Aftermath

Chapter 20

Tonglin Town had never been so lively!

In just one short week.

The bank was robbed—a body was found in the Li family’s cesspool—the killer was caught—and the bank gave a reward to three families, five hundred each.

Wasn’t this far more attractive than which family’s daughter-in-law was fighting with her mother-in-law, or which family’s profligate son had stolen money from home again?

In the evening, the people of Tonglin Town were cooling off by the river. A gentle breeze blew as children played by the water. The adults were either washing clothes or washing their hair, and their mouths were filled with talk of these events.

“A full 500 yuan.”

“I heard they stole over twenty thousand, a whole 20,000 yuan. I haven’t seen that much money in my entire life.”

“Why are they saying 20,000 now? Didn’t they say 50,000 at first? How did it drop so much?”

“I heard them say there was a mistake during the audit.”

“Those sons of bitches really had the nerve!”

Everyone exchanged glances, all wearing expressions of tacit understanding.

The hardworking people of Tonglin Town were immersed in their own lives every day, and rarely had such an opportunity.

But now, they poked their heads out from the things happening to others, imagining how wonderful it would be if that money fell into their own laps. They indulged in a temporary dream, gaining a thrill that allowed them to escape their own lives.

Yet everything happening in town had nothing to do with the two elderly people on Maotou Mountain.

These two were the elderly couple who had been imprisoned by the Liao couple.

After the Liao couple was taken away by the police, the old couple went out. They first checked the condition of their fields and were very angry.

Rice is harvested in the fields, and most people would stack the straw neatly to dry so they could take it home for bedding or to start fires; either way, it was good stuff.

This pair of thieves had thrown the straw all over the field, and much of it had been trampled into the mud.

Not only that, but because the couple probably worked at night and there was originally water in the field, they had drained all the water from the paddy first. Consequently, several gaps had been hacked into the field embankments.

One of the gaps was cut very large, and the Old Lady nearly tripped when she walked past it.

“Bastards! If I’d known they would come to ruin our fields, and that they wouldn’t have the heart to kill us, I should have hardened my heart back then!” The Old Lady felt more distressed the more she looked.

The old man saw his wife was upset by these gaps, so he quickly covered them all with straw. Out of sight, out of mind.

He would come back in the afternoon with a hoe to repair these gaps.

Over the years, the couple didn’t care about anything else; they spent every day meticulously tending to these fields and lands. Seeing them ruined like this now truly pained them.

“Let’s pick up the straw first. We’ll come back to fix the gaps in the afternoon.”

The old couple picked up all the straw to see if it could still be used after drying.

A short while later, the old man’s third elder brother arrived with his eldest son. They had also heard about what happened in town and naturally knew about the old couple’s imprisonment.

He first looked around the house but didn’t see anyone.

“Dad, Fourth Uncle and the others are down there.”

“Fourth Brother, Fourth Sister-in-law-” He stood on the embankment, wearing a forced smile.

The old couple looked at him, finding his smile particularly piercing. Especially since he brought his son along. What was this? Was he here to show off that his son was grown?

“Are you both feeling alright? I heard them talk about what happened to you during this time…”

The eldest nephew brought a large bag of things and chimed in from the side.

“My dad hasn’t been able to sleep well lately. When he heard about your suffering yesterday, he cried several times, saying he’s sorry.” He spoke with great emotion. Back then… back then, he was the one who said they should go catch fish. All these years, he had also been suffering because of that incident.

The Old Lady looked at them and said coldly, “The cat weeps for the mouse¹. Hypocrisy.”

What? Could a moment of their distress erase the lives of her two children? How could she be satisfied with that!

The old man didn’t speak, but his meaning was clear.

The third brother continued, “I know you still hate me. I won’t talk about that. I don’t know how much longer I have to live, and you’re getting older too. Living out here as a single household is truly inconvenient.”

“We find it very convenient,” the old man said.

“Can you stop holding a grudge against us? We’re all at this age. You were fine this time, but you might not be so lucky next time. We want you to move back so we can look after each other.”

He pulled his son forward and began to look sad, saying, “When you pass away, my son will perform the funeral rites² and see you off.”

The Old Lady looked at the people on the embankment, sighed, and her tone became a bit warmer as she said, “Third Brother, stand a bit closer. Stand on that straw.”

The third brother didn’t understand why, but after all these years, she had called him Third Brother again. Although he didn’t know what was going on, he took two steps to the side, intending to stand on the straw. As a result, his foot hit empty air. There was actually a hole under the straw, and he fell right into the pit.

His son quickly helped his father up. By then, the old couple had already walked off in the other direction, ignoring them completely.

The old couple didn’t need his son to perform their funeral rites. The old couple didn’t need them to display sympathy. The old couple didn’t need that big bag of things they brought.

From beginning to end, what the old couple needed was to go back to that year, for this man not to take the children to the riverbank, or if he did, to bring all the children back alive.

