PROOFREAD BY AFREANA

Chapter 41.1

The journey went smoothly without accident, and no one ran out halfway to kidnap Liu Yin. An Ruochen was on guard for nothing. The last thing that happened was that Liu Yin was happy to eat candy and finally hugged An Ruochen’s neck and fell asleep on her shoulder.

An Ruochen carried the little girl into the Zhaofu Restaurant.

The back door of the Zhaofu Restaurant faced the side door of the Liu Residence, which An Ruochen knew about. Still, she did not take the child to the Liu Residence to find Zhao Jiahua but to the restaurant to let the shopkeeper inform them. She wanted to see Liu Ze’s reaction.

Liu Ze was not at the restaurant. But he came quickly with hurried steps, and looked nervous, followed closely by Zhao Jiahua with the same expression.

As soon as Zhao Jiahua saw Liu Yin, she pounced on her, ignoring that the child was sleeping. She hugged the child tightly in her arms, calling her name.

Liu Yin was disturbed by Zhao Jiahua’s rude action and woke up, rubbed her eyes, and called out sweetly, “Mother.”

Tears welled up in Zhao Jiahua’s eyes, and she pressed her face to the child’s face.

Liu Ze saw the situation and said: “Okay, okay. Now you can rest assured. We’ve found the child. Don’t worry.” He turned his head and instructed the steward to call back all the servants who had gone out to look for the child.

After a burst of excitement and chaos, the Liu couple remembered to invite An Ruochen to their residence to thank her for returning the child.

An Ruochen naturally did not hesitate to go with them.

When they arrived at the Liu Residence, Liu Ze ordered someone to serve tea and greeted An Ruochen politely. But Zhao Jiahua had the opposite attitude. She held the child and refused to let her go. She questioned An Ruochen about where she found Liu Yin and the situation around her.

An Ruochen answered frankly one by one.

Liu Yin was quite energetic now, pointing at An Ruochen and asking for candy. An Ruochen asked Chun Xiao to give the packet of candy to Zhao Jiahua.

Zhao Jiahua took a deep breath, as if she was holding back, took the candy and looked at it, then said coldly: “Ping’er and Granny Chen only turned to buy something, but in the blink of an eye, Yin’er was gone. I searched around and heard the shopkeeper say that someone was teasing the little child with the candy.”

An Ruochen unconsciously waggled her eyebrows as Big Long did, so was she implying that she sent someone to abduct Liu Yin?

An Ruochen also coldly replied: “When I saw your daughter, she was standing by the roadside with two pieces of candy in her hands. But there was no one else around.”

Zhao Jiahua stared at An Ruochen and held Liu Yin tightly without speaking.

Liu Ze furiously said, “I’ll kick out both Ping’er and Granny Chen. They took Yin’er out without permission and didn’t even take proper care of her. They didn’t find her in time and only cried. What’s the use of keeping them?”

Zhao Jiahua said, “How could they have expected someone would do something to the child?”

One singing and one echoing? An Ruochen joined in: “Why not report it to the authorities? The abduction of children is too evil. We can’t let the criminal go. The shopkeeper can be a witness.”

Liu Ze shook his head: “I asked the shopkeeper. People come and go outside his store. He can’t remember her appearance or even whether he saw her. He only remembered that she was a woman. Besides, he wasn’t sure that she abducted Yin’er. I sent people around to search for her, but they couldn’t find her. Fortunately, Miss An sent her back. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know what to do.”

“If anything happened to Yin’er, I wouldn’t want to live.” Zhao Jiahua’s eyes were wet with tears, and her delicate posture made people pity her.

The act was excellent. An Ruochen secretly thought that if Zhao Jiahua came from the brothel, she indeed learned some of the methods. She was about to cooperate and say comforting words, but Zhao Jiahua glared at her fiercely. She hugged the child while turning her head and walked away.

Weird.

An Ruochen couldn’t understand Zhao Jiahua’s mind at all. She let a child lure her in and then left. What was her intention?

Liu Ze looked embarrassed because of the rudeness of his wife. He apologized to An Ruochen and smiled bitterly, saying that his wife loved her daughter so much that she had lost her manners and then asking An Ruochen to forgive her.

An Ruochen politely replied.

According to the etiquette, it was not appropriate for her to be alone with Liu Ze in a room like this, but she did not want to leave just like that. She had to find something out. Then, she asked Liu Ze how come he let his servant take the child out? Is he not going to report it to the authorities?

Liu Ze said: “Yin’er wanted to go out to play after her nap, but my wife was not feeling well and wanted to lie down more, so she was lazy and let the maids take her out. I didn’t expect her to encounter such an incident. She blamed herself for the loss of her daughter. We have no evidence that someone abducted Yin’er, so it would be a joke to bring it to court. They would blame my wife for the loss and would not be good for the child. Now that we  found her, we will pay more attention.”

“Mr. Liu is right. Mr. Liu treats your wife with care and consideration, which is enviable. Where is your wife’s hometown? Her mother’s family is not from Zhonglan City, right?” An Ruochen deliberately probed.