Fake Divorce Turns into Murder Case (10)

Chapter 62

At three o’clock in the afternoon, the investigators sent from Xiangjin Town arrived and officially took over the autopsy work.

Yun Song and her two colleagues were then able to begin the investigative work for the case.

This investigation was entirely different from their previous trip to the village to investigate the bank burglary case.

Last time, with the exception of Xiangxiu, the entire village had performed a masterclass in using high emotional intelligence to avoid police questioning.

This time, however, it seemed everyone wanted to have a word with them.

Usually, villagers would not mock someone’s misfortune on a large scale in front of outsiders. They might laugh at minor mishaps, but for major tragedies, people generally preferred to choose tolerance and silence.

This was especially true in cases involving death, where the principle of “respecting the deceased¹” held sway.

But there were exceptions.

That was when there was a genuine, deep-seated grudge. When there is a deep grudge, people naturally want to make sarcastic remarks. If they didn’t speak up now, they might never get another chance.

In moments like these, they stopped caring about social niceties. The villagers could always comfort themselves by saying, “We are law-abiding citizens. The police asked, so we have to tell the truth.”

Whether it was for the sake of appearances or out of genuine spite, they had to say something.

“The Yang family is unreasonable. You’ve offended them this time. Even though you’re the police, you should keep your wits about you when you come up here in the future.”

“The people in that family are each more reckless than the last. You’re the police, but you still need to be careful.”

The villagers developed a sense of shared enmity with the three officers, as if they were all united in a common front against the Yang family.

Part of this was because the police had not used an iron fist when dealing with the Yangs, so the villagers naturally sided with them.

Had they used heavy-handed tactics at the time, such as drawing guns to forcefully suppress the Yang family, the villagers would have felt that while the Yangs were certainly in the wrong, the police pointing guns at them was perhaps going too far.

Yun Song didn’t know exactly what the other villagers were thinking, but she could tell that the Yang family must have offended quite a few people over the years.

Yun Song stuck to her strategy. She intended to visit everyone in the village, starting with the Yang family themselves.

Inside the Yang household, people weren’t saying much. The Yang women, in particular, basically refused to speak to them.

“Don’t get me in trouble. If my father-in-law and the others come back and see me talking to you, I’ll be in for it,” the eldest daughter-in-law said.

Nearby, Huixiang had been listening to the conversation. Hearing this, she immediately followed suit and said, “Me too.”

Yun Song didn’t push them. After all, these women still had to live there, and the police could find others to question for their work.

Besides, there were no secrets in a village.

Not long after leaving the Yang house, they encountered an older sister carrying a back basket, heading toward the mountains.

As soon as she heard what they were asking about, she immediately spoke up.

“I haven’t been married into this village for very long, so I don’t know much.”

But then, thinking of the Yang family’s usual behavior, she couldn’t quite hold it in.

“But what do you want to know? I’ll tell you whatever I do know.”

“What is their family’s reputation like in the village?”

The woman looked left and right. Seeing no one, she finally said, “In one word: rotten! Those people rely on having many sons to constantly bully others in the village. Everyone hates them in their hearts. For example, a while back, the Zhang family dug a water pool.”

Thinking the police were city people who wouldn’t understand such things, she added, “People in this village usually drink water from the Great Reservoir. Each household pays eight yuan a year in water fees. Some people can’t bear to spend those eight yuan, so they find a spot in the mountains, dig a small pool, buy their own pipes, and drink spring water directly.”

“It’s a bit of a hassle because the pipes are plastic and break often. When they break, you have to set out from home and search all the way to find the leak and fix it. So, the people who do this are mostly the elderly. The younger generation just pays the eight yuan; that way, the water supply is guaranteed year-round without the headache.”

Yun Song and Tong Jin listened intently. This made sense; to the elderly, eight yuan was still significant money.

“The Zhang family’s son and daughter-in-law took the kids to Guangzhou for work, and their daughter married into Yulan Town. Usually, it’s just the old couple at home, so naturally, they didn’t want to pay for the reservoir water. They dug a pool over at Swallow Mountain. They were drinking from it just fine until Old Man Yang saw it. He couldn’t stand to see that family doing well, so he claimed the pool was too close to his land and was preventing his potatoes from growing. He wouldn’t let the Zhangs use the water from that pool. The old couple wouldn’t agree; they had dug it themselves, it wasn’t in a field but in the mountains, far away from any farmland. They insisted on using the water. In the end, the Yang family took advantage of the night to fill their pool with dirt.”

