The Bank Burglary Case (5)

Chapter 5

How could people let their lives turn out like this?

In the cellar, the Old Lady was freezing. They lived in the mountains, where it was naturally cold in the mornings and evenings, and the cellar only made it worse, being both pitch-black and frigid.

Old Lady nudged the old man beside her.

“Old man, are you cold? I feel like today is even colder than yesterday.”

She was getting on in years, and for the past few years, whenever the cold set in, her back would ache and her legs would cramp.

“It is a bit cold.”

The old man beside her wasn’t asleep either. Those two thieves made a lot of noise carrying things. They had gone into the mountains to dig up corn stalks and carry them back.

Every time they brought a load back, they had to pass through the central hall, and the elderly couple could hear them arguing.

Naturally, the couple couldn’t sleep.

The old man scraped together some dried grass and laid it over the Old Lady, saying, “Wait a little longer. It won’t be so cold once it’s light out.”

Covering herself with dried grass didn’t help much. Staying lying down like this would only make her colder, so the Old Lady sat up.

The cellar was completely dark. The spot where the couple slept was just dried grass the two thieves had tossed down. Sweet potatoes and some cucumbers were piled in the corner.

The thieves had put them there for them to eat during the day.

Even though there wasn’t a glimmer of light, the Old Lady sat up and reached out, finding the cucumbers by habit.

She pulled one out, wiped it on the dried grass, and took a bite.

It was too quiet; the only sound in the darkness was the old woman crunching on a cucumber.

In truth, their family hadn’t grown cucumbers for many years. This year, when they went to town to buy seeds, some were mixed in.

The couple hadn’t intended to plant them, but perhaps because they were getting old, they ended up planting them anyway.

In the darkness, the old man also sighed, reached over, took a cucumber, and began to eat.

Thirty-some years ago, the couple didn’t live in this place. There were no neighbors around here, just a single isolated house. Thirty-some years ago, there were still rumors of bandits, so most people wouldn’t choose to live in a place like this.

Back then, they lived with the rest of the village. Their house was connected to the Third Brother’s house, and the Eldest Brother’s house was right behind them. Several families shared one ox, taking turns to feed it.

At that time, they had two children, the eldest ten years old and the second seven.

It was in that year that the Third Brother secretly took his own eldest son and their two children to the riverbank to catch fish by smashing rocks¹.

To this day, the Old Lady still remembered that morning. She had been in the cucumber patch propping up the vines with bamboo poles, while her husband was carrying water to irrigate them.

The couple was discussing what to have for lunch.

From a distance, someone started shouting for them.

“Something’s happened! Go look! The river is flooding!”

Neither of them reacted at first. What did a flood in the river have to do with them? They had no idea the children had gone to the riverbank.

The other person jumped up and said, “Both of your children are at the river…”

They ran and ran. When they got down there, all they saw was the Third Brother standing there, with only his own eldest son beside him.

“Could there be a mistake?” Her two children weren’t stupid. If the water was rising, they would surely run.

When the Third Brother saw the couple, he fell to his knees.

“Brother, Sister-in-law, I’ve failed you! I’ve failed you! I deserve to die!”

Only then did they learn that the river had flooded suddenly. All three children had been in the water, and the Third Brother only had time to grab the child closest to him.

Both of theirs were gone.

The couple finally processed the news. Their legs went weak, yet their bodies still tried to rush into the river.

The bank was crowded with people who held the couple back with all their might.

“Don’t be rash, maybe they’re okay. They might have been washed downstream. Let’s search along the river.”

“That’s right, don’t do anything foolish. We don’t want the children to be found only to find you two gone.”

They walked along the river for seven days, but in the end, they found nothing.

After they returned, the Third Brother and his wife came to find the couple.

“This is our fault. This child, we’ll give this child to you from now on. He’ll be your son and take care of you in your old age…”

The couple beat them out of the house.

On what grounds? Their children were gone, and now they thought they could just hand over a child and call it even?

From then on, they couldn’t stand the Third Brother’s family, especially since the Third Brother and his wife constantly sent their child over to help them.

The couple cursed them once a day, but even as they cursed, they had to watch the Third Brother’s child grow day by day.

There were two other children in the village the same age as theirs. They grew taller bit by bit, running wild every day on the field ridges² and hillsides…

The couple watched every day, and the more they watched, the more they hated.

