“I know! I’ll be careful. Don’t worry. Even if I accidentally make a little noise, it’s the middle of the night, so they must already be sound asleep. One hard strike to the back of the neck, and I guarantee they won’t wake up until tomorrow.”
“Enough, enough. Stop talking and hurry up with the lock! We finally found a good opportunity. All the men in this family are away on business. Otherwise, I really wouldn’t have dared to come.”
The taller of the two men lowered his voice excitedly as he spoke.
The other man nodded as well.
If the two men of the household had been home, they definitely wouldn’t have dared to openly pick the lock and break in to steal money. If they made any noise and woke the men inside, they wouldn’t be able to overpower them, and whether they could escape would be another matter entirely. They would be finished.
But the situation was different now.
They had heard from someone passing by that there were only two women—a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law—and a three-year-old girl in this home.
Could two grown men really not handle two women?
Even if the women discovered them, so what? They could simply knock them unconscious before they had time to react.
And even if the women were frightened enough to call for help, they weren’t worried.
Unlike men, women who encountered trouble in the middle of the night would certainly hesitate to chase after thieves.
As for the other residents of the apartment building, even if they rushed out to help catch them, it would take time. By then, the two men would already have escaped.
The two thieves hadn’t decided to do this on a whim.
They had thought everything through beforehand.
The risk was small, while the reward was huge. That was why they were willing to take the chance and come out in the middle of the night to steal.
Besides, they had already planned their escape route, so they didn’t think there was much danger in robbing this particular household.
Of course, they only intended to steal money and knock the people unconscious. They didn’t dare actually kill anyone.
If things became serious and the police launched a thorough investigation, getting caught could mean being executed.
“It’s open!”
With a click, the lock outside was successfully picked. They also managed to undo the latch on the inside.
This wasn’t their first time doing something like this. They were very experienced.
Thinking about the large amount of money they were about to get, both men were extremely excited, but they remained cautious and continued moving as quietly as possible.
Inside the apartment, Qiao Zhufang, He Yingying, and Qiao Jia Jia were all sleeping soundly.
Since the two men were experienced thieves and moved very quietly, the three sleeping people really didn’t hear anything.
The two thieves carefully pushed the door open and slipped inside.
Everything was going perfectly.
“Ah! My leg!”
In the dead silence of the night, a sudden scream rang out.
No matter how tough someone was, having a sharp, serrated trap suddenly clamp down with tremendous force on the vulnerable area around the ankle was unbearable.
The shorter thief immediately panicked when he heard his companion scream.
But because they hadn’t brought flashlights for convenience, the room was pitch-black.
The shorter man had originally wanted to run away, but instead, he stepped into another trap.
Within moments, he let out the same agonized scream.
“It hurts so much! Oh, God! Help!”
Both men’s ankles had been caught by something they couldn’t see.
They screamed and struggled desperately.
They knew that the noise they’d just made must have woken the people in the house.
If they didn’t escape immediately, they would soon be caught.
The two men gritted their teeth through the pain and limped toward the door in the darkness.
But as soon as they moved, another leg was caught by another sharp object hidden somewhere nearby.
Both men immediately collapsed to the floor.
The taller man’s luck was especially bad. When he fell, he landed directly on another trap and got his buttocks caught as well.
He completely forgot whether he would wake the people in the house and let out another ear-piercing scream.
With that much noise, how could Qiao Zhufang and He Yingying possibly remain asleep?
They immediately turned on the lights and saw the two thieves in their living room.
“Thieves! There are thieves! Come catch them!”
Both women grabbed the sticks they kept in the house and began beating the two men.
They didn’t stop until the thieves were no longer capable of fighting back.
“Mom, Jia Jia might have been woken up too. Go comfort her and don’t let her come out. They’re covered in blood. Don’t let her get frightened.
“I’ll get some rope and tie these two up.”
He Yingying looked at the two men lying on the floor.
“Then be careful around those animal traps. Don’t step on one yourself,” Qiao Zhufang warned worriedly.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll use the stick to move all the traps out of the way first, then I’ll tie them up.”
“Maybe I should stay here and watch them. What if they suddenly attack us?”
Although the two men looked badly injured, they could still be pretending.
