Chapter 9

Tang Xingwang's voice was very loud, attracting a lot of people's attention.

Tang Xingwang put his hands on his hips and raised his chin like an old lady who was cursing on the street: "You lazy woman, you dare to be lazy, I caught you."

Tang Qingqing felt everyone's gaze and smiled at them.

“They are all here.”

Tang Jianjun's brows wrinkled up, and he scolded with a stern face:

"You just hang out outside all day long. Don't do sheep herding work anymore!"

Tang Jianjun didn't have the chance to talk about this at all, as Tang Qingqing happened to bump into him.

He said to the deputy captain, "Deputy Captain, it's my fault for not taking good care of the children. I took the initiative to apply to remove my eldest daughter and let her brother Tang Xingwang take over and herd the sheep."

Wang Heizi started to yell, "The sheep are being watched, and they haven't gotten lost. Why should we change people?"

Normally a shepherd cannot leave the flock, but there are exceptions.

As long as we arrange for replacements and the sheep is not lost, it won't be a big deal.

The deputy captain is in a hurry now and has no time to care about these trivial matters.

"Why are you making trouble at this time? Can't you see I'm busy now?"

Tang Jianjun was embarrassed and didn't dare to say anything to the deputy captain. But when he turned around and looked at Tang Qingqing, his face was extremely ugly.

"What are you still doing here? Go herd the sheep! If your work points are deducted later, I'll show you how I'll deal with you!"

Tang Qingqing glanced at him, clenched her fists, and finally ran away without saying anything.

If I had felt sad and worried in the past, I would have wanted to do something to make up for it and hoped that he would not be disappointed in me.

But now Tang Qingqing no longer cares. They are not her biological parents, and they are the culprits who caused her to leave her biological parents. It is not surprising that they don't like her.

Wang Heizi glanced at Tang Qingqing quietly, "Are you okay?"

Tang Qingqing shook her head.

"Don't worry, I'll talk to my grandfather later and he won't let you lose your job as a shepherd."

Wang Heizi’s grandfather is the captain Wang Changfu.

"Thank you."

Wang Heizi shook his head embarrassedly.

When the two arrived near the granary, the piles of grain had turned to ashes, and only the ruins of the original house were left.

Both of them looked unhappy. Although they knew the scene was horrific, seeing it with their own eyes made them feel angry and distressed.

We spent so much effort to grow these crops, but in the end, they were all burned up in a fire. All the work for the whole year was wasted.

Tang Qingqing collected her emotions, began to observe the ground, and couldn't help frowning.

The center and surroundings of the fire were in a mess and chaos, with traces of people's footprints everywhere, and water flowing everywhere.

Almost all the villagers came out to put out the fire yesterday, and with the traces of previous firefighters, the place was in chaos and it was impossible to make out anything.

Wang Heizi: "How can we see the mess here?"

Tang Qingqing pursed her lips, bent down, lowered her head and observed the ground, then slowly walked out, her footsteps becoming clearer and clearer.

She followed these footprints, one by one, and then walked back to their respective homes.

These footprints are all those of the firefighters, and they all match up one by one.

Tang Qingqing walked back and forth more than ten times, and Wang Heizi, who was originally very interested in joining in the fun, finally lost his patience.

"When will it get better? It's been over an hour already, right?"

Tang Qingqing was so focused on observing the footprints on the ground that she didn't hear what Wang Heizi said.

Wang Heizi yawned boredly and considered whether to stay here any longer.

“Ding ding ding——”

The bicycle bell rang, Wang Heizi looked up and saw that the police station had arrived.

When Wang Heizi saw the uniforms and conspicuous wide-brimmed hats worn by the police, his eyes lit up, filled with envy and admiration.

The captain spotted Wang Heizi and scolded him, "What are you doing here? Go play somewhere else."

"Grandpa, I'm not here to play, I'm doing serious work!"

"Stop fooling around. What are you doing, little brat? I'm really mad lately. Don't be naughty and ask for trouble."

The captain slapped him in the face, then walked away with his hands behind his back to greet the two police officers who came to investigate the situation.

Tens of thousands of kilograms of grain were burned by someone, causing such huge property losses that the police station chief Zhang Qingxiong came to investigate in person.

There was a faint smell of smoke at the scene, and the scene was in a mess, which made Zhang Qingxiong's brows furrowed.

They went to the center of the fire to check the situation. Out of the corner of their eyes, they saw Tang Qingqing bending over and looking at something, but they didn't pay much attention.

Director Zhang: "Didn't they rescue any food? Did they burn it all?"

The captain was heartbroken: "It's all burned, all gone."

"These are all crops that the villagers have worked hard for a year to grow, and now they are all destroyed. There is still public grain that needs to be paid here! This year is a bumper year, and everyone thought that they would have a good life next year. Who knew that something like this would happen!"

"Did anyone in the village hear anything when the fire was not burning?"

The captain shook his head and said, "The fire started at around 2 a.m. If someone hadn't gotten up in the middle of the night to change the child's diaper, we wouldn't have known about it until all the food was burnt."

