The list Xu Huo provided contained many names, and these people couldn’t withstand scrutiny.
Using the psychology of the prisoner’s dilemma and exploiting the information gap to intimidate them, it was easy to extract a vast amount of desired information.
These people were hardly the tough, tight-lipped type.
It was a classic case of pulling up the radish and getting the mud along with it. One by one, they instantly spilled everything about everyone else involved.
During this time, there wasn’t a single police officer who didn’t want to get physical, but they were bound by regulations and couldn’t act.
However...
The regulations restricted them.
But they couldn’t restrict Xu Huo!
"Seven days should be enough to teach you a lesson."
On October 31st, inside a holding cell at the Linlan City Municipal Bureau, Qian Hua opened the door and spoke to Xu Huo.
Xu Huo wasn’t a police officer. Since he had rashly gotten into a fight with others, Qian Hua, after careful consideration, decided to place him in detention for seven days of "critical education."
According to Xu Huo...
He’d gotten physical, and the price for it was seven days in detention. That was reasonable. He didn’t want to break this rule.
It was the price to be paid. Every action has a corresponding price.
"What about the human traffickers?"
Xu Huo took a deep breath and walked out of the holding cell.
"They’re dead."
Qian Hua said with a sigh.
"Dead?"
Xu Huo paused, a look of confusion on his face.
"The chief and the others used the clues you provided to track down the gang that trafficked Han Shi all those years ago."
"It was much faster than we expected, and it just so happened they were right here in Linlan City."
"But this time, they weren’t here to sell. They were hunting for new prey."
Qian Hua slowly began to explain to Xu Huo how they had died.
To be honest, the police hadn’t expected them to end up dead either. But when they thought about what those traffickers had done, they felt a sense of relief.
"Yeah, they were trying to abduct someone in White Jade Village, here in Linlan City."
"Their target was a child. While the police were in the village asking around about their whereabouts, the villagers happened to witness the abduction in progress."
"After that, all the aunts and uncles, cousins, and second cousins—every single person who could—showed up."
Trafficking children from the countryside carries a significant risk.
This is especially true in villages named after a clan, where the entire community is basically one big family. If you go there rashly, the chances of being identified as a trafficker are very high.
And once you’re identified, what awaits you is a sound beating.
The kind where they beat you to death!
"The police at the scene couldn’t get involved. Three of the traffickers died right there."
Qian Hua sighed, a hint of mock regret in his voice:
"The other two were scalded and are in the internal medicine ward at the hospital."
Scalded, but not with boiling water.
With yellow millet rice!
That’s right, the kind you eat. It’s not some kind of slang.
The stuff is incredibly hot right after it’s cooked. They’d mold it into a ball by hand, quickly dip it in cold water, and then force the trafficker to swallow it.
At first, since the outside is cooled by the water, you don’t feel much. But once it hits the stomach, the heat trapped inside the rice ball scalds you from the inside out.
If left untreated, you’d be scalded to death!
"What a pity."
Xu Huo shook his head.
’It’s a pity two of them are still alive,’ Xu Huo thought. ’But on the other hand, it’s a good thing two are still alive.’
’If they were all dead... there would be no chance of finding all the people they’ve trafficked over the years.’
"But those two are only alive for now,"
Xu Huo said truthfully after a moment of thought.
"Yep. They’ll probably get the death penalty within a few months. After that, Linlan City will schedule their execution at lightspeed."
"I just wonder how many days they have left."
"Indeed."
Qian Hua didn’t object. He just nodded.
Given the crimes they’d committed, Linlan City was sure to sentence them to death.
Speaking of which, the sentencing for human traffickers has always been a point of contention.
On this topic... first, one must understand that there are three sentencing tiers for human traffickers.
Fixed-term imprisonment: five to ten years.
Life imprisonment: ten years to life.
The death penalty.
The fixed-term sentence can be understood as applying when the victims are not a specially protected group under the law, such as children, and the number of victims is less than three. In that case, the sentence is over five years. If it’s more than three, it’s considered serious and can result in life imprisonment. If the case is especially heinous, like Han Shi’s, then the trafficker gets the death penalty.
It doesn’t seem particularly harsh, and it doesn’t quite match the severity of the crime.
"Tsk, I wonder when they’ll change the law—change it to one that can actually stamp out human trafficking for good."
Qian Hua mused for a moment, shaking his head and sighing.
"These sons of bitches, it’s like their consciences were eaten by dogs!"
"Do you know what the two main schools of thought are on this issue right now?"
Xu Huo let out a long breath and began to speak.
Generally speaking, there are two main viewpoints on this issue.
One is to wait for society to develop, for civilization to advance, and to slowly endure this painful transitional period at the lowest possible cost. Proponents of this view believe the current sentencing guidelines should be maintained.
The second is the belief that traffickers must be completely eradicated. This involves creating a strict punishment system for everyone from the buyers to the sellers, such as an automatic death penalty for trafficking even a single person.
The authorities are currently following the first approach.
The development of a civilized society and an overall improvement in living standards will cause things like human trafficking to gradually decrease.
Advances in technology will shrink the space in which traffickers can operate. It’s a strategy of trading time for space, slowly erasing them from existence, but it will take a very long time.
As for the second approach...
It risks making a cornered dog leap over the wall.
That’s right. The fear is that they’ll become desperate.
Punishment only shrinks the market; it doesn’t eliminate it. Punishment raises the bar, it doesn’t level it.
