Chapter 17

Finally, it was Liu Shufen who came out to drive away the group of female devils: "What are you making a fuss about so early in the morning? You all look pale and exhausted after just getting off work. Go back and catch up on your sleep instead of causing a commotion at my door...!"

This was met with a chorus of "Oh, Teacher Liu is out... Let's go back to sleep!" and they scattered like birds and beasts.

It seemed that most of them had been disciplined by Liu Shufen when they were in primary school. Satisfied, she turned to look at her son, also exclaiming in surprise: "Your pants... go wash them!" Isn't that what a teenager should be like?

The two little girls didn't think much of it. Shen Yinan even reached out her hand: "Brother... let's go wash them." She licked her lips: "Mom... said we should call you brother."

Bake thought about it and agreed, pointing at his sister: "Sit down, I have a few words to say to you." Shen Yinan looked at the water basin, wrung out a towel, and handed it to Bake.

Bake wiped his face roughly, then cleaned his pants and let his sister take them away. He sat down and turned to Shen Zhaonan, who looked timid: "Zhaonan, right? I need to explain something to you clearly, and I'll only say it once."

Bake felt that this sister was more introverted and was afraid she might be traumatized: "What happened yesterday, you have no responsibility at all. It's natural for girls to love beauty. You should have tried on the clothes your sister brought home. Your mother was very happy to help you comb your hair and wash your face. She also washed her face, and she really likes you. The bad people had already been watching you, and it has nothing to do with whether you changed clothes or not. They've already been caught by the police, do you understand?"

Mentioning her mother, the little girl's eyes immediately misted over, but she persisted in listening to Bake and nodded seriously: "Brother! Really?"

Bake, of course, wouldn't tell her that the human traffickers had parked their car at one end of the market and had clearly been searching for her all along: "Really. Your mother's actions to protect you were the most normal thing. So you must always remember what your mother looks like and live a happy life to honor the life she sacrificed for you!"

The little girl's lower lip turned white from biting it, but she didn't cry. This seemed a bit different from her sister: "I will avenge my mother!"

Bake wanted to laugh but held back: "Yes, that's good. Live well and make yourself strong and healthy. Eat more and exercise more, and then you can take revenge!" He didn't think there was anything wrong with planting the seeds of hatred. There were many such children in the war zone, and there were many ways to treat psychological trauma. Nothing was absolute, and it was the simplest thing to give such an orphaned child a belief. Bake himself was a mental patient, so it was already good that he could offer some comfort.

Shen Zhaonan nodded vigorously.

Bake stood up, very satisfied, and saw Shen Yinan peeking cautiously by the door: "After the hot weather passes, you two still need to go to school..." The sisters looked at each other, and before they could speak, Bake arranged: "Knowledge is power. At least finish high school. When did you last go to school?"

The little beggar sister answered for them: "Halfway through fourth grade..." Bake understood that the twins had been wandering with their mother for less than a year and had indeed suffered a lot.

Liu Shufen came out: "Yes! You still need to go to school. Follow me to register at the primary school. We don't need official enrollment, just listen in... as the children of our hometown relatives."

Then, Liu Changyuan, leaning on a cane, came out with a joyful expression: "Old Ji called and asked Zhi Ming to bring the household registration book and our ID cards to the police station to complete the procedures."

This was indeed good news. Liu Changyuan immediately decided to accompany his son, and Liu Shufen also wanted to go. The little girls, who were on summer break from primary school, couldn't be left alone, so they all went together.

After a while, the whole family came out and saw Liu Changyuan squatting under the eaves to avoid the scorching sun. He stood up and looked at Bake: "Brother, are we still going to buy groceries today?" He had been helping with the groceries for a few days, and although his hands-on skills were still limited, it was clear he was trying.

Liu Changyuan's family wasn't well-off. A young man in his early twenties should have been in college or working, but he had become pale and thin from staying at home and playing games in the internet cafe. Standing up in the bright sunlight, he seemed a bit dizzy and unsteady. The experienced Bake felt a bit too harsh and cold, so he counted out a thousand yuan and handed it over: "I'm going to the police station to handle the household registration. You go buy the groceries. Can you ride a bike?"

Liu Changyuan looked at the two little girls who had appeared behind Bake, his eyes fixed on them. But since he had never been trusted to do anything alone, he hesitated as he took the money: "What groceries? I can't ride... but there are tricycles at the market that can deliver." His eyes struggled to leave the identical faces.

Bake relaxed the restrictions: "Buy whatever you want. We have twenty pounds of beef and mutton left from yesterday. Try to think about what to buy. You've been watching me do it for the past few days."

