Lu's mother was immediately stunned. Her son already knew. Who told Lu Zhengting?
Now that her son already knew, she should try her best to comfort him. "Zhengting."
Just as she was about to tell Lu Zhengting about the big events that had happened in the village that day, Old Mrs. Li suddenly appeared: "What's wrong? Zhengting, I just didn't let you go out because it was getting dark, but you always overthink things."
Mrs. Lu immediately realized that her son was bluffing her.
Her son is too cunning. He must have sensed that something was wrong at home, but no one told him, so he tried to trick her into saying something.
"Zhengting, what's wrong? Mom just went out for a little while, why do you say something happened? What happened? Tell Mom quickly."
Lu Zhengting knew he wouldn't get anything out of his mother. "It's nothing. I had a dream while I was sleeping. I dreamt that Mom was arguing with someone outside, and they even got into a fight."
"Hey, you believe in dreams? It's all fake. Mom's perfectly fine. She just went out for a stroll and didn't argue or fight with anyone."
After a while, the captain also returned. Li's mother had already told him at the door not to talk about what happened today at home, so as not to let Lu Zhengting find out.
The family kept quiet about the matter, and when they sat down to eat together, everyone was reserved, and the atmosphere was dull and oppressive.
Lu Zhengting felt increasingly uneasy. After dinner, his mother pushed him back to his room and even massaged his legs.
Her heart was in her throat the whole time, and no matter what Lu Zhengting said to her, she didn't tell him what had happened that day.
The captain and several other squad leaders agreed to take turns guarding Tong Jiaojiao's body in pairs.
After eating, he rested for a while. He told his family he was going out to visit some neighbors, but actually he went to the brigade headquarters. He said this to keep it from Lu Zhengting.
The captain went out, intending to go to the scorekeeper Wu Zhengjun's house, because Lin Qingyan had said earlier that Tong Jiaojiao had gone to Wu Zhengjun's house that night.
It's not uncommon for some educated youth to secretly collude with the points recorder in order to accumulate more work points.
He would also take time to check the work point book to roughly know how many work points each member earned each day. If there was only a difference of one or two work points, it wouldn't be noticeable, but if there were many differences, it would be obvious at a glance.
Tong Jiaojiao was even more delicate than the average educated youth, and could only do four or five work points a day, but there was nothing obviously wrong with her.
He stood on the road for a while, thinking about how to ask Wu Zhengjun. Would it alert Wu Zhengjun if he went to find him in person?
After thinking for a while, he returned to the brigade headquarters and simply had Wu Zhengjun summoned there as well, so that they could guard Tong Jiaojiao's body together.
Seeing that Wu Zhengjun's behavior was the same as the other squad leaders, and there was nothing particularly unusual about it, he casually asked Wu Zhengjun where he had been during the day during their chat, and Wu Zhengjun's answer was also normal.
"I stayed home in the morning, and went up the mountain with my wife to chop firewood in the afternoon."
He suddenly realized something. “Captain, although I went up the mountain, my wife and I stayed on the front mountain and never went to the back mountain. We also never met Tong Zhiqing. Her death has nothing to do with me.”
The captain was even more troubled. Wu Zhengjun said that although he had been to the mountain, he didn't seem to be as suspicious as Lin Qingyan.
"Did you see anyone else on the mountain?"
“I saw Hu Danian’er and his son Hu Xiaonian’er from our brigade on the way. After we got to the mountain, it was just my wife and me. Brigade leader, I really have nothing to do with this matter.”
“The night before, someone saw Tong Zhiqing enter your house. What was he doing at your house at night?”
“She likes to chat with my wife, and sometimes she comes to my house to talk to my wife. It has nothing to do with me.”
The captain called the third squad leader: "You and the fourth squad leader go to his house and ask his wife what he did today."
"OK."
The third and fourth squad leaders immediately went to Wu Zhengjun's house. The two met Wu Zhengjun's wife and directly asked him where he had been that day.
Wu Zhengjun's wife gave the same answer as Wu Zhengjun, and she also immediately thought of the time of Tong Jiaojiao's death.
"Captains, you don't suspect that Tong Zhiqing's death is related to us, do you? We are innocent, how could we dare to do such a thing?"
Although we went up the mountain, we didn't see Tong Zhiqing at all. This whole thing has nothing to do with us. Ugh, if we'd known, we wouldn't have gone up the mountain today. What bad luck!
The third squad leader asked her, "You and Tong Jiaojiao are quite close?"
“We often worked in the fields together, and over time we got to know each other. During the off-season, she would sometimes come to my house to visit and chat with me.”
The two squad leaders didn't get any useful information and went back to report to the captain. The captain was so anxious that he scratched his head, wondering how they could find the murderer.
The night was extremely long. Lin Qingyan barely slept at all, and even Grandma Lin, who usually loved to sleep, kept her eyes open all night.
Lin Qingyan turned over and saw through the dim light that Grandma Lin was not asleep.
"Grandma, why aren't you asleep?"
"Girl, why aren't you asleep?"
"I...I have trouble sleeping."
"I can't sleep either."
Lin Qingyan tried to lull Grandma Lin to sleep by patting her back and telling her stories, but even after patting her back for a while and telling her three or four stories, Grandma Lin still wouldn't fall asleep.
"Girl, I just can't sleep, and nothing you do can soothe me."
"Okay, then I won't coax you anymore, Mom. If you're sleepy, just go to sleep."
"Um."
Lin Qingyan stared at her mother-in-law for a while. Lin Qingyan closed her eyes first, feeling restless and unable to sleep. After a long while, she opened her eyes and saw that her mother-in-law was still wide awake. They looked at each other for a while, and then she simply closed her eyes to rest.
In the other bedroom, Lin Zhiheng tossed and turned, unable to sleep, until dawn.
The captain's house
Like the other three, Lu Zhengting was also troubled and couldn't sleep all night.
He lay on the kang (a heated brick bed), feeling as if a heavy stone was pressing on his heart, making it hard for him to breathe.
As dawn approached, he finally managed to close his eyes and drift off to sleep when he dreamt of Lin Qingyan waving goodbye to him, saying that she was going to a very far place and would never see him again. Her figure slowly disappeared into wisps of white smoke until she vanished completely.
"Qingyan!"
He woke up suddenly, opened his eyes, and found himself covered in sweat, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
She told him she would never see him again. Why would she never see him again?
He felt an overwhelming sadness in an instant.
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