majesty praised so much. I have heard of your name for a long time. My son Yan Qing has been talking about you for a long time, saying that one day, he must compete with you."

Song Chunlin smiled back: "I don't deserve it, I just came here today to see the world."

Madam An Huaibo smiled brightly when she heard this: "It's good to see the world. We should ask Feng Yueduo to bring you out so that we can meet you. We can't just hear about you but never see you."

Gu Fengyue coughed lightly and said, "Cousin, please stop making fun of me. I will drink a glass as punishment."

Mrs. An Huaibo walked leisurely to the main seat and gestured to the servants, and someone immediately came up with wine glasses and delicious food.

The pastries on the table were removed and replaced with delicious dishes fresh from the pot, as well as some wine. Gu Fengyue didn't say anything empty-handed and picked up the wine glass and drank it in one gulp.

"Well, Da Sima is indeed a straightforward person."

Song Chunlin poked Gu Fengyue and asked him in a low voice: "Why didn't you tell me that he is your cousin?"

When talking about this, Gu Fengyue felt a little embarrassed: "Well, actually he is not a cousin, but a distant relative. He follows his aunt in calling me brother and cousin, and asked me to call him cousin too. In fact, we are not related by blood."

Song Chunlin was suspicious: "Then why do you have this expression?"

Gu Fengyue quickly glanced at Mrs. An Huaibo to make sure she hadn't noticed them, so she whispered to Song Chunlin, "You may not believe this, but he almost became my sister-in-law."

Oh my, shocking gossip!

Song Chunlin immediately became interested and kept asking Gu Fengyue: "Tell me quickly, what happened? You said it was almost successful, which means it didn't work out. Then why did he marry An Huaibo later?"

"It's a long story. My parents liked him very much back then, and told his mother to arrange a marriage between him and his brother. But after my parents passed away, the matter was left unresolved. But when I grew up, my brother was critically ill and he persuaded my brother to marry him for good luck. My brother refused. At that time, An Huaibo's wife died of complications during childbirth, so his father promised him to An Huaibo in order to win him over."

"Is that it?" Song Chunlin questioned. He always felt that things were not that simple, but Gu Fengyue refused to say anything and just asked him to be quiet and wait until the banquet was over.