The family of five got on a tricycle motorcycle. Liu Shufen leaned over the back of the truck and whispered: "Xiaoming, is it okay to give him a thousand yuan?" The little girls, one on each side, hugged her arms, finding this mode of transportation new and exciting, and their moods were noticeably better.

Bake shook his head indifferently. He finally felt that this motorcycle might not be suitable for his parents to ride. They were sweating profusely, and although they were satisfied, the dust kicked up by the passing cars made them all look dirty when they stopped at the police station.

The situation was even more obvious when they stopped at the police station. The old man at the gate blocked the tricycle with disgust: "No motorcycles allowed inside..." As a white BMW silently glided through the gate, the cold air from the open driver's window also carried a disdainful voice: "Pretending to be rich by riding a bike. It's these broken vehicles that cause pollution and waste fuel..."

Bake didn't care about the heat or the gossip, but his parents... his heart, which had no desire to make money, seemed to have a knot. As for the money in the savings account and the house, it was the living expenses he provided for his parents. He needed to think of a way to improve their lives.

Bake was very cautious about the violent nature of the police, so he had his mother wait outside with the two little girls while he went in with his father.

The railway police were a bit different from most local police stations, more like a security department of a company, so most of them knew each other. Liu Dacheng went in and greeted everyone, offering cigarettes, while Bake stood there awkwardly, feeling that all his years of fighting abroad had done nothing to improve his parents' living conditions.

But his awkward appearance made the police think he was honest.

Old Ji came over and called Bake: "We still need to go through the procedures and ask a few questions. Dacheng, wait outside for a moment."

Bake sat down in the office, and two older police officers and Old Ji took turns asking questions: "When did you go abroad to study?"

"2004."

"Which country and which school?"

"Ukraine, Kharkiv National University. I didn't enter a major, just studied Russian in a preparatory class..."

"Then what?"

"Then... I felt I wasn't learning much. After a year of struggling to understand, I stopped going to class and started traveling and doing small trades with other students in the former Soviet countries. I've been doing that for the past few years." The part about going abroad was true, but Bake's actual experiences in Ukraine were clearly different from what he described, though it sounded plausible given the low threshold for studying there.

The key question came: "How did you return to the country? We can't find any record of your entry."

Bake looked up blankly: "I just wandered around, unfamiliar with the area. I met some Chinese people doing business and was cheated... I helped them move goods in northern Xinjiang... Some checkpoints were not strictly controlled, and it was easy to enter and exit. I can't remember which year I was cheated and left penniless in northern Xinjiang, and I was too embarrassed to come back." Pretending to be pitiful was something Bake was good at.

One of the older police officers, who hadn't spoken much, looked at the documents: "Then you've been selling kebabs in northern Xinjiang?"

Bake's mind lit up, and he nodded in slight surprise: "How did you know?" He now understood what Fang Lingying meant by her cryptic comment yesterday.

Old Ji looked at his colleague and smiled: "Aren't you running a stall now?"

The older police officer waved the document: "A comrade vouched for you, saying you sold kebabs in northern Xinjiang and walked thousands of kilometers to return home."

Old Ji curiously took the document, and the older police officer didn't hide it: "Yesterday, when I and Old Liu went to the city bureau, we met this expert. I mentioned the situation with Old Ba's son, and she said she knew about it, so she wrote a guarantee at the city bureau."

The rest was simple. It wasn't that Fang Lingying's guarantee had much legal power, but the railway department, being an independent system, was more flexible with such matters as long as there was a reasonable explanation.

Bake inexplicably received his household registration and ID card, and he and his father were escorted out by Old Ji. Standing outside the police station, Liu Shufen happily took the household registration and ID card to look at it, and the two little girls, curious, pulled to see, reading the names carefully: "Ba, Zhi, Ming, brother's name!" Shen Yinan emphasized to her sister.

Shen Zhaonan, who didn't look as delicate as her appearance suggested: "You know fewer words than I do! Ba Dacheng, Liu Shufen, right!" It was just a stroke of luck.

Shen Yinan looked at the two characters "Shufen" and nodded admiringly: "Yes, you are a bit smarter." She made a familiar face at her sister, and Shen Zhaonan playfully responded.

Seeing the two innocent and elf-like children, Bake's mood brightened: "Let's go, we'll have a big meal for lunch today!"

Ba Dacheng was the first to clap: "Great! It's worth celebrating!"

Liu Shufen's clapping naturally made the two children laugh happily.

But Bake's eyes caught a pair of greedy eyes in the white BMW parked at the gate, staring at them.

He and his parents would never attract such eyes.

It could only be the two budding sisters.