When she returned, the crowd outside was all talking at once, throwing around words like “stealing money” and “inside thief.” Wang Xiuying only felt her head buzzing and ringing.
She felt as if something had completely spiraled out of her control.
People beside her were speaking, but she couldn’t hear clearly what they were saying. Stepping forward, she walked straight into the room.
Her fingers trembled so badly that she couldn’t open the trunk after several tries. She clenched her fists, and finally, the trunk opened.
Clothes, account books, books—she flipped through them one by one, but she simply could not find that bright red passbook.
Even the several hundred yuan in loose cash and the coupons wrapped in a handkerchief were gone.
Wang Xiuying’s eyes turned blood-red. She pointed at Qiao Nian, looking like a wild beast that wanted nothing more than to devour her raw. “It’s you! It’s you! You took the money, didn’t you?!”
Driven completely mad, she lunged at Qiao Nian with hands and feet clawing frantically.
Qiao Nian dodged to the side. “Enough! What kind of grudge or enmity do I have with you people? After the daughter finishes framing me, the mother comes to frame me—is there no end to this?!”
Still feeling her anger unvented, Qiao Nian grabbed her hair to pin her down. “You just want to drive me to my death! Yesterday you framed me for harming Dachuan, and today you frame me for stealing money! Did I harm him, or did I steal the money? Your own daughters and sons-in-law have sticky fingers, yet you still want to dump this bucket of filth onto my head!”
She delivered a resounding slap straight across her face, using every bit of her strength. Instantly, a swollen, bright-red handprint flushed across Wang Xiuying’s cheek. “I’m done living this kind of life! Sooner or later, I’ll be framed to death by you lot! Let’s go report this to the police—the police will clear my name! Everything that happened over these past two days can be thoroughly investigated until the truth comes out! How about that?!”