evidence

Zhiqiang's wife is Zhou Meixia, who lives at the end of the village.

When Zhou Laozhuang called out the name, the crowd parted to make way for Zhou Meixia amidst their discussions.

Zhou Meixia looked troubled.

To be honest, her house was quite close to the entrance of Lijia Village. She heard the three young men making a racket as they passed by in the middle of the day, but she didn't pay any attention. It was the eldest son of the old Zhuang family who came to knock on her door, pointed to the three young men and asked her to identify them. He asked what they were doing but wouldn't say anything and then turned and left.

She was happy to join in the fun, but the eldest son of the Zhuang family was clearly up to no good, and she didn't want to get involved in this mess.

In her opinion, neither side was easy to mess with. One side was the village bully, and the other was someone who loved to take advantage of others and was always looking for trouble. Although she hadn't figured out the inside story yet, she wasn't stupid. She knew that if she testified for Zhou Laozhuang, she would be on his side. She didn't want to be used as a pawn without knowing why. Therefore, although Zhou Meixia stepped forward, she kept her mouth shut and didn't say a word.

The crowd kept urging her to give them a definite answer.

Seeing her predicament, Zhou Lexing took the initiative to speak up: "A few of my friends in Lijia Village did come to see me this afternoon, but I was in a hurry to get into the mountains, so I didn't entertain them and let them leave first."

Zhou Laozhuang immediately became as if he had been injected with chicken blood, and he wanted to sit up and point his finger at Zhou Lexing's nose to shout: "You think you can just go into the mountains like that? Didn't you keep saying you needed some kind of evidence? Now I've forced the truth out of you. This afternoon you were with your bunch of brothers! You said you went into the mountains, but where is the evidence?!"

Everyone was afraid he would faint from excitement as he lay on the bamboo mat, kicking his legs.

Seeing the situation had turned around, the relatives who had come to help started shouting like echoing insects, "Yeah, where's the evidence?!"

"You're just making things up! You went to my house this afternoon to bully me!"

"He went into the mountains with me this afternoon."

Amidst the excited shouts, a clear and calm voice suddenly rang out, instantly drawing everyone's attention.

When they saw who it was, everyone was somewhat surprised.

The reason was simple: the person who came was Gu Jiansheng, who rarely went out. Everyone in the village knew about his family situation. Although both were widows, Zhou Lanhua's family was much worse off than Zhou Yuanxiang's. They were like invisible people in the village, the kind who had no one to stand up for them if they were bullied.

When everyone suddenly saw such a handsome young man standing under a street lamp not far away, they were all a little stunned.

"The Orchid family's son has grown up so much?"

"No wonder he's the offspring of educated youth; he looks so different from the villagers."

"I have to say, I think he's just as good as Yunxiang's kids."

The conversation veered off to the Pacific Ocean for a moment, but Zhou Laozhuang's excited cursing brought everyone's attention back.

"Who the hell do you think you are! I bet you're just lying to this kid so he'll protect you!"

Li Jianshan was also stunned at this moment. He knew that if they failed this time and made a big fuss by tying up Zhou Lexing and taking him to the Zhou family ancestral hall, Zhou Lexing would definitely find an opportunity to retaliate.

He dared not look at Zhou Lexing, but dared to yell at the weak-willed Gu Jiansheng: "I advise you not to sell your conscience for petty gains! If you lie, don't blame the ghosts knocking on your door in the middle of the night!"

This is a form of verbal threat. Whether he's lying or not is unclear, whether there's a ghost involved is unknown, but someone will definitely try to pry open his door in the middle of the night.

Zhou Lexing clenched his fists, about to speak, when he heard Gu Jiansheng calmly continue, "I'm not lying, so I'm not worried about ghosts knocking on the door. Aunt Meixia, Uncle Guoqiang, and Sister Meifen all know that I'm going into the mountains this afternoon."

The three people he named were taken aback for a moment, but this time they all nodded in agreement.

Zhou Meixia: "He wanted to go into the mountains and borrowed a whetstone from my family, saying he wanted to sharpen his family's sickle." Gu Jiansheng wasn't a troublemaker, and his behavior at the time was quite normal. Because he borrowed the whetstone, he even told her that if he had any success in the mountains, he would send it to her family.

That's a very thoughtful thing to say. Whether or not a gift was given, the sentiment was there.

Zhou Guoqiang also spoke up: "Yes, they borrowed hemp rope from my family." The situation was almost the same as Zhou Meixia's family.

Zhou Meifen nodded, "He borrowed a carrying pole from my family." At the time, Gu Jiansheng only said he wanted to go into the mountains, and Zhou Meifen tried to dissuade him a couple of times. But Gu Jiansheng said that someone was going with him. She thought Gu Jiansheng was just making excuses for her, but considering the difficult conditions of Gu Jiansheng's family, she didn't say anything more. She never expected that he would go into the mountains with Zhou Lexing!

Upon hearing this, everyone's feelings immediately shifted to the other side.

Although Gu Jiansheng's family was poor, compared to Zhou Lexing, a troublemaker, and Zhou Laozhuang, a greedy man, his reputation was clean and honest. Moreover, the image of the poor boy standing alone under the street lamp had already won the hearts of many people.

"He didn't know about this later incident at the time, so how could he lie?"

"Yes, it had only been a short while since we took a midday break, and nothing had happened yet."

