Ma Cuihua was just about to say something when Lin Qin cut her off. "Turn left out of the door, turn right onto the main street, keep walking until you reach the three-way intersection at the end of the street—it's somewhere around there."
The expressions of the four members of the Liu family darkened instantly. It seemed Lin Qin was not bluffing!
As Liu Yongguo moved to leave, Lin Qin blocked the doorway. "No one is stepping out of this house until the police arrive!"
"You bitch! Don't think I won't deal with you!" Liu Yongguo clenched his fists in a threat.
Forced into a corner, Lin Zhi had to step forward to support Lin Qin. "Since my second niece has called the police, we wait for them to arrive. If you make a move now, you'll have a hard time explaining yourself when they get here!"
"This bitch bit my mother's arm until it bled! Even if I beat her to death, the police can't do anything to me!" Liu Yongguo stood his ground, his neck stiff, entirely convinced his actions were justified.
Looking at Lin Qin’s swollen face, Lin Zhi spoke with renewed conviction. "My second niece was beaten by you people, too. It’s tit for tat; there's nothing more to say. I didn't see what happened before, so I won't speak on it, but I’m here now. If you lay a hand on her, things won't be so simple! We people from Shanglin Village aren't to be bullied!"
The director of the neighborhood committee, who had been hiding in the crowd to watch the commotion, felt compelled to step out once Lin Zhi mentioned Shanglin Village. With a grim face, he warned Liu Yongguo, "Comrade Liu Yongguo, Lin Qin is your brother's wife, after all. How can you just start hitting her? Things are different when men get involved in a woman's quarrel."
Squabbles between women were one thing, and being family, they rarely spiraled out of control. But for a man to intervene meant escalating a minor conflict into something difficult to resolve, especially since Liu Yongguo was Lin Qin’s brother-in-law—he should have known to avoid such appearances.
With the neighborhood director having spoken, the neighbors immediately chimed in to agree.
Seeing the situation turning against them, Xu Manzhi hurried forward to pull on Liu Yongguo, signaling him to step back. She placed her hands on her hips and pointed at Lin Qin, shouting, "You engaged in such sordid business, so what if Mother hit you? You’ve made the Liu family a laughingstock of the entire street. It's a mercy that Mother didn't throw you out! You don't know how to be grateful, and instead, you’ve injured Mother and your sister-in-law like this. Lin Qin, do you even have a conscience?"
Lin Qin didn't even grant Xu Manzhi a glance. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the man on the bed stirring, her gaze darkening slightly.
Chen Wenjun.
In her past life, he was the man the Liu family had framed her with, the man who had ruined half her life, yet also the only man who had truly cared for her.
In this life, they would have no such intersection!
At the sound of movement, Lin Qin looked toward the front door. "Officer, it's here." Lin Yi entered the house, followed by two police officers.
Before Lin Qin could speak, Xu Manzhi began to deflect blame. "Officers, you've come just in time! Please, save my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. This bitch, Lin Qin, was fooling around with a wild man and is now trying to kill my mother-in-law and sister-in-law!"
Lin Qin stepped aside to let the officers enter. When the officer saw her swollen face, he frowned. "Which one is Lin Qin?"
"I am," Lin Qin replied steadily.
Seeing her calm demeanor, the officer raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Your father, Lin Yi, said you wanted to report a crime. Tell us what happened."
Lin Qin gestured toward the four members of the Liu family. "They conspired against me. They locked me and that stranger in this room to frame me for illicit relations."
"Officer, she's talking nonsense! This is our home. Why would we frame her? If word of this got out, we’d have no face left!" Xu Manzhi countered cleverly, casting a smug look at Lin Qin.
The officer didn't listen to just one side. He asked Lin Qin, "Do you have any evidence that they framed you?"
"I do."
Everyone looked at Lin Qin in astonishment. What evidence? How could there be evidence for such a thing? Even the onlookers were puzzled, and the four members of the Liu family looked confused.
Lin Qin reached up and touched her head, where a large bump had formed, still covered in sticky residue. She held out her hand to show everyone. "This is the evidence! I was in the kitchen washing dishes tonight when someone hit me with a club, and I lost consciousness."
She had only discovered this wound in her previous life after being dragged back to Shanglin Village; it was because of this injury that she realized she had been set up by the Liu family.
Seeing the blood, the officer’s expression turned somber. "Comrade Lin Qin, your condition requires immediate medical attention. We have opened a case and will investigate this matter thoroughly."
The neighbors, realizing the severity of the head wound, looked at the four members of the Liu family with newfound fear and revulsion.
"That—that could have been murder if it hadn't been handled right!" The neighborhood director realized the gravity of the situation and stopped trying to mediate. He turned to rebuke Ma Cuihua and her family severely. "You’ve gone too far!"
"It wasn't us! She's lying! We didn't hit her!" Ma Cuihua refused to admit it, her neck stiff as she shouted, "It’s clearly her own guilty conscience making her try to divert everyone's attention. We caught her in bed with an adulterer today! The adulterer is still lying right there! She can't deny it!"
"Are you talking about me?"
Everyone looked toward the bed, where Chen Wenjun had just regained consciousness. He was clutching his head with one hand and frantically patting his body with the other, his expression pained.
The officer immediately sensed something was wrong. He stepped forward, pulled Chen Wenjun’s hand away, and checked him carefully. His face darkened. "Comrade, did you sustain a head injury, too?"
"Yes! Yes, yes, yes!" Chen Wenjun saw the officer’s uniform and, in a burst of excitement, grabbed his hand, crying out anxiously, "Officer, my money was stolen! My money is gone! Fifty-three yuan and twenty-five cents! That was fifty-three yuan and twenty-five cents!"
The crowd: "???"
Wasn't this about illicit relations? Wasn't he supposed to be injured? Why was money missing now? And fifty-something yuan—that was no small sum.
The officer said patiently, "Don't panic. Tell me exactly what happened."
Chen Wenjun sat cross-legged on the bed, wiping away tears as he choked out, "I'm a Tanka person from Nanxi Creek, my name is Chen Wenjun. I came to the street today to sell fish. Business wasn't very good, and it was nearly dark by the time I sold everything. I was carrying my pole to head home when I was hit from behind with a stick in the alley, and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was here!"
Just as he finished, an old man who had been watching the spectacle spoke up loudly: "I know, I know... tonight, Li San's mother carried two baskets and a pole home. There seemed to be some things in them, and I could smell fish from far away. I even argued with her about it; it was probably your stuff."
Nobody in their area caught fish; the items had appeared quite abruptly. The key was that when he asked Li San's mother if she’d struck it rich, the old woman had cursed at him. Hmph! He wouldn't let that old woman get away with it!
The other officer immediately signaled the old man to lead him to find Li San's mother.
Lin Qin stared at the scene, her mind a blank.
This… Chen Wenjun… his reaction in her past life was nothing like this! And the lost money—that wasn't discovered until later, and the amount was different!
Before she could piece it together, Chen Wenjun was already pleading with the officer to help him find his money. While the officer gave his word to Chen Wenjun, he looked at the four members of the Liu family with a stern gaze.
The Liu family members were now in a total panic. Liu Yongguo retorted agitatedly, "Officer, he's lying! It’s clearly him and Lin Qin having an affair and plotting to frame us! We didn't take his money!"