Chapter 116 - 83: Surprise Attack

Until...

1:00 PM.

Having rested, the three of them felt refreshed, their exhaustion completely gone.

At this moment, the trio was standing in the lobby, looking at the hotel’s front desk.

"Hello, how can I help you?"

The receptionist was a young woman. With a warm, professional smile, she looked at the three of them and asked her routine question.

After a moment of thought, Xu De said:

"Hello. I’d like to ask, are you a local from Yan’an City?"

The receptionist nodded, a hint of confusion on her face.

"I am... Is there something you need help with?"

Upon hearing this, Xu De nodded. He chose his words carefully before speaking:

"It’s like this. We’re family searchers, here to find the biological family of a girl who went missing."

"She ended up in an orphanage twelve years ago. Now, due to certain circumstances, her case has gone to court."

"She urgently needs her biological parents to provide proof of her age. The girl also misses her family dearly. We were so moved by her story that we volunteered to help find them."

"After extensive inquiries, we’ve determined that her hometown is Lianshan County, right here in Yan’an City."

’Family searchers?’

Hearing those two words,

Lin Yue and Wang Chao, standing beside him, felt their eyes twitch.

’We’re the plaintiff’s legal representatives... here to find her birth parents and prove she isn’t a minor...’

’I guess you could say we’re looking for Liu Jingqi’s birth parents, which is technically a ’family search’...’

’But our goal is to get her convicted!’

’How can you call *that* being ’family searchers’?!’

Wang Chao was floored. At the same time, he felt a profound respect for Xu De’s verbal artistry.

Sure enough.

"Family searchers?"

The receptionist looked moved, and her expression immediately turned serious.

She thought for a moment, then turned to her colleague at the computer.

"Lele, come here for a second."

The employee named Lele walked over, looking a bit puzzled. "What is it?"

The woman leaned in and whispered something to Lele, whose expression gradually grew serious as well.

Finally,

Lele walked up to Xu De, her face filled with admiration and emotion.

"Hello, sir. I’m actually from Lianshan County. If there’s anything you need to know, please feel free to ask me."

A smile on his face, Xu De accepted her respect without the slightest bit of modesty.

After a moment of thought, he said:

"My surname is Xu. I’m a lawyer. You can just call me Lawyer Xu."

"I’d like to ask... in Yan’an City, are there any organizations involved in anti-trafficking?"

"You know, the kind that gathers information on missing children and keeps records?"

This province was a hotspot for human trafficking.

There were many reasons for this. The primary one was the geography: the land was mostly mountainous with few plains. This led to an uneven population distribution, hindered development, and made travel difficult.

Compared to a major city on the plains like Yanjing, it was much harder to get caught here after abducting a child and making a quick getaway.

That’s why many traffickers from other regions congregated here.

With so many victims, you would think such an organization would exist in theory.

Lele considered this for a moment.

Then she shook her head. "No. Yan’an City isn’t very well-developed. Government funding is tight, so there’s no extra money to set up all sorts of organizations."

"However, as for information on trafficking victims..."

"You could try checking at the police station."

Then she added, "It would be helpful if you had a childhood photo of her... By the way, when did she go missing?"

"We have a photo."

Xu De nodded. As he took a cropped, laminated photo from his briefcase, he sighed and said:

"She went missing twelve years ago."

"It was around 1990, in a small village in Lianshan County. We don’t know which one, specifically."

"In any case, we’re in a real hurry."

"We’re desperate to find her birth parents as soon as possible!"

’Missing for twelve years?’

Hearing the first part of his statement gave Lele pause.

But the second half...

Lele was suddenly moved.

"Twelve years... To be honest, that’s a very long time."

Lele said, then looked down with a troubled expression at the blurry, thumb-sized photo in her hand.

"Besides, this photo is so blurry. You can vaguely make out a person’s face, but it’s impossible to discern any features."

"Even her own family probably wouldn’t recognize her from this photo, especially since she went missing twelve years ago."

Memories fade.

When a loved one passes away, the memory of them can become hazy in less than a decade. Even a clear photograph might not be enough to bring them back to mind.

Let alone a blurry one.

As for recognizing her from a current photo, twelve years later?

Let’s put it this way.

There’s a well-known story about a mix-up.

Two separate groups of people, each searching for lost family members, met and supported each other in their decade-long search.

And the result?

In the end, they discovered they were the very people each other was looking for.

That’s right. They couldn’t recognize each other standing face-to-face. How could anyone possibly find someone instantly with just a single photo?

"If you had a photo of her parents..."

"You could try the Lianshan County Women’s Federation. They should have records of them."

A child’s face changes a lot in twelve years.

But an adult’s face doesn’t change as much. They just get a bit older. The overall features are still easy to recognize.

Heck, if all else fails, you could take their photo and ask around from village to village.

But unfortunately...

"That... we don’t have."

Lin Yue paused, then sighed.

’If we had their photos, why would we be here asking strangers? We could’ve just contacted Huang Shi, had him get in touch with the local police, and asked them to pull the files!’