I See Murders Before They Happen

Chapter 286: Chapter 284: What Kind of Person is Gao Hui?

”Do you know anything about Gao Hui?” Su Miaoyi asked the woman.

She had questioned many people without learning much. Now that she’d finally found someone willing to talk, Su Miaoyi wanted to ask a few more questions.

The woman looked blank for a moment, then craned her neck and asked, ”Who’s Gao Hui?”

Su Miaoyi raised her eyes and looked at her.

The woman’s neck shrank back, and her whole body leaned away.

The local police officer said, ”Tian De’s wife.”

”Oh,” the woman said. ”Yeah, I know her.”

”What was she like?”

The woman pursed her lips and fell silent for a moment.

Chu Xingrou watched her displeased expression.

”The woman’s dead, so I shouldn’t speak ill of her. But if you want me to say something nice... I really can’t.” The woman tugged at her clothes.

Her husband, sitting beside her, said, ”She was a good person.”

The woman shot him a glare and turned her head away, not wanting to speak. But then she quickly whipped her head back around and kicked her husband.

The kick sent the man tumbling off his chair.

Chu Xingrou and Lu Zhishen were both startled and jumped to their feet.

Lu Zhishen was closer and quickly helped the man up.

The local officer rushed to break it up. ”Hey, hey, hey! Let’s talk this out, talk it out! No need to get physical, no need for that. It’s not that serious.”

The man dusted himself off and stood off to the side without another word.

The woman caught her breath and said, ”You disloyal bastard. Always taking other people’s side.”

The man stood in the corner, remaining completely silent.

The woman continued, ”A ’good person’? What was so good about her? Have you forgotten how she slandered me back then? All the bullshit she spouted!”

Su Miaoyi watched them.

The woman looked at Su Miaoyi, wanting to vent to her, but she seemed a little intimidated. So she turned to the local officer and Chu Xingrou instead. ”Officers, you be the judge. Just listen to what that wife of Tian De’s said about me back in the day.”

Chu Xingrou looked at her.

The woman said, ”I got pregnant at forty-seven. What’s that say? It says my husband and I are healthy. I got pregnant on my own, I was going to give birth on my own, raise the child on my own. I didn’t eat her family’s rice or drink their water. And what did that wife of Tian De’s say? She said I was shameless! That I had no sense of shame for an old woman!”

”I was having a baby with my own husband, not fooling around with someone else. How was I shameless? What part of that is shameless?” The woman was extremely agitated. ”She went all over the village, first saying I was shameless, then saying the baby in my belly wasn’t my husband’s. Claimed she saw me rolling around in the mountains with that old bachelor from the east end of the village. Just telling bald-faced lies.”

”Later, I had a miscarriage. I lost the baby. And what did that wife of Tian De’s say then? She said my husband beat me. Said I was fooling around with another man and my husband beat me so bad I miscarried. She also said I was getting what I deserved, that the baby was a bastard child and that’s why I couldn’t keep it. That the miscarriage served me right.”

”I’ve been alive for over fifty years. I’m not educated, and I haven’t seen much of the world, but I’ve lived an honest life for this family for half a century. What right did she have to spread lies everywhere, saying I was shameless, saying I was cheating on my husband? Because of her lies, the whole village started saying it.”

”So I went to her house and we got into a fight. We didn’t speak for many years after that. Right up until the day she died, we never said a word to each other.”

”Anyway, she’s gone now, so I won’t say anything worse.”

As the woman spoke, she grew more and more furious, finally letting out a deep sigh. ”That woman... Tian De’s wife... her mouth just spouted nonsense. She was always cussing people out. Tian De got chewed out by her all the time, just took it like a scolded dog.”

Su Miaoyi listened to her, her mind turning to the case file on Gao Hui from years ago.

None of this was in the file.

It just said she had no enemies and hadn’t offended anyone.

After leaving the neighbor’s house, Su Miaoyi discussed the situation with Duan Wenrui.

Duan Wenrui said, ”That’s just village gossip. Like, if you and I were together, we might talk about him. And if he and I were together, we might talk about you. All year round, outside of the busy farming season, there’s not much to do but sit around and shoot the breeze. It’s all perfectly normal stuff. Every village is like this. If people killed each other over things like that, this village would be empty.”

”That’s true,” the local officer added. ”People love to talk, but if a family is really in trouble, everyone will lend a hand. Sure, sometimes talk turns into a shouting match and a fight breaks out, but it’s over as soon as it’s done. After a while, everyone forgets about it. They go right back to talking and helping each other out.”

Su Miaoyi didn’t say anything else.

It was already past ten o’clock.

Most of the village had already gone to bed.

So they decided to come back first thing in the morning to question more people.

They would also wait for daylight to go over the crime scene again. ⅇℯ𝚕.

And they still needed to check that well.

Wan Shuang’s body was sent to the city for an autopsy.

Su Miaoyi and the others headed to the town.

The conditions in town weren’t great either, but it was more convenient. There were more places to eat and buy things.

They grabbed a simple bite to eat.

Then they walked toward the police station.

The station offered them lodging.

But there were too many of them. Besides Su Miaoyi’s team of three, there were several others from the branch bureau.

It was too far to travel back and forth from the city.

So they rented a house from a resident behind the police station.

A few people stayed at the station.

Su Miaoyi, her two partners, and Duan Wenrui went to the rented house out back.

They had rented two rooms in total.

Su Miaoyi and Chu Xingrou took one room, while Lu Zhishen and Duan Wenrui took the other.

”The conditions aren’t great, so we’ll have to make do,” Duan Wenrui said. ”This area is pretty underdeveloped economically.”

”It’s fine. We have food and a place to sleep.” Lu Zhishen had a bowl of hot soup and was feeling a bit more human again.

Facing the three detectives from Jinghai, Duan Wenrui still felt a little on edge.

Even though they were here to investigate a case, he was worried he wouldn’t be able to take good care of them.

The officer from the local station had come with them and was pointing out the amenities. ”The quilts are new, and so are the toiletries. The kettle and cups are new too, and they’ve already been washed.”

”Okay, we can handle it from here. You should head back and get some rest, too. We have a lot of investigating to do tomorrow,” Lu Zhishen said.

After the local police officer left, the four of them sat down and discussed the case a little more.

They established their priorities for the next day’s investigation.

When they had more or less finished, Lu Zhishen asked, ”Does everyone in the village have the surname Tian?”

”They all used to. Now there are some people with other surnames, but not many.” Because he had worked a case here three years ago, Duan Wenrui was quite familiar with Yanjing Village.

”A lot of people have moved away, I assume?” Lu Zhishen asked.

”Yeah. Some leave for school, but most leave for work. Around here... especially in the countryside, the educational resources can’t quite keep up, so very few get to leave for higher education. If you stay in the village, you farm the land, tend to the fruit trees. You have to leave to make real money,” Duan Wenrui explained. ”Most of the people left in the village now are older. The young people have all left to find work and buy houses elsewhere.”

...

Open readable version