But even though they responded quickly, they were unable to contain the spread of the fire in the granary, and all the food was burned to ashes.

Director Zhang stopped in front of the granary door and looked at the mess. There were countless footprints on the ground, overlapping each other, and he sighed.

This type of arson case is the most difficult to investigate because all clues at the scene have long been burned, and there are too many people fighting the fire, so even if some clues were still preserved at the scene, they would have been trampled upon.

The person who set the fire blended into the fire brigade without anyone noticing.

The scene cannot provide too many clues, so we can only conduct large-scale visits and then organize and summarize the clues.

But their police station is short-staffed and there are too many things to do. It will not be easy to find out the truth in a short time.

Another police officer, Meng Changqing, carefully checked the area around the fire scene.

"Captain, the scene has been completely destroyed. I don't see any suspicious clues."

Director Zhang was not surprised. "Captain Wang, has anything special happened in your village recently?"

"No, we just finished the autumn harvest a while ago. We were exhausted and it took us a few days to recover. We were not in the mood to cause trouble. The weather was good this year. We lived a good life and did not have any conflicts with others."

As the captain finished speaking, the production team accountant ran over, shouting:

"Captain, something happened, please go and have a look."

"What happened? Where's Xiao Song?"

The accountant was running out of breath, and when he saw Zhang Qingxiong, he greeted him quickly.

"Director Zhang, welcome, welcome. We feel relieved to have you here."

The captain tapped him on the head with his pipe, "It's already this hour and you're still being polite. Tell me what's going on."

The accountant touched his head and said quickly:

"The members think that the fire was caused by people from Caojiazhuang. We have performed well this year, so they must be dissatisfied, so they deliberately harmed us!

We are all packing our stuff and want to take over Cao's village. Fortunately, Captain Song has already stopped them. But now we are all unhappy and don't want to suffer this. We are all waiting for you to come back and speak."

"This is just nonsense!" The captain was furious. "We have to have a reason and evidence to fight. Otherwise, I must have nothing better to do than to run so far in the morning!"

Director Zhang looked at him, and the captain did not avoid it.

On the way here, the captain told Director Zhang his guess.

They felt that this immoral thing must have been done by the people from Caojiazhuang who had a grudge against them, because the granary was filled with food for the entire Rongshan Brigade, not just any one family.

If anything happened, the whole team would go hungry.

Therefore, it definitely could not have been done by someone from their own village, otherwise they would be digging their own grave.

Are there any sparks near the granary? No one would go there to play in the middle of the night.

This fire was aimed at the entire Rongshan Brigade. They must have had a grudge against their brigade, which is why they did this. And the one that had the greatest grudge against the Rongshan Brigade was Caojiazhuang.

Accountant: "Director Zhang, it must be someone from Caojiazhuang. Yesterday, someone from our brigade saw someone from Caojiazhuang sneaking around the brigade. He must have set fire to the granary."

Director Zhang attached great importance to this information: "Do you know who that person is?"

"That man's name is Cao Zhigao. Several people saw him during this period. This must have been planned."

Captain: "Why don't I know about this?"

"No one expected something like this to happen. People who saw him didn't think he was causing any trouble and didn't pay much attention to him. Who knew he was so vicious."

Director Zhang: "Call everyone who saw him here. I want to ask them about the situation."

Wang Heizi, who was squatting on the side and listening, stood up quickly after hearing this.

"I've seen him, too!"

Director Zhang and several others turned their eyes to him.

The captain shouted, "What are you doing here, kid? If you're not herding sheep, what are you doing here? I'll fire you later."

Wang Heizi was not afraid of him either. He looked at Director Zhang and said, "I have seen Cao Zhigao several times. I know what he is here for."

Director Zhang: "Oh? What is he here for?"

Wang Heizi raised his chin and said, "He has taken a fancy to a girl from our village. He came here to see her."

The captain looked unhappy: "Don't talk nonsense."

"I'm not kidding. I know who that girl is."

"Wang Heizi!" the captain scolded.

Wang Heizi shivered with fear.

Director Zhang patted the captain gently and said, "Don't scare the children."

"I'm worried that he might say something irresponsible and affect the girl's reputation."

"There are only a few of us here, so let's stop here." Director Zhang looked at the accountant.

The accountant immediately swore that he would never tell anyone.

In order to find out the truth and find the arsonist as soon as possible, the captain did not dare to really shut Wang Heizi's mouth, in case he had any clues.

The captain glared at Wang Heizi and said, "Tell the truth and don't talk nonsense. Do you understand?"

Wang Heizi stood up straight and saluted: "I swear to the President! Everything I said is true. Not a single lie."

The captain kicked him and said, "Stop being weird and tell me what you are talking about."

"Cao Zhigao's lover is Tang Chuanfang, the eldest sister of the Dongkou Tang family. They have been attracted to each other for a long time, but their families do not agree, so they have been seeing each other secretly."

The accountant was surprised: "Tang Chuanfang? Isn't she going to get married soon?"