The flames started to rise, and Cheng Kuan tried to run away, but he felt a pain in his leg and fell down.

Wei Aiguo walked over and looked at him.

Wu Dayong used the water he had prepared beforehand to extinguish the fire.

Wu Dayong turned on the light, and the room was instantly illuminated.

Cheng Kuan hadn't expected anyone to be there; he knew he was doomed. But his will to survive drove him to fight on.

Cheng Kuan scrambled to his feet, pulled out a knife from his waist, and slashed at Wei Aiguo. Wu Dayong was terrified and quickly called out to Wei Aiguo, fearing he might be injured because he was so close.

Wei Aiguo deftly kicked the knife away, then kicked him in the leg.

"Crack!" The sound of bones breaking was especially eerie in the dead of night.

Cheng Kuan screamed repeatedly.

Wu Dayong's face turned pale. He was terrified by both Cheng Kuan's knife and Wei Aiguo's ruthlessness.

Wei Aiguo: "Do you think he was trying to kill me with that knife?"

Wu Dayong nodded.

“He didn’t just want to kill me. We’re the only two people here who saw him. If we both die, no one will know he started the fire.” Wei Aiguo kept staring at Cheng Kuan. Wu Dayong followed his gaze to Cheng Kuan. Surprisingly, Cheng Kuan didn’t refute him.

Wu Dayong suddenly felt like he had escaped a disaster, all thanks to Wei Aiguo's skill. No wonder he insisted on letting the other group release three people.

Wei Aiguo: "Go find the brigade leader!"

Wu Dayong took off running, wanting to tell his father that he had just been to the gates of hell today.

Captain Wu and his youngest son didn't dare take off their clothes; they went out to open the door as soon as they heard the noise.

Wu Dayong: "We caught him. It's Cheng Kuan. He set the fire and tried to kill someone."

Captain Wu directed his youngest son, "Go quickly! Go to the commune police station to report the case!" He then turned to his eldest son and ordered, "Go and bang the gong! Wake up everyone in the brigade!"

Wu Dayong had so much to say, but he didn't utter a single word. He listened to his father, grabbed the gong, and ran off.

"Clang, clang, clang..." It's been so long since we've heard the sound of a gong. The last time we heard gongs at midnight was probably decades ago, during wartime!

Now we have loudspeakers, so we can just shout something when there's an emergency.

To everyone's surprise, they heard the gong again.

The Cheng brothers, without even taking off their clothes, ran over as soon as they heard the gong.

The militia members are trained regularly, and this is where the results of that training became apparent. The militia members were the first to arrive.

Cheng Yousuo ordered the weaving group's house to be fenced off, and those who came to watch the spectacle were not allowed to enter.

What a big deal it must be to be banging a gong in the middle of the night! Almost everyone in the entire brigade, except for a few-year-old child, came.

The first to arrive asked what had happened, as Wu Dayong was still in a bad mood. He started yelling that Cheng Kuan wanted to kill and set fires.

Wu Dayong: "...Those wheat stalks, and cattails, and a lot of things we'd made were still in the house. And the cattails on the roof...this bastard, he even wanted to burn the whole house down. He wanted to kill me to cover it up..."

Life is so poor these days! The weaving team can earn each family a few dozen yuan. That's enough to get a wife, to send the children to school, and to afford to go to the hospital if someone is sick or has an accident. Why do rural people endure illness? Because they have no money.

Putting all that aside, buying a few kilograms of grain will always give me some money.

Is the feeling of being hungry so easy to endure?

Cheng Kuan was ruthless. Last year, the Cheng family ruined the weaving group terribly. This year, they couldn't ruin it anymore, so they wanted to burn it down.

The people of Qingshan Brigade are now furious.

The Cheng family, including Cheng Qianjin who was dismissed from his post, Cheng Xiuyun and her husband, Cheng Kuan's wife and parents, and Cheng Kuan's younger brother Cheng Yong and his family.

He was pushed to the middle by the crowd.

Cheng Qianjin and his family cried and screamed, "We don't know anything! We don't know anything..."

Cheng Xiuyun and her husband were also shouting and yelling like that.

Cheng Kuan's wife was pale.

A woman suddenly shouted, "You know Cheng Kuan's wife, right? She sleeps in the same bed with her husband, how could she not know that he went out in the middle of the night? How could she not know?"

Cheng Kuan's wife shook her head frantically, her expression still showing undisguised disbelief. "I don't know, I really don't know. I don't know what he did in the middle of the night? Once I pressed him, and he hit me."

She definitely knows! She definitely knows!

She kept whispering to her son.

Are you even human? You made the whole family clean up after your third son. Now that he's in jail, you're messing with your eldest son. He's your son! You let him commit murder and arson…”

Cheng Kuan's wife rushed over and slapped her mother-in-law several times.

Cheng Kuan is now filled with regret. Murder and arson have always been capital offenses. But what's done is done, so he has to bear the consequences himself. "No one forced me to do it; it was my own doing."

Wei Aiguo squatted down next to Cheng Kuan and said, "Tell the truth, don't tell a single lie."

Cheng Kuan trembled with fear and shook his head.

"A woman who sleeps in the same bed with you, doesn't know what you've been doing? If I say she knows, who do you think people will believe?"

You have one son and two daughters, right? They will soon be without a father and without a mother.

Do you see how difficult Ji Chunyang's life was? She had the help of the entire production team and the educated youth, which is why she was able to survive. If your family incurs the wrath of the masses, your child will face certain death.

Actually, death is a good thing. Your daughter is quite pretty, isn't she? Is she eight or nine years old this year? Some old bachelors must be thinking about her in the middle of the night! Wei Aiguo was closest to Cheng Kuan, and his voice was very low. The surroundings were noisy, so no one could really hear what Wei Aiguo was saying; those who were paying attention only thought that Wei Aiguo had spoken.

Wei Aiguo wasn't entirely lying; isn't everyone now suspicious of his wife?

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