What made everyone even more breathless was that the envelope was stained with several large patches of dried, blackened blood, a shocking sight!
With her fingertips, Zhou Qiqi carefully pulled out a piece of paper, also stained with specks of dark brown blood, from the envelope.
She unfolded the letter, her gaze sweeping over the familiar handwriting. Then, she slowly raised her eyes, looking at Li Guixiang, whose face had turned deathly pale and whose eyes were practically popping out of their sockets, and asked softly:
"Then... what is this letter?"
Her voice wasn't loud, but it resounded like thunder in the quiet courtyard.
"What...what is this thing?"
Li Guixiang's heart skipped a beat at the sight of the blood-stained old envelope. She questioned in a shrill voice, but her voice betrayed her undisguised guilt.
The mocking smile on Zhou Qiqi's lips deepened.
"As you can see, this is a letter my parents wrote to me back then."
She ignored Li Guixiang, her gaze sweeping over the familiar handwriting on the yellowed letter paper, her clear voice ringing out distinctly in the quiet courtyard:
"Qiqi, your parents are dying. We're sorry we can't be there to watch you grow up..."
After reading only the beginning, Zhou Shuhua was struck by lightning and staggered forward, staring intently at the letter in Zhou Qiqi's hand!
Her breathing suddenly quickened, her eyes widened, and tears instantly blurred her vision, but she bit her lip tightly, afraid to utter a sound, lest she miss a single word.
"...From now on, the village chief and the production brigade will take care of you. Your parents have packed up everything at home and entrusted it all to the village chief's family for safekeeping. There isn't much stuff; it's what your parents have saved up over the years. If you use it sparingly, it should be enough for you to grow up safely. Also, your parents left you something under the stove; you'll find it if you dig it up. Here's a list of the items..."
Zhou Qiqi's voice was calm and even, yet every word struck like a hammer blow to everyone's heart.
Zhou Shuhua could no longer hold back. She rushed to Zhou Qiqi's side, her hands trembling as she tried to touch the letter, but she dared not. She just stared intently at the words on it, a suppressed sob escaping her throat:
"Jianbang...it's Jianbang's handwriting! It was him! He wrote it!"
Large tears rolled down her cheeks, but her tone remained unusually firm.
"Look at these strokes, they're like the edge of a knife! And this vertical hook, that little bit of sharp return at the end... It's him! When he was a child practicing calligraphy, his teacher said that his strokes were too hard and forceful, like they were going to pierce the paper! There's no mistake! It's him! It's definitely him!"
By this time, a number of villagers who had been drawn by the earlier commotion had gathered at the entrance of the courtyard, and the Xu family was also squeezed in at the front.
Village Chief Xu craned his neck, squinted, and carefully deciphered the words on the letter. His cloudy old eyes suddenly reddened, and he excitedly slapped his thigh:
"Yes! Yes! It's Shuisheng! It's Shuisheng's handwriting! It's so strong and vigorous, just like him! He even taught me how to write my own name back then! These few lines of delicate and neat handwriting on this list are Lin Mei's! Lin Mei teaches in town, and her handwriting is so beautiful, it looks like it was printed! You can't find another set of such beautiful handwriting in the village!"
He pointed to two different handwritings on the letter and explained to the surrounding villagers in a trembling voice.
"These are truly handwritten letters from Shuisheng and Lin!"
"Good heavens, so that's how it is!"
"I knew it! Shui Sheng and his wife are such sensible people. They get along with the village chief's family like family. Qi Qi often plays at the village chief's house. How could they entrust her to that shrew Li Guixiang?"
"That's right! When the couple was sick, they asked the village chief's family to temporarily take care of Qiqi! But then that heartless Li Guixiang forcibly took her away!"
"If we had handed it over to the brigade or the village chief's family as the letter said, Qiqi wouldn't have suffered all that later! What a tragedy!"
The villagers started talking amongst themselves, their eyes filled with contempt and anger as they looked at Li Guixiang and Xu Laonian.
Listening to everyone's words and looking at the letter, Village Chief Xu felt both pain and regret, and sighed heavily.
"Sigh! Shui Sheng's letter clearly stated that he entrusted Qi Qi to the brigade and my family to take care of her! The brigade was also to keep our belongings safe! That's the right thing to do! Back then... why did I let those two..."
He was so angry that he pointed at Li Guixiang and couldn't say anything more.
As Zhou Shuhua listened to the village chief and the villagers, and looked at her younger brother's familiar, powerful handwriting on the letter, a surge of rage rushed to the top of her head!
She abruptly turned her head, her bloodshot eyes glaring at the pale-faced Li Guixiang as if she wanted to devour her, her voice trembling sharply with extreme anger:
"Li Guixiang! Did you hear that?! My brother and sister-in-law wrote it down in black and white, clearly stating that they entrusted Qiqi to the brigade and the village chief! They didn't mention your Xu family at all!"
"You...you took advantage of our vulnerability! Did you snatch our child and seize our belongings because my brother and sister-in-law were seriously ill and weak?! Was your new house built with my brother and sister-in-law's hard-earned money?! Tell me! Isn't that right?!"
"No! Impossible!"
Li Guixiang screamed like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, her face as pale as a ghost, her forehead covered in cold sweat.
Her eyes darted frantically between the letter in Zhou Qiqi's hand and the angry crowd around her, as she screamed incoherently:
"Fake! This letter is fake! Where did it come from? I've never heard of this letter! It's impossible! They're so sick they can barely speak, how could they have the strength to write such a long letter? It's a lie! Zhou Qiqi! You little bitch! You forged this letter! Where did you get this fake to frame me?!"
She completely panicked, her voice sharp and shrill, filled with a desperate, frantic struggle.
She lunged forward, seemingly trying to snatch the letter and tear it to shreds, but Shen Huaichuan's cold gaze and slightly forward-leaning body froze her in place.
Zhou Qiqi carefully folded the letter and put it back into the oil paper package.
She raised her eyes, looking at Li Guixiang's hysterical and ugly state, her gaze eerily calm, a cold smile curving her lips:
Where did it come from?
Her voice wasn't loud, but it clearly drowned out Li Guixiang's scream.
"Don't you know where it came from?"
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