The moment Miao Cuihua let out that furious howl, she looked like a mad hen that had gone completely berserk.
She spread all ten of her sharp fingernails and lunged straight at Yu Qinghuan’s face.
“You little slut! You wretched girl!”
“You must have hidden my family’s treasures somewhere!”
“Let’s see if I don’t scratch that vixen’s face to pieces today!”
Yu Qinghuan sneered inwardly.
But in an instant, her face transformed into an expression of absolute terror.
She dropped onto her bottom and rolled toward the corner of the woodshed, conveniently dodging Miao Cuihua’s claws.
“Mom! How can you accuse me of something I didn’t do?”
Yu Qinghuan cried out loudly, her voice heartbreakingly pitiful as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“You locked me in the woodshed last night, and the door was even fastened with wire! How could I possibly have gotten out?”
“Besides, there were hundreds of pounds of white flour, dozens of pounds of cured pork, and those enormous jars of oil in the cellar!”
“Even the huge eight-yin iron pot disappeared from the kitchen!”
“I’m just a skinny girl who can’t even get enough to eat. How could I possibly carry away thousands of pounds of things in a single night?”
“If I had that kind of strength, would I have let you lock me up in this miserable place exposed to wind and rain?”
Every question she asked was perfectly reasonable.
Even Old Man Li, who had been standing nearby with suspicions of his own, gradually came to his senses.
He glanced at Yu Qinghuan’s thin, frail frame.
That’s true.
The iron pot alone must have weighed dozens of pounds, and all the grain in the cellar was incredibly heavy.
Yu Qinghuan hadn’t eaten all day yesterday. She was so weak she could barely lift a chicken.
How could she possibly have emptied the entire household right under their noses, leaving behind not even a single chicken dropping?
It simply made no sense!
“You old woman, stop acting crazy!”
Old Man Li grabbed Miao Cuihua just as she was about to attack again and scolded her with a dark expression.
“Qinghuan really was locked up last night! How could she possibly have such supernatural abilities?”
“This was definitely the work of an organized gang of thieves!”
Miao Cuihua stumbled as Old Man Li pulled her back.
But the moment she thought of the hundreds of yuan and the silver dollars hidden in her biscuit tin, she felt as though her heart were bleeding. She could no longer think rationally.
“If it wasn’t her, then who was it?!”
“Are you telling me the flour and cured pork grew wings and flew away by themselves?!”
Yu Qinghuan sniffled and clutched the tattered cotton quilt, shrinking timidly into the corner.
Her eyes were red, as though she had suddenly remembered something.
“Mom, I… I think I heard some noises in the middle of the night.”
“What noises?! Hurry up and tell us!”
Miao Cuihua whipped her head around, her eyes bulging so fiercely they looked ready to pop out.
Yu Qinghuan raised a trembling hand and pointed toward the wall outside the woodshed.
“Last night… sometime in the second half of the night, I heard men talking in the courtyard.”
“Their voices were quiet, but they didn’t sound like anyone from our Hongqi Production Brigade.”
“And through the crack in the door, I saw little flashes of light on the ground.”
“They seemed to be smoking.”
The moment Old Man Li heard the word smoking, he jolted.
He immediately rushed out of the woodshed and looked in the direction Yu Qinghuan had indicated.
Sure enough!
Beside the pile of tangled weeds in the corner lay a red-and-white cigarette butt.
It was a luxury cigarette with a filter, still more than half intact!
The two gold characters Peony were printed on it.
“Filtered cigarettes!”
Old Man Li picked up the cigarette butt, his face darkening ominously.
“A pack of these costs several mao, and you need premium cigarette coupons to buy them. Nobody in our village can afford to smoke these!”
“These really were professional thieves from the city!”
Yu Qinghuan followed him outside, sobbing softly.
She glanced at Li Chunhua’s deathly pale face, and a barely perceptible glint of cunning flashed through her eyes.
