But today, Gu Zhihan felt something was amiss; he had walked seven or eight meters away but hadn't heard the sound of Luo Mengmeng gasping for breath as she usually chased after him.
He couldn't help but frown, stopped in his tracks, and turned around to look—a vast emptiness loomed behind him; there was no sign of Luo Mengmeng.
Yet just moments ago, he had clearly seen Mengmeng following him out of the kindergarten's gate.
"Luo Mengmeng?"
Gu Zhihan stared at the crisscrossing alleys while retracing his steps and calling out her name loudly.
"..."
But the empty alley returned no familiar sound in response.
"Mengmeng!!!"
Gu Zhihan was suddenly overcome with a bad feeling and hurriedly quickened his pace, eventually breaking into a run, his palm clutching the backpack strap already slick with cold sweat.
Please, let nothing have gone wrong!
Meanwhile.
Luo Mengmeng had been about to follow Gu Zhihan, but suddenly a middle-aged man with a kind and friendly face briskly walked up to the entrance of the alley.
"Little girl, wait a minute, don't go." He smiled and waved at Luo Mengmeng.
"Uncle, are you calling me for something?" Luo Mengmeng stopped going after Gu Zhihan instinctively, lifted her little head, and looked at the strange man in front of her, asking in her childish voice.
"Here's the thing, I'm a friend of your parents." The man squatted in front of Luo Mengmeng, squeezing out a gentle smile, and said while stroking her head, "Your parents are visiting our house today, and they asked me to pick you up from the kindergarten on my way home from work."
"Really?"
Luo Mengmeng cupped her chin, her clear eyes twinkling as if pondering the truthfulness of his words.
Didn't her parents just leave for work out of town yesterday? How could they suddenly be back? And why would they be visiting this uncle's house?
"Of course, so come with uncle quickly; otherwise, your parents will become anxious waiting," the middle-aged man said, his smile warm and coaxing in a soothing voice.
In that era, the means used by human traffickers to abduct children were still very rudimentary, mostly impersonating a child's parents' friend to lure the child away.
Yet, it was precisely such simplistic tricks that could easily deceive young children.
Unfortunately for the trafficker, Luo Meng met with someone who did not play by the rules.
"But I don't want to find my parents; I just want to find my husband…"
Luo Mengmeng paid no mind to how her parents had suddenly come back from out of town and after organizing her words, she waved at the trafficker, saying, "You can let my parents enjoy themselves at your house; I'm going to find my husband now! Uncle, bye-bye!"
After finishing her words, Luo Mengmeng turned around and prepared to run into the alley.
The trafficker hadn't expected to encounter a child who cared not for her parents but instead for some ridiculous husband. Caught completely off guard, he froze on the spot for a few seconds, internally screaming in frustration wondering why she wasn't following the script!
After a moment, he finally snapped out of it, seeing that there was no one around, he grew more emboldened, a cold smile appeared on his face as he took long strides towards Luo Mengmeng, grabbing her, "You little brat, you dare run away!"
Cursing under his breath, the trafficker scooped up the small and short Mengmeng and hoisted her onto his shoulder.
"Ah!"
Luo Mengmeng was suddenly lifted into the air, screaming in terror, and also realized that this seemingly kind man was not any friend of her parents at all, but rather a villain. "Bad guy, you're a bad guy, let me go, let go!!!"