Atlas Studios

  Atlas Studios

  Who was Mi Nuo exactly?

  Zhuang Nainai walked out of the lounge, only to see Si Zhengting sitting ram-rod straight in his chair, his pen still in his hand. His gaze, however, was no longer on the document he was supposed to be looking at.

  Raising his head, he looked at Ji Chen.

  Ji Chen was giving his report. “The last time around, you said that Mi Nuo wasn’t so simple, so we got our private investigator to do a second round of checks on the mountain village. But after the private investigator finished his second round of questioning, everyone simply confirmed that Mi Nuo’s parents did have her and that she was given birth to.”


  At the mention of this, Ji Chen paused, then continued, “Also, we’ve found out a problem.”


  Si Zhengting narrowed his eyes.

  Zhuang Nainai was already out by now. “What problem?”


  Ji Chen turned around to look at Zhuang Nainai and nodded at her to acknowledge her presence. Turning back, he moved on. “We found out that Mi Nuo’s parents had abusive tendencies toward children.”


  Abusive tendencies toward children?

  Zhuang Nainai’s eyes narrowed.

  Perhaps due to the fact that she was pregnant, she was especially sensitive toward anything to do with children.

  And if Mi Nuo’s parents had abused children, then the child who had been abused…… was her?

  Zhuang Nainai’s eyes widened.

  Ji Chen continued speaking. “Whenever the people from the village spoke about her parents, they’d always talk about how vicious they were. It’s said that when Mi Nuo was a young child, they locked her up with chains when they had to go to work in order to stop her from running around and hurting herself. They also never made lunch for her, meaning that Mi Nuo had to go hungry and she was only given food by the neighbors when they heard her cries. Later on, when Mi Nuo went to primary school, they were still ambivalent about caring for her and regularly failed to pay her school fees on time. Her teacher, seeing how poor of a state she was in, decided to let her sit in for free. After that, however, her parents got their just desserts — when she was 10 years old, lightning struck their house and the house caught fire. That day, they had just punished her by making her sleep outside the house, meaning that she was therefore unhurt from the flames. Mi Nuo became an orphan from then on, and some people in the village helped her out here and there. Further down the road, the country’s interest in village children meant that eventually there was a charity organization from Beijing that went over to her village. They brought her out from the village and sent her to an orphanage where she then relied on the sponsorship from the organization to fund her education all the way into university.”


  The moment Ji Chen finished speaking, Zhuang Nainai and Si Zhengting fell silent for a while.

  For some reason, however, Zhuang Nainai felt as if this story was somewhat familiar……

  She turned toward Si Zhengting, who was now saying, “Have you checked the relationship between Mi Nuo and Li Yufeng?”


  Ji Chen nodded. “I have.”


  Zhuang Nainai raised her head instantly and looked at Ji Chen, agitated.

  Li Yufeng had once made Gu Xingshan take the rap in order to clear Mi Nuo’s name. So, what was Mi Nuo to her such that Li Yufeng was even willing to put her above her own daughter?

  Ji Chen replied, “We’ve found that the charity organization that sponsored Mi Nuo has been regularly receiving donations from the Gus, and their donations are quite generous. They stopped donating when Mi Nuo graduated from university and found a job, which was basically about two months ago.”


  Huh?

  At the mention of this, Zhuang Nainai became perplexed. “If they are only remotely related as you say, then this is a stretch.”


  Si Zhengting nodded in agreement. Looking toward Ji Chen, his voice was now cold with a hint of irritation and impatience as he said, “I want more answers than just this.”