At the thought of this, Auntie Ya shuddered. Afraid that Qi Huan would not believe her, she hurriedly continued explaining, “Young Master Qi, I’m not lying to you. I truly didn’t know he was your biological younger brother. My mother didn’t know either. If she had known that the infant was a young master of the Qi family, she wouldn’t have dared buy him and sell him to someone else, even if she’d had a hundred times more courage!”
At this moment, Jiang Youli toyed with the silver needles in her hand and said coldly, “So, according to you, as long as they weren’t Huanhuan’s biological younger brother, all those children your mother abducted deserved what happened to them?”
Auntie Ya’s body stiffened. “That’s not what I meant…”
Noticing the terrifying look in Jiang Youli’s eyes, she quickly changed the subject. “Young Master Qi, I spent a long time looking for the person who killed my mother and took your younger brother, but I never found him. That’s why I started working for Long Yuan. He promised to help me find the murderer who killed my mother!”
As she said this, she suddenly remembered why Long Yuan had given her a ten-million-yuan bonus yesterday.
Could it be because Long Yuan had discovered this secret?
Had he learned that the child she had been searching for all these years was Young Master Qi’s biological younger brother?
Qi Huan said expressionlessly, “Tell me everything you know about my younger brother from twenty-two years ago. Leave nothing out.”
Auntie Ya did not dare conceal anything and confessed everything.
“Twenty-two years ago, I had just become pregnant. My mother wanted to make more money to support me during my pregnancy, so she went back to her old business. That day, she received an order. Someone was willing to pay two hundred thousand yuan for a baby boy.”
“My mother was about to look for a suitable male infant when a man acting suspiciously—wearing a hat, a mask, and glasses—showed up at our door carrying a month-old baby boy. He said he wanted to sell his own son.”
“My mother was suspicious, but since the business had come to her, she figured there was no reason to turn it down. So she bought the baby for ten thousand yuan.”
“The next day, my mother was on her way to deliver the ‘goods’ to the buyer when she realized a car was following her.”
“My mother tried her best to shake the woman’s car, but the woman was unlucky and got into a car accident during the pursuit. Only then was my mother able to escape with the baby. After getting away, she called me and told me she was safe.”
“But who could have known that not long afterward, she called again and said she might be in danger. She told me that if anything happened to her, I wasn’t to avenge her.”
“Not long after that, I received the news that my mother’s body had been found by the roadside in the suburbs. Her face was completely disfigured, her internal organs had been crushed to pulp, and her head had been separated from her body. She had died horribly. The shock was too much for me, and I fainted. I also miscarried, and the damage to my body left me unable to have children for the rest of my life.”
Jiang Youli said coldly, “Your mother was human scum. The loss of your child and your inability to ever have children were nothing but karma.”
Auntie Ya was so terrified that she could not speak.
If this had happened in the past, she would have immediately argued back. In her eyes, those children’s lives had been worthless. If they had fallen into her mother’s hands and been sold, that was simply because they had been unlucky.
But now, she did not dare say a word.
She wanted to stay alive. She did not want to die, and she certainly did not want to suffer the same gruesome death as her mother!
Qi Huan stared at Auntie Ya without expression, his voice icy as he said, “What happened after that? Continue.”
Terrified by his gaze, Auntie Ya trembled from head to toe and stammered, “The baby boy my mother took also disappeared without a trace. After the police discovered that my mother was a human trafficker, the matter was eventually dropped, and they stopped investigating.”
“Young Master Qi, that is everything I know. I don’t know who took your younger brother. I’ve spent the past twenty-two years searching for him too, but I never found anything.” Auntie Ya anxiously studied Qi Huan’s expression. “Young Master Qi, can you let me go? Don’t worry, I absolutely won’t tell Long Yuan that I met you. I only worked for him because I wanted him to help me find someone. But now that I know it was all a misunderstanding, there’s no reason for me to continue working for him.”
“Does Long Yuan know that the person you were looking for is my biological younger brother?” Qi Huan asked.
Auntie Ya froze. She had wanted to conceal the truth, but when she met Qi Huan’s unfathomable gaze, she answered fearfully, “…He should know.”
She quickly explained, “But he probably only found out recently! When I called him yesterday to ask about it, he sounded very pleased. He even had someone give me ten million yuan as a bonus.”
“At the time, I had no idea what was going on. But thinking back on it now, Long Yuan must have learned that the person I was searching for was your younger brother, Young Master Qi…”
Qi Huan said nothing more.
So that was it.
Long Yuan had only just found out as well.
At this moment, Cheng Jing, who had been standing quietly to the side, spoke up. “Young Master, following Auntie Ya’s lead, I uncovered another secret.”
After a pause, he said grimly, “Auntie Ya’s so-called etiquette and socialite training academy is not as simple as it appears. On the surface, it trains women who want to climb the social ladder, helping them become more accomplished so they can get close to wealthy men. But the dealings behind the scenes are far more vile. Many of the girls are forced into transactions.”
It seemed that Auntie Ya was connected to the matter Ye Ying had investigated—Long Yuan was researching a kind of aphrodisiac drug and forcing innocent, beautiful women to use it.
Jiang Youli’s eyes turned icy. She looked toward Qi Huan and asked, “Huanhuan, I doubt we’ll be able to learn anything useful about your younger brother from Auntie Ya. What are you planning to do with her now?”
Qi Huan countered, “Little Li’er, are you asking because you want to deal with her yourself?”
Jiang Youli nodded. A look of determination flashed through her eyes. “Yes. I want to use her for drug testing. Someone like her is the perfect test subject.”
Since she was developing poisonous drugs, she had to test them.
In the past, she had used rats, but the results were ultimately not as reliable as testing directly on humans.
Now that there was such a vile person right in front of her—someone who deserved to be hacked into pieces—Auntie Ya was the perfect choice for testing her drugs.
Considering everything Auntie Ya’s mother had done, death would have been too merciful for her. And for the things Auntie Ya had secretly helped Long Yuan do, she deserved to suffer a fate worse than death!
Auntie Ya stared blankly. Drug testing? What did that mean?
“Drug testing?” Qi Huan was somewhat surprised by the suggestion, but he soon returned to his usual composure. “Fine. Leave her to you.”
Auntie Ya tried to beg for mercy, but Cheng Jing stuffed a cloth into her mouth before she could say anything.
“Assistant Cheng, please bring her to my car when I leave.”
“Understood.”
After Cheng Jing took Auntie Ya away, Jiang Youli asked, “The old trafficker was probably deliberately murdered. Perhaps your mother called emergency services before she died and managed to save your younger brother. Huanhuan, have you ever thought about who your mother might have called in the final moments of her life?”
Qi Huan thought for a moment before saying, “My maternal grandparents passed away when I was very young, and my mother was an only child with no brothers or sisters. So everything she accomplished was the result of her own hard work.”
“If there’s anyone who would go this far for my mother…” Qi Huan seemed to think of something. “It might be the man my mother once saved.”
Jiang Youli took Zhou Zerui’s profile from her bag and handed it to Qi Huan. “Huanhuan, if you’re free tomorrow, come with me to meet Zhou Zerui. I suspect he’s your biological younger brother.”
