Su Yufen's tears welled up again, but she slowly stopped trembling and reached out to tidy her disheveled hair.

"Dad...I...I'll go wash my face."

Afterwards, Su Jianguo led everyone out, leaving Wang Xiulan at home to look after the house.

"Hongqi, ride your bike with Yufen on the back."

Su Jianguo gave the instructions.

"Tiezhu, Dalei, you two take the children and come with me. Mingfu, you bring up the rear."

Zhao Hongqi pushed his bicycle and specially put a cotton-padded jacket on the back seat.

"Senior sister, come on up."

Su Yufen was still somewhat timid.

"Dad...how about we go tomorrow..."

"If we don't go tonight, they'll have even more to say tomorrow."

Su Jianguo said in a deep voice.

"Don't be afraid, Dad's here."

Su Yufen took a deep breath and finally sat on the back of the bicycle.

"Listen carefully, everyone."

Su Jianguo looked around at everyone, his voice very low.

"Once we get to the Zhang family, we should avoid violence if possible. But if anyone dares to touch Yufen and the children..."

He paused.

"Beat them to death. I'll take responsibility if anything goes wrong."

The four men nodded in unison.

The group rode for twenty minutes.

We arrived at the entrance of the alley where the Zhang family lived.

From afar, a pale white lantern could be seen swaying in the night wind.

Under the lanterns, the makeshift mourning shed made of a few planks of wood looked particularly jarring in the twilight.

"arrive."

Su Jianguo said in a low voice.

Twenty or thirty people had already gathered in front of the mourning tent, mostly neighbors.

The women gathered in twos and threes, whispering among themselves and occasionally pointing towards the mourning hall.

The men squatted by the roadside, smoking silently, the red glow of their cigarette butts flickering in the darkness.

Since Zhang Tiezhu died a violent death outside, according to custom, he could not even enter the main courtyard; a mourning shed could only be set up outside the courtyard.

Su Jianguo parked his bicycle and gestured to Zhao Hongqi to take good care of Su Yufen.

He straightened his collar and strode towards the mourning tent.

The mourning tent was very simple, with four bamboo poles supporting a white cloth, which was stained with something that was hard to tell whether it was rainwater or something else.

In the center of the shed stood a thin-skinned coffin, not even fully painted, revealing the grain of the raw wood.

A broken enamel basin sat in front of the coffin, filled with half-burnt paper money, the ashes scattered by the wind.

"Make way, make way."

Su Jianguo pushed through the crowd and finally saw the situation inside the coffin.

Zhang Tiezhu's once drunken face was now ashen white, his eyes half-open, and his mouth still contorted in the agony of his death.

Even more horrifying was that his body was noticeably shorter, and his lower body was covered by a dirty white cloth, with an unnatural indentation that could be vaguely seen.

"..."

Su Jianguo gasped, his stomach churning.

Behind her came Su Yufen's heart-wrenching scream, followed by a "thump"—she fainted.

Zhao Hongqi quickly helped the limp Su Yufen up.

The shout startled the people inside the mourning hall.

An elderly woman with gray hair suddenly turned her head, her cloudy eyes flashing with resentment.

She was wearing a dirty blue cloth shirt with a crumpled white flower pinned to her chest, and tear stains still clung to the wrinkles on her face.

"You jinx! How dare you come back!"

The old lady was Zhang Tiezhu's mother.

The moment she saw Su Yufen, the old lady rushed over, her withered fingers pointing directly at the unconscious Su Yufen.

"You're the one who cursed my son to death!"

Su Jianguo stepped forward to block his daughter's path.

"Mother-in-law, you can't say that..."

"Get out of here!"

Zhang's mother's hysterical sharpness.

"If she hadn't run back to her parents' house, would my son have drunk so much? Would this have happened?"

She turned to the onlookers and wailed.

"Everyone, be the judge! It was this unfaithful woman who killed my son!"

The crowd stirred, and several Zhang family relatives surrounded the Su family, staring at them with hostile eyes.

"Bullshit!"

Su Jianguo could no longer hold back and grabbed Zhang's mother by the collar.

"Your son is always drunk and beating his wife. Doesn't Yufen run away and wait to be beaten to death?"

"What's wrong with beating your wife?"

A middle-aged man with a fierce face came out; he was Zhang Tiezhu's cousin.

"Women should be beaten if they disobey! If she hadn't run back to her parents' house, would Tiezhu have been in such a bad mood and drunk so much?"

Su Jianguo was so angry that he trembled all over, and his fists clenched so tightly they cracked.

Seeing this, Zhao Hongqi quickly stepped forward and pulled his master back.

"Master, calm down, we're on someone else's turf..."

Just then, a piercing horn blared, breaking the tense atmosphere.

A jeep slowly drove up and stopped in front of the mourning tent.

The train door opened, and two men in railway uniforms stepped out.

"He's a leader from the railway bureau."

Someone in the crowd whispered.

The middle-aged man at the head of the group had a solemn expression and wore a railway bureau badge on his chest.

He walked to the mourning tent, bowed deeply to the coffin, and then turned to Zhang's mother.

"Please accept our deepest condolences. Regarding the issue of Comrade Zhang Tiezhu's pension and compensation, we need to discuss it with his family."

Zhang's mother's crying stopped abruptly, and a glint of light flashed in her cloudy eyes.

"How much?"

The railway bureau leader frowned.

"According to regulations, the compensation for work-related death is two thousand yuan, plus a monthly survivor's pension. Considering that Zhang Tiezhu informed us he has two children..."

"two thousand!"

Zhang's mother screamed and suddenly grabbed the still unconscious Su Yufen.

"She has no share! This is my son's hard-earned money!"

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