Liu Limin caught a glimpse of a small head poking out from inside the house amidst all the chaos.
He pinched the bridge of his nose with a headache and squeezed into the house while no one was paying attention.
Staring at Liu Yu, he demanded, “What on earth is going on?”
Liu Yu gestured toward the courtyard with his chin. “Haven’t you already seen it? Liu Gui colluded with people from the neighboring village to steal things from my house, and now he’s been caught.”
Liu Limin was utterly speechless. As expected, it was Liu Gui! Of everyone in the household, he was always the one causing the most trouble!
In the end, Liu Gui confessed to his crimes.
The police told him that as long as he cooperated and helped them solve the case, he could redeem himself through meritorious service.
Li Cuihong grabbed his arm, begging him bitterly to nod and agree right away.
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Liu Gui obediently nodded on the spot.
Yes, he did not want to go to prison. He had heard that reform through labor in prison meant not getting enough to eat, not wearing enough to keep warm, and endless farmwork. Just the thought of it terrified Liu Gui.
He had only happened to see a few young girls in the family secretly eating candy without sharing with him, and after pressing them, he found out the candy came from Liu Yu. That was how he got the crooked idea to steal the candy—he hadn’t actually wanted to steal in the first place!
In an instant, the brotherhood forged through past wrongdoings completely crumbled.
Knowing this was his only chance to redeem himself, Liu Gui bit down hard and threw his four accomplices right under the bus.
“The money must have been stolen by them; I didn’t see a single cent of it.”
Thinking of this made his blood boil. He had treated them like brothers, bringing them along even when stealing good things, yet these guys treated him like an outsider, pocketing all the money behind his back.
Since they showed him no loyalty, he felt no obligation to be righteous either. There was no need to feel any guilt about exposing them.
Thinking this with resentment, Liu Gui ranted even more enthusiastically.
“Right, the money must have been stolen by them! We agreed to go to that little brat Liu Heqing’s house to steal good food, but in the end, they left all the goods to me while not even taking a single piece of candy themselves.”
“I was wondering why they were suddenly being so generous. Whenever we stole things in the past, we always split everything down to the last penny!”
“What nonsense are you spewing!” Seeing him blurt out reckless things, Li Cuihong was too late to cover his mouth and could only bark a harsh reprimand, a flicker of panic washing over her eyes.
Realizing belatedly that he had let his anger get the better of him and spilled his own secrets, exposing their shady history, Liu Gui quickly clamped his mouth shut.
“Continue,” the police officer commanded. He had handled more cases than this kid had eaten meals; he simply wouldn’t believe that someone daring enough to smash open cabinets and steal could have a clean record.
Inside the house, Liu Yu held back his breath and chuckled silently.
“Hurry up and tell that precious boy of yours to shut up. With all the bad things he’s ever done, even confessing them all wouldn’t be enough to earn him redemption.” He shot a sarcastic remark sideways at Liu Limin.
Liu Limin helplessly retorted, “He’s your family’s precious boy too.”
“He is definitely not mine,” Liu Yu muttered with a disgusted expression.
Having nearly finished their questioning, the officers rose and headed toward Sunjiachuang once more.
It was now high noon, and the children at school were returning home one after another for lunch.
Upon seeing the police return, a family visibly panicked; their child even sprang up from a stool as if intending to bolt.
There was no need for further interrogation—the meaning was crystal clear. It was nothing more than sheer, guilty panic.
With one caught, the rest began to fall apart at the seams, and they were eventually cornered by the village chief and the local villagers.
“Speak up! Where did you hide the money you stole from someone else’s place?” the officer demanded sternly.
“What money?”
“Yeah, what are you talking about?”
“Don’t understand.”
As if rehearsed, the group stubbornly refused to admit to anything, shaking their heads like rattles.
“Your accomplice, Liu Gui, has already confessed to everything.”
“What?” The group exchanged bewildered glances, completely unable to fathom why Liu Gui would know they had stolen the money.
