Lai Ergou put on an aggrieved expression and spoke before Shen Yu could say anything.
“Comrade Policeman, I have something to say too!”
“Last night, I went to the river to fetch water and happened to run into Cheng An’an. She stopped me and said that Shen Yu was a cripple who was all looks and no use, and that living like a widow was driving her crazy.”
The more he spoke, the more carried away he became.
“I immediately refused her righteously. I told her I was an honest man and wouldn’t do such a shameless thing. But that woman actually knelt down in front of me.”
“She cried so pitifully, clinging to my leg and refusing to let go. She said she’d leave the door open for me at night and give me one yuan as long as I was willing to come over. I felt sorry for her and, in a moment of weakness, agreed to go. Who would’ve thought that afterward, this woman would refuse to acknowledge what she’d promised? Not only did she refuse to give me the money, she even turned around and beat me!”
When he finished, he shot Shen Yu a sinister look.
If today’s incident was confirmed as theft, he’d probably be sent to a labor farm for re-education.
But if he insisted that this was a matter of improper relations between a man and a woman, at most he’d have to endure a public denunciation. He might even succeed in completely ruining the reputation of this beautiful woman, Cheng An’an.
His fabricated story sounded so convincing that the villagers exchanged bewildered looks, and whispers quickly spread through the crowd.
“I never would’ve guessed. Cheng An’an usually seems so quiet. Who knew she was so open-minded in private?”
“You can’t really blame her. Shen Yu is already like that. What woman could endure it?”
“When the lights are off, isn’t a man a man? Lai Ergou may be ugly, but at least he’s a man who can move.”
Wang Xiulan trembled with anger. She was gripping the broom so tightly that the handle was nearly crushed in her hands. In her desperation, she couldn’t even speak properly.
“You’re lying! My An’an would never—”
“Mom, don’t worry.”
A hand gently rested on Wang Xiulan’s shoulder.
There wasn’t the slightest trace of panic on Shen Yu’s face. Instead, he looked at Lai Ergou as though he were watching a clown perform.
“Go on. Keep making things up.”
His voice wasn’t loud, but it was filled with mockery.
“You really missed your calling as a storyteller. You say I stopped you by the river yesterday evening? And even knelt down before you?”
Lai Ergou stubbornly lifted his chin.
“Yes. It was under the old locust tree. There was no one else around at that time!”
“What a convenient claim—no one else around.”
Shen Yu nodded, then turned to Lao Yu.
“Comrade Policeman, please come with me. Let’s take a look over by the courtyard wall.”
Although nobody understood what he was getting at, the entire group followed them to the western wall of the Shen family’s courtyard.
Shen Yu pointed at a patch of wet mud beneath the wall, then at a section of moss that had been scraped off the top of the wall.
“It rained last night, so the ground is soft. Everyone, look. There’s only one set of footprints beneath the wall. The toes are pointing toward the wall, and the prints vary in depth. It’s obvious someone was pushing off with force.”
“Now look at the top of the wall. The moss that was scraped away is still fresh, and there’s even half a muddy footprint underneath it.”
“If, as Lai Ergou claims, I left the door open for him, then why would he ignore the perfectly good front door and go through the trouble of climbing over a two-meter-high courtyard wall? Is he a gecko? Or is his brain filled with cement?”
Someone among the villagers couldn’t hold back their laughter.
“Exactly! There’s a door right there, yet he climbed the wall. Isn’t that just taking off your pants to fart?”
Lai Ergou’s face turned pale, but he stubbornly argued, “I remembered wrong. Later, you said you were afraid the neighbors would see us, so you told me to climb over the wall to keep things discreet!”
“Oh? Discreet?”
Shen Yu raised an eyebrow and picked up a strip of cloth from the weeds beneath the wall, waving it in front of him.
“Then can you explain this? Since we supposedly needed to be discreet, why was this strip of cloth torn from the area around your crotch? Judging from the height of the wall and where the cloth got caught, you had quite an interesting posture when you climbed over. You rode the wall, didn’t you?”
Lai Ergou instinctively covered his crotch.
No wonder he’d kept feeling a draft down there. So he’d torn a hole in his pants.
“What does that prove? Anyway, you were the one who told me to come!” he said shamelessly.
“Don’t rush. There’s more.”
Shen Yu tossed the strip of cloth aside and walked toward Lai Ergou step by step. His imposing presence grew stronger, forcing Lai Ergou to instinctively retreat.
“You said I knelt before you? Which knee touched the ground first?”
Lai Ergou froze.
What kind of question was that?
He made up an answer at random.
“Right knee.”
Shen Yu sneered.
“You said I clung to your leg and cried? Which leg did I cling to?”
“Left leg!”
“The riverbank was covered in mud yesterday evening. If I had knelt there, wouldn’t there be mud stains on my knees? I’ve been wearing these pants all day, and my knees are so clean there isn’t even a crease.”
Shen Yu pointed at his trousers, his voice turning cold.
“And you said you went to the river to fetch water in the evening? Lai Ergou, everyone in the village knows you’re famously lazy. The water jar at your home has always been filled by your mother.”
“If there isn’t a single truthful word coming out of your mouth, I don’t mind helping you straighten out that tongue of yours before you speak again.”
Someone in the crowd suddenly realized it.
“That’s right! When has that lazy bum Lai Ergou ever fetched water?”
“And there were enough mosquitoes at the river last night to eat a person alive. Who would kneel there begging for sex? Wouldn’t his backside have been bitten to pieces?”
Cold sweat broke out across Lai Ergou’s forehead.
He had never expected this usually meek and timid young woman to become so difficult to deal with today. Every word she spoke struck directly at his weakest points like a knife.
Seeing that the crowd was beginning to turn against them again, Lai Pozi couldn’t sit still.
She suddenly dropped onto the ground, slapped her thighs with both hands, and let out a shriek loud enough to sound like a slaughtered pig.
“Oh, heavens! We can’t live like this anymore! This shameless woman has such a sharp tongue! She can turn black into white with nothing but her mouth! Everyone, don’t believe her! Whatever else you say, the fact that she beat my son is true!”
“Just look at my Ergou! His face is swollen like a pig’s head! What if he suffers lasting injuries from this?!”
As she wailed, Lai Pozi secretly signaled to a tall, thin man carrying a medical kit beside her.
He was Lai Youcai, the village barefoot doctor and a distant relative of the Lai family.
Lai Youcai immediately understood. He hurried over and pretended to examine Lai Ergou, pressing down on his body several times.
“Oh no!”
Lai Youcai suddenly cried out, his expression turning extremely grave.
“I’m afraid two of his ribs are broken. And his abdomen is swollen and distended. His spleen may have ruptured, causing internal bleeding. This is a serious injury that could be fatal!”
As soon as Lai Ergou heard this, he immediately cooperated, clutching his chest and breaking into a series of agonizing coughs.
“Cough, cough, cough… Pfft!”
A mouthful of blood suddenly sprayed from his mouth.
Red droplets splattered all over the ground.
Lai Ergou rolled his eyes back, his body going limp as though he were about to breathe his last at any moment.
“Oh, my son! Why are you coughing up blood?!”
Lai Pozi threw herself onto Lai Ergou and wailed hysterically.
“Murder! My son has been beaten so badly that he’s suffered internal injuries! Is there any justice left in this world?!”
The villagers who had been watching the spectacle were genuinely frightened this time.
“He really coughed up blood?”
“Could Lai Ergou actually have been beaten to death?”
“If someone dies from this, Cheng An’an will be executed!”