Soon, Song Tian, Qin Chengyuan, and the two witnesses were brought in. The moment Song Tian and Qin Chengyuan entered, they both looked toward Jiang Lai.
Neither of them showed the slightest expression, a testament to just how composed they were under pressure.
Their village had originally received ten educated youths, including the original Jiang Lai. Aside from one female educated youth who had become a teacher at the commune, nearly everyone else had already returned to the city. Since Jiang Lai had always lived with the Jiang family, only Qin Chengyuan and Song Tian remained at the educated youth residence. Neither of them had ever stood out—they had always seemed ordinary and well-behaved. Jiang Lai had never imagined they would come up with something so vicious.
“Which one is Song Tian?” the senior officer asked from behind the desk, looking at the four people who had entered.
Song Tian stepped forward.
“Comrade Officer, I’m Song Tian.”
“I’ve heard you reported Jiang Lai and Qin Chengyuan for engaging in an improper relationship?”
As though she had rehearsed the story countless times, Song Tian answered calmly,
“Yes.
“Only Qin Chengyuan and I are left at the educated youth residence now. I often saw Jiang Lai coming there to look for him. She behaved in an extremely flirtatious manner, while Comrade Qin clearly rejected her advances and showed no sign of returning her feelings.
“The night before last, I saw Jiang Lai come out of Qin Chengyuan’s room with her clothes in disarray. As a fellow woman, I believe we should conduct ourselves with dignity and self-respect, so I reported the matter to the brigade captain. We came to the countryside to support our country—we can’t allow immoral private lives.”
“What a coincidence,” Jiang Lai sneered. “Apparently I seduced Qin Chengyuan without anyone else in the entire brigade noticing—except you.”
The senior officer kept his eyes fixed on Song Tian.
“How are you so certain Jiang Lai was deliberately seducing Qin Chengyuan? Why couldn’t the two of them simply have been in a consensual relationship?”
Song Tian remained expressionless, delivering her prepared statement without hesitation.
The officer then turned to Qin Chengyuan, who had been standing there with his head lowered.
“Comrade Qin, are you unmarried?”
Caught off guard, Qin Chengyuan raised his head in surprise before nodding.
“Really?” Jiang Lai shot him a lazy sideways glance, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “You’d better take responsibility for what you just said.”
Her indifferent attitude made Song Tian glance at her several more times.
Song Tian knew exactly what kind of person Jiang Lai used to be. Otherwise, she never would have dared set this trap in the first place. But now she couldn’t figure Jiang Lai out. Had she suddenly changed her personality? Was she planning to drag everyone down with her?
The senior officer had spent years dealing with criminals. Hearing the inconsistencies in their statements, he casually pointed toward Jiang Lai, Song Tian, and the two witnesses.
“One at a time. Everyone else, wait outside.”
Knowing the questioning wouldn’t end anytime soon, Jiang Lai walked out of the office and sat against the wall nearby.
As Song Tian passed her, she deliberately lowered her voice.
“Do you really have to make such a huge scene? If this goes into your personnel file, your whole life will be ruined.”
Jiang Lai didn’t even lift her eyelids.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting a major demerit yourself? The police aren’t nearly as easy to fool as the brigade captain. I just hope the two of you haven’t left behind any evidence.”
“You still have a chance,” Song Tian whispered. “As long as you agree to give me your job allocation, I’ll let this matter go.”
Jiang Lai let out a cold laugh.
“You’ve got quite the nerve.”
She turned her head away, refusing to look at her again.
Song Tian opened her mouth to continue, but a young police officer walked over and escorted her aside.
Soon Qin Chengyuan came out as well. As he passed Jiang Lai, he kept his head lowered, pretending she didn’t even exist.
Meanwhile, the curious villagers kept inching closer, testing the limits of the police’s patience.
At first, they stood over fifty meters away from the brigade headquarters. When no one chased them off, a few bold souls wandered into the courtyard. Seeing they still weren’t being driven away, the rest crowded along the courtyard wall, craning their necks while whispering excitedly among themselves.
One particularly nosy villager joked,
“Jiang Lai, did Educated Youth Qin refuse to marry you, so you called the police to force him into marriage?”
Jiang Lai glanced at Qin Chengyuan, who stood there with his head lowered, then snorted.
“Him? I wouldn’t take him even if he were free.”
In the original novel, after Song Tian returned to the city half a year later, Qin Chengyuan dropped his cold facade and revealed his true nature. He beat and abused the original Jiang Lai every day.
One bitter winter day, over the smallest disagreement, he stripped off all her clothes and threw her naked out of the educated youth residence. She was too terrified to cry for help, afraid the villagers would hear her, so she could only crouch beside the door, quietly begging him to let her back inside.
Only after his anger subsided did he finally open the door.
Later, Jiang Minghai learned what had happened and beat Qin Chengyuan severely. Qin Chengyuan fell to his knees after only two punches, slapping himself while tearfully apologizing and swearing it would never happen again.
Within days, he was abusing her all over again.
The original Jiang Lai didn’t survive past the Lunar New Year.
“Look at Educated Youth Qin,” another villager said. “Tall, refined, quite handsome. He’s a good match for you.”
Someone else called out to Qin Chengyuan,
“Comrade Qin, marriage between a man and a woman is perfectly normal. Why involve the police? Making such a fuss won’t do anyone any good.”
“This isn’t about marriage,” another person interrupted. “It’s about sleeping around. I heard Jiang Lai stripped herself naked in the woodshed and tried to force herself on Comrade Qin.”
“How will the police deal with this? Won’t they drag both of them off for public criticism? Jiang Lai doesn’t look stupid. How could she do something like that?”
“Young girls who’ve never faced real trouble are thin-skinned. She probably thought reporting it to the police was like playing house. If this goes badly, she could end up being sent to a labor farm for reform. Poor Comrade Qin got dragged into this.”