If trafficking a single child meant an automatic death sentence, the market would shrink, but the price would increase. Risk and reward are relative; the market wouldn’t disappear. People would still take the risk.
Furthermore, if these traffickers are targeted by the police, facing certain death, the hostages in their hands would have almost no chance of survival. The number of hostages and children who would die in those situations would be beyond anyone’s imagination.
This approach could be seen as using some lives as a sacrifice to reduce the total number of trafficking victims.
Compared to the second approach, the first leads to a much larger market for trafficking, resulting in a huge number of people being abducted.
The second approach, however, looks very cost-effective: sacrificing some lives in exchange for the disappearance of a large part of the market.
But...
"It’s too heartless."
Xu Huo said slowly, looking at Qian Hua.
"’Very cost-effective.’ Applying those three words to human lives is just too heartless."
"If you can use ’cost-effective’ to describe it, then you’re no longer seeing human lives as lives, but as bargaining chips, as commodities. But to those people, it’s nothing but despair."
It’s just like Linlan City.
The allocation of resources led to deaths in the bombing case. From the perspective of those allocating the resources, they were doing it in a very ’cost-effective’ way.
But from the perspective of the victims, of those treated as an acceptable cost, like Song Si, it’s just tragic.
Lighter sentences might lead to a surge in victims, but at least fewer people would die.
But that raises another problem.
If we go with the first approach, the number of victims will surge... So, let’s assume that under the harsh-penalty system, a person who would *not* have become a victim is now abducted under the first, lighter-penalty system.
In that case, we are trading a ’large number of abductees’ for the ’guarantee of life.’ For those people who shouldn’t have been abducted in the first place, this is also a form of despair.
It’s like a scale.
You add a little to the left side, and the right side tips up. You add a little to the right, and the left side tips up.
Trying to get the scale to balance perfectly is nearly impossible.
That’s why both sides have been arguing for decades without reaching any conclusion.
The only way out is through technological advancement, like the emergence of surveillance cameras, which eliminated ninety percent of traffickers.
If, in the future, we have sci-fi tech like nanobots or brain-implanted chips that allow for satellite tracking, and if society becomes affluent enough, we could probably eradicate it completely—assuming the signals can’t be blocked.
"There are no perfect solutions in this world."
Xu Huo remarked with a sigh in the end.
At his words, Qian Hua fell into deep thought.
It was true. Both methods had clear disadvantages, and there was no suitable system that could eliminate those flaws.
He pondered for a moment and was about to say something when a commotion reached his ears.
"What’s going on?"
Qian Hua’s brow twitched. He waved over a Police Officer to ask.
"The people who killed the traffickers... they’re here to turn themselves in..."
The Police Officer said, looking pained. His expression was unnatural, very strange.
"Turning themselves in?" Qian Hua paused, a look of astonishment on his face.
"Let’s go take a look."
A look of interest appeared on Xu Huo’s face. He got up, dusted off his pants, and headed out.
Qian Hua hurried after him.
Where were the people who came to surrender?
In the main hall.
Generally, people who turn themselves in are resigned to their fate, and the police aren’t overly nervous unless they’re dealing with a serial killer.
So after cuffing them, the officers can usually chat a bit to ease the tension.
But now...
The police were panicking. The dozen or so officers in the hall were a mess, freaking out like crazy.
"Sir, sir, please don’t move. Just stay seated."
"I’m begging you, I really am. Please don’t move. I’ll arrange a car to take you home later..."
"What do you mean, take me home? I killed someone! I’m here to turn myself in..."
"Sir, please, just stop talking. I’m begging you..."
At that moment, in the service hall, Li Jianye was on the verge of a breakdown.
He was originally just responsible for making house calls, but he’d been temporarily roped into the investigation of the trafficking gang.
They’d just tracked them down, and then they turned up dead. Fine, so they’re dead. But he never, ever expected...
"Grandpa, I’ll find someone to take you home."
Li Jianye looked at the old man before him, who had to be at least eighty, if not ninety, and felt a headache coming on.
That’s right. Gathered in the hall were four or five old men, all in their eighties.
The old men were toothless, leaning on canes, their backs bent with age. They were mumbling something unintelligibly to the police, gesturing wildly.
"What is all this?"
Qian Hua’s eyebrow twitched as he pulled Li Jianye aside.
"What do you think is going on?"
Li Jianye’s face was flushed the color of liver.
"They’re turning themselves in!"
"Goddammit! They beat three traffickers to death. To keep their families out of trouble, the old folks came to confess. They’re outside the ’three generations’ rule, beyond the reach of the criminal law..."
Qian Hua paused, the corner of his mouth twitching. He pulled a few photos from his pocket.
The photos were of the traffickers, taken at the scene.
The traffickers were covered in blood, their bodies a mass of bruises from the beating. These able-bodied men in their thirties had been beaten to death.
Qian Hua looked up again.
He looked at the old men in front of him, who looked like they’d have trouble eating a bowl of noodles...
"We really did beat ’em to death! Why don’t you believe us!" one of the old men mumbled, his body trembling slightly. The young officers looked like they were one step away from getting on their knees and kowtowing to him.
After a great deal of pleading and cajoling, they finally managed to send the old men away—in a dedicated car, driven slowly and carefully.
Seeing this, Li Jianye wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. When he turned around, he saw Xu Huo enjoying the show.
In that moment, Li Jianye froze.
He couldn’t hold it in any longer.
"You bastard, Xu Huo, you motherf...!"
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