Fake Divorce Turns into Murder Case (6)

Chapter 58

Yang Laowu never once thought about giving up on this matter. Not only could he not give up, but he was also in a great hurry.

That night, he had a dream. He dreamed that he had three sons, and one of them turned into a dragon¹.

When he woke up, his heart was immersed in that joy. People in Tonglin Town were naturally superstitious, and he was no exception. He felt certain that he would have sons in the future, and that among the sons he fathered, there would surely be one who was very successful.

Many people in the village were more realistic. During this period, the police had been vigorously promoting the benefits of raising and educating girls well, and many people were starting to have a change of heart.

But Yang Laowu was different. He had personally experienced the benefits of having several sons who could bully families without any. Having tasted such advantages, he naturally didn’t take those propaganda efforts to heart.

He became even more determined to go through with the fake divorce and father two more sons. He wasn’t even satisfied with just one son anymore.

“In the dream, there were three sons, and one was successful. If I only have one, what if he’s not the successful one?” Then he had another thought; the three children in the dream seemed to be about the same size, so perhaps they would be triplets.

He didn’t have much of a plan. He just thought about it in a very shallow way, decided it could be done, and then went ahead and did it.

Early the next morning, he got up. He rose early to feed the pigs, becoming extremely diligent. He said to Huixiang, who was currently boiling pig feed, “I’m going into the mountains to weed in a bit. You stay home and kill a chicken to make a meal. We have a guest coming at noon.”

Yang Laowu didn’t say directly who the guest was, but Huixiang knew.

It was the man she was supposed to enter a fake marriage with, a man she didn’t even know.

Yang Laowu was very happy. When he spoke, his entire face was relaxed and open, not dark and sullen as it had been in the past.

Huixiang didn’t look back or respond, acting as if she couldn’t hear him.

“I had a dream last night. I dreamed we might have triplets, and one of the kids was a dragon in disguise. Don’t be unhappy. Take the long view. With a child like that, you, as the mother, will have endless blessings to enjoy in the future.”

With her back to him, Huixiang stood up and grabbed a large wooden stick from the side. She began to stir the pig feed, adding cornmeal as she stirred.

Once the cornmeal was added, she replaced the lid.

“Go kill the chicken first.”

Huixiang finally snapped out of it. She had already let the chickens out; if she went to catch one now, she would likely have to chase it all over the mountain.

Huixiang took a bowl from the side, scooped out a small bowl of cornmeal, added some water, and mixed it together.

She walked to the clearing beside the house and scattered the cornmeal, which had clumped into small balls, onto the ground.

The chickens that had been on the nearby slope all flew back. Normally, they couldn’t bear to feed cornmeal to the chickens, since the birds could find food on the hillside themselves.

At times like this, when they needed to catch a chicken, they would give them a little treat. Sometimes it was cornmeal, sometimes leftovers, and sometimes it might just be rotten cabbage leaves.

The chickens began to eat greedily. Huixiang even managed to crouch down and press her hand onto the back of one chicken. Feeling along its back to the base of its wings, she lifted it straight up.

The chicken flapped its wings and struggled, yet it didn’t forget to take two more pecks at the cornmeal.

Half of Huixiang’s mind was on killing the chicken, while the other half was on the murder cases she had heard about recently.

She gripped the base of the chicken’s wings to keep it from escaping and went to get a kitchen knife. The other chickens nearby continued to eat the cornmeal, oblivious to the situation of their companion.

Huixiang looked at the chicken in her hand. She didn’t want to kill it anymore. She turned her head and spoke directly to the man.

“I’m not killing it.”

In her heart, she hoped the man would lung at her. She hoped he would lose his temper like he used to, hit her, and finally grab her by the throat, wanting to kill her.

Her whole body was trembling, as if she were preparing to face something truly terrifying.

To her surprise, Yang Laowu was stunned for a moment when he saw her lose her temper. Then he said, “If you don’t want to kill it, then forget it. I’ll do it.”

Huixiang loosened her grip, and the chicken ran off again.

At this moment, everything felt a bit distorted. Huixiang didn’t quite understand what was happening.

She had a feeling like she was still dreaming.

The cornmeal on the ground was gone, and the chickens immediately scattered.

Yang Laowu went to get more cornmeal and scattered it. The chickens came back again.

The man held the kitchen knife and caught another chicken.

It wasn’t practical to hold the chicken with one hand and cut its throat with the other.

After all, the chicken would keep struggling.

So, he turned his head and said, “Come over and help me hold the chicken.”

Huixiang looked at the kitchen knife in his hand. Her emotions returned to their previous state. Her voice was raspy when she spoke, and she felt every word trembling as it came out: “Kill the chicken yourself. Catch it yourself.”

She went into the house as soon as she finished speaking.

Yang Laowu only muttered something and didn’t follow her inside.

Huixiang watched through the crack in the door. Since Yang Laowu had no one to help him hold the chicken, he pinned it down with his foot, grabbed its neck with his hand, and slit it with the knife.

“Don’t be moody. This is important business. A guest is coming at noon today.” Yang Laowu carried the chicken inside, holding a bowl to catch the blood dripping from it. He continued, “I know you don’t want the fake divorce, but there’s no other way.”

Huixiang felt that this was perhaps the first time Yang Laowu had been so patient with her since she married into the family.

She actually knew that Yang Laowu had never really wanted to marry her. She felt the same way. The two of them… they simply had no better options, so they ended up settling for each other.

Huixiang had an even worse premonition. When he first told her about the fake divorce, his tone hadn’t been this kind.

