Chapter 148: New Live Stream Content

None of them noticed that within just a few minutes, Irene and Emma, who had been sitting on the straw pile, had disappeared. As night quickly fell, Mag knocked on Irene and Emma's room door. Before dinner, Mag had shown the two girls around their room. A voice came from inside the room: "Mom, I've already gone to bed." Mag lightly knocked on the door again: "Sweetie, I brought you some milk. Drink some before sleeping; it's good for your health." Irene's sleepy voice responded, "Mom, I don't want any, I'm already almost asleep..." The voice grew quieter and quieter until Mag could barely hear Irene's words anymore. Mag then tried calling out to Emma, but Emma didn’t respond either. It wasn’t a good idea to go in at this time and risk waking Irene, which would be hard to explain. Mag frowned. That brat Saryon had promised to spike the soup with a sedative but must have forgotten! Emma was seated on a small stool hidden near the door. She had chosen an excellent spot. In front of the villa, flowers and bushes were planted, and there was enough space between them for a teenage girl to slip into. It was like a secret garden—if Emma didn't have a mission, she would have loved to pitch a tent and sleep there for the night. Mag had no idea that the voices she heard were actually pre-recorded by Irene and Emma. They had recorded their voices into a computer, and with a few keystrokes, the computer played back their voices through small speakers. This was a new gadget Emma had recently developed. And now, it was proving useful. If Mag had opened the door to check, she would have found that the room was empty except for two small speakers. As for Irene, she had decided to explore the village. The distance wasn’t much of an issue for her. On the way here, Irene had calculated the distance from Mag's house to the village chief's—it was only five or six kilometers, which would take her just a few minutes. Irene stood in a concealed spot behind the barn, at a higher elevation that allowed her to easily see Margo and Saryon standing near the cowshed. Irene casually removed the necklace from around her neck and fiddled with it. The sapphire necklace split open to reveal a small camera hidden inside what looked like a cheap trinket bought for a few coins at a market. Irene put the necklace back on, and from the outside, it simply looked like a piece of jewelry catching the light. She took out her phone and connected it to a live streaming platform. Irene hadn’t streamed in days. Since the incident that had cleared her name, her fans had been eagerly awaiting her return. Then, suddenly, at around nine in the evening, notifications began popping up on many people’s phones: "The streamer you follow has started streaming." Immediately, thousands of people flooded into the live stream. 【Finally, a stream! My grandma will cry when she hears this!】 【Why start streaming at this hour? It’s already nine o’clock. Is she going to stream at nine from now on?】 【What are you thinking? No way.】 【This doesn’t look like a normal streaming environment. Why is it so dark? Where is she?】 【I can hear the streamer breathing! This is the closest I’ve ever been to her!】 【Is she running? It's dark, but I can still see the trees flying by.】 Irene clipped a black earphone to her ear and said, "Today, I’m showing you something different." Her voice, roughened by the exertion of running, was lower than usual, causing many viewers to go wild. 【I love this voice!】 【I recorded it! Her voice is so good!】 【Am I the only one who likes her original voice?】 【Streamer, can you go back to the detective office? It's too dark; it's a bit scary.】 Emma, hidden in the bushes, wore a mosquito-repellent bracelet and was converting text to speech for Irene. Irene’s voice carried a smile: "Today’s stream content is set—I’m taking you deep into a human trafficking den." "Everyone in the stream, please be careful and stay safe." 【What? Trafficking? What happened to you these past few days?!】 【My brother’s a cop, and he sat up straight when he heard me playing this out loud.】 【Wow, who’s the real cop here?】 【Cop: I’m doomed, I won’t meet this year’s KPI.】 【Streamer, please be careful. Wasn’t someone out to get you a few days ago?】 【Maybe you should stop talking, streamer. Be careful not to get caught.】 Irene chuckled softly. Then, she turned off the recording function. Soon, the stream’s camera showed a brightly lit villa. 【Wow! Whose villa is this? It’s so grand!】 【Looks like it's in the countryside, but whoever owns this must be rich.】 The estate was large, so aside from a big light near the entrance, most areas were pitch dark. Irene followed the fence for over a kilometer, then nimbly climbed over the wall and entered the village chief’s estate. She hadn’t gone far when she encountered a well-designed landscape. Blue gravel lined the path, flanked by lush greenery, with a warm brown wooden platform in the center, featuring white picnic chairs and a sun umbrella, surrounded by scattered warm yellow lights. A woman held a tray, while a man brushed seasoning onto food on the grill. A child nearby, eager to taste the food, stood on tiptoe with a pure smile on their face. Just watching, you could almost smell the delicious aroma. 【Whoa! She’s way too close; I’m getting scared.】 【What’s going on here?】 【She’s so brave!】 As Irene got closer, their conversation drifted to her ears. “You all saw that little girl from Mag’s house this afternoon, right? She’s so beautiful! I’ve never seen anyone that pretty before!” a woman said, holding a wine glass. “Of course we saw her. That little girl is strong too. I even gave her a secret squeeze—she’s a great worker!” the village chief’s wife laughed. She glared fiercely at the woman holding the tray, “Are you dead? Making your husband grill for you? Can’t you do it yourself?” “Useless thing! Can’t even milk a cow! And you still managed to break a dish carrying a meal! Can’t even have children! What good are you?” she raged, grabbing a broom and viciously beating the woman with it. The live chat exploded in shock. 【Is this domestic violence? Is that man just going to stand there and let his wife be bullied?】 【Look at the bruises all over that woman’s body—there’s not a single patch of unmarked skin!】 【No way, was she trafficked into this place?】