Chapter 49: Mistakenly Entering the Forest

【This woman is obviously lying. Why is she pretending to be a guest?】

【Hasn’t anyone noticed something’s off with this woman? Damn it, can’t this live stream be real-time so the guests can see the chat too?】

【I’m so worried. What do we do? We have to spot her flaw.】

Xiao Fen looked at her. “When’s your task?”

“Today.”

“What task?”

“Trafficking a kid.” Tang Qin Xin pointed to a two-story building with a concrete exterior wall not far away. “That household right there.”

After asking these questions, Xiao Fen said nothing more.

【It’s over. Even Brother Fen didn’t spot how suspicious this woman is.】

【What do we do? I’m so anxious. She’s really not an accomplice, right?】

【From my analysis, she must be someone the pursuit team planted. As the saying goes, take someone else’s path and leave them no way forward. If the pursuit team commits the crime first, the criminal team has no crime left to commit, and their task naturally fails.】

【Can it work like that? I’m not well-read; don’t fool me.】

【This theory makes so much sense. Last night, Brother Fen posted the task details in the fake group. The pursuit team analyzed it for so long; they must have come up with this brilliant idea. This is going to be good.】

【Plus, this fake criminal can infiltrate the criminal team and keep feeding info back to the pursuit team from now on.】

【That’s terrifying. I’m already worried for Brother Fen and the criminal team.】

“You seem like a local,” Ou Yu asked. He had just heard her speak fluent local Tengcha dialect.

“The program crew didn’t say locals can’t participate.” Tang Qin Xin smiled. “I even recommended this location for the show.”

Ou Yu exclaimed, “The program crew is ruthless. Regular vice squad officers would focus on out-of-town tourists visiting the town. Who knew there’d be a local among the criminals? How’s the pursuit team supposed to track us now?”

Xiao Fen said darkly, “Does this program crew have a grudge against the pursuit team? They’re targeting them so hard.”

“I’m just here to participate, not make the show,” Lu Jin said with a “none of my business” look on his face.

“Thanks for coming to help me. I’ll lure the kid out. If anything happens, I hope you’ll tip me off.” Tang Qin Xin went to a roadside shop and bought a bunch of snacks, then headed toward that household.

The sky was clear for miles, with the sun high overhead.

The three men took shade under a locust tree not far away. Less than ten minutes later, they saw Tang Qin Xin emerge from the house, leading a little boy by the hand.

“That was easy?” Ou Yu pinched the little kid’s cheek and smiled gently. “Little brother, you can’t do that. You got tricked with just some snacks. Your parents must be so worried now that you’re gone.”

“Auntie said you know where my sister is.”

Only then did Xiao Fen and the others learn from him that his sister had been trafficked not long ago.

“If the program crew didn’t tell the parents ahead of time, that’s really not cool,” Ou Yu sighed.

“The program crew should know when to draw the line,” Xiao Fen laughed. “Don’t worry, bro.”

They should have learned their lesson from Wang Guozhi’s incident last time.

“Will you really help me find my sister?” the little kid asked.

Tang Qin Xin gave him a piece of candy and smiled. “Of course. Your sister’s living a good life in town. We’ll go find her now.”

The little kid didn’t take the candy. He just quietly watched them.

That gaze held a maturity and steadiness beyond his years.

“Let’s go. We’ll take him to town first and figure it out after these two weeks are up,” Xiao Fen said.

The trafficking task for the kid required hiding him until the end. Getting him out of the village was just the beginning.

The village was quiet in the afternoon, with most people still out in the fields working. They cautiously headed toward the village entrance when Ou Yu suddenly stopped.

“Those people are vice squad officers.” Ou Yu pointed to a young man selling grilled sausages at the village entrance and an old lady picking beans under a tree nearby.

“How do you know?” Lu Jin asked, puzzled.

“They tracked me and Xiao Fen in the urban village before.”

His sense of smell was many times sharper than normal people’s. It hadn’t come into play much in the first episode, but in the second, when he saw the same people again—even if he couldn’t remember their faces or they were heavily disguised—he could identify them by scent.

Hearing this, Xiao Fen looked over from afar and said, “You’re right. The pursuit team is tracking us.”

And not just those two—several more lurked in the shadows, watching them.

“I know a small path. We can take that back to town,” Tang Qin Xin said.

They passed through the village again. Shouts of panic came from the little kid’s house as Fang Si Ting and Bai Zhu took statements from the family.

They had indeed caught up.

Xiao Fen sized up the number of vice squad officers—dozens of them. They had mobilized extra today. Did Fang Si Ting think this task was his?

As he followed Tang Qin Xin, he asked the criminal handling today’s arson task if they had started and how many vice squad officers were around.

“With me on the job, relax. That kind of small thing is a piece of cake,” the criminal said. “But it was weird. I saw a ton of vice squad officers in town today. Good thing the smoke was hidden well; I hit the required level before they found it.”

Xiao Fen found it odd. He asked the criminal in Lakeside Village. To verify authenticity today, he had specifically asked someone from the group to check if the pursuit team had gone there.

Everyone was in it together. Acting as a group was too conspicuous, but they helped each other privately when they could.

