Will You Come Back?

"Hurry up and search, split up and move." Xiao Zetian was clearly very aware of what was happening inside the house. His brow furrowed slightly beneath his mask. Su Lanxiang was Su Li's cousin, and he intended to rescue her before she was harmed.

"Yes, Master." Xiao Yun saw Xiao Zetian's figure disappear at the door and immediately turned to leave, but his wrist was caught by a pair of soft little hands.

"Take, take me with you... please..."

Xiao Yun turned back and saw the little girl kneeling on the bed, her hair disheveled, tears filling her eyes as she pleaded with him.

The little girl's head thudded repeatedly: "Big brother, please save me. If I stay, I'll be beaten to death..."

Xiao Yun looked at her pitiful state and felt no heart to bear it. Her hand was weak and limp, just holding onto him. With a little force, Xiao Yun could have shaken her off.

But somehow, he didn't want to shake off the hand of this little girl who had just suffered misfortune and calamity.

Especially when she looked at him, the light in her eyes was like a drowning person seeing the last straw.

So Xiao Yun gently crouched down and softly said to her, "Little sister, put your clothes on properly and wait for me here."

The little girl bit her lip, tears streaming down: "Will you come back? When my father sent me here, he also told me to wait, saying he'd buy me a candied hawthorn and then come back for me. But he... he never came back..."

"I will come back, I promise." Xiao Yun took off his black cloak and wrapped it around the little girl, gently pushing her hand away.

The little girl quietly watched his back disappear at the door, clutching the cloak tightly, fumbling to put on whatever clothes she could find, then returned to the bed, wrapped in the cloak, hugging her knees.

She was waiting for the big brother who saved her to come back, even if she would be disappointed again, she had to wait.

After the time it takes for an incense stick to burn down, Xiao Zetian and Xiao Yun had searched the entire place and found a dozen girls who had been trafficked. They interrogated the human traffickers and their accomplices about Su Lanxiang's whereabouts, but no one knew where she had been taken, so they were all killed.

Among these dozen trafficked girls, there was no sign of Su Lanxiang.

These little girls ranged in age from about five or six to eleven or twelve. Now, they huddled together, trembling, terrified and desperate as they looked at the two men before them.

Xiao Yun stepped forward and asked them, "Have any of you seen a tall girl brought in last night named Su Lanxiang?"

The little girls squeezed together, too scared to speak. A few braver ones shook their heads: "We were locked up as soon as we arrived. We don’t know anything."

To quickly find Su Lanxiang before she was harmed, they had to know exactly where she had been sent. With so many secret brothels in Qingmiao City, checking each one would take time. Or perhaps she was sent out of town—north, south, east, or west?

Although Xiao Zetian’s Shadow Guards were also investigating secretly, finding a little girl deliberately hidden in such a short time was still not easy.

Suddenly, Xiao Yun remembered there was one person he hadn’t questioned yet, so he quickly turned and walked into a room.

Inside the room, under a black cloak, was a small body wrapped up.

When the girl saw Xiao Yun enter, her eyes lit up with wild joy: he had come back; he hadn’t abandoned her like her father!