Without that, everything else was in vain.

On the other side, Yun Song and the other two returned to the city. They weren’t from the same police station, so they had to part ways upon arrival.

The three of them were a bit reluctant to leave each other. Although working together had been exhausting, it had been a great learning experience, and they had coordinated well.

Yun Song returned to her unit the next day. Her supervisor called her in to praise her, mentioning that there would be a formal commendation later.

Then, she became a most ordinary police officer in the station once again, starting her day.

Responding to a call in the morning, two vendors were fighting on the street.

“That customer clearly looked at my things first! He just kept babbling over there!”

“The other party did look at your items first, but the one they wanted to buy later was mine!”

She and her colleague spent two hours mediating before they finally got both sides to talk things through.

Just as they returned, another report came in. Someone in a certain residential complex was complaining about noise from the floor above.

After Yun Song and her colleague arrived, they assessed the situation. The resident downstairs worked night shifts and needed to sleep during the day, while the resident upstairs was home taking care of two children who inevitably ran around.

Both sides felt the other was the problem. As they spoke, both parties began to cry.

Yun Song and her colleague each took a side to comfort. The solution suggested by the downstairs neighbor was for the upstairs neighbor to buy floor mats.

The upstairs neighbor was unwilling to buy mats, considering it an unnecessary expense, and suggested the downstairs neighbor find a daytime job instead.

The downstairs neighbor started crying again.

For two whole hours, they could move neither the upstairs nor the downstairs party.

Yun Song suddenly felt that Tong Jin’s style of doing things was actually quite good, so she used her own money to buy the mats for the upstairs neighbor.

Her colleague asked, “…Dare I ask, is this how we’re going to handle things from now on?”

“Just this once,” Yun Song replied. She felt as though she didn’t have as much energy as she used to since returning.

Yun Song spent her day like this and finally returned home. Lying in bed, she felt as if there were still matters left unattended.

The events in Tonglin Town… whenever she closed her eyes, her mind was filled with everything that had happened there.

The bank matter, the Mei family, the Liao family…

These things were still running through her mind, causing her to lose patience when dealing with her own daily affairs.

In truth, she had worked here for a much longer time, and her stay in Tonglin Town had lasted less than a week, yet she felt as if a part of her had remained there.

She was still anxious about the affairs of Tonglin Town.

That night, she didn’t rest. She began researching the river patterns of Tonglin Town, but after looking them over, she felt… she was only seeing the surface.

She wasn’t a professional; she couldn’t understand it.

The next day, she called a high school classmate. She remembered the woman was now a geography teacher and wanted her help investigating the rivers of Tonglin Town.

Two days later, Yun Song received a message. Her former classmate provided her with several locations.

Yun Song called the local police stations one by one to inquire. Soon, the police in Dazhou gave her the answer she was looking for.

During her time off, Yun Song returned to Tonglin Town. The people there were as busy as ever.

She went to Maotou Mountain. There was only one household on the mountain.

The door was tightly shut. Yun Song knocked, but no one answered.

The old couple wasn’t home. Not far from their house, a large patch of Sanba Mushrooms³ had sprouted, growing thick and lush, a lovely sight.

Of course, they might not be Sanba Mushrooms, but poisonous ones that looked like them.

Regardless, it didn’t matter.

The couple had taken a bucket to go foraging. When they returned carrying a large bucket of Sanba Mushrooms, they saw Yun Song at their door.

“Officer, why are you back again?” the Old Lady asked, her guard up. She immediately thought of the young Liao couple.

“You aren’t here to plead for mercy, are you? Let me tell you right now!”

Yun Song was not. She knew perfectly well that the best protection for the Liao couple was to let them face their deserved punishment; otherwise, this old couple truly would show up at their door with a knife.

“I’m not here to plead for them. I have something to discuss with you.”

The old couple was skeptical but let her into the house.

On her way there, Yun Song had been thinking about how to say this.

Some things are painful even to touch.

Yun Song understood that feeling.

“What exactly do you want to say?” Neither of the old couple believed she wasn’t there to mediate. After all, everyone else felt that since the young couple was alive and the money had been returned, one should be forgiving whenever possible.

Yun Song said, “I heard about your family’s situation from the village chief.”

“After I went back, I asked a classmate to help me check the river patterns.”

“She gave me several possible locations, and I compared them with the police records from back then.”

“Because of the continuous heavy rain, your children’s remains were carried toward Dazhou. They were eventually found at a dam in Dazhou…”

“Because the distance was so great and information didn’t circulate well back then, the children were buried in a public cemetery.”

The old couple stared at her, seemingly unable to believe it. They knew the children couldn’t have survived under those circumstances. For all these years, there had been a dull ache in their hearts, thinking the children might have been lying at the bottom of some water… how cold that must be…

“You… are you telling the truth?”

“It’s true. The authorities there have records.”

Yun Song said, “I can take you there to bring them home.”

Translator’s Notes