Chapter 621 Not Their Real Mother

• Over three years, Dandan kept getting abused, forced to steal cash. Day after day, that hellish life ground her down. She thought about running away—she even tried. But she was just a kid with no money. She couldn’t get far. Kind strangers would spot her and take her to the police. Then Gao Li would show up and drag her back home. Back home meant another brutal beating. After that, she didn’t dare run again. That house had no humanity—just cruel “parents” and her little brother.
• Her brother had been a chubby, fair-skinned boy. Now he was skin and bones. During the days Dandan ran, Gao Li and Dong Dahai ran out of cash. They saw people on the street begging with kids, making a few hundred a day, and got ugly ideas. They’d planned to wait two years until Doudou got older, then make him steal like Dandan. But when Dandan suddenly vanished, their income dried up. They took Doudou to the roadside to beg. Because they were clueless and didn’t look that pitiful, they made only a few dozen a day. Dong Dahai decided that wasn’t enough and started copying other beggars’ tricks. The most “effective” was a woman begging with a disabled child—she made four or five hundred a day. That’s almost ten thousand a month. Faster than stealing. And no cops breathing down their necks. But they didn’t have a disabled kid. So they’d have to make one.
• So Dong Dahai steeled himself and snapped Doudou’s fragile arm. Then he sent Gao Li to the road to beg. Sure enough, people saw the kid’s broken arm and heard they couldn’t afford a doctor. Sympathy poured in. Donations, too. The first day brought seven or eight hundred. When Gao Li dragged Dandan home and she saw her brother’s arm broken, she was stunned. She never imagined they’d be that vicious to her own brother. He was only three. To spare him more pain and get his arm fixed fast, she started stealing again. But city security kept getting tighter, and folks were more alert. It got hard to steal. So the family moved near a suburban amusement park and cut through a fence post. Every day, Dandan slipped inside through the broken fence and lifted cash or phones. Because she was a kid—and an amusement park is full of kids—no one suspected her. She pulled it off many times. But thefts piled up, and the park boosted patrols. Suddenly it was tough. Several days went by with nothing, and Gao Li and Dong Dahai beat her together. They warned her: if she didn’t bring home good loot, they’d sell her brother.