After nearly a month of searching, a few little girls resembling Li Yinwei were found, but when the Lin family eagerly went to identify them, none turned out to be her. During this time, several infuriating incidents occurred. Hearing that the family searching for Li Yinwei was wealthy, some unscrupulous individuals, hoping to secure a life of luxury, dressed themselves or their daughters to resemble Li Yinwei based on the posted portraits and came forward to claim kinship.
Some went even further, bribing the Lin family’s servants to learn not only Li Yinwei’s detailed appearance but also her habits, making their impersonations more convincing. However, while appearances could be faked, a few probing questions quickly exposed the fraud. Li Yinwei’s strong personality made it impossible for even the servants who had seen her to replicate her mannerisms as well as her own family could. Li Cuihong, furious, grabbed a rolling pin and chased the imposters away, giving Erlang a rare glimpse of his wife’s fiery temper. Surprisingly, Tongshi and Lin Zhongsi cheered her on.
As time passed, hope dwindled. Just when the Lin family was on the verge of giving up, a matchmaker arrived, claiming to know Li Yinwei’s whereabouts. The family was shocked—had Li Yinwei been abducted? They hurriedly brought the matchmaker inside.
Experienced in human trafficking and familiar with all sorts of people, the matchmaker immediately sensed the family’s suspicions and smiled reassuringly. “Greetings, elders, masters, and young ones. I haven’t seen your cousin myself, but I recently purchased two maids who recognized the portrait on the wall. They claim to have been your cousin’s attendants and know her whereabouts.”
Her attendants? The Lin family grew even more alarmed. If Li Yinwei’s maids had been sold, she herself might be in danger. They urged the matchmaker to bring the girls in. The moment the two maids entered, the family recognized them as Li Yinwei’s former servants. But instead of revealing their mistress’s fate, the girls knelt and tearfully begged for rescue, refusing to speak of Li Yinwei.
Realizing she had been tricked by the maids into hoping for a reward, the matchmaker quickly apologized and tried to take them away, but the Lin family wouldn’t allow it. Sensing something amiss, they sent the matchmaker away for tea and kept the maids.
Li Cuimei coldly ordered, “Take them to witness the punishment.”
“Witnessing the punishment” meant watching the Lin family’s servants being beaten. Those being punished were the ones who had leaked Li Yinwei’s details to outsiders, enabling fraudsters to impersonate her. Furious, Li Cuimei had interrogated all the servants, identified the traitors, and gathered them in the courtyard where they usually worked. Each received twenty strokes of the rod, with further penalties based on the severity of their betrayal.
Hearing the words “witness the punishment,” the two maids paled. They had expected the Lin family to desperately question them about Li Yinwei, giving them a chance to spin their tale and secure their stay. Instead, the family ignored their script, dragging them toward the punishment grounds without a single question.
Before they even arrived, distant screams and the sharp cracks of bamboo rods filled the air. The maids’ legs gave way. The bolder one protested that they were no longer Li family servants and the Lins had no right to punish them. The women dragging them ignored her, marching forward. When the maids resisted, the women gagged them with their own belts and carried them the rest of the way.
The Lin family was usually lenient with servants, rarely resorting to corporal punishment, but this time, their anger was real. Normally, those being beaten were gagged to avoid disturbing the masters, but today, the family ordered the beatings to be loud—specifically to intimidate the maids.
As the bold maid had pointed out, though they had once served the Li family, they were now sold to others. Even as in-laws, the Lins couldn’t legally punish them. Li Cuimei knew this, hence the theatrical display.
At the punishment site, the sight of bloodied, lacerated backsides was too much for the sheltered maids, who fainted on the spot. The women revived them with cold water, forced them to watch the entire ordeal, then dragged the terrified, nearly catatonic girls back to the main hall.
Li Cuimei asked icily, “Do you have anything to say now?”
Too traumatized to lie, the maids spilled everything.
As Lin Wu had guessed, on the way to the capital, Daping again brought up finding Li Yinwei a good marriage. Li Yinwei refused, and Daping snapped, “This isn’t up to you. In the village, it was just talk, but in the capital, we’ll live by capital ways.”
Seeing her mother’s resolve, Li Yinwei fell silent.
That night, the family stayed at an inn. Li Yinwei waited until everyone was asleep, gathered her belongings, and tried to slip away. But she made noise, waking the two maids. Fearing they’d alert the family, she took them along, claiming they were fleeing to her third aunt.
The trio headed toward Baishui Town but got caught in a refugee wave. Robbed of their money, they became genuine refugees. Human traffickers, spotting three vulnerable girls—especially the pretty Li Yinwei—targeted them. Noticing the maids were easier to manipulate, the traffickers focused on them first.
Li Yinwei, used to acting alone, often left her maids behind. Now, starving and manipulated by the traffickers, the maids feared she’d abandon them again. So they sold her first.
But Li Yinwei, wary of the traffickers, had already slipped away when she noticed the maids’ odd behavior. The traffickers, assuming all three were naive, only realized she was gone after securing the maids. Enraged, they kidnapped the maids and sold them through several hands until they reached the current matchmaker.
Raised in privilege, the maids had never known hardship. Suddenly thrust into the brutal world of trafficking—beaten, starved, and bullied by fellow captives—they suffered immensely.
One day, while being taken to a wealthy buyer, they spotted Li Yinwei’s portrait on a wall but stayed silent, hoping to be bought and return to their cushy lives, severing ties with her. But the buyer wanted laborers, and the delicate maids were passed over.
Returning unsold meant more abuse from the matchmaker. Desperate, they claimed to know the girl in the portrait, offering to lead the matchmaker to a reward.
Wary but tempted, the matchmaker took the gamble, only to realize she’d been duped.
Li Cuimei summoned the matchmaker to confirm the maids’ story. Asked where they’d been kidnapped, the maids—inexperienced and disoriented—couldn’t say.
Dalin rewarded the matchmaker and had her trace the sellers backward until they found the original trafficker, who revealed the abduction site. But the refugees had dispersed, leaving no trace of Li Yinwei. Local inquiries yielded nothing. She had vanished without a trace.
The trafficker was handed to the authorities, as were the treacherous maids, labeled as fugitive slaves of General Li’s household. They were later executed.
After the floods, refugees gradually returned home. Timely imperial aid brought food and funds to disaster-stricken areas. However, Liangping Town and its neighbors, deemed too low-lying, were declared uninhabitable. Their displaced residents were resettled nearby.
The imperial decree also stated that overcrowded refugee groups could be relocated to sparsely populated areas, where unclaimed land would be sold or leased to ensure stability. New villages would be tax- and corvée-exempt for three years, with priority for future benefits. Refugee children attending school—public or private—would pay half tuition for three years.
Authorities posted the decree’s general terms to reassure the public, omitting specifics with the vague note, “Details subject to official documentation.” Those familiar with such matters understood the unspoken implications at once.
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