“Miss Song, thank you very much for providing us with this lead. We’ll head to the eastern part of the city right away and arrest them!”
The moment the police officers heard Song Jinyue’s report, they immediately stood up, and one of them gave her a salute.
Song Jinyue returned the salute. “Officer, you’re too polite. I’m only doing what I should.”
After receiving the new lead, more than a dozen officers sprang into action. They climbed onto three-wheeled motorcycles with sidecars and sped toward the eastern part of the city.
“Miss Song, if you’d like to stay and wait for news, you can sit over here.”
The female officer who had helped Song Jinyue last time recognized her and led her to one of the waiting rooms, where she poured her a cup of water.
The officer still had work to handle, so after settling Song Jinyue in, she returned to her desk.
Song Jinyue had barely sat down and taken a sip of water when a familiar voice came from the neighboring waiting room.
“Officer, have those thieves confessed yet? Have you found any leads on our stolen belongings?”
The moment the door opened, Lu Weiguo shot up from his chair and strode toward the officer.
The officer shook his head.
“Those men still insist they didn’t steal anything from the Song residence. They did confess to several previous burglaries, though. But don’t worry. We just received a new lead, and the other officers have already gone to make the arrests.”
Lu Weiguo grabbed the officer’s hand.
“Officer, you absolutely have to recover everything that was stolen from our family!”
“That’s right, Officer! Those grain coupons and savings passbooks took us years to accumulate. That’s all our hard-earned money! Please, you have to help us get everything back!”
Beside him, Shen Yurou wiped away her tears, shamelessly claiming credit for wealth that had never belonged to her.
Everything they ate, wore, and spent came from the Song family’s fortune, yet they had the nerve to call it money earned through their own blood, sweat, and tears.
Their hypocrisy was truly disgusting.
“And my clothes, handbags, and jewelry! I carefully picked every single one of them. How am I supposed to live without them?”
Just thinking about everything she had lost made Lu Manman’s heart ache. She had cried so much that her eyes were swollen.
The three of them had already caused quite a scene after arriving at the police station. Their constant complaining had given the officers a headache.
The officer took a deep breath.
“Comrades, you can go home now. As soon as we receive any news, we’ll notify you immediately.”
The words had barely left his mouth when—
“We’re not leaving!”
Lu Weiguo, Shen Yurou, and Lu Manman shouted in unison.
“Didn’t you say the officers have already gone to arrest the thieves? We’ll wait right here! I want to see exactly who had the nerve to steal from our Song family!”
The officer gave them an awkward yet polite smile.
“Very well. You can sit here and wait. I still have work to do, so please excuse me.”
With that, he hurriedly turned around and left the room, afraid that Lu Weiguo and the others would grab him again and bombard him with more questions.
Once the neighboring room finally quieted down, Song Jinyue, who had been pressing her ear against the wall and eavesdropping, straightened up.
Those three were still here?
Perfect.
Soon, their family of four could have a nice little reunion.
Since Lu Manman couldn’t stop thinking about her clothes, handbags, and jewelry—to the point of acting as though she couldn’t live without them—Song Jinyue decided to be charitable and help redirect her attention elsewhere.
She took a sheet of paper and a pen from her space and wrote a letter of accusation with her left hand.
Lu Guangzong might have been an idiot, but Shen Yurou and Lu Weiguo had placed enormous hopes on him, constantly dreaming that their son would one day become successful. Because of that, they had bought him plenty of fountain pens and notebooks.
After finishing the letter, Song Jinyue left the police station for a while.
On the street, she found a child and gave him two White Rabbit milk candies in exchange for slipping the letter into the police station’s report box.
Song Jinyue then returned to the waiting room.
She hadn’t been sitting there for long when the officers who had gone to arrest the suspects returned.
“Officer! Did you catch the thieves?”
Hearing the sound of motorcycles outside, Lu Weiguo was the first to rush out.
But the moment he saw the person being carried back by the officers, his mind went completely blank.
His eyes widened as he froze in place.
“Guangzong? Officer, what happened to my son? Did the thieves beat him?”
Shen Yurou, who had followed behind him, saw Lu Guangzong unconscious, his face covered in red and purple marks.
Her eyes widened in horror as she rushed forward.
“Guangzong! Guangzong, wake up! Don’t scare your mother!”
“You filthy thieves! It wasn’t enough that you stole from our family—you even beat my brother unconscious! I’ll fight you!”
Lu Manman had already been looking for somewhere to vent all the anger bottled up inside her. The moment she saw Yellow Hair and the others, she shouted furiously and charged toward them.
Before she could reach them, however, an officer stopped her.
“Comrade, please calm down. Things aren’t what you think. We need to interrogate these people now, so please don’t interfere with our work.”
What the officers had witnessed when they arrived at the abandoned factory had been far too shocking. They were too embarrassed to explain it openly, so they could only tactfully say that everyone involved needed to be questioned.
Lu Manman, however, refused to let it go.
“I’m not blind! If it isn’t what I think, then what is it? Don’t tell me you’re planning to protect these thieves!”
Her reckless accusation immediately darkened the officer’s expression.
“Comrade, watch your words. Lu Guangzong and the suspect, Zhang Biao, were caught engaging in an illicit relationship at the abandoned factory. We are now taking both of them to the interrogation room for serious criticism and education. Please do not interfere with our work.”
Thud—
The moment Shen Yurou heard those words, it felt as though the sky had collapsed on top of her.
An… illicit relationship?
Guangzong had been fooling around with a man?!
What kind of ridiculous nonsense was this?!
After warning Lu Manman, the officers carried the disheveled Lu Guangzong right past them.
Two more officers followed closely behind, carrying an equally disheveled Zhang Biao.
Both men were unconscious.
Their hair was soaking wet, and they looked as though they had just gone through an extremely vigorous physical encounter. There were even suspicious red marks across their faces and necks that were impossible to explain away.
“Officer, could there be some kind of misunderstanding? How could my son possibly fool around with… with another man?”
Having finally recovered from his shock, Lu Weiguo hurried after the officers, unable to believe what he had heard.
The officer merely told him that they had witnessed the situation with their own eyes before taking Lu Guangzong, Zhang Biao, Yellow Hair, and the others into the interrogation room.
Lu Weiguo and Shen Yurou had yet to recover from that devastating blow when two more officers approached Lu Manman.
“Comrade Lu Manman, we received a report accusing you of improper conduct and deliberately interfering in another person’s romantic relationship. You’ll need to come with us.”
“Officer, I didn’t! I didn’t do anything!”
No matter how much Lu Manman struggled or protested, she was ultimately taken away.
“How could this happen? How could this possibly happen? Guangzong would never fool around with a man! And Manman—Manman never interfered in anyone else’s relationship! She and Wenzhu truly love each other! It’s Song Jinyue! Song Jinyue is the one interfering in their relationship!”
After suffering three devastating blows in the span of half a day, Shen Yurou staggered and collapsed onto the ground.
She screamed hysterically, drawing the attention of passersby, who all turned to stare.
Smack!
Lu Weiguo slapped her across the face.
“Shut up! Haven’t you embarrassed us enough already? Get your ass home!”
He roughly grabbed Shen Yurou by the arm and was about to drag her away when Song Jinyue, who had been enjoying the show from beside the window, quickly fanned her eyes with one hand and forced out two tears.
“Aunt Shen, even after everything that’s happened, you still want to throw dirt on my name?”
The moment they saw Song Jinyue, Lu Weiguo and Shen Yurou froze in shock.
Why was she here?!