Chapter Twenty-Two: Drowning
Zhang Dashan and his daughter had just pushed their wheelbarrow out of the yard, preparing to set up their stall in town, when they were startled by the sudden commotion.
Under the old locust tree at the village entrance, a number of villagers who had gotten up early or had just gone to the fields had gathered. They all looked alarmed, whispering among themselves, their voices buzzing with discussion.
But when Zhang Dashan and Zhang Yili pushed the cart closer, the chatter suddenly subsided as if it had been choked.
Many people avoided eye contact, even glancing at Zhang with a hint of unease before quickly looking away.
He noticed something was wrong and hurriedly asked his sister-in-law to find out what was going on.
"Dad, wait a moment!" Zhang Yili's voice was a little tight. She immediately turned around and ran to Zhang Dahe's yard.
Just then, I ran into my sister-in-law, Li Xiulan, who had just finished feeding the chickens and was about to clean up the kitchen.
"Sister-in-law, hurry to the village entrance and find out what happened. Who jumped into the river?" Zhang Yili asked urgently, with a hint of pleading.
Seeing her sister-in-law's state, Li Xiulan realized the seriousness of the situation. Without saying a word, she took off her apron and ran outside, saying, "Hey! I'm going right now! You wait here!"
The waiting time seemed to stretch on indefinitely.
Standing in the courtyard, Zhang Liuyi felt as if the chill of the early morning had seeped into his bones.
Zhang Dashan, his face grim, placed the wheelbarrow against the wall, squatted on the threshold, and puffed on his pipe, his brows furrowed in worry.
Finally, Li Xiulan ran back, panting heavily. She leaned against the door frame, out of breath, her face pale.
Zhang Liuyi quickly scooped a large ladle of cold water from the water vat and handed it to her, saying, "Sister-in-law, drink slowly, don't rush!"
Li Xiulan gulped down several large mouthfuls before finally catching her breath, her voice still trembling with fear: "It's...it's the Xiong family! Something happened to the Xiong family!"
"The Xiong family?" Zhang Yili's heart sank suddenly; his worst premonition had come true.
"It was that scoundrel of Sister Xiong Zijuan's, the one called... Sun Laizi! He... he came to cause trouble early this morning! I don't know what he said, but... he jumped into the river!"
Li Xiulan patted her chest, still shaken.
"Was the person rescued?" Zhang Yili and Zhang Dashan, who was squatting on the threshold, asked almost simultaneously. If someone had died, it would have caused a huge uproar.
"They've been rescued! They've been rescued! Thank goodness!"
Li Xiulan nodded repeatedly.
"The village chief's wife and a large group of aunties and grandmas were washing clothes by the river. They weren't far away, and when they heard the commotion, they rushed over. Several of them were good swimmers, and they quickly pulled the person out of the water. The person had swallowed some water, but was fine. However, they were freezing cold and looked like drowned rats."
Zhang Yili and Zhang Dashan both breathed a sigh of relief, their hearts finally at ease.
But Li Xiulan's next words made them anxious again.
"But...but the village chief also rushed over, and he immediately flew into a rage, his face turning blue with anger. He ordered his men to drag Sun Laizi away, and then summoned several elders from the Xiong family, taking them all to the council hall next to the village ancestral hall. He said he wanted to speak before the ancestors, to judge the matter, and to see who really drove the man to jump into the river."
Zhang Liuyi's heart skipped a beat when he heard this, and he thought to himself, "Oh no!"
The council hall is usually where the village discusses important matters and resolves disputes. But once things escalate there, especially with the involvement of the clan elders, the situation changes completely. Whether Sun Laizi's jumping into the river is true or not, it has become a huge pretext, putting the Xiong family in a very difficult position.
I was eager to go and help out.
"Dad, don't worry about the stall! I have to go check on it!" Zhang Yili made a quick decision and turned to rush out the door.
"Sister Yi!"
Zhang Dashan wanted to stop her, but looking at his daughter's resolute back, he ultimately didn't shout it out. He just sighed heavily and said to Li Xiulan.
"What kind of mess is this! The Xiong family... sigh!"
The council chamber, an old house with blue bricks and gray tiles, was usually solemn and dignified, but at this moment it was like a boiling pot, noisy and bustling with people.
A crowd of villagers had already gathered outside the hall to watch the spectacle, peering in and peeking around.
Zhang Liuyi pushed through the crowd and squeezed to the entrance of the hall.
Before even stepping inside, one could hear all sorts of foul and obscene language emanating from within.
"Pah! What a piece of trash! She must have done something shady to drive her husband to jump into the river!"
"Exactly! That girl from the Xiong family, she looks honest, how can she be so vicious? She was caught cheating on her husband, and now she wants to dump him?"
"I think she's just taking advantage of her brother being a constable to act lawlessly. They're not even divorced yet, and she's already in a hurry to go back to her parents' home to seduce other men? Otherwise, would that guy surnamed Sun be so anxious as to jump into the river?"
"You slut! You've disgraced our Zhuoshui Village!"
"How could the Xiong family raise such a daughter? How dare the old Xiong family sit here?"
"Xiao Bao? Who knows whose child Xiao Bao is!"
Zhang Yili felt her blood rush to her head, and her fingernails dug deeply into her palms.
She strode across the threshold.