Why had his attitude toward her suddenly become so good? She was very afraid of this kind of thing.

Compared to the man treating her poorly, she was actually more afraid of him suddenly treating her exceptionally well. This kind of kindness was… it was just like scattering a handful of cornmeal to call the chickens back before killing them.

Her mind began to drift toward the Reservoir again.

Baihe Town was different from Tonglin Town. Baihe had no reservoir, but it had many riverbanks. While the reservoir was guarded, the riverbanks were not.

In her youth, she had been a mischievous child who craved the taste of fish. She used to watch the older children dive headfirst into the water and pull out fish with nets. Being young, she felt no fear, only curiosity toward the water. She had secretly gone to the river to catch fish herself, and over time, she had taught herself how to swim.

Yang Laowu could not swim.

She thought about the reservoir she had seen last night, and she thought about the business of the fake divorce and fake marriage.

Yang Laowu was still preoccupied with the fake divorce, wondering how to convince Huixiang. He realized now that she had no intention of cooperating.

At that moment, Huixiang suddenly spoke up. “Since we have guests today, one chicken definitely won’t be enough,” she said to him. “Why don’t we go fishing today? One chicken and a few fish should be just right.”

Yang Laowu had always been the undisputed head of the household. He made all the decisions and never consulted Huixiang about anything, which made her sudden suggestion feel jarringly out of place.

Yang Laowu was no fool. Just moments ago, Huixiang hadn’t even wanted to speak to him. Why the sudden change of heart? Why did she suddenly want to go fishing at the reservoir?

The reservoir? Plenty of people had died there. Some had drowned from leg cramps while swimming, and others had gone there to commit suicide.

A chill ran through him as he remembered a family in the village years ago. A couple had gotten into a fight, and the wife had run off to jump into the reservoir that very night.

He felt certain that Huixiang was acting out of spite and intended to jump into the reservoir, likely right in front of his eyes.

That absolutely could not happen! If Huixiang died, who would give him a son?

Adopting the best attitude he had ever shown in his life, he ignored the suggestion of fishing and tried to persuade her instead. “I know you’re reluctant about this, but we have two daughters. If you won’t think of yourself, think of them. When they grow up and get married, what if they’re bullied by their in-laws? By then, we’ll be a couple of old fossils. What use will we be? We’re older than them. Once we kick the bucket, they won’t have a soul to lean on.”

As he spoke, he even managed to convince himself. “Look at the girls in the village who have brothers. Which of their in-laws dares to bully them? That brother is their backbone.”

Only then did Huixiang speak. “You talk about our daughters, so I’ll talk about them too. If you go through with this fake marriage and fake divorce, how are they supposed to hold their heads up in this village? If I marry someone else and actually have a child, the Hukou will have to be under that man’s name. When the child asks me whose kid he is, what am I supposed to say?”

“You don’t need to worry about that. When the time comes, the Hukou will still be under our names.”

“How could it be under our names?”

“I have a way to handle it. Don’t overthink things.”

“I’m overthinking? You’re the one not using your brain. If I enter a fake marriage with someone, how can you guarantee they don’t have bad intentions? Once I’ve signed the papers, the certificate is real. Are you going to tell people it was a fake divorce and a fake marriage? What if the man goes back on his word?”

“So that’s what you’re worried about. You should have said so earlier! Do you really think I’d hand my own wife over to some lowlife?” Yang Laowu said. “That brother of mine in town, he’s a bit of a half-wit. Right here—”

He pointed to his head. “He’s got some issues up here. He doesn’t understand these things. He lives in town and his other conditions are decent enough, otherwise how could he have failed to find a wife?”

“Besides, you’re just going to sign some papers with him. You won’t be living together. Nothing will happen.”

Huixiang still didn’t want to agree. Something felt wrong. How could someone who wasn’t quite right in the head agree to such a thing? Moreover, she felt that Yang Laowu was still hiding something from her.

If it was just about signing papers, why were they coming over for lunch?

Furthermore, the way Yang Laowu was speaking to her so pleasantly now, without losing his temper, made her feel as if an invisible blade was being held against her throat.

“I originally thought Third Brother would be better, but then I thought, we’re all family, and it would look bad if word got out. But this man is from town, and since he’s not all there…”

Huixiang’s focus didn’t waver. She was still dwelling on the sentence Yang Laowu had let slip earlier.

“A fake divorce, then a fake marriage to have a child… how exactly could the Hukou end up under our names?”

Seeing that she insisted on knowing, Yang Laowu finally revealed what he had been most eager to say all day.

“He’s coming over today with his mother. They’re also coming to take a look at our two girls.”

“Why do they want to look at our daughters?”

“This is a good thing. His mother is a clever woman. After I talked to them about this, they came up with an even better plan. This way, the Hukou for the child born later can be registered to our family.”

He laid out the plan they had discussed the day before.

“After you and I divorce, the two kids won’t stay with me. They’ll go with you. You’ll marry him, and the kids’ Hukou will be moved to their house along with yours. Then you’ll divorce him and leave the kids with their family. After that, you and I will remarry. Since neither of us will have children under our names anymore, we can legally have another one².”

Huixiang couldn’t utter a single word. She looked at the man in front of her, who was so happy to have found a way to have it both ways, and felt a wave of dizziness wash over her.

“It takes someone from town to know the world. Their ideas are much better than ours,” he continued. “They told me that once the kids’ Hukou is moved over, since they live in town, the two girls can go to school right there. To be honest, it’s much better for them than staying here with us.”

Translator’s Notes