Chapter 6 — The Flight of No Return

Just like my father, his first reaction was fierce opposition.

That place is far too dangerous.

Yet I remained steadfast.

It is precisely because it is dangerous, precisely because so many innocent souls are trapped within its clutches, that I must go. Uncle Liu, I trust our people, I trust the law enforcement. With their backing as my shield, I will surely come to no harm. This is one of the very few glimmers of hope we have left.

He parted his lips to argue further, but my voice choked with emotion.

Uncle Liu. This is one of the few remaining beacons of hope that can allow those living in absolute hell to finally witness the light.

He fell silent. At last, he yielded to my plan, coordinating directly with the regional authorities. A joint operation was swiftly established, deploying a substantial force of armed police officers to provide covert backup. They equipped me with advanced tactical gear, and the moment I boarded the flight alongside Phong, a tiny, discreet earpiece maintained an unbroken line of communication. A shadow guard followed closely behind my steps until we reached the foot of the mountain, where the distance widened to avoid detection under the heavy canopy.

Guided entirely by my steps, the armed units seamlessly infiltrated the remote village, marking coordinates for the reinforcements that followed in waves. Law enforcement swarmed the settlement, locking down the surrounding hamlets and completely neutralizing Phong's native village. The operation was executed with breathtaking speed and unprecedented scale. In the aftermath, every single mountainous settlement in the region underwent a rigorous, sweeping investigation. Tens of thousands of officers were mobilized to scour the terrain in a meticulous, blanket search, leaving no hidden sanctuary unchecked.

Dozen upon dozen of other captive women were successively unearthed and rescued from their living nightmares. When the staggering final tally reached my parents' ears, their expressions drained of all color, contorted in utter horror.

My mother trembled violently, gasping for breath. Good god... This is beyond terrifying. Can the creatures dwelling in that village truly be considered human?

Father turned his gaze toward me, his eyes brimming with profound pride and gratitude.

Little Xiu, we truly owe this victory entirely to you.

I shook my head, exhaling a long, shuddering breath of relief.

Following his arrest, realizing that the authorities were firmly resolved to uproot the criminal network down to its very foundation, Phong cracked and confessed almost immediately. Yet, true to his cowardly nature, he desperately tried to whitewash his culpability. He claimed he had been coerced by the oppressive moral shackles of his fellow villagers into committing such atrocities. He reminded them that his escape from the impoverished mountain to attend high school in the county seat, and eventually university in the capital, had been funded entirely by pooled contributions from every single household in the village. He was the sole individual from his generation to pass the rigorous university entrance examinations, but the exorbitant tuition fees were a mountain his destitute family could never scale alone. The villagers had financed his dreams, and in exchange, they used that heavy debt of gratitude as a leash to command his obedience.

His parents echoed his claims, weeping that he had finally graduated from a prestigious institution and secured a respectable, dignified career in the city. Yet back in the village, countless young men of his age remained uneducated, impoverished, and utterly unable to secure wives. The families of those men had sacrificed their hard-earned pennies to put him through school, cementing his eternal servitude to the collective. Without the village, his fate would have been no different from theirs. Armed with his modern urban advantages, he hardly lacked female companionship, but as repayment for his education, he was expected to procure women from the outside world to satisfy the physical hungers of the village bachelors.

Phong claimed that initially, he believed he was merely acting as a matchmaker for his childhood peers, which led him to lure his very first victim. But once the young woman was trapped within the mountain's embrace, he quickly realized the horrific reality far exceeded his naive expectations. The villagers treated women as communal property, rotating through her bed night after night. Though a deep sense of dread warned him to turn back, he was already trapped aboard a sinking ship. The villagers leveraged his crimes to blackmail him, threatening to expose him to the authorities and shatter his hard-won future should he ever refuse to cooperate. Having clawed his way out of the mud to taste the prosperity of the metropolis, he refused to let his ambitions be ruined, driving him to do the villagers' bidding time and time again.

He confessed that over the span of several years, he had personally lured six women back to the village, among them Zeng Hui. Of those six, two had tragically perished, leaving four survivors, of whom Zeng Hui was one. Today, she too had finally tasted freedom. Phong muttered that when he brought back his first victim, terror had consumed him, constantly fearing the looming shadow of police investigation. Yet, as time drifted on, he discovered that the long arm of the law rarely reached into the depths of their isolated valley. With every successful abduction, his audacity swelled, shielded by the impenetrable wall of collective silence and complicity erected by the villagers. He genuinely believed his crimes would remain buried forever.

He desperately argued that his ignorance and emotional manipulation had driven him to commit unlawful acts, while flatly denying any deliberate, subjective intent to harm others. Throughout his interrogation, he relentlessly cast himself as a helpless victim of circumstance.

Yet neither the police nor the court of law would entertain such hollow excuses. The unvarnished testimonies of the villagers themselves ultimately shredded the final remnants of his hypocritical mask. During their confessions, the villagers shattered his narrative by revealing that during the very first abduction, it had not been forced upon him at all—it was Phong who had initiated the idea, driven by a casual boast when a childhood friend merely asked whether women from the sprawling capital were truly as breathtaking as legends claimed.