Chapter 3

# Chapter 3

After those two disasters, we assumed the Liu family would finally leave us alone.

We were wrong.

The night before school resumed, my family was sitting on the sofa watching television. While flipping through the channels, we suddenly saw Zhang Hongyan.

It was our local station, an old-fashioned channel no one in our family usually watched.

My mother sat bolt upright. “Was that just—”

Everyone had seen her. After a quick exchange of looks, we switched back at once.

On the screen, Zhang Hongyan wailed herself hoarse, making a great show of grief without shedding a single tear.

“My child!” she cried. “My own daughter, lost for twelve years! Someone abducted her and refuses to give her back. Why is my life so bitter?”

Liu Fucai sat silently at her side, wearing a sorrowful expression.

The host looked moved as he addressed the camera. “Ms. Zhang says her three-year-old daughter was abducted. She only recently found the girl, but the kidnappers refuse to return her. Worse, they taught the child to claim that her parents abandoned her. What tragedy separated mother and daughter for twelve long years? Let’s hear Ms. Zhang’s story.”

Zhang Hongyan eagerly took the microphone. “When my daughter was three, I took her to an amusement park. I only stepped away to buy her some candied hawthorn, and when I came back, she was gone!”

“I’ve searched for her all these years, but I could never find her. A daughter is flesh torn from her mother’s body. I couldn’t eat or sleep. All I could think about was my child…”

Her performance had every dramatic flourish, and even the host was visibly affected.

My parents alone were livid. My mother, normally so refined, cursed aloud. “Shameless! How—how can she even say those things?”

Worried that the program would upset me, my parents swallowed their anger and asked my brother to take me to my room.

The next day, in the middle of class, my teacher called me to the office. A crowd had gathered inside, including reporters from the local station. The instant Zhang Hongyan saw me, she threw herself forward, crying.

“My child! My daughter! I’m your mother—your real mother!”

I froze, then dodged her in disgust. “I have a mother. Stay away from me!”

“You see?” Hatred flashed through Zhang Hongyan’s eyes as she shouted. “That family of kidnappers turned her against me. They’re keeping a mother from her daughter!”

I flew into a rage. “Who are you calling kidnappers? You threw me away because I was a girl. My mom found me and took me home. You’re lying!”

Everyone turned toward Zhang Hongyan. She faltered, and Liu Fucai spoke up beside her.

He looked at me with nauseating false tenderness and said softly, “Child, is that what they told you? We’re your biological parents. What parents in this world don’t love their child? Don’t let them deceive you.”

“That’s right,” even the host said disapprovingly. “You’re being terribly unreasonable, child. Parents are never at fault. How can you believe what kidnappers say? You’re treating criminals as your own father and mother.”

I was furious and argued with everything I had, but no one listened.

Zhang Hongyan drowned me out by shouting without pause. The office door stood open, and many students had gathered outside to watch. My face burned at her crude spectacle. I had never felt so humiliated.

They lectured and coaxed me for a long time, yet no one believed a word I said. I left in tears. When young Secretary Liu arrived to collect me, the sight terrified her, and she rushed me home.

My parents trembled with anger when they learned what had happened. They had never imagined the couple could be vicious enough to target a child directly.

Whatever strings the Lius had pulled, the interview aired almost immediately. News of it swept through our small city.

Then someone uploaded the footage to a short-video platform. The algorithm seized on it, and the story shot onto the trending list.

The video had been edited with calculated malice. Zhang Hongyan’s sobbing was contrasted with my supposed coldness, painting the Lius as pitiful parents robbed of their child.

Outraged viewers flooded the comments.

“Child traffickers deserve to die. Give them the death penalty!”

“Look how hard that mother is crying. If my child had been stolen for so many years, my heart would shatter.”

“The girl is awful too. So cold to her own mother. Giving birth to a piece of barbecue pork would have been better.”

“She must have been brainwashed. Of course the kidnappers would tell her that her real parents were bad if they wanted to keep her.”

We tried to explain beneath the video, but no one believed us. Our comments vanished without a ripple.

