Chapter 136: The Lost Child

Chapter 136: Chapter 136: The Lost Child

"Mommy, Daddy, I’m so hungry."

"What are we having for dinner?"

Mengmeng’s eyes fluttered open. She rubbed them sleepily and asked with an adorable, dazed look on her face.

Sitting beside her, Yin Ruxue glanced at the time and couldn’t help but chuckle.

"It’s almost nine o’clock. If you’re waking up now, are you going to be able to sleep at all tonight?"

"I’m still going to sleep, but I’m hungryyyy."

Mengmeng scrambled out of the tent and threw herself into Yin Ruxue’s arms.

"Alright, alright. Go find your daddy. He has food."

Yin Ruxue pointed toward the bonfire in the distance, where Jiang Fan was sitting and chatting cheerfully with the other men.

"Yay!!"

Mengmeng ran over, spotting several of her friends along the way.

Sun Xiaopang and Ye were there.

"Where’s Er Pang?"

"Isn’t he awake yet??"

Mengmeng asked curiously as she walked over.

"We haven’t seen him. His mom said he was still sleeping a little while ago."

"Let’s go find him after we finish eating."

"I wonder if our traps caught a tiger."

The children all chattered at once as they reached the bonfire.

"Hey, Mengmeng’s awake?"

"Come on, have something to eat."

"Here’s a freshly grilled chicken drumstick."

Jiang Fan took a chicken drumstick off the nearby grill and handed it to Mengmeng, saying,

"Be careful eating it. It’s hot."

"Uncle, we want some too."

"I want the mushrooms."

"I want meat! I want that meat chop."

The children clamored to get food from Jiang Fan.

The kids were truly starving; they wolfed down the food, relishing every bite.

"Kids really love Jiang."

"Look at that. All the kids want to hang out with him."

"We don’t have skills like Jiang. Look at those little bird traps, and those little contraptions he made for fishing."

A burly man couldn’t help but laugh, his face filled with admiration.

"Ain’t that the truth,"

another man chimed in from the side.

"They’re just little trinkets, nothing special."

Jiang Fan patted Mengmeng’s head and smiled as he placed more fresh food on the grill.

"We wouldn’t know how to do any of that."

"Jiang is a great guy in every way, he’s just too modest."

"Yeah, and your wife is one of the most famous beauties in all of Yang City. You somehow managed to land her without anyone even noticing."

The other men couldn’t hide the envy in their eyes.

If their wives weren’t just a short distance away, they would have knelt and begged Jiang Fan to teach a class on his methods.

"Enough, enough. Come on, try some of this."

Jiang Fan just shook his head, handing them the food he was holding.

"Oh no! Er Pang’s missing!!"

Just then, a piercing cry echoed throughout the entire campsite.

It startled not only the men gathered around the fire but also the teachers, who came rushing frantically out of their tents.

Losing a child would be a catastrophe.

Jiang Fan frowned, exchanged a look with the other men, and quickly walked over.

"Er Pang’s mom, what’s going on?"

"How could Er Pang be missing?"

Several teachers ducked into the tent to look around, then searched the immediate area, a hint of panic on their faces.

"Auntie, is Er Pang gone?"

Mengmeng squeezed through the crowd of adults, as did her friends.

A beautiful woman’s face was filled with panic and streaked with tears, her whole body trembling.

"We were sitting there chatting a moment ago. He got up and said he had to use the bathroom, so I let him go off to the side."

"But he never came back. I got worried and went to look for him, but I couldn’t find him anywhere."

Fear laced Er Pang’s mother’s voice.

"This is bad. Don’t tell me someone snuck in..."

"Something like this happened with another school. They were out camping in the wild, the teachers weren’t paying attention, and a kid got snatched."

"They extorted the family for millions, and then they killed the kid anyway..."

Hearing this, Er Pang’s father’s face instantly turned deathly pale, his lips trembling.

"Let’s not jump to the worst conclusion. It’s dark out; the boy probably just got lost."

"Here’s what we’ll do. A few of the men and the teachers will stay here at the campsite and watch the children. The rest of us, grab flashlights. We’ll go out and search, calling his name. If Er Pang hears us, he can call back."

Jiang Fan was the one best able to keep a level head at a time like this.

Everyone unanimously agreed with his plan.

Then, Jiang Fan and the main group began to spread out and search.

At first, neither he nor anyone else present thought the situation was overly serious.

They assumed the boy had simply lost his way, but after searching a wide circle, they hadn’t found a single trace of him.

Only then did Jiang Fan gradually realize something was wrong.

"Daddy, I think Er Pang went to see if we caught a big tiger."

"It’s in the forest over there."

The sudden voice made Jiang Fan jump.

"Mengmeng? What are you doing here?"

"What big tiger? In the forest over there?"

Jiang Fan shone his flashlight to the right. The forest in that direction was vast.

"What did you kids do?"

Jiang Fan’s expression turned serious.

In a forest this large, running into wild boars or something similar at night would be incredibly dangerous for a seven or eight-year-old child.

After all, wild boars aren’t herbivores; they’re omnivores.

"We... we just used the method you taught us to set some traps over there... to see if we could catch a big tiger..."

Mengmeng’s voice trailed off, and she lowered her head further and further.

"You kids!"

Jiang Fan huffed in exasperation, then shouted to the people around them, "Half of you keep searching here! The other half, come with me toward the forest!"

"The kids went over to the forest this afternoon and set some traps to catch birds."

"Er Pang probably went to check on them and got lost in the woods."

"What? Then let’s go, let’s go! We have to hurry!!"

Er Pang’s father was nearly frantic with worry.

’He’s our only son. If anything were to happen to him... there’d be no point in living anymore.’