I

Living on this beautiful planet, the most fortunate among us, including myself, are bathed in sunshine and are able to enjoy the joys of life every day. Yet there are two sides to everything. A piece of paper needs to be folded in order to stand on a table, and when one side is illuminated by the sun, the other side must be enshrouded in darkness.

Most people live only in their own nice little box and have no idea what the world outside the box looks like. In fact, in the dark corners of the planet, at least 2.5 million people “disappear” every year. They may be sold into slavery, have their organs removed, or tortured at will ...... and so on.

Only a very few professions have access to these things. My dad used to be a police officer, a special one-that’s how I got to know about the dark side. 

II

My father, who had always been a benign person at home, suddenly became serious: he changed into his police uniform and dragged me out of the house. I later found out that my mother was out on a business trip, and my grandma and grandpa went to HeBei, so my dad had to take me out instead of leaving me alone at home. But it was this adventure, which I would describe as dangerous and exhilarating, that allowed me to see a wider world.

I was a 2nd-grade primary school student back then and it was already late night, so I fell asleep in the police car.

I was awakened by the sound of the police siren. I got up in a daze and saw a bunch of police cars surrounding a large circle of land nearby, with a few unnoticeable houses in the middle. I was instantly amped up because this is a scene that I've only seen on TV. My dad was standing in front of my police car with a walkie-talkie in his hand, speaking into it, and didn't seem to notice that I was awake. I looked around: there were many police officers in different lines, holding different weapons, including electric batons, shields, and even a  few guns.

I was really shocked because my dad didn't tell me at all what the purpose of coming out was. I cowered in the police car, not daring to make a sound. It seems that through the communication between my dad and several other officers, groups of police officers stepped into buildings. Several minutes later, more than 10 adult males were brought out, followed by several females and children. My dad took me home after this. He didn't say anything when he saw me awake, and when I kept asking him what happened, he laughed and said he would tell me later.

III

I never forgot about it. My dad told me what happened back then when I was ready to go to middle school. The men who were taken out were traffickers, and the rest were victimized people who had been abducted by traffickers. In China, traffickers are very secretive in their criminal ways and hard to track. My father just got the news that night when the police department had tracked down the traffickers and had to send out a large police force. Tracing traffickers is a dangerous operation - because traffickers know that if they are arrested, they will go to jail for several years at the least, so they carry weapons. Beijing is relatively safe compared to the rest of the country because traffickers are very unlikely to have guns. On nights like that one, it's hard for traffickers to escape when a large number of policemen are deployed.

Fortunately, none of the children or women were seriously injured. My dad frowned and continued to tell me that if it wasn't in Beijing, but on the Chinese frontier, and especially in Southeast Asia and Europe, where this kind of behavior was rampant. He told me the story of Chloe Ayling: a British woman who was kidnapped from Italy in 2017 and put up for auction on the dark web. On the day of her abduction, Chloe was walking down the street near Milan's central train station when a pair of black gloves clamped around her neck from behind her without warning, covering her mouth and nose tightly, and another masked man immediately gave her a shot in the arm. rugged by the injection, Chloe soon lost consciousness. She found she was tightly bound when she woke up. There was a very different life waiting for her but under the brutal oppression of her kidnappers. The enslaved and trafficked adults would be subjected to forced labor, forced marriage, sexual abuse, organ trading, and children would be used as child soldiers or sold again. Even more outrageous is the endless torture trafficked people are subjected to, simply to satisfy the traffickers' own sick evil!

IV

I was shocked - Once, unfortunately, they fall into the black market, no one knows when they will be handed over at what price, tormented each day may become the end of their life, and then die in an unknown place, completely disappeared and forgotten in this world. I grieve for these people - I wish the government would take this more seriously. I believe no one in today's society would want to see someone enslaved. I wish I could help, but only the government has the ability to find the evil from the shadows and save more innocent people from suffering, and therefore the protection of people's security by the government should be considered the highest priority.

I will never forget what my father has told me: “When you are complaining about life under sunshine, some people are struggling to move forward in the darkness, trying to set aside the fog in front of them but are not able to do so. Smile and keep moving forward, at least, you have a bright future ahead of you.”