I Turned Down the Cheap Graduation Trip-Then My Class Vanished Overseas Chapter 09

I Turned Down the Cheap Graduation Trip-Then My Class Vanished Overseas Chapter 09

Even then, I still didn’t know what role Lily had actually played in the scheme.

We followed the investigators to the hospital.

Before we reached her room, we heard screams coming from inside.

“Don’t touch me! Stop hitting me!”

Several nurses rushed in and restrained Lily as she spiraled into panic. A doctor quickly sedated

her.

Her parents stood nearby, crying helplessly.

Noah’s parents looked at Lily with open disgust.

They already knew Lily had organized the trip, and now they looked at her with nothing but rage.

The investigators led us to Noah’s room.

The moment the door opened, the strong smell of blood hit me.

The doctor lowered his voice.

“Several of his ribs are broken. After he was captured, he repeatedly tried to escape. The guards punished him by severely injuring both legs.”

Most of the other students had been too terrified to resist once they saw the armed guards.

They obeyed because they had no choice and did whatever they were forced to do. Although they had also been injured, none of them was currently in life-threatening condition.

Noah had been overprotected by his parents since childhood and had grown used to people giving in

to him.

Inside the compound, he not only openly defied the guards but also planned an escape with several

classmates.

They didn’t get far before they were caught.

The guards beat Noah’s legs so brutally that he suffered the worst injuries of the group.

Investigators also discovered that the criminals had been preparing to sell him to another

organization.

The joint raid came just in time to stop the transfer.

Even if the surgery went well, he was unlikely ever to walk normally again.

Noah’s parents stood beside his bed and broke down sobbing uncontrollably.

My parents and I quietly stepped back into the hallway.

“He’s only eighteen,” Mom whispered. “What is he supposed to do with the rest of his life?”

I didn’t answer.

They had been given chance after chance to walk away before everything reached this point.

I had warned them that the price made no sense.

Noah’s parents had ordered him to come home before he boarded the plane.

Every time, they chose the explanation that told them exactly what they wanted to hear.

In the end, they had to live with the consequences of those choices.

After seeing the injuries all over their children, the parents could barely contain their fury.

At the same time, one of the arrested handlers revealed how the ring had recruited its victims.

The organization posted impossibly cheap travel ads on livestreaming platforms to lure inexperienced recent graduates.

As the organizer, Lily had her own $699 fee waived and earned a $20 commission for every student

she recruited.

She hadn’t paid a cent for the trip. Instead, she had made money from her own classmates’

registrations.

That finally explained why she had tried again and again to force me to join.

She needed my name to collect the last commission and the bonus for filling the final spot.

When the parents learned the truth, all their rage turned toward Lily.

They couldn’t reach the criminals already in custody, so they stormed into her hospital room and attacked her despite the doctors and nurses trying to hold them back.

“You were the one who kept pressuring my son to sign up! He was only eighteen!”

Lily had been confused and disoriented, but the attack shocked her fully awake.

“They wanted to save money! Why are you blaming everything on me? I didn’t force anyone onto that plane! I was trapped there too. I was hurt too! Stop!”

The hospital immediately called the police.

Officers arrived and restrained the parents who had lost control.

Bruised, Lily stood behind the officers and shouted back at them.

“Would any of this have happened if they hadn’t cared only about getting the lowest price? Everyone saw the ad. Everyone signed the forms themselves. I’m not the only one responsible for what happened!”

The furious parents still tried to reach her, but the officers blocked them until they were forced to

leave.

To prevent another attack, Lily’s parents quickly had her transferred to another hospital.

After that, none of our former classmates knew where she had gone.

When Noah woke and learned that he might never walk normally again, he suffered a complete

mental breakdown.

He tried to harm himself several times and repeatedly smashed everything he could reach in his

hospital room.

His parents cared for him for a long time. They were physically and emotionally exhausted, yet they still couldn’t bring themselves to give up on him.

Their family never returned to the life they had once known.

The incident also destroyed the relationship between our families, and after that, we barely spoke.

Several months later, I heard about Noah again.

His parents had placed him in a long-term rehabilitation facility.

Not long afterward, his mother unexpectedly became pregnant, and the couple gradually devoted more of their attention to the baby they were expecting.

Noah remained at the facility and almost never went home.

When Mom mentioned it over the phone, regret still weighed down her voice.

He had only been eighteen.

Without that trip, he could have had an entirely different life.

Standing on my university campus in the cool early fall air, I felt only relief that I hadn’t given in.

Thankfully, I had never boarded that plane.

After graduating from university, I took over my family’s travel agency and gradually expanded the

business.

Later, a customer studied one of our quotes and still looked suspicious.

“Your price is lower than what other companies charge. You’re not going to leave us stranded somewhere unfamiliar after we arrive, are you?”

I smiled.

“I can promise we won’t. Anyone willing to trust us can verify our contracts, insurance, and

licenses. Anyone determined not to trust us won’t be convinced, no matter how much I explain. I

have one rule in business: I will never trade a customer’s safety for profit.”

No matter how large the sum, I would never accept money I hadn’t earned honestly.

I had learned long ago that profits gained through deception usually demanded a far greater price

in the end.

I charged only a fair profit that reflected our costs and the value of the service we provided.

That was the only way I could live with a clear conscience and remain responsible for every client

who entrusted their safety to us.