At the head of the council hall sat the village chief, his face ashen, and several white-haired, solemn-looking elders of the Xiong family.
Below them, Old Man Xiong and Madam Song were trembling with anger, their faces ashen.
Xiong Zixiang stood in front of his parents, his back ramrod straight, his face so gloomy it could drip water.
Those deep eyes were fixed on the man in the corner, who was being held down on a bench by two burly villagers. He was soaking wet, shivering, and had a smug look in his eyes. It was Sun Laizi.
The most heartbreaking case is Xiong Zijuan.
Holding her baby, she huddled close to her mother, Song Shi. She covered the baby's ears tightly, trying to block out the filthy words. She bit her lower lip, stubbornly refusing to cry out. Only her suppressed sobs and trembling shoulders revealed the immense pain in her heart.
Without any hesitation or regard for propriety, Zhang Yili rushed to Xiong Zijuan's side in a few steps.
"Sister Zijuan!" She reached out and gently covered Xiong Zijuan's hand that was covering Xiaobao's ears, helping her to more firmly block out those unbearable sounds.
At the same time, she swept her gaze over the women who were shouting the loudest and spitting the most. The women paused for a moment under Zhang's gaze and subconsciously lowered their voices.
Zhang Liuyi then whispered quickly in Xiong Zijuan's ear and asked.
"Sister Zijuan, don't be afraid! What happened? Why did he jump into the river?"
Xiong Zijuan felt the warm strength coming from Zhang Yili's hand, and when she heard her question, the huge grievances and fear in her heart seemed to have found an outlet.
She sobbed, her sobs breaking into broken sentences: "He...he didn't drink today...he waited at the old house door early this morning...he hurled awful insults...saying I was unfaithful...that I was cheating on him...that Xiaobao was a bastard...that he wanted to take Xiaobao away..."
"Zixiang stopped him... He couldn't beat me, Zixiang... so he... so he acted like a scoundrel... saying that our Xiong family was bullying us... that we were driving him to his death... saying that if we dared to divorce him... or dared to prevent him from taking Xiaobao away... he would die right there in front of us... and then... he rushed into the river... I... I didn't expect... he really jumped in... Waaah..."
The sequence of events became clear instantly.
When Sun Laizi saw that Xiong Zijuan was determined to divorce him and that the Xiong family was adamant in their stance, and that he couldn't force Xiaobao to come, and that he couldn't beat them in a fight, he resorted to the most despicable and shameless means.
He feigned helplessness and threatened suicide, betting that the Xiong family wouldn't dare to actually watch him die in front of everyone.
Whether his jump was real or not, it successfully put the Xiong family in the spotlight.
The council chamber was filled with a cacophony of voices, and foul language buzzed like flies.
Xiong Zixiang stepped forward, his tall figure exuding an invisible pressure. His voice rose as he pointed directly at Sun Laizi in the corner: "Sun Youcai, stop with your suicidal act. The waters of the Zhuoshui River can't drown a filthy scoundrel like you, but your shady schemes should be exposed to the light of day!"
Sun Laizi shuddered under Xiong Zixiang's icy gaze, then stiffened his neck, put on a victim's face, and raised his voice high-pitched, trying to incite the crowd.
He was about to bang his head against the wall again when the villagers next to him held him back tightly.
"Adultery and keeping a lover?"
Xiong Zixiang sneered, his eyes sharp as knives.
"Sun Youcai, you've slandered someone's innocence with your bare words, but do you have even the slightest evidence? This is baseless accusation, and according to the law, you deserve twenty slaps!"
"Proof?" Sun Laizi's eyes flickered, then he shouted even more shamelessly.
"Her determination to divorce me is the biggest proof! If she didn't have another man outside, would she be so heartless? And even try to take her son away from his biological father? Don't you all agree?"
"Bullshit!" Old Man Xiong, who had been holding back his anger, slammed his hand on the table and stood up abruptly, his beard trembling with rage.
"Why does my Juan'er want a divorce? Why does she want to leave your den of wolves with Xiao Bao? It's all because of you, you beast! You beat her! You beat her to death! You even hurt Xiao Bao!"
"Hit her?" Sun Laizi jumped up as if his tail had been stepped on, retorting, spitting everywhere. "Who saw it? Who saw it???" "Isn't it normal for a husband and wife to bicker and argue behind closed doors? Old Xiong, stop making baseless accusations! I was disciplining my own wife, it's only natural! It's your Xiong family that instigated your daughter to disobey her husband, that's truly outrageous!"
"Discipline? Bumps and bruises?"
Xiong Zixiang's voice suddenly turned stern.
“Sun Youcai! On October 23rd last year, you got completely drunk and beat my sister with a fire poker, leaving her covered in bruises and bedridden for half a month!”
"The neighbors can all testify to this! When my mother and I rushed to Liushutun, you knelt on the ground, weeping bitterly, swearing that you would never lay a hand on me again, and even wrote a guarantee in your own handwriting and pressed your fingerprint on it. Your words are still ringing in my ears, and the ink is not yet dry! How dare you deny it today?"
As Xiong Zixiang spoke, he suddenly pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper with slightly worn edges from his pocket, unfolded it in a flash, and held it high!
On that piece of paper, a few lines of writing were crookedly written, ending with a bