Chapter 308: Chapter 306: Did She Mention Tian Min?

After talking with Zhuang Yanzheng on the phone, Lu Zhishen worked on the portrait sketch while Su Miaoyi and Chu Xingrou went for a walk around the village.

"Sister Miaomiao, where are we going?" Chu Xingrou asked, keeping an eye on her surroundings.

"To Wan Shuang’s neighbor’s house," Su Miaoyi said. "I want to ask some more questions."

"That woman’s house?" Chu Xingrou remembered asking her quite a few things about Wan Shuang the night they first arrived.

"Mhm."

Chu Xingrou glanced around again.

Su Miaoyi looked at her. "What did Zhuang Yanzheng say to you?"

Chu Xingrou leaned in and whispered, "Captain Zhuang said to be careful of someone jumping out, throwing a sack over our heads, and beating us up, or even selling us."

Su Miaoyi stared at her.

Chu Xingrou continued in a low voice, "Captain Zhuang said that when he first started working, he went to a mountainous region out of town to rescue trafficking victims and almost got a sack thrown over his own head and sold. He said people can jump out of nowhere—from places you’d never imagine they could hide. One sudden blow to the head, and they’d drag you away."

"During his first few years on the force, he never had any cases that took him outside of Jinghai City," Su Miaoyi said.

"Huh?" Chu Xingrou froze for a second. "Captain Zhuang said that back then, he was tall, powerful, dashingly handsome, young, and good-looking, so he was targeted immediately."

Su Miaoyi’s lip twitched. "He told you that?"

"Mhm, mhm, mhm," Chu Xingrou nodded.

Su Miaoyi let out a laugh. "So he’s aware he was young and handsome back then."

"Captain Zhuang is still pretty handsome now," Chu Xingrou said, then wrinkled her nose. "He’s just a bit rough around the edges at work. When he’s off duty, I’ve seen him look quite... like a rich guy."

Su Miaoyi laughed again. "He’s just messing with you. He makes up stories about himself at the drop of a hat."

"Oh."

"Still, it’s better to be careful," Su Miaoyi said. "After all, we’re out of town, and we’re not exactly welcome here right now. What if we run into someone irrational?"

"Okay."

After what happened to Tian Ming yesterday, the villagers were all staying indoors during the day unless they had something to do.

When they arrived at Wan Shuang’s neighbor’s, Su Miaoyi and Chu Xingrou weren’t turned away. On the contrary, they were welcomed inside without any trouble.

"Sit, sit," the woman said, gesturing for them to take a seat. "Tian Liu isn’t here, so the convenience store is closed. I don’t have any fruit in the house, so just make do with this."

"Okay, thank you," Su Miaoyi said, sitting down.

"Take this," the woman said, handing Chu Xingrou an apple.

Chu Xingrou held it in her hands.

The woman sat on a chair, wringing her hands, while the man stood by the door.

Su Miaoyi said, "We came here because we have a few more questions we’d like to ask you."

"Alright, ask away. I’ll tell you everything I know," the woman said. "Please, just catch this killer soon. The harvest is coming up, and we can’t just stay inside all day. As long as they’re not caught, my heart is pounding every single day. I can’t find any peace."

"You haven’t done anything wrong. What are you afraid of?" the man said.

"What if the killer gets desperate and starts killing anyone they see? Who can stay inside forever?" the woman shouted at the man.

The man fell silent.

The woman looked at Su Miaoyi and gave a dry laugh. "This is how we are at home. Been like this for half our lives."

Su Miaoyi nodded. "I’d like to ask you about Wan Shuang again."

"Okay. Ask away."

Chu Xingrou put down the apple and started taking notes.

Su Miaoyi asked, "Last time, you said Wan Shuang had a sharp tongue but a soft heart and liked to nag people. Did she ever talk about Gao Hui?"

"She did." The woman seemed desperate to provide a useful clue just to get the case solved. "She said Gao Hui had it coming. That she was always cursing and swearing—at Tian De, his son, even their dog. Wan Shuang said it would be more peaceful if people like her died sooner, saving her the annoyance of seeing her."

"Actually, Gao Hui liked to gossip too. The two of them got along really well, always getting together to talk about this person or that person."

"If she talked about Gao Hui like that, wasn’t she worried about herself?" Su Miaoyi said.

"People are always quick to see others’ faults, but never their own," the woman said. "Wan Shuang never thought she was offending anyone. She was definitely a lot better than Gao Hui. She was always helping people out with chores, helping this family, helping that family. So she didn’t think her mouth got her into trouble. She just thought of herself as warm-hearted and that lots of people liked her."

"What about Wu An? Did she ever talk about Wu An? I mean Uncle Wu," Su Miaoyi asked again.

"She did," the woman said. "She loved to joke around with Uncle Wu. Uncle Wu doesn’t like to talk. When you speak to him, he doesn’t answer, so I just stopped talking to him. But Wan Shuang was different. The less Uncle Wu talked, the more she liked to tease him."

The woman spoke as she recalled, "She was always telling Wu An she’d find him a wife. One day it’d be the village idiot from next door, the next day it’d be some widow from another village. Sometimes the things she said were really nasty, like how a man who’s never slept with a woman in his life isn’t a real man..."

The woman’s voice grew fainter until the rest of her words were nearly inaudible.

Chu Xingrou frowned.

Su Miaoyi continued, "Did she ever talk about Tian Min?"

The woman suddenly fell silent for a moment.

Su Miaoyi watched her.

"She did," the woman said. "I heard her myself more than once or twice."

"What did she say?" Su Miaoyi asked.

Another stretch of silence. "How old was Tian Min back then? She was just a kid, what could she possibly understand? Not long after it happened, didn’t Tian Dajiang pay ten thousand yuan in compensation? Wan Shuang was chatting with a few of us, and she said Tian Ming wanted to sell his daughter to pay off gambling debts, so he had Xiao Min seduce Tian Dajiang."

"Wan Shuang said that?" Su Miaoyi asked.

"Well, that’s who I heard it from," the woman said. "She said Tian Ming made Xiao Min do it, and that Tian Dajiang was just an unlucky sap. She also called Xiao Min a shameless little slut, saying she already knew how to seduce men at such a young age, and imagine what she’d be like when she grew up."

"Anyway, Wan Shuang secretly told a lot of people things about Xiao Min behind her back. Sometimes she’d see Xiao Min, and after she’d walked away, Wan Shuang would comment on the way she walked, saying you could tell she’d been slept with. She also said..."

She paused abruptly, finding it difficult to continue.

Both Su Miaoyi and Chu Xingrou looked at her.

"She also said you could tell just by looking at Xiao Min that it wasn’t just once, that she must sleep with a lot of men to make money. She told everyone to keep a close watch on their husbands so they wouldn’t get seduced by her. And she said that their family... they have three other men in the house, who knows what they get up to at home."

Su Miaoyi and Chu Xingrou were both stunned.

’Could a human being actually say something like that?’

The two fell silent, neither saying a word.

"That’s what I heard her say when I was with her. She definitely said it at other times, too," the woman said. "Every time I heard it, I told her to stop. The poor girl had already been through something terrible; she was suffering enough. Besides, Xiao Min is a good kid. She would never do those things. It was just them, with nothing better to do, getting together to make up stories and spread lies."

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