“It should be fine. Both of their legs were caught in those traps. Do you know how powerful those things are? The teeth are incredibly sharp. They probably don’t even have the strength to stand up anymore, especially after we just beat them.”
Even as she spoke, He Yingying never put down the stick in her hand.
Qiao Zhufang was usually soft-hearted, but when it came to something like this, she unexpectedly hardened her heart.
She picked up the stick and struck the two men several more times.
Only after their screams became weaker did she finally stop.
Although the two thieves looked badly beaten, their injuries were mostly superficial.
The sticks weren’t particularly thick, after all. Breaking someone’s bones with them would require much more force.
Their most serious injuries were actually the places caught by the animal traps. Compared with those wounds, the bruises from the sticks were nothing.
At that moment, the neighbors who had heard the shouting also came downstairs.
It didn’t matter whether the thieves had broken into their own homes or someone else’s.
Once someone shouted that there were thieves, the residents of the same building couldn’t possibly stand by and do nothing. They naturally had to come out and help catch them.
After all, who could guarantee that the next household targeted wouldn’t be theirs?
For the sake of their own family’s safety in the future, they had to help now.
They had originally expected a difficult fight and thought it would take considerable effort to catch the thieves.
But when they arrived at the Qiao family’s apartment, they saw the two thieves already lying on the floor and groaning weakly.
Their legs had been caught in animal traps and were covered in blood.
Even if they wanted to run, they couldn’t. They couldn’t even stand.
Their faces and bodies were also covered in marks from the sticks, making it obvious that they had already suffered quite a beating.
Not a single person present felt sorry for them.
Who would sympathize with thieves who broke into someone’s home?
And these weren’t thieves who had entered an empty house.
They had broken into a home in the middle of the night knowing that people were inside.
Just thinking about it sent chills down the neighbors’ spines.
Two particularly tall and strong men from the building walked over and took the rope from He Yingying.
“We’ll tie them up. I doubt they’ll dare resist.”
The two thieves looked terrified as they were being tied up.
They desperately wished they could jump to their feet, knock down the people in front of them, and run.
But their feet were still trapped in the animal traps, with blood everywhere.
Just looking at the injuries made them feel the pain, let alone actually experiencing it.
On top of that, Qiao Zhufang and He Yingying had beaten them all over with sticks. Their bodies were covered in bruises and scrapes, and there wasn’t a single place that didn’t hurt.
Even if they wanted to escape out of fear, they no longer had the strength.
And even if they had been at full strength, with so many people surrounding them, they wouldn’t have been able to escape even if they had wings.
These two men had done things like this before.
Every previous attempt had gone smoothly, and they had never been caught.
This time, they had specifically chosen a household where only a mother and daughter-in-law were supposedly left at home.
It should have been foolproof.
Yet unexpectedly, even under such seemingly perfect circumstances, they had still failed miserably and been caught.
The two thieves were quickly tied up.
They continued groaning as they were restrained, and whenever someone moved them and touched one of their wounds, they would let out another sharp cry.
The animal traps clamped around their legs were no joke.
Hunters used these traps to catch prey, specifically designed so that the animals couldn’t escape.
The serrated teeth were extremely sharp, and the clamping force was considerable.
The pain they were experiencing was more than enough to make them suffer.
But no one was kind enough to remove the traps.
What if removing them allowed the thieves to run away?
It was safer to leave them like this.
Seeing that so many neighbors had arrived and the two thieves had been securely tied up, He Yingying finally breathed a sigh of relief and lowered her stick.
“Thank you all for coming to help.
“Once it’s daylight, my mother-in-law and I will take them to the police station.
“We haven’t had a thief in this neighborhood for a long time. I never expected that when someone finally came, it would happen to our family.
“They probably heard that both men in our household were away on business, leaving only us women and a little girl at home. They thought we would be easy targets, so they dared to break in even though people were actually home.
“Fortunately, before my father-in-law and husband left, they brought home quite a few animal traps.
“Every night before going to bed, my mother-in-law and I have to put them in place.
“Originally, we thought it was making too much of a fuss.
“I never imagined that those traps would actually save our lives.
“Just thinking about it now makes me scared.
“If we hadn’t had those traps and had happened to wake up when they came inside, what if they had decided to kill all three of us?
“No one would have known what happened in the middle of the night. It would have become an unsolved case!