Someone leaked our home phone number. Every day, my parents received harassment calls and messages cursing us.

The office lines rang without rest. Business owners who did not know the truth even canceled their partnerships with my father. The scandal nearly destroyed our lives.

At first, we hoped interest would fade. The Liu family, however, had no intention of letting the story die. Again and again, they pushed it back into the spotlight.

They came to our home in triumph and demanded that I leave with them.

“She was our child to begin with. You shameless people stole her!” Zhang Hongyan said with a victorious smile.

“Hand her over, or I’ll make sure your names are ruined forever.”

My father’s face turned livid. “What complete bullshit! You abandoned An’an because she was a girl. Do you have no shame at all?”

Liu Fucai chuckled and lit a cigarette.

“Mr. Lu, none of that matters now. An’an is our child.”

“We failed her in the past, but that’s all right. We can make it up to her. Holding on to someone else’s child is hardly decent, is it?”

“Go to hell!” My father lunged, but my mother held him back. Pointing at Liu Fucai, she cursed, “Don’t think I don’t know what you want. If you plan to take An’an, you’ll have to step over my corpse.”

“Fine. You’ve got nerve.”

Liu Fucai gave her a mocking thumbs-up and spat on the ground.

“Let’s see how you die. When everyone spits on you, you’ll drown in it.”

Nothing new ever happened in our little city, so the scandal refused to fade.

People began blocking the entrance to my father’s company. Some sent funeral wreaths. Others stopped anyone going in or out and cursed them.

We approached the television crew to clarify the story, but they did not want to sacrifice their ratings and kept evading us.

We found witnesses and recorded explanatory videos. Viewers called every one of us liars and said we deserved to die.

The original program had become too popular. Everyone believed Zhang Hongyan.

Just as we were sinking into despair, a new video appeared online.

It was a conversation between Zhang Hongyan and Liu Fucai, apparently captured by their own home-security camera.

In the recording, the couple sat chatting on the sofa.

While filing her toenails, Zhang Hongyan complained impatiently, “That little beast really has something. Guess what? I hired someone to read her fortune. Her fate is extraordinarily auspicious. At home, she brings prosperity to her family. Once married, she blesses her husband. If she has no one else, she blesses herself. A fortune like hers is almost impossible to find.”

“What rotten luck that my son didn’t get that fate. That little beast stole his place…” She ground her teeth in hatred.

“If neither of us had become incapable of having children, why would we need her?”

Liu Fucai frowned. “Enough. What’s the point of saying that now? Think about how we’re going to get her back.”

“There really is something uncanny about her. Why did you have to throw her away? We could at least have kept her and collected a bride price.”

“Isn’t this better?” Zhang Hongyan shot him a glare. “We didn’t have to spend a cent raising her. We can take her back fully grown and make her serve us for the rest of her life to repay the debt.”

“The ungrateful little beast won’t even acknowledge her biological parents. She never stops to think that without us, she wouldn’t exist.”

“All right.” Liu Fucai stubbed out his cigarette. “I’ll take that host to dinner again. The greedy bastard still wants more money from us. Just wait. Once the program airs, I’ll report him.”

The image was crystal clear, capturing every expression on their faces. The story reversed itself yet again, and public interest exploded. It shot straight to the top of the trending list.

Kidnapping Scam.

Zhang Hongyan and Liu Fucai.

The Con-Artist Couple of Pingbei.

Viewers who realized they had been manipulated went mad with anger and returned to their keyboards.

“Damn, that couple really is shameless. It was a scam all along!”

“They threw her away because she was a girl, and now they want to stroll in and harvest the fruit after someone else raised her. I’ve truly seen everything.”

“Wait, doesn’t this count as child abandonment? I remember the adoptive parents saying the girl was only three when they left her outside in winter. Wasn’t that attempted murder?”

“I’m ashamed. I saw the family’s clarification video but thought they were lying and cursed them. I’m going to apologize right now…”

“Me too. Add one more apology.”

Internet sleuths soon uncovered the video’s origin: an appliance-repair shop.

The Liu family’s security system had broken and been sent there for repair. While fixing it, the owner casually opened a few recordings and happened upon that conversation.