At the time, everyone in the village called it a sin. There were only two elderly people at home; did they really have to make life so hard for them?

After the woman finished, she added another disclaimer. “I haven’t been married in long, so I don’t know many stories. Go ask the Zhang family, the ones with a row of persimmon trees by their house. They’ve been here a long time and know more.”

Persimmon trees? It was winter now, and the fruit trees had lost all their leaves, making them quite hard to find.

Fortunately, the woman was enthusiastic. Seeing that the two didn’t understand, she pointed again. “Go down this path. It’s the house with a large water vat at the entrance.”

Yun Song and Tong Jin walked down the path and soon saw a large water vat made of stone.

Beside the vat was a large wicker tray containing washed white radishes.

An old lady happened to come out of the house holding a kitchen knife. She was in an exceptionally good mood, her joy irrepressible in the corners of her eyes and brows, and she was even muttering something to herself.

“Hello…”

“Oh my, police officers! Come in, come in, have a seat.” The old lady turned around, saw the two officers, and immediately smiled, bringing out a long bench.

“It’s fine, go on with your work. We just wanted to ask about some matters regarding the Yang family.”

The old lady sat down nearby, pulled over a cutting board, and began slicing radishes. As she sliced, she said, “Go ahead and ask. Whatever I know, I’ll certainly tell you.”

A person of her age would surely know much more than the younger Sister Zhou they had spoken to before.

Yun Song then asked, “Do you have another kitchen knife?”

The Old Lady was stunned for a moment. “I do.”

“Bring one for me as well,” Yun Song said.

Tong Jin, who was beside her, wanted one too, but she had to take notes, so she had to give up on the idea.

The Old Lady originally thought this police officer wanted to eat radishes, so she handed over a knife. Yun Song began cutting radishes just like the Old Lady.

She made two cuts at the head of the radish, not going all the way to the bottom, dividing it into four segments. Then she changed direction, staggering the next two cuts to turn it into a radish flower.

The old woman’s house was very small. Outside, the wind began to blow. Inside the room, the two police officers sat with the villager, chatting about the Yang Family while they sliced radishes.

“The Yang Family is just getting their karma now.”

Yun Song acted as if she had never heard of the family’s various outrageous deeds and asked in a low voice, “Why do you say they are facing retribution?”

“A person simply cannot do too many bad things in this life.”

Yun Song then listened to a story from the Old Lady’s past.

That family had five sons. In the past, they always acted as if they were something special in the village, looking down on everyone else.

Most families didn’t actually care about competing with them, and since they did have many sons, people avoided provoking them whenever possible.

The Old Lady’s family was like that. At first, she had even envied them for having so many sons; she only had one son and one daughter.

Until twenty years ago, when her daughter was seventeen or eighteen, the Yang Family sent a matchmaker to propose a marriage between her youngest daughter and the Yang Family’s second son.

Everyone lived in the same village, so people were well aware of the character of the various sons. At the time, the Old Lady actually wanted to marry her daughter to Yang Laosan, as he seemed more honest. However, that family was completely unwilling, insisting on the second son and claiming things had to be done in order of age.

The Yang Family spoke very sweetly back then: “I’ve raised so many sons and always wanted a daughter. If your girl marries in, I’ll surely love her like my own child.”

When her daughter went to meet the family and came back after a meal, she thought the family seemed decent. If she married in, she would be the eldest sister-in-law, and the brothers would have to respect her.

And so, the Old Lady’s family agreed to the engagement. Typically, engagements were set at sixteen or seventeen, but the actual wedding would wait until eighteen or nineteen. Some families who doted on their daughters would even wait until they were twenty.

During the engagement period, according to the customs of Tonglin Town, the groom’s family would regularly provide gifts of rice, meat, and eggs. No matter what the future held, they had to flatter the bride’s family during this time.

The Yang Family did this at first. Later, the village started a literacy class so that young people who hadn’t attended school before could go to lessons.

The Yang Family’s second son naturally attended this literacy class. While there, he took a liking to another girl and became very close to her.

