Rebirth: He Decides to Lie Flat
Chapter 209 - 209 206 Door God

Chapter 209: Chapter 206 Door God Chapter 209: Chapter 206 Door God Xu Qian’s background was easy to investigate. With a single phone call, Shen Zhi had all the details clarified shortly.

Fourteen years ago, Xu Qian’s adoptive father came to the old city district to pick up some goods. He arrived a day early to celebrate a business partner’s son’s wedding and to have a drink at the celebration. The small truck he used for hauling goods was parked at the entrance of the alley. After the wedding feast the night before, he loaded up the goods the next day and left.

He had two other stops to deliver pre-ordered goods before heading home. Upon unloading the truck at home, he discovered a little girl lying inside a wooden crate at the very back of the vehicle.

After being jostled about all day, it was unclear whether the little girl had fainted from hunger or from the injury on her head. In any case, she was taken to the hospital and remained unconscious for two days before she awoke.

When she regained consciousness, all she did was cry for her mother.

When asked where she got on the vehicle, she didn’t know. Her adoptive father was in a dilemma, he had passed through many places that day; was he supposed to go back and search each one?

In the end, it was his wife who reminded him to go to the police, mainly fearing that the child’s parents would panic and report her missing, which would increase the chances of locating her parents.

The couple took Xu Qian to the police station and registered all the places they had been through that day. But when they returned to the station ten days later, Xu Qian was still there, and her family had not been found.

At that time, the police were somewhat troubled not knowing how to arrange for Xu Qian. Sending her to an orphanage seemed wrong because she claimed she had a mother and also mentioned having a sister, yet no one could be found when they tried to search.

After discussing it, the Xu couple decided to go through the adoption process and brought Xu Qian home with them.

After all, they had only one son, and having another daughter seemed perfect.

So compared to Song Jiawen, Xu Qian was still fortunate, because her adoptive parents really were good to her.

…

Zhou Youming hadn’t expected to uncover this during his visit.

He called Jiang Yan and said he had met a girl who could very well be the little girl who had escaped with Jiajia back in the day.

Of course, it was just a possibility, not a certainty.

After all, this girl’s memory was a bit poor compared to Song Jiawen’s, even somewhat chaotic.

The most important thing was, she hadn’t witnessed her mother being killed.

“Mom told us to run fast and not to look back, so I just kept running, never looking back…”

Tears welled up in Xu Qian’s eyes. She was six years old at the time and remembered initially being taken by her mother along with her sister to find their father, then inexplicably ending up in a vehicle, after which her sister disappeared, and later, she and her mother were locked in a small room.

At first, it was just her mother and her in the room, but later several other children were brought in, among whom was a particularly pretty little sister.

Over a decade had passed, and Xu Qian’s memories of her mother had become blurry, yet the memory of her and a little sister stumbling through the dark alleys, squeezing through dog holes, then getting up and running again, with the relentless harsh shouting in their ears, was vivid… In the middle of the night, she would often sit up in bed drenched in sweat, clutching her head, desperately trying to recall, where exactly was her mother?

“After I grew up, I visited every place my dad had passed the day he found me, but only this place felt somewhat familiar. So, I applied to a university in Yunzhou and would come here whenever I had time, just walking around trying to recapture that feeling from back then, to see if I could find the courtyard where we were confined.”

“Didn’t find it?”

Xu Qian shook her head with a bitter smile, “It’s been too long; the memories are all blurry. I can’t even remember what my mother looked like exactly.”

Zhou Youming asked, “When your adoptive parents took you to the police station back then, did you tell them about this situation?”

“Of course I did,” Xu Qian said anxiously, “I was afraid those bad people would hurt my mom, so as soon as I saw the police officers, I told them. But because I couldn’t remember the place clearly, they searched for a few days and couldn’t find it, and then they just gave up.”

The police resources are limited, and there’s nothing we can do about that.

Zhou Youming asked Shen Zhi, “If she reports the case, is it possible to file it?”

Shen Zhi frowned and shook his head. “Without direct evidence and given that the incident happened so many years ago, it’s very difficult.”

Zhou Youming sighed, “Alright, since we’re here, let’s take a look around.”

He turned to Xu Qian, “Do you want to come with us?”

Xu Qian looked at him and asked, “The little sister, where is she?”

Zhou Youming raised his eyebrows; he was quite sharp. He hadn’t mentioned Jiajia, yet she had guessed right away.

He didn’t answer her question but turned to walk with Shen Zhi to the fork of the alley ahead.

Footsteps came from behind; Xu Qian had followed them.

The three of them walked and stopped intermittently, occasionally checking the dog holes at the corner of the wall to see if Xu Qian felt any familiarity.

Xu Qian sighed, “Gentlemen, I already told you, I’ve been down here no less than thirty times. If there was anything familiar, I would’ve noticed it by now. Why bother wasting any more time?”

Shen Zhi turned and pointed back at the way they came, “We followed alleys with these kinds of small holes all the way here, and within a one-kilometer radius around this area, we’ve almost made a half-circle, heading towards…”

He turned and pointed straight ahead where the alley ended at two houses. One of them had a metal gatekeeper statue at its door, and diagonally across from it, another house was closed tightly, but not locked. The black paint on the wooden door was almost entirely peeled off to reveal its original wooden color.

What didn’t match the worn and mottled wooden door were the brand-new door gods pasted on both sides of it, their bright red color and fierce faces being highly conspicuous in this old alley.

“Do you know who lives here?”

Every year during demolitions, Shen Zhi would encounter some stubborn holdouts, so it was not surprising to him.

Xu Qian had visited this place more than thirty times, and she had seen the old lady at the entrance of the alley, but she had never encountered anyone from this house.

“The old granny at the front of the alley once warned me not to come here. She said that the old granny who lived here was crazy and would bite people. That granny hasn’t moved out because she’s the only one in her family; it’s not that she disagrees with the demolition compensation, but because she has nowhere else to go. But this granny,” Xu Qian continued, relaying what the other granny had said, “she outright refuses to move, saying she’s waiting for her son.”

“Waiting for her son? Do you know what her son went off to do?”

Xu Qian shook her head, “I don’t know. The old granny said her son used to be a good-for-nothing. Many years ago, he said he was going out to make a fortune and then never returned.”

Zhou Youming turned his head and asked Shen Zhi, “Should we check on her son?”

Shen Zhi nodded, “Let me see what the address is.”

Shen Zhi strode towards that house, with Zhou Youming and Xu Qian following behind. However, when they passed by the house diagonally opposite it, Xu Qian suddenly stopped.

Zhou Youming turned around to look, and saw the young girl staring intently at a stone lion statue, which was crookedly leaning against the corner next to the door.

Usually, if a house has a stone lion at the entrance, they typically display two, one on each side. It is indeed rare to see a single lion, and one that is missing a nose and an eye to boot.

This was enough to suggest that the household had moved away years ago and hadn’t returned since. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have let the stone lion fall into such disrepair without doing something about it.