Then, they cast incredulous looks in his direction.
Trembling from head to toe behind his mother, Liu Gui had no idea either! Wasn’t he just trying to redeem himself? Since real money had been stolen, it certainly couldn’t have been him! Even without solid proof, he had to pin it on someone!
The group stubbornly kept up their facade. “We don’t know anything about any money. Who knows if Liu Gui took it himself and refuses to admit it?”
“Utter nonsense! See if I don’t tear your stinking mouths to shreds!” Li Cuihong shrieked in protest.
She couldn’t bear hearing anyone splash dirty water on her son. They were all thieves, so why should her son take the entire blame?
One of the stubborn ringleaders impatiently snapped, “I’ll say it again, we didn’t steal the money! Liu Gui asked us to go steal from that household that day; we thought it was a bad idea, but out of loyalty, we went along with it anyway. Liu Gui stole all the goods himself; we didn’t take a single thing.”
Liu Gui really started crying then—not out of betrayal by his friends, but out of fear that they wouldn’t admit to it and he would be left holding the entire bag.
He sobbed, “You… you’re lying! Whenever we stole from all those other places before, even a single wheat pancake had to be split evenly. How come that one time, when everything was high-end goods, you didn’t want anything at all and just ran off?”
Seeing that Liu Gui was ready to drag them down with him in a mutual destruction pact, the expressions of the other boys turned unnatural.
Silence fell over the scene as the opposing parties reached a stalemate.
Just then, an elderly woman approached slowly, leaning heavily on a cane.
“My good grandson, leniency for confessions and severe punishment for resistance. Just tell the officers the truth about whatever they ask! I’m begging you as your grandmother. Your parents are gone—you must not let yourself get locked up over things like this,” the old woman pleaded, wiping away her tears.
“Grandma!” Hearing this, the boy who had been frightened to tears by the police earlier broke down sobbing again.
He whimpered, “I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!”
Seeing the child crying so hard he could barely catch his breath, unable to speak coherently, the officer gently consoled him, “Your grandmother is right. Leniency for confessions, severity for resistance. It’s still not too late to tell the truth now.”
Sensing a turning point, Liu Gui eagerly urged, “Shunzi, hurry up and confess! I confessed, and the police even told me they wouldn’t lock me up in prison. Just admit it!”
Nodding through his tears, Shunzi said, “Me, Dog-egg, Big Ox, and Big Brave—the four of us split the money.”
Pointing at the remaining boys, he continued, “When we saw the money, I wanted to talk about it, but Big Brave wouldn’t let me. They each took set amounts, and because I was the youngest, they only gave me four hundred. Liu Gui got the food, so he didn’t get a share of the cash.”
“And where is the money? Hand the money over, and we promise not to pursue criminal charges against you, alright?”
“Really?”
“Really! Oh, hurry up and tell us already, stop dragging your feet!” Liu Gui was frantic with anxiety.
“My share of the money is hidden under the tree in our courtyard. I’ll go dig it up for you.” With that, he grabbed a shovel and dug frantically.
A moment later, an iron box emerged from the dirt. Carefully blowing away the dust and grime clinging to the box, he turned and handed it straight to the police officer.
“This is all I got from the split. I really don’t know where theirs are,” Shunzi explained.
The officer nodded and handed the cash over to Liu Yu, who was standing nearby.
“It doesn’t matter if you three refuse to talk. Come back with us to the county town now; there are specialized interrogation rooms there, and you’ll talk sooner or later.”
Hearing this, the other three panicked completely.
What should they do? They didn’t want to hand over the money—that was a massive fortune!
Yet they certainly didn’t want to be locked up in a dungeon either!
Seizing the moment, Liu Yu added fuel to the fire, shouting, “Uncle Police Officer, why don’t we just forget about the money? Locking these three away for ten or twenty years should be enough. I won’t fuss over the cash anymore.”