They hated the heavens for being unfair! What had they done wrong? Why did other people’s children get to grow up while theirs didn’t?

There was one family in particular where the whole lot of them were no good, yet their children grew up strong and clever!

The pain of losing their children eventually turned into resentment. This bone-deep hatred soon consumed the couple.

And so, on a night when the moon was barely visible.

The couple moved.

They moved to a place with no neighbors in any direction, living in isolation, speaking to no one, visiting no relatives or friends.

Their hearts held only hate, hate for everything. If someone happened to pass by and asked for a drink of water, the couple would shut the door and refuse.

The couple lived like this for over thirty years, the resentment in their hearts growing heavier and heavier.

Now, the elderly couple continued to taste this cold hatred in the darkness of the cellar.

Soon, the sound of a rooster crowing came from outside, one cry after another.

It was dawn.

“Let’s go. It’s light out,” the Old Lady said.

Supporting each other, the elderly couple stood up. They felt their way around and soon found the ladder.

The ladder was positioned at the exit.

The Old Lady climbed up with practiced ease and pushed open the cellar door.

A moment later, the couple was back in the central hall.

Yes, they had been able to get out all along.

The Liao Family couple weren’t originally from the countryside; they were from the town. People in town didn’t know the conditions of a cellar. They didn’t know that in their village, an extra ladder was always kept down in the cellar to prevent someone from being trapped if the main ladder broke.

So, from the very first day, the old couple could have come out.

But they wanted to torment these two thieves.

Because on the day the two thieves came to steal from them, the couple had overheard what they said.

“I’m a little scared. Maybe we should just forget it?”

“What’s there to be afraid of? I’ve asked around. This couple has eccentric personalities, and they don’t have any children…”

The couple hadn’t originally intended to come out, but upon hearing those words, they immediately emerged to reason with them. To their surprise, the two thieves actually attacked them, forced them into the cellar, locked them in, and pulled away the cellar ladder.

That night, the old couple crawled out of the cellar, originally intending to head to town to seek justice.

“How much money was lost?”

“Three hundred and fifty-six yuan.”

“Let’s go! To town! We’ll get justice!” the old man said.

The Old Lady’s face remained grim. “What’s the use of going? At most, they’ll be made to return the money and then kneel down to apologize to us. In the end, won’t they just go back to living their lives as usual?”

The old man considered this as well.

The Old Lady’s anger was fueled even more by what the two thieves had said. She couldn’t help but say to her husband, “If our child were still alive, at the very least, he could go give them a beating right now.”

The old couple was suddenly reminded of the thieves’ words – they were being bullied precisely because their child was dead!

If they went to town to seek justice now, people might even say, “How pitiful, to be bullied like this at such an old age with no one to help them.”

The moment these thoughts surfaced, the old couple was overwhelmed by a crushing wave of pain and fury.

The couple did not go to town, and at that moment, the two thieves returned.

The old couple exchanged a look. One grabbed a kitchen knife and the other an axe, and they went back into the cellar.

Fighting in the main room might not work; after all, the couple was old.

But the cellar was different.

The couple lay in ambush in the cellar, waiting for the pair to come down. Their eyes were fierce, as if the ones they intended to hack were not the two thieves, but their own tragic fate!

However, after the pair arrived, they shouted down a couple of times. The old couple did not respond.

So, those two stupid thieves discussed up above who should come down to silence them.

“You go, of course. You’re nimble and you strike fast!”

“You’re the man, you’re more cold-hearted!”

In the end, neither was willing to come down.

“How about we just keep them locked up for now?”

Committing murder usually requires a burst of momentum. Because they had dragged it out and hesitated, the old couple’s initial surge of murderous intent dissipated.

But these two thieves definitely had to face retribution!

So, the old couple spoke from below –

“Old man, they can’t keep us locked up for long. The crops are in the fields with no one to harvest them; others will see it at a glance.”

“Old woman, you’re right. The pigs, the chickens, the ducks – with no one feeding them, people will know something has happened to us the moment they look.”

The bitterness and pain the old couple had bottled up in their hearts all these years had finally found an outlet for release.

They were going to vent it with everything they had! Everything!!!

So what if they had to sleep in the cellar at night and couldn’t go out during the day?

It didn’t matter! They could stay in the cellar until they died! They were going to torment these two thieves who had bullied them for having a dead child!

Translator’s Notes