The Bank Burglary Case (14)

Chapter 14

Yun Song did not sleep well during the latter half of the night. While awake, she kept thinking about the case, and by the time she finally managed to drift off for a short while, dawn had already arrived.

After eating breakfast at the Village Party Secretary’s house, she headed over to the home of Mei Yue’s Second Grandpa.

“Ma’am, is Mei Qiang at home?” Mei Qiang was Second Grandpa’s formal name.

In the courtyard, a woman was holding a wooden stick, stirring pig feed in a large wooden vat.

During her rounds yesterday, many people had been away in the mountains or the fields, but Yun Song had asked where everyone lived. Naturally, she remembered that she hadn’t been able to interview this family yet.

She recalled that when she came by earlier, no one had been home.

“He went to the back mountains early this morning to graze the sheep,” the woman said, turning around.

The woman looked to be in her sixties. Like other village women of her age, she had the face of a laborer, etched with wrinkles and sunspots. Years of physical toil had left her slightly hunched and very thin, yet her hands were strong as she lifted a heavy bucket of pig feed.

“Which mountain?” Yun Song asked.

“That, I wouldn’t know. Officer, you’re from the city, you don’t understand us country folk. When you’re grazing sheep, they run all over the hills. Who can say for sure which mountain he’s on?” The older woman lied with a straight face.

Yun Song replied, “In that case, chatting with you is just as good. I have to ask every household.”

“Then you’d better wait for him to come back. I don’t know anything about what you all are talking about.”

“I’m at home from morning till night. How would I know so much?”

“That’s fine. I’ll just wait here for him to return,” Yun Song said, pulling up a stool and sitting down to one side.

She took out a notebook and continued organizing the details of the case.

The woman carried the feed to the pigsty. Four large, fat pigs came up grunting. She took a stick and tapped each of them on the head to drive them aside before pouring the feed into the trough.

After feeding the pigs, the woman came back out. The young police officer was still sitting nearby, writing something.

Over the past two days, she had heard that these police officers had come from the city specifically to investigate the bank burglary. She heard that the theft was related to Wang Jiawang from the village, and furthermore, that someone had died.

That man, Wang Jiawang, often came to find her husband to drink. It seemed they had even shared a drink not too long ago…

But that was something she certainly couldn’t mention.

Using the same bucket, the woman fetched some water, returned to the pigsty, and poured it into the water trough. Nearby, the pigs were grunting happily as they ate.

The woman couldn’t help but sigh and say, “Tell me, how did that policeman know the body was in the manure pit? And I wonder how they managed to get the body out?”

When the woman came out again, the officer was still sitting there, writing. She had no idea what was being written.

Sanli Village was remote and poor. Usually, it was just the locals around, and any gossip was about village matters.

She didn’t know what had happened these last few years, but there weren’t any outdoor movies anymore. When she was a child, there would occasionally be opera troupes. Even though she couldn’t understand the performances, she had still felt happy. In her youth, it was outdoor movies. Back then, they worked during the day, and if they were lucky at night, they would go to the threshing floor¹ to watch a film. Once, they had been so crowded trying to see the movie that they knocked over the trees next to the threshing floor.

For some reason, there hadn’t been many outdoor movies in recent years, and there wasn’t much to look forward to after a day’s work.

The stories told back and forth were always the same few old tales², getting quite dull.

Finally, something had happened in town, and a big thing at that – a bank burglary and a dead body – yet no one knew the full story.

The police officer was sitting right there. Unlike some in the village who would shamelessly pry for gossip, she was worried that asking questions might make her a nuisance.

The woman walked back and forth.

Finally, she couldn’t hold back any longer and asked, “Officer, aren’t you in a hurry to get back to town?”

“No rush. My colleagues have already notified the county police. They’re sending a forensic doctor to examine the body. There’s something strange about this corpse…”

The woman felt as if her mouth no longer belonged to her.

She couldn’t help but sit down nearby, her heart itching with curiosity. She asked, “What’s strange about it?”

Yun Song said, “There should have been two of them who robbed the bank. For some reason, they had a falling out.”

Yesterday, Yun Song had spent her time sparring verbally with the villagers. Last night, when she couldn’t sleep, aside from brooding over her own drifting life, she had spent some time figuring out how to draw people out.

The people of Tonglin Town had one very prominent characteristic: they loved to gossip.

Yun Song had noticed this back when she was in town. To catch the attention of a Tonglin local, all you had to do was start an argument between two people, and a crowd of locals would guaranteed to gather around.

The land here was barren and transportation was difficult. The ancestors of Tonglin Town had suffered much due to the lack of information flow, which resulted in a curiosity about other people’s business that was practically etched into their genes.

Since Yun Song herself was already a magnet for gossip, she only needed to change her approach and wait for people to come and ask her.

The woman immediately said, “They must have wanted to keep the money for themselves. You don’t know – it was fine before when no one saw any money, but ever since the town set up the brick factory and that textile mill, money has slowly appeared. Many people have gone crazy for it.”

Yun Song put on a look of sudden realization. “Is that so? We don’t see that sort of thing much in the city.” In truth, it happened there too.

The woman still remembered her husband saying that if the police came, she shouldn’t mention anything about Wang Jiawang. But since she wasn’t talking about him now, she said, “This isn’t the first time things have been stolen in town. It’s happened several times before. But in the past, it was the copper wiring from the brick factory being stolen, so no police ever came to investigate.”

The woman thought for a moment and added, “Even if the police come for something like that, they can’t find anything, right?”

“Not necessarily,” Yun Song said. “We handled a case before in another place where a household was being robbed constantly,”

The two of them slowly began to chat.

Elsewhere, Second Grandpa was in the mountains grazing the sheep.

He had never felt this miserable in his entire life. Now, he could only keep trying to comfort himself.

The police were all city folk. If they couldn’t find anything, they would have to head back to the city.

He had spoken to his family before leaving, telling them not to mention anything about Wang Jiawang to the police. It should be fine.

His heart was heavy with distress, and it felt as if every inch of ground beneath his feet was pricking him. He couldn’t stand still. Even in his dreams last night, he had been caught by the police.

He continued walking toward the back of the mountain.

There was a cave on the back mountain where rapeseed stalks³ were usually piled up.

Second Grandpa walked into the cave and went straight to the very back, pulling away the layers of rapeseed stalks.

A plastic bag was revealed, and inside the bag were stacks of hundred-yuan bills.

He couldn’t help but touch the plastic bag.

Money. It was all money.

As long as he could endure this, as long as he could hold out until the police left, all this money would be his.

This money belonged to him, and him alone. No one else knew about it.

And so, in that dark, oppressive cave, his thirst for money slowly began to suppress his fear.

Translator’s Notes