Ten or twenty years! That was far too long! By the time they got out, they’d be thirty years old—how would they ever find wives?
The parents who had been standing on the sidelines playing dumb could no longer hold back and burst into loud, wailing cries.
The psychological defenses of the three boys finally crumbled as well.
Before long, two thousand five hundred yuan in cold cash was back in Liu Yu’s hands in its entirety.
As for the small miscellaneous amounts the boys had already spent, their families frantically scraped together the funds to make up the difference.
One of the parents pleaded in a low voice, “Young man, what our kids did was wrong, but they’re still young after all. As a generous person, please don’t hold it against them!”
What could Liu Yu say? These were minors; committing offenses didn’t even require criminal liability.
If the police hadn’t used some clever tactics that morning to outsmart the kids and their parents, his money would never have been recovered.
If he could, he genuinely wanted to put sandbags over their heads and beat them to a pulp seven or eight times over.
“If you ask me, we should have the few of them write letters of self-reflection and read them aloud over the village loudspeakers in front of everyone,” the village chief suggested with a shameless smile.
Seeming to feel that wasn’t enough punishment, he added, “Aside from Shunzi’s grandmother, who has high awareness, the rest of the parents need to write reflections too, explaining how they usually raised their kids to be this way, failing to stop their misdeeds and even helping to cover for them.”
While framing it as a punishment for people within his own village, any sharp-eyed observer could tell he was just trying to smooth things over.
Seeing that the village chief had cooperated fully throughout the case investigation, Liu Yu reluctantly saved face for him and gave a slight nod.
He then turned his gaze toward Li Cuihong and her son. Before Liu Yu could even speak, Li Cuihong blurted out, “We’ll write self-reflections too!”
As long as her son was safe, dignity no longer mattered; after this ordeal, whatever reputation they had left was completely gone.
By the time Liu Yu and the others finished seeing the police off, it was already afternoon. None of them had eaten lunch, and Liu Yu offered them some steamed buns, but the officers declined, explaining that they had to strictly adhere to organizational discipline and could not accept a single needle or thread from the masses.
Deeply touched by their attitude and respecting their principles, Liu Yu thanked them repeatedly and watched as they mounted their bicycles and rode away.
Liu Wensheng stood beside him looking cheerful. He hadn’t gone to school that day, having asked Shunzi to take leave from his teacher that morning on his behalf.
It was his first time acting as a witness and interacting with the police, and having just been patted on the head and praised, he was still glowing inside as if he’d eaten honey.
Liu Yu led the dazed Liu Wensheng back toward home. Upon reaching the doorstep, he saw Liu Limin sitting outside waiting for him with his two younger sisters, a large sack placed beside them.
Liu Yu instantly recognized it—this was the stash of snacks Liu Gui had hidden inside the outhouse pit.
He had previously found it hard to imagine how revolting it was to mix feces, urine, maggots, and food all in one place.
Today was truly an eye-opener, and a fresh wave of nausea churned violently in his stomach.
“I don’t want these things anymore. If you guys are willing to eat them, divide them amongst yourselves!” Liu Yu said.
“Why not? These things didn’t actually end up in the poop pit; Liu Gui just hid them in batches inside a honey bucket. Everyone mostly just peed in that bucket and rarely pooped, so it’s very clean.”
Not describing it would have been fine, but specific descriptions made Liu Yu feel like he was about to vomit.
He was already starting to regret why he hadn’t demanded material compensation and emotional damages from the Liu family—though demanding it would have been futile anyway, since they simply didn’t have that kind of money.
“I just don’t want them anymore. Is there a need for so many whys?” Liu Yu muttered, pretending to be impatient.
Who would want to eat things that had been marinating in a honey bucket for a whole day until they soaked up the flavor?
Presumably, if Zhou Yu found out that all the items he mailed had spent time in a honey bucket, he’d be similarly disgusted to the point of losing his appetite.
That Liu Gui truly was a ruthless piece of work.