Resting her chin in one hand, Jiang Lai listened expressionlessly to the villagers gossiping nearby.
She hadn’t inherited all of the original owner’s memories, so the only way to break the deadlock was to piece together everything she remembered from the novel.
She watched as Song Tian went into the office and came back out, followed by Qin Chengyuan, then the two witnesses in turn.
Night had completely fallen.
Normally, everyone would already have gone home and gone to bed by this hour, but tonight the villagers were wide awake, their discussions showing no sign of ending.
Jiang Lai pulled her jacket tighter around herself. The temperature difference between day and night in autumn was considerable, and the evening air had grown chilly.
The two witnesses had been inside for quite some time when a police officer poked his head out of the office.
“Jiang Lai, come in.”
Hearing her name, Jiang Lai stood, dusted herself off, and walked inside.
The two witnesses were seated on chairs along the west wall, watched over by two officers.
Laizi, who usually kept to himself and rarely caused trouble, sat unusually straight-faced today.
Mingzi, meanwhile, looked utterly terrified, twisting the corner of his shirt in both hands while tears welled in his eyes.
Jiang Lai walked directly to the senior officer and sat down.
“Song Tian claims she reported you and Qin Chengyuan for maintaining an improper relationship,” the officer said. “Qin Chengyuan states that you pursued him, and when he rejected you, you tried to force yourself on him. These two are their witnesses.”
“That’s right!” Laizi suddenly jumped to his feet. “I can testify that around nine o’clock the night before last, I saw Jiang Lai running out of the educated youth residence. Her clothes were all messed up, like she’d just… done that with someone.”
“I saw Sister Lailai running home in front of her grandmother’s house,” Mingzi added nervously. “She almost tripped.”
At that moment, fragments of memory suddenly flooded Jiang Lai’s mind.
She silently sorted through them for a while before finding the whole thing almost laughable.
Turning toward the two men who were so determined to insist they’d seen her, she asked,
“The moon was bright that night. Then tell me—what coat was I wearing? And exactly where did you see me?”
Both Laizi and Mingzi froze.
Laizi recovered first, stammering,
“The… the one you’re wearing now.”
Mingzi hurriedly echoed,
“Yes! The one you’re wearing now.”
Jiang Lai turned to the officer beside her.
“My grandmother should still be outside. Could you please ask her to bring the coat I wore yesterday?”
The officer quickly returned carrying a light-yellow jacket.
“I was wearing this yellow coat the night before last. I never saw either of these two men on the road. A light-yellow jacket is easy to spot at night, and the moon was bright enough that nobody could mistake it.”
Laizi immediately changed his story.
“I was sleeping in the straw pile, so of course you didn’t see me. I remembered wrong—it was this yellow coat.”
A flash of anger crossed the senior officer’s eyes as he stared at Laizi.
“You’d better think carefully before you speak. I’ve already questioned you once, and everything you said has been written down.”
Mingzi burst into tears.
Jiang Lai unfolded the jacket.
“I did go to the educated youth residence that night.
“But Song Tian invited me there. She heard I might be returning to the city and asked me to take some things back for her. Then she pulled me into drinking with her while crying about how everyone else from the educated youth residence had already gone home, and how much she wanted to go back too.
“Halfway through the meal, Qin Chengyuan suddenly lunged at me from across the table and ripped open the front of my jacket.
“I came to my senses and kicked him hard in the lower abdomen. I remember using all my strength. The bruise should still be there.”
She paused.
“Then I ran home. I deliberately took the main road instead of the back path behind the educated youth residence because I was afraid Qin Chengyuan would chase me. Under the locust tree along the main road, I ran into Meihua. You can ask her to verify it.”
“The next morning, Song Tian gave me this.”
She stood up and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her trouser pocket.
For reasons she couldn’t explain, the original owner’s memories of that night had suddenly become crystal clear.
In the kitchen of the educated youth residence, four simple dishes and a bottle of cheap liquor had sat on the table.
The three of them had sat facing one another.
The original Jiang Lai had spoken very little, mostly drinking while listening to Song Tian complain.
Then Song Tian suddenly slumped over the table as though she’d passed out from the alcohol—or perhaps she had been pretending all along.
Before Jiang Lai could react, Qin Chengyuan, who had been silently drinking across from her, sprang to his feet and threw himself at her without the slightest hesitation.
Terrified, she had instantly sobered up. Clutching her torn jacket closed, she kicked him hard before fleeing the house.
Afraid he would catch her if she used the shortcut, she deliberately chose the main road home.
Early the following morning, Song Tian had handed her the note.
Its message was simple:
If Jiang Lai refused to give Song Tian the receptionist position at the Hongxing Textile Factory Guesthouse, Song Tian would report the incident to the commune and accuse her and Qin Chengyuan of engaging in an illicit sexual relationship.
The original Jiang Lai had been frightened into hiding in her room for two days.
Growing impatient, Song Tian went directly to the brigade captain.
The captain, eager to earn commendations and recognition, pressured Zhao Guoshi.
After two days of fear and anxiety, refusing to eat or drink, the original Jiang Lai had somehow disappeared—and she had awakened in her place, possessing only the novel’s plot and none of the girl’s memories. That was why her first instinct had been to call the police.
Had the original Jiang Lai produced this note from the beginning, her story might never have ended so tragically.
The senior officer accepted the paper and glanced up at her.
“If you had this, why didn’t you produce it earlier?”
Jiang Lai lowered her eyes and answered pitifully,
“I was so devastated that I forgot about it. Does this count as evidence?”
The officer folded the note carefully and tucked it into his case file.
His expression turned solemn.
“They attempted to rape you.”
“Why didn’t you report that?”