He had watched Zhang Hongyan’s anguished missing-child appeal and had deeply sympathized with her. Seeing the couple’s true faces enraged him so much that he uploaded the footage.

His conduct was not entirely ethical, but the public applauded him.

Zhang Hongyan and Liu Fucai became notorious. Local viewers who had been fooled surrounded their house. Some splashed paint on the door; others threw manure.

I saw many videos recorded by users of the short-video app. In one, Zhang Hongyan rushed outside to argue, only for the crowd to drench her in manure.

Filth ran down her entire body. She screamed, then clamped her mouth shut in horror.

Local business owners united to boycott the Lius. Liu Fucai had just raised a sum of money from sympathetic donors and planned to rebuild his business, but now he was sued and ordered to return it.

He refused. Taking the money, he tried to flee in secret without even bringing Zhang Hongyan.

Perhaps he was rushing, or perhaps guilt had made him careless. He ran a red light while crossing the street and was struck by a car.

His remaining leg could not be saved. He was left bedridden.

Zhang Hongyan, who should have cared for him, flew into a rage when she learned that he had tried to run away with the money. She abandoned him alone in bed and left him to rot.

We thought their misery had reached its limit. Then an online viewer reported them to the police for abandoning a child.

Ordinarily, an offense committed so many years ago, without surveillance footage or other direct evidence, would have been difficult to prove.

But the scandal had grown too large, public emotion was running high, and the couple had confessed to everything in their own recorded words.

The police examined the old reports and discovered that after I disappeared, neither of them had ever contacted the authorities or searched for me. It had plainly been abandonment.

Many villagers could testify to the same facts. With both testimony and material evidence against them, neither could escape. Each received a three-year prison sentence.

The next time I saw the couple was at the trial. My parents brought me to the courthouse with them.

When Zhang Hongyan saw me, her eyes lit with desperate hope. “Little—An’an, I’m your mother, your real mother. Can you bear to watch me go to prison? An’an, say something!”

When I remained silent, her face twisted. “Have you gone mute? Speak! Tell them you were abducted. Say it!”

I answered coldly, “You were the one who abandoned me. Even now, you feel no remorse. You deserve to rot in prison.”

Zhang Hongyan erupted. “What did you say, you little beast? If I’d known you would curse me like this, I should have drowned you in the toilet the day you were born! I—”

“Order!” The judge frowned, and Zhang Hongyan reluctantly fell silent.

Beside her, Liu Fucai lowered his head. The swagger he had possessed after securing Zhang Xincheng’s deal was long gone. His face was gray, his expression lifeless.

He looked up at me as if he wanted to speak, but in the end, he said nothing.

Perhaps he knew that nothing he said would matter.

On the way home, my parents seemed worried about my feelings and kept trying to cheer me up.

“An’an, why don’t I take you to the amusement park?” My mother said, then instantly realized her mistake and corrected herself.

“Let’s go to the aquarium instead. Afterward, we’ll eat something delicious. How does that sound?”

I smiled brightly. “Sounds good.”

A little later, she studied my face and asked with great care, “An’an, do you think… I’m a good mother?”

Too much had happened. Too many opinions had flooded the internet and buzzed in my ears. Even my mother had begun to feel uncertain.

“Do you hate me?” she continued. “Do you think I’m cruel because I sent your biological parents to prison?”

I shook my head. “No. You are my biological mother.”

She stared at me. Complex emotion filled her eyes, then a smile tugged at her lips, and the worry slowly left her face.

“You little charmer.” Laughing, she tapped my forehead. “You always know what I want to hear.”

I laughed softly.

But I had told the truth.

The moment she wrapped her coat around me when I was three, she became my mother.

In that instant, the old ties of blood were severed, and a new bond of fate joined us.

To be born but not raised is a debt repaid with a severed finger; to be born and raised, with one’s life; but to be raised by one who did not give birth to you is a debt a hundred lifetimes cannot repay.

On that freezing street, a woman in her twenties had leaped from her bicycle, hurried over, and stripped off her coat for me.

From that moment on, I had a mother.