"It's gone! It's completely gone!"

That was the jade pendant she had worn since childhood. For a moment, she couldn't accept this fact and couldn't believe it was real.

"No, it can't be lost. It must have been misplaced. Let's look again. Maybe it's in one of the smaller pockets."

She muttered to herself, thinking she had put it in the wrong pocket, and quickly searched through the other pockets. She searched through all the pockets in her body, even turning them inside out, but she couldn't find even a trace of the jade pendant.

She looked around at the ground again, but there was still no trace of the jade pendant.

She had previously thought the jade pendant was dispensable, but now that it was truly gone, she became extremely flustered, as if she had lost something very precious.

Where exactly did she lose the jade pendant?

Previously, when Shen Man snatched the key from her neck on the mountain, she touched the pocket and clearly remembered that she touched a very hard object, which must have been her jade pendant.

At that time, the jade pendant was still on her.

Feeling reassured that the jade pendant was safe in her pocket, she went mushroom picking with Shen Man.

To avoid Shen Man discovering anything, she never touched the pocket again. Later, when she and other female educated youths watched the male educated youths hunt, she didn't seem to touch the pocket containing the jade pendant much, and it hasn't changed since.

So, when exactly did she lose her jade pendant, and where did we lose it?

She had no recollection of it at all.

Her activity area on the mountain was only about a hundred square meters, which wasn't very big, but the journey from the mountain down to the educated youth settlement was quite long.

If it was lost on the mountain, it might still be found. But if it was lost on the road, especially the section from the village to the educated youth settlement, where people constantly walk by, even if they've only been down the mountain for less than an hour, the jade pendant could very well have been picked up by someone.

She instinctively began to pray that the jade pendant had fallen on the mountain. Although the area she was on the mountain was small, the terrain was complex, and the ground was covered with a thick layer of dead leaves. Underneath the leaves were layers of small stones. Since the jade pendant was relatively heavy, there was a high chance that it would be covered by the leaves if it fell to the ground. Otherwise, it would fall into the pile of small stones and perhaps be covered by the flying dead leaves.

In this way, it would not be easily discovered by others. Today, only a few educated youths were in that place. If these educated youths did not pick it up, then the jade pendant would still be in that place on the mountain.

No, she had to go look for it right away, in case someone else picked it up if too much time passed.

But when she came out of the restroom and looked up at the sky, she realized that it was already dark, and there were even stars twinkling in the sky.

When they came down the mountain, it was already getting dark, and it wouldn't be long before it was completely dark.

The educated youth were still killing chickens and rabbits, with two torches and a kerosene lamp lit next to them.

Because they would soon be able to eat meat, they were all laughing and joking, making it even more lively than during the Lunar New Year.

In stark contrast to the jubilation of these educated youth, she felt incredibly lonely and desolate at that moment.

Going up the mountain during the day is dangerous, but after dark, in addition to the danger of wild animals, if she encounters bad people on the way or on the mountain, she, a weak woman, has no power to fight back, so she can't go up the mountain at all.

After a brief moment of thought, Lin Sisi decided to first search along the road they had taken back from the village. If she couldn't find it, she would go into the mountains at dawn the next day to search for it and do her best to find the jade pendant.

As she passed by those educated youths, Chen Lu saw her walking away and hurriedly asked, "Comrade Lin, it's getting dark, where are you going?"

"I felt really bored, so I went out for a walk and came back in a little while."

Several educated youths were helping to kill pheasants and rabbits, but Lin Sisi did nothing. After coming out of the toilet, she even went outside. This inevitably made the other educated youths think that Lin Sisi was deliberately unwilling to work and that they definitely didn't want her to share their meat.

Wang Qiang was also afraid that the other educated youth would have objections.

"Comrade Lin Sisi, it's not appropriate for you to go out alone while we're all busy having dinner together."

Lin Sisi had no appetite for the meat. She understood what Wang Qiang meant and said, "I won't eat this meat. You guys can eat it."

She said that the other educated youth certainly had no objections.

Wang Qiang nodded: "Then go ahead, but remember to come back early."

"Um."

After she left, one of the new educated youths said, "She's an officer's wife. She's probably tired of eating meat in the barracks and wouldn't care about the wild game we hunted."

"That's right, it's good that she doesn't eat, so we can share less."

After leaving the educated youth settlement, Lin Sisi retraced her steps, carefully searching for every inch of land she had passed through.

The light was dim, so she looked down and searched, still feeling uneasy.

County Public Security Bureau

Through interrogating Lin Guanghui, the police obtained some useful information from him, but Lin Guanghui remained stubborn and refused to admit it, continuing to lie. In the end, the police decided to ask a psychology expert to hypnotize him.

After being hypnotized by a psychologist, he finally learned all the details of how he killed Tong Jiaojiao.

Afterwards, the police summoned Li Dahai and his wife to confront Lin Guanghui in person. Lin Guanghui's psychological defenses were completely shattered, and he finally confessed to personally killing Tong Jiaojiao in the back mountain of Mopan Village.

He signed his name and pressed his fingerprint on the confession.

With this, the case of Tong Jiaojiao's murder was completely solved, and Lin Guanghui was ultimately identified as the real murderer of Tong Jiaojiao.

As soon as Lin Guanghui confessed, Captain Li told Lin Qingyan the news, and Lin Qingyan finally breathed a sigh of relief.

It was my first time entering a police station, my first time being detained, and my first time experiencing a murder case. After being cleared of suspicion, I felt like I had survived a catastrophe.

Seeing that Granny Lin was in a daze, Lin Qingyan wondered if Granny Lin hadn't understood what the police officer had said.

She excitedly grabbed Grandma Lin's hand and told her, "Grandma, I've been proven innocent. We've finally regained our freedom and can go home. Grandma, don't you want to go home?"

Grandma Lin finally reacted and jumped up.

"Yay! Yay! I can go home! I can really go home!"

Grandma Lin not only jumped, but also gesticulated wildly and wiggled her hips.

Lin Qingyan couldn't help but chuckle. Grandma Lin's behavior was just like that of an old lady who had traveled from a later era.

But when she saw that Grandma Lin was actually performing the Northeast Yangko dance, she felt relieved.

Grandma Lin is currently delirious; if she really were a time traveler, she'd probably be dancing in the square by now.

The vast horizon is my love, and flowers are blooming at the foot of the rolling green hills...