“So no matter what, we have to report this to the police tomorrow and have them investigate these two properly.
“They might not be first-time offenders.”
He Yingying didn’t care whether the two men had only intended to steal or had planned something worse.
She was deliberately emphasizing the worst possibility.
They had already dared to break into an occupied home.
Who knew what else they might have dared to do?
After hearing He Yingying’s words, the neighbors became frightened as well.
They also thought the two thieves were even more despicable.
If they had waited until no one was home before stealing, people could at least say they had only wanted to steal and hadn’t intended to hurt anyone.
But they had known there were people inside and still dared to break in.
No one would believe they had no other intentions.
“Tomorrow we’ll go to the police station with you. The police must deal with these two properly and make an example of them. The harsher the punishment, the better. Let every thief see what happens when you choose this life!”
The person who said this was one of the neighbors from the first floor.
Of everyone in the building, the first-floor residents could sympathize most strongly with the Qiao family.
They lived on the first floor too, after all.
If someone wanted to steal from the building, the first-floor apartments were obviously the easiest targets.
If this case wasn’t dealt with properly and other thieves saw that getting caught didn’t result in much punishment, they might decide that the rewards were worth far more than the risks.
If that happened, how could the first-floor residents ever feel safe again?
So by helping Qiao Zhufang and He Yingying, this pair of women who had been left alone with a child, they were also helping themselves.
Meanwhile, Kong Xingwang, standing among the crowd, had a flicker of uneasiness in his eyes.
He hadn’t expected these two thieves to be so useless.
They had actually been caught.
All the effort he had spent secretly gathering information about the two thieves had almost been wasted.
He had deliberately gone near them and casually mentioned the Qiao family’s situation, luring them into targeting the Qiao household.
Fortunately, he had never directly interacted with the two men.
He had merely happened to pass by them and deliberately let a few details slip.
Even if the thieves were taken to the police station, they wouldn’t implicate him.
Thinking of this, Kong Xingwang finally relaxed.
Then another thought occurred to him.
He had lured the thieves to break into the Qiao family’s home because he wanted revenge on behalf of Deputy Director Chen.
If Deputy Director Chen hadn’t hinted that he wanted someone to find a way to deal with the Qiao family, Kong Xingwang would never have come up with this plan.
Although the plan hadn’t succeeded this time, he had still taken a risk.
Deputy Director Chen couldn’t afford to shortchange him on the benefits he had promised.
He decided to go to Deputy Director Chen first thing the next morning and tell him what had happened.
Inside the apartment, Qiao Jia Jia had also heard the commotion.
She had originally wanted to go outside and see what was happening, but Grandma had held her tightly and refused to let her leave the room, afraid that she would be frightened.
Qiao Jia Jia was somewhat helpless.
But seeing the concern on her grandmother’s face, she eventually obediently stayed in bed and didn’t go out to watch the excitement.
“All right, it’s been taken care of.
“The two thieves have been taken away by people from the neighborhood office and are being held there for now. Tomorrow we’ll take them to the police station together.
“Let’s go back to sleep. There are still several hours before dawn.”
He Yingying had personally watched the two thieves being taken away.
Now she spoke to her daughter and mother-in-law in a relaxed voice.
Qiao Zhufang sighed.
“When those two men were leaving, they went to all that trouble to set up those animal traps. At first, I thought it was ridiculous.
“I figured thieves would only come when no one was home.
“I never imagined they would actually dare to break in while people were inside.
“Thank goodness for those traps.
“Otherwise, the three of us with Jia Jia might not have been able to fight them off.”
Back when Qiao Qiusheng was an apprentice in the city, the city had been plagued by war and chaos.
The situation had been extremely dangerous, and there had been plenty of cases of thieves and bandits breaking into homes at night.
It had been far from safe.
Because of that, he had developed the habit of placing animal traps behind doors and near windows.
He had even caught thieves twice this way.
This time, however, he and his son were both going away on business, leaving only three women at home.
Qiao Qiusheng always preferred to assume the worst about human nature.
A household with only women and a child would obviously look like an easy target, and there would always be people who might develop malicious intentions.
So before leaving, he had secretly found someone to get a batch of animal traps for them.
He specifically instructed his wife and daughter-in-law to set them up every night before going to sleep.