Zhou Meixia thought about it more. At that time, the eldest son of the Zhuang family had just left not long ago. It was a coincidence, but there was still some time before the Zhuang family started making trouble. It should really just be a coincidence. However, it just happened to expose the conspiracy of some people.

"Wait! Even if he really did go up the mountain with that Gu family brat, couldn't he have come to my house to cause trouble before going up the mountain?!"

The old man's rebuttal was immediately met with skepticism from the crowd.

"That's not right. You clearly said that as soon as Le Xing ran away, you rushed over to catch him. By then, it had been almost two hours since lunch break, right? If you want to go into the mountains, you have to get there early. If you go in then, it will be dark, and how will you make it back?"

Old Zhuang still stubbornly insisted: "Maybe the two of them conspired to lie. Where is the evidence of them going into the mountains?"

They also learned the essence from Zhou Lexing: they insisted on obtaining evidence.

Anyway, Zhou Lexing came empty-handed, so they still had some hope in their hearts.

Zhou Lexing sneered: "Fine, the firewood and wild vegetables we chopped are still at the Gu family's place. If you want evidence, then we can all go and take a look. But if you find the evidence, how are you going to compensate my family for the losses?"

The Zhuang family members immediately fell silent. Seeing Zhou Lexing's confident words, they panicked and all looked at Zhou Laozhuang, who was sitting up.

The eldest son of the Zhuang family panicked immediately: "What, what compensation?! We didn't do anything to you?!"

These words caused an uproar among the crowd.

"Holy crap! So this is an admission? These people are utterly despicable! They really were trying to set a trap for the widow's family!"

There are countless ways to exploit someone's family, but without exception, they are all behaviors that are despised and loathed by the vast majority of working people.

"I was wondering how Lao Zhuang, who is usually so healthy, could have fallen and been lying on a straw mat unable to move. It turns out he was just putting on an act!"

"Tsk, I knew they were up to no good! Who would go to someone else's house to demand an explanation? Look, look, even Lao Zhuang is sitting up!"

Everyone started talking at once. Although Lao Zhuang was annoyed that his eldest son was clumsy and brainless, he was still trying to salvage the situation by shouting, "He's the one who pushed me! It was him!"

The scene was chaotic for a moment, and in the end, the village chief, who had been dragged along by several people, was finally brought over. After learning the whole story, he had no choice but to say, "Old Zhuang, are you confused?"

Zhou Lexing no longer cared about the group's act; he simply nodded to Gu Jiansheng from a distance across the crowd.

Zhou Lexing had a pretty good idea of ​​why Gu Jiansheng suddenly changed his mind and decided to go into the mountains today, and why he came to find him at noon. But at this moment, Zhou Lexing couldn't care less about these things. He stepped over the threshold and entered the courtyard, and together with Zhou Yuanxiang, he began to pay attention to Zhou Shusheng, whose situation seemed unusual.

"Shusheng, with your brother here, everything will be alright."

Zhou Shusheng was held in Zhou Yuanxiang's arms, and she gently comforted him for a long time, but he still looked terrified. He mumbled something and his body kept trembling. He almost broke free from Zhou Yuanxiang's embrace twice.

Helpless, Zhou Yuanxiang could only leave the chaos at the doorstep outside and pull Zhou Shusheng to sit in the yard to comfort him, but to little avail.

Zhou Lexing wiped the cold sweat from Zhou Shusheng's forehead and made a quick decision: "I'll carry him to the clinic to get checked out!"

Zhou Yuanxiang: "At this hour, which clinic is open? Go and call Zhou Guosheng over. We'll pay whatever it takes!"

At that time, clinics were quite different from hospitals; they usually closed at 5:30 pm.

Zhou Lexing hadn't expected this turn of events. Upon hearing this, he immediately nodded, stood up, and called out from outside the door, "Is Dr. Zhou Guosheng here? Does anyone know where he lives?!"

Zhou Laozhuang thought they were going to examine his condition and shouted, "Go see a doctor if you want, I'm not afraid!" The old man was already full of ailments, and if he said his legs hurt or his back hurt, would the doctor take his bones out to check the situation?

Zhou Lexing wanted nothing more than to punch him in the head and smash it: "What's the point of seeing a doctor when your heart and lungs have been eaten by pigs and dogs? I think you should just go lie in your coffin!"

"My brother is not feeling well. Does anyone know where Dr. Zhou Guosheng lives? Could you please show him the way? Money is no object!"

Zhou Lihua immediately stepped forward: "What money do you need! Hurry up and bring out your bicycle, Auntie will take you to knock on the door!"

Seeing Zhou Lexing enter the house pushing his bicycle, Zhou Lihua simply pointed at Old Zhou Laozhuang's nose and cursed: "I'm telling you, you heartless old bastard! You'll get your retribution sooner or later! Just you wait! If anything happens to Shusheng, we'll go to the police station and report you. Trying to kill off your family and hurting people, we'll be all that damn evidence! Your whole family can wait to be jailed!"

Everyone echoed in agreement.

The village chief of Zhoujia Village was already over eighty years old and had been an old acquaintance of the old village head. He had a deep understanding of the old man's greedy nature. But these days, not many people could live to that age. However, he knew that if he spoke up to defend Zhoujia Village, Zhoujia Village would incur even more public anger, so he could only speak up.

“If word gets out about what happened today, it won’t be good for our village’s reputation. How about this, the Zhuang family will pay for Shusheng’s medical expenses. We’re all from the same village, we see each other all the time, so let’s not make a big deal out of it.”