While he and Teacher Yu were talking in the taxi’s back seat, they hadn’t noticed another car parked at the orphanage entrance.
Teacher Yu had been looking down, taking out her wallet to pay the fare. Hearing Meng Qing’s cry, she looked up and saw him being forcibly taken away. Forgetting about the fare, she rushed out and grabbed the foster father’s arm: “Let him go! You can’t take him!”
The foster father didn’t waste words, kicking her in the abdomen and sending her several meters away. Teacher Yu let out a muffled cry, curling up in pain on the ground.
Meng Qing cried out in panic: “Teacher Yu! Teacher Yu!”
But Teacher Yu didn’t have the strength to respond.
Adoptive father twisted Meng Qing’s arms, dragging him directly to the back of his car, opened the trunk, and lifted him like a small chicken, throwing him inside, forcefully closing the trunk lid, then driving away.
Meng Qing kicked desperately at the trunk lid, shouting loudly: “Let me out! You bastard! How dare you hit Teacher Yu! Let me out!”
But no matter how hoarse his voice became, the car continued to speed on, only stopping after a long time.
The trunk lock made a slight “click” sound. Meng Qing clenched his small fist, waiting. The moment the trunk lid opened, he lunged outward, simultaneously swinging his fist forward.
It was late at night, pitch black with nothing visible. His punch missed, and losing his balance, he tumbled out of the trunk, falling head-first awkwardly on the ground behind the car.
The adoptive father grabbed his collar, lifted him up, and dragged him about ten steps to the roadside, throwing him on the ground. Meng Qing had been dizzy from falling out of the trunk and still felt the world spinning, unsure of his location, only knowing they seemed to be in roadside bushes. Immediately, punches and kicks rained down on him.
The adoptive father beat him while cursing. Because of his escape and finding Teacher Yu to tell the truth, they were forced to leave the city and find another place to settle, suffering massive losses.
Meng Qing shouted: “Even if you beat me to death, I won’t help you! Just connect my computer to the internet, and I’ll expose everything about where you live and what you’ve done.”
The adoptive father became more enraged, “Let’s see if your bones are harder or my fists are.”
After that sentence, Meng Qing was silent, enduring the adoptive father’s beating until his consciousness gradually blurred.
—
When Meng Qing regained consciousness, he found himself lying in bed, with a woman in her thirties sitting beside him. Seeing him awake, she handed him a glass of water.
The warm water going down his throat made him realize how thirsty he was. Holding the straw, he drank the entire glass in one go. He then carefully looked around. An unfamiliar room, an unfamiliar caregiver.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The woman smiled softly, simply saying: “I’ll take care of you from now on.” She stood up and left the room, returning shortly with a steaming bowl of porridge. She scooped a spoonful, blew it cool, and fed him. The porridge contained chopped meat and smelled delicious.
Due to the pain from his torn lip and extreme hunger, Meng Qing swallowed the meat porridge almost without chewing. The woman promptly offered a second spoonful of porridge.
For over half a month, the woman carefully tended to him, never leaving his bedside until his wounds had mostly healed. However, no matter how Meng Qing asked who she was or where he was, she never answered. As his condition improved, Meng Qing tried to leave, but the door was locked, and the windows were sealed shut. The woman never went out, with food and water delivered twice daily.
One day, another stranger appeared in the room. Wearing all black, thin and pale, his expressionless face had terrifyingly cold eyes. He walked directly to Meng Qing’s side and placed a tablet computer in front of him.
Meng Qing looked up at him, coldly saying: “I won’t do that kind of thing anymore.”
The man in black laughed and left without saying anything.
For the next two days, Meng Qing didn’t eat anything, only receiving water. The gentle woman was replaced by two men who guarded him, eating various fragrant foods in front of the hungry nine-year-old boy.
By the third day, Meng Qing couldn’t hold out any longer. With one hand on his painfully empty stomach, he opened the tablet.
The two men exchanged a glance, and one took out a walkie-talkie, speaking softly.
Soon, the man in black arrived, looking at the surrendered boy and smiling: “Very good.”
—
Nine years passed.
Except for attempting to escape in the first year and being caught, Meng Qing never showed any intention of running away again, always cooperatively completing the “tasks” assigned by the man in black.
Working with Meng Qing was another young man in his twenties, nicknamed Spider. That month, all elderly pensions were reduced to one yuan, while welfare payments were increased a thousandfold. By the time the government discovered and stopped the prank, millions in welfare had been distributed to personal accounts, with hundreds of millions already spent.
When Spider first arrived, he looked down on Meng Qing. But after learning that the nationwide bank heist from years ago was Meng Qing’s doing, he was shocked, saying in disbelief: “You’re not even as old as me. How old were you then?”
Meng Qing twisted his mouth: “An age of innocence.”
Spider mentally calculated the years, murmuring: “My God…” Afterward, he became very respectful to Meng Qing, treating him almost like a senior. In the hacker world, age and seniority don’t matter, only technical skills and achievements.
The black-clothed man’s gang had committed several major crimes, making them targets of a high-reward police manhunt.
However, no matter how meticulously the police planned their operations, Meng Qing, with the help of Spider and other accomplices, always managed to learn the police’s movements in advance, helping the gang escape capture time and again. The black-clothed man gradually trusted him, occasionally revealing when drinking together that once he truly turned eighteen, he would make him the second-in-command. Because after turning eighteen, he would be fully responsible for his own crimes.
Meng Qing laughed and said, “I don’t even know my own birthday, or exactly when I’ll turn eighteen.”
The black-clothed man smiled and raised his glass, “Won’t you definitely be eighteen after this year passes?”
Every June 16th, Meng Qing would infiltrate the internal network of the North District Orphanage, leaving a greeting card, a song, or a short funny video on the computer used by Yu Laoshi, because this was her birthday.
He didn’t sign his name, but Yu Laoshi knew it was him. The first time she received the greeting card, she left a long letter on her computer, asking where he was, urging him to respond quickly and come find her.
She also left a bank account with money saved for him, saying it was there in case he escaped and needed to withdraw funds.
Meng Qing never replied or touched the account, not in any of the following years. He simply delivered his birthday gift punctually every June 16th.
Starting from the second year, Yu Laoshi would leave a long letter on June 15th each year, so he could see it when he infiltrated the next day, and continued to deposit money into that account.
In the early morning of June 16th in the eighth year, Meng Qing infiltrated the orphanage’s internal network but didn’t find Yu Laoshi’s usual letter on her computer. He left his gift but felt uneasy.
He searched her computer and found the last modified document was from half a month ago. He checked the local police accident records and hospital admission logs after that day, finding Yu Laoshi’s name in one hospital.