It was better to be safe than sorry.
Hearing her mother-in-law say this, He Yingying couldn’t help nodding.
She admired her father-in-law’s foresight even more.
Otherwise, who knew what might have happened that night?
Although she knew it was unlikely that another group of thieves would come, He Yingying still put all the animal traps back in their original positions before she dared return to bed.
After what had just happened, she didn’t feel safe without them.
Although Jia Jia hadn’t come out, the thieves’ screams had been terrifying enough.
He Yingying was worried that her daughter might have been frightened while lying in the other room and might have nightmares later.
So she went and carried Jia Jia into her own room and slept with her in her arms.
Early the next morning, more than a dozen neighbors from the apartment building escorted the two thieves to the police station.
The animal traps were still clamped around the thieves’ legs and hadn’t been removed.
The neighbors practically had to drag the two men all the way there.
Although the two men had technically only committed attempted theft—they had been caught by the traps immediately after entering and hadn’t actually managed to steal anything—their fate would still be far from pleasant.
Punishments were quite severe in this era.
At the very least, they were almost certainly facing ten years or more of reform through labor.
Since everyone still had to go to work, the other neighbors left after learning from the police what would happen to the two thieves.
Only a few elderly men and women who didn’t need to work stayed behind with He Yingying and Qiao Zhufang to watch the police interrogate the two men.
“What? They’re from the northern part of the city?”
He Yingying immediately couldn’t sit still after hearing this.
The northern part of the city was extremely far from the steel factory.
One was practically at the southern end of the city and the other at the northern end. They had almost nothing to do with each other.
How had these two men known that both men in her household were away on business, leaving only women and a child?
Someone familiar with her family’s situation at the steel factory must have told them.
There was no such thing as something happening without a reason.
People from the steel factory wouldn’t have traveled all the way to the northern part of the city for no reason just to spread a bit of gossip.
He Yingying was certain that someone had deliberately leaked information about her family to these two thieves in order to retaliate against them.
And her first suspicion was naturally Chen’s family.
Only a week earlier, they had clashed.
She had also openly confronted Deputy Director Chen at the factory several times, to the point that he no longer dared to make things difficult for her openly.
It was perfectly reasonable for her to suspect that Deputy Director Chen or someone in his family had arranged this.
Unfortunately, there was no evidence proving that Chen’s family had gone to the northern part of the city and told the thieves about them.
And even if there were evidence that someone from Chen’s family had gone there and said those things, it wouldn’t be enough to convict them.
After all, even the two thieves claimed they had heard the information from someone while they were out on the street.
They hadn’t actually interacted with anyone directly.
Chen’s family could simply argue that someone had casually mentioned a few words.
It couldn’t even be considered ordering the thieves to do anything, let alone instigating them.
He Yingying couldn’t swallow her anger, but there was nothing she could do to retaliate directly.
When Eldest Brother He and Second Brother He back in the countryside heard about the incident, they had offered to come over, put sacks over the Chen family’s heads, and beat them up badly.
He Yingying refused.
Deputy Director Chen had a younger brother-in-law who was a department head in the municipal government.
If she did something that left evidence behind, she was certain Chen’s family would seize the opportunity and make a huge issue of it.
If her brothers were caught, they would be in serious trouble.
Although she couldn’t retaliate against Chen’s family directly, He Yingying certainly didn’t hold back with her words.
She frequently said things like:
“I don’t know if this has anything to do with the trouble I had with Deputy Director Chen’s family, but ever since then, everything has gone wrong.
“First, my supervisors started making things difficult for me.
“Then thieves broke into my home.
“And these weren’t even local thieves. They came all the way from the northern part of the city specifically to rob us.
“I wonder who told them about my family’s situation.
“Could it have been Deputy Director Chen’s family?
“It’s not that I’m deliberately targeting Deputy Director Chen.
“It’s just that, when you look at the situation, his family is obviously the most suspicious.”
When Deputy Director Chen heard what He Yingying had been saying around the factory, he was so furious that he nearly ground his teeth to pieces.
Naturally, he sent people around to clarify the matter.
After all, the two thieves who had been arrested by the police hadn’t said anything about Chen’s family being involved.
There was absolutely no proof that his family had done it.
However, although the clarification was spread around, how many people actually believed it was another matter.