Her family didn’t know about this at the time. The literacy class was held over in Laoma Village, which was quite far from here. Being in their own village, they didn’t know what was happening over there.

The Yang Family came to break off the engagement. At first, her family thought there must be some misunderstanding.

The Yang Family wouldn’t say what was actually going on. After all, if the truth got out, the villagers would certainly look down on them, and they still had several sons who weren’t married yet.

So, the family began spreading nasty rumors about the Wang family’s daughter everywhere.

When chatting with others, they would intentionally or unintentionally express their disdain for the Wang girl, but they never said why.

Word of this quickly reached the Wang family.

The Wangs found it baffling and went to demand an explanation.

“You were the ones who sent someone to propose the marriage, and both sides followed the rules. Why have you suddenly started saying all these messy things behind our backs?”

The Yang Family wasn’t polite at all. “You have the nerve to ask us? You know exactly what you did. We’re only keeping quiet to give you some face.”

The Wang family was clueless. The two families ended up in a physical fight. The engagement was broken, but her family suffered a huge loss.

Because the Yang Family never clarified exactly why they broke off the engagement, they made it look as though the girl had some major problem.

The youngest daughter was only eighteen. Being slandered like that, she was unwilling to marry anyone from her own village or the neighboring ones, feeling she had lost face. In the end, she chose to marry into Yulan Town.

The matter was technically over, but hatred doesn’t disappear with the passage of time; it only grows deeper. Especially as the Old Lady aged, with her daughter and grandchildren over in Yulan Town, she only saw them a few times a year. Every time it came up, she naturally wouldn’t blame her daughter. Given the circumstances back then, there was no other choice. It was all the Yang Family’s fault, that family of scoundrels!

Now that the Yang Family was in trouble, she felt in her heart that they deserved it. They didn’t accumulate virtue in their youth, and now they were facing retribution! Heaven has eyes!

She didn’t actually think Yang Laosan had been murdered; she just thought it was karma. Her reason for telling Yun Song all this was mostly because, in her subconscious, Yun Song was a police officer. The police represented the authorities, the side of justice and righteousness. She yearned to hear Yun Song criticize the Yang Family at this moment.

Yun Song noticed this and said, “What they did was truly subhuman.” They could have just explained things clearly, yet they chose this path instead.

The Old Lady became even happier, her face showing her total agreement with the idea of karmic retribution. Her hands didn’t stop slicing the radish strips for a second; she didn’t even need to look at the knife to cut them.

Yun Song kept a close eye on the woman’s state, confirming that the Old Lady was mentally stable.

Yun Song offered some words of comfort and then asked which family her daughter had married into in Yulan Town.

Yun Song had been to Yulan Town before while investigating a case. At that time, several women there heard she was a police officer from Tonglin Town and came to invite her for lunch.

“We married over from Tonglin Town. You’re a police officer from our town, so it’s only right that we host you.”

The Old Lady gave her daughter’s address. “There’s a place called Tongzi Bay in Yulan Town. The second house up is my youngest daughter’s home.”

“We truly have a connection. Last time I went to Yulan Town for a case, she even brought me some tea.”

The Old Lady became even more affectionate toward her.

Only then did Yun Song continue her questioning. “This deceased third son, why didn’t he ever take a wife?”

“Their family didn’t like him. I heard that when the third son was born, the father of the house happened to break his leg, so they thought the third son was a jinx.”

Yun Song thought about it for a moment and understood. Many families in the village favored sons over daughters. In such an environment, sons were the family’s treasures, while daughters became the emotional outlet for the frustrations of heavy farm work. For some families, beating and hating their daughters became a way to vent their daily stress.

However, the Yang Family had five sons and no daughters. Surely they couldn’t all be the apples of their parents’ eyes?

Furthermore, Yang Laosan had the misfortune of being born right when an elder in the family broke a leg. Consequently, it became a matter of course for his parents to loathe him, and he became the family’s punching bag.

When parents hate one of their children, the other children sense it keenly and begin to treat that child as if he doesn’t matter.

It was a textbook example of a toxic family environment.

Yun Song recalled that after Yang Laowu’s wife divorced him, she had married Yang Laosan. With this realization, a clear direction began to form in her mind.

Translator’s Notes