The report from Lakeside Village: no one there.

But soon after, Xiao Fen got word that quite a few pursuit team undercover officers were wandering near the village, very discreetly. He hadn’t noticed them before.

This shook the conclusion Xiao Fen had just reached, leaving him puzzled.

He had wanted to mislead Fang Si Ting and score more points, but after thinking it over, he couldn’t figure out what Fang Si Ting was up to. In the end, he decided to play it by ear.

By the time he looked up, they were already deep in a rarely traveled mountain forest.

“How much farther to town?” Xiao Fen asked.

“Not far. Almost there.”

A weird smile tugged at Tang Qin Xin’s lips—one so fleeting Xiao Fen thought he imagined it.

“Why are you leading us into the forest?” Lu Jin was a bit unhappy too. His gym-built sturdy frame couldn’t handle trekking this far on mountain paths.

“It’s the best route to avoid the vice squad officers,” Tang Qin Xin said.

The mountain path grew darker and darker until they could barely make out faces a meter away.

Ou Yu checked the time: only 2 p.m., yet it was as dim as night here.

It felt like they had entered another world.

The surrounding woods were incredibly dense. Massive tree canopies spread like giant umbrellas, interlocking and overlapping with others.

A black mist gradually permeated the forest, making the already dim visibility even murkier.

None of them had ever entered a forest like this before. Their faces grew tense as they proceeded with caution.

Unnoticed by the others, one person slowly fell to the back of the group.

【It’s so dark here. Is this a place humans can enter?】

【The camera can’t see clearly, fine, but why aren’t they saying anything? I zoomed in on my living room screen; it feels like I’m walking with them. Say something, guys. I’m scared.】

【One, two, three, four… Why do I feel like someone’s missing? Let me check other streams.】

Just as the audience noticed something off, the camera began shaking violently.

That happened when a guest moved quickly, forcing the camera to dart and reposition frantically to keep their face in frame.

【Holy shit, what’s going on? What happened?】

【Brothers, don’t scare me!】

A few seconds later, Lu Jin grabbed the little kid’s hand and yanked the dagger from it.

“Little kid, learning to kill at your age? Not good.”

“Let me go!” The little kid twisted wildly, trying to break free from Lu Jin’s grip.

“You bad guys, give me back my sister!”

“What’s wrong with you, kid? With that little strength, you think you can take down the bad guys? Don’t you know if you really fell into their hands, you’d lose your life?”

“I don’t care. You all traffickers deserve to die!” Hatred burst from the little kid’s eyes.

“We’re not real traffickers. It’s fake, got it? Just acting, for TV,” Lu Jin said as he twisted the little kid’s arms behind his back. “As for your sister, tell me the details. I’ll help post about it online later and see if anyone has leads.”

The little kid started crying from fear of Lu Jin but glared at him with a mix of hatred and terror, not believing a word.

Rustling came from the bushes, drawing closer. Xiao Fen, Ou Yu, and Tang Qin Xin turned on their flashlights. The dim beams lit up two or three meters around them, but the rustling continued.

“Let’s move,” Xiao Fen said.

Tang Qin Xin said guiltily, “I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to avoid those vice squad officers.”

“Now’s not the time for that,” Xiao Fen said gravely. “Priority is getting out of here fast. The longer we stay, the more panic sets in, and we scare ourselves.”

Tang Qin Xin nodded quickly and led the way with her phone’s flashlight.

Lu Jin kept a firm grip on the little kid, refusing to let go.

“Let me go!”

“Let you go now, and you’ll bolt. Where am I supposed to find another kid to replace you for your parents?”

Seeing Lu Jin’s fierce expression, Ou Yu told him to ease up and comforted the little kid. “We’re not bad guys. We were just testing if you’d go off with traffickers. Test’s over. We’ll take you home now.”

“You said earlier we’d go to town and lock me up,” the little kid said, not falling for it.

“That’s because you failed the test. Your parents must be frantic. They already lost a daughter; now they’re about to lose their son too.” Lu Jin said, “You’re just a kid being reckless, overestimating your abilities to avenge your sister. You’ve gotten yourself in trouble and dragged your parents down too.”

The little kid burst into louder wails.

Ou Yu waved his hand aside. “Is that how you comfort a kid? Let me.”

Lu Jin awkwardly rubbed his nose. “I’m just stating facts.”

Losing one daughter was tragic enough. Now the son was yapping about revenge and got lured away on that pretext—what a blow to the parents.

This kid needed some proper education. Good intentions, sure, but know your limits.

The little kid sobbed on as crow caws echoed sporadically from nearby branches, making the atmosphere oppressive.

They kept walking, grass scraping against their ankles and shins with faint whispers.

Not far in, Tang Qin Xin suddenly stopped. Her teeth chattered as she turned back. Under the phone light, her eyes bulged wide, her face drenched in sweat and ghastly pale.

The others jumped at her appearance.

“Didn’t… didn’t you notice…?”

“Notice what?”

Tang Qin Xin turned off her phone light.

The area around her darkened instantly.

A translucent, hazy human silhouette gradually emerged from the bushes a short distance behind her.

Head down, walking.