He Yingying’s explanation made sense.
The workers also thought her reasoning was logical.
If nobody at the steel factory who had a grudge against He Yingying and her family had deliberately gone to the northern part of the city and leaked the information, how would these thieves have known about the Qiao family’s situation from so far away?
How else would they have known to wait until the men were away, leaving only women and a child at home, before coming in the middle of the night to break the door and steal?
He Yingying was an ordinary worker, while Chen Jianming was a deputy factory director.
She was clearly the weaker party.
It was obvious which side the workers would sympathize with.
Although they didn’t dare directly offend a deputy factory director the way He Yingying did, they certainly discussed the matter plenty in private.
Of course, they didn’t dare talk openly.
Even if Chen really had arranged the whole thing, it would be difficult to convict him.
This was not an era when people could be sentenced simply for spreading gossip—even if that gossip happened to lead thieves to someone’s home.
He Yingying had successfully damaged Deputy Director Chen’s reputation throughout the factory, but there was no real consequence.
She still felt that none of this had truly hurt the Chen family.
Then, finally, Qiao Heping returned.
Originally, he and his father had only set up the animal traps to give themselves peace of mind.
They never expected that the traps would actually be used.
Now Qiao Heping was even more grateful that he and his father had taken that extra precaution.
“A few days after I came back, I finally found out that Chen Jianming really wasn’t behind this.”
Qiao Heping had been leaving early and returning late for several days.
He had finally gotten to the bottom of the matter.
Normally, he wasn’t nearly as straight-laced as he appeared.
He knew people from all sorts of backgrounds, and as long as he was willing to spend some money, he could still obtain information.
He Yingying frowned.
“If it wasn’t Chen’s family, then who was it?
“We had only just fallen out with them.”
Qiao Heping explained, “It was Kong Xingwang.
“But given how Kong Xingwang always follows Chen Jianming’s lead and constantly flatters him, this matter definitely couldn’t have happened without Chen Jianming’s instructions.”
“But don’t worry.
“Since they dared to do something this vicious, they’ll have to bear the consequences.
“Chen Jianming has a brother-in-law who is a department head in the municipal government, so there’s not much I can do about him for now.
“But Kong Xingwang will be much easier to deal with.
“If I can’t make him disappear from the steel factory this time, then I’ll change my surname.”
Qiao Heping sneered as he spoke.
Qiao Heping and his father already had evidence that could be used against Kong Xingwang.
Kong Xingwang himself probably had no idea that the things he thought he had kept secret had long ago been seen by a third person.
Previously, the father and son had deliberately kept the matter quiet.
They believed the evidence would be more useful if they held onto it.
Once Kong Xingwang eventually gave them a real opportunity, they could play their trump card and deliver a fatal blow, completely pinning him down and leaving him no chance to recover.
There was another reason as well.
When they had first discovered Kong Xingwang’s activities, he had still only been dabbling in relatively minor schemes.
There was an old saying: if you want someone to destroy themselves, let them become increasingly reckless.
After more than two years, Kong Xingwang’s appetite should have grown considerably.
When the authorities finally investigated him properly, his crimes would undoubtedly be much more serious.
They could use him as an example to warn others.
Qiao Heping believed that once Kong Xingwang was dealt with, anyone else who dared target his family at Chen Jianming’s command would think twice.
Besides, Qiao Heping was curious about whether Chen Jianming would try to rescue Kong Xingwang when the time came.
After all, Kong Xingwang followed the deputy factory director’s orders in everything.
He had also helped Deputy Director Chen do plenty of dirty work.
Even if he hadn’t earned merit, he had certainly put in the effort.
If Deputy Director Chen simply abandoned Kong Xingwang, would the “underlings” working for him still be willing to risk everything for him?
Would they continue helping him build his faction within the factory, exclude newcomers, and strengthen his authority as deputy factory director?
After all, everyone would be afraid of becoming the next Kong Xingwang.
What if they did countless things for their superior and then, when they finally got into trouble, that superior refused to save them?
However, rescuing Kong Xingwang wouldn’t be easy for Chen Jianming either.
After all, the things Kong Xingwang had done were far from minor.
Thinking about this, a smile appeared on Qiao Heping’s face.
He immediately began preparing the evidence.