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After making a bold assumption, Qi Ling and Lao Wu continued to discuss the next steps.
At this point, several more police officers from the city and county were sent to assist in the investigation.
Two people died in quick succession, and the city and county authorities took the case very seriously, demanding that they solve it within seven days.
The urgency is twofold: firstly, to alleviate public pressure and reduce public fear; secondly, the province is currently conducting an investigation, and if this matter remains unresolved, it will certainly affect the officials' careers.
Several police officers interrogated several village officials, and after three days, they finally made some progress.
A police officer skilled in accounting discovered discrepancies in the accounts of Hujia Village, involving a deficit of over one hundred yuan. Following the trail, he located Accountant Hu and learned more about the situation.
Accountant Hu's attempts to deny the allegations only aroused the suspicion of the police officers!
Late at night, Liu Lingli asked Accountant Hu to come out.
"Brother Hu, what should we do?" Liu Lingli said excitedly, touching her belly. "My baby, what if... what if..."
Previously, Liu Lingli and Accountant Hu had an affair, which was discovered by Hu Erlai, and she was frequently blackmailed. Later, they killed Hu Erlai, and Liu Lingli told Accountant Hu that she was pregnant, which was also discovered by Hu Gou Dan.
They had no money to give Hu Gou Dan, so they stalled him for a while, waiting for an opportunity to kill him.
Killing one person is murder, and killing two people is also murder.
Since they had already gone this far, they decided to go all the way and killed Hu Gou Dan as well.
They thought the police would leave once they couldn't find any clues, but they didn't expect that Hu Gou Dan's father also knew some basic things.
Based on these clues, the police found Accountant Hu. However, they only suspected the accounts at the moment, but after some time, they estimated they would uncover the murder. The ten yuan was one he had given out; it was missing a corner and unusable, so it had been on the books. He had given it to Liu Lingli to deceive Hu Erlai, but unexpectedly, he had fallen into a trap.
When they returned, they discovered that the money had fallen in.
As dawn approached, they dared not go looking for it.
When someone discovered that Hu Erlai was dead, Accountant Hu ran ahead, wanting to be the first to go down and retrieve the money, but unexpectedly, it was secretly hidden by Hu Damao, a young man from the village.
He originally thought that the money was hidden away and would not be spent for the time being to avoid trouble, so he didn't pay much attention to it. Unexpectedly, Old Hu actually handed the money over with his son.
Now that the accounts are being checked, the village's Party Secretary, Ba Hu, knows about the missing piece of money, so it's only a matter of time before the investigation reaches him!
Accountant Hu hugged Liu Lingli tightly, touched her belly, and said, "Now the police suspect me. Since you are pregnant and it's my child, I can't just watch the child die before it's even born."
Liu Lingli lowered her head, secretly delighted. Judging from Accountant Hu's tone, he wasn't going to implicate her.
"Then what should we do?" Liu Lingli asked. "Shall we elope?"
Accountant Hu thought about it. He had no way to escape with a pregnant woman in his arms. Besides, if he eloped with Liu Lingli, his wife and children back home would be drowned in scorn!
“Here’s what we’ll do: you find someone in the village to marry and have my child,” Accountant Hu said. “I’ll turn myself in alone. If I die, you’ll have to raise my child.”
Liu Lingli covered her mouth, afraid to cry out, and said, "Let's elope... I don't want you to die..."
Although Liu Lingli was happy inside, she didn't dare to show it on her face.
She didn't want to die; she wanted to live!
As for Accountant Hu, he was Accountant Hu back then. Seeing that she was about to starve to death, he took advantage of her plight. Her family had taken all her money, and she had no choice but to rely on Accountant Hu. This had its advantages, such as the workload assigned to her becoming lighter and less, and she could often secretly eat meat.
Liu Lingli didn't want to live such a hard life as before, so she went from being forced to doing it voluntarily.
To her surprise, she was pregnant!
Just as she was trying to find a way to abort the child, Hu Erlai caught her in the act.
"The world is so big, but there's nowhere for us to go. If we elope, what will happen to my two sons and two daughters?" Accountant Hu said sadly. He didn't want to be charged with hooliganism on top of murder, which would only make his family lose face even more.
"Alright, Brother Hu, you saved my life, so I'll give birth to the child and raise him." Liu Lingli said, choking back tears. Compared to being executed, finding a man in the countryside to marry wasn't so bad.
As for the baby in her belly, she won't give birth to it. After all, she's already been pregnant for more than two months, and it's not certain that she can keep it a secret any longer.
Accountant Hu was shrewd and understood human relationships well. He guessed some of Liu Lingli's thoughts: "I also know the saying 'when people leave, the tea cools.' After I die, since you didn't give birth to my child, I will let you go to the underworld to keep me company."
Liu Lingli shuddered in fright. Stared at by Accountant Hu's shrewd eyes, she dared not look up and said, "I will definitely give birth to the child, I definitely will, please let me go!"
Accountant Hu laughed bitterly. If only he'd known this would happen! He was about to have a grandson, why did he have to seduce young girls? Although young women have beautiful bodies, compared to life, they mean nothing!
But it's too late to regret it; there's no medicine for regret in this world!
"Just remember your words. I died for you, and for my child," Accountant Hu said. "If you obediently give birth to the child and raise him, you'll be fine. If..."
The threat was self-evident.
Having witnessed Accountant Hu's shrewdness and ruthlessness, Liu Lingli dared not disobey him and said, "I will. I will definitely give birth to the child and raise the child well."
"I hope you keep your word. I've kept evidence. If you don't do as I say, you'll go to jail even if you're not sentenced," the accountant said before leaving.
The police, who were checking the accounts overnight, found Secretary Hu and placed the torn bill on the table. Qi Ling asked, "Did you know that your village is short 136 yuan?"
Secretary Hu wiped the sweat from his brow and replied, "I really didn't know. The village's accounts are all done by the accountant alone. I only check them during the Spring Festival. There were no problems last year, but it's not even the Spring Festival yet this year, so I didn't know that so much money was missing."
Party Secretary Hu hurriedly explained, then his eyes fell on the ten-yuan note with a torn corner, and he stared wide-eyed as he said, "I recognize this ten-yuan note..."
Qi Ling was taken aback and asked, "How do you recognize this money? It was found on Hu Erlai's body."
“I don’t know how this money ended up on Hu Erlai’s body, but I do know that it’s been in our village branch’s accounts for several years. Because a corner of it was missing, no one wanted it when it was offered to someone, so it just stayed in the accounts. I’ve seen it several times when I checked the accounts, so I remember it,” said Secretary Hu. “And Accountant Hu was in charge of the money and the accounts, so it was always in his hands.”
Upon hearing this, Qi Ling immediately said to his colleague, "Go and arrest Accountant Hu!"
(To be continued.)
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