“Mom… Big Sister…”
“I think I also heard something familiar in one of the men’s voices last night.”
“He said… he said they were lucky Big Sister had given him the key. That was why everything had gone so smoothly.”
“He also said that once they sold the refined grain and the money, he would go into the city and buy Big Sister the substitute-teacher position…”
The moment those words left her mouth, Li Chunhua, who had been covering her face and crying, froze completely.
Panic flooded her eyes like a rising tide.
“You’re lying! Yu Qinghuan, you shameless bitch! You’re making malicious accusations!”
Li Chunhua shrieked, her voice trembling.
“I didn’t! I slept in my room all night!”
Miao Cuihua’s mind went blank with a loud buzz.
She abruptly turned around and stared at her most precious daughter.
Li Chunhua had a lover outside the family named Wang Ergou.
He was a notorious loafer and street thug from the neighboring production brigade.
Wang Ergou never did anything decent. He loved stealing chickens and dogs, and he was always talking about marrying Li Chunhua and taking her to the city.
More importantly, over the past few days, Li Chunhua had repeatedly mentioned that Wang Ergou knew people in the city’s Education Bureau.
All they needed was five hundred yuan, and he could buy the substitute-teacher position intended for Yu Qinghuan and transfer it to Li Chunhua’s name.
The more Miao Cuihua thought about it, the uglier her expression became.
She kept the cellar key tied to her waistband every single day.
But last night, after drinking the foot-washing water Yu Qinghuan had supposedly given her—which had actually been the powerful sleep incense taking effect—she had slept like the dead.
Who could have stolen the key from her waistband without her noticing?
Apart from her own daughter, Li Chunhua, who else could have done it?!
“Chunhua… Was it you?!”
Miao Cuihua’s breathing grew harsh and labored, her eyes filled with disbelief.
“Did you steal the key and give it to that worthless thug Wang Ergou?!”
“Mom! I didn’t! I swear I didn’t!”
Li Chunhua panicked and hurriedly reached out to grab Miao Cuihua’s arm.
But Miao Cuihua had already been completely consumed by the fury of losing her fortune.
She violently shook off Li Chunhua’s hand, grabbed her by the hair, and slapped her twice across the face!
SMACK! SMACK!
The blows rang out loudly.
Li Chunhua’s already swollen face immediately split open, and blood began to trickle from her wounds.
“You ungrateful, backstabbing little wretch!”
“That’s the money I’ve saved for my old age! A lifetime of savings!”
“And you actually teamed up with some worthless man outside the family to rob your own mother blind!”
“I’ll beat you to death, you jinx!”
Miao Cuihua went completely berserk.
She clutched Li Chunhua by the hair, forced her down onto the muddy ground in the courtyard, and began punching and kicking her.
She scratched her face, yanked her hair, and hurled every filthy insult she could think of at her.
Li Chunhua had been spoiled and pampered her entire life. She had never endured anything like this.
When the beating became unbearable, she began fighting back, clawing wildly at Miao Cuihua’s face with both hands.
“Ah! Stop hitting me! You crazy old hag!”
Mother and daughter rolled around in the mud, their screams and sobs echoing throughout the entire courtyard.
Yu Qinghuan remained huddled near the woodshed entrance, covering her little mouth with both hands, her face full of “terror.”
But beneath her long eyelashes, her wide eyes gleamed with delight and mockery.
When dogs fight, they both end up covered in fur.
What a beautiful sight!
Old Man Li paced around frantically, desperate to separate them, but he couldn’t find a way to intervene.
Miao Cuihua dug her nails into Li Chunhua’s injured face, causing such unbearable pain that the latter completely lost her reason.
Crying and furious, Li Chunhua suddenly shouted at the top of her lungs, blurting out the secret she had kept buried in her heart.
“Mom! Even if my lover was the one who did it!”
“Wasn’t it all to get the money to buy Yu Qinghuan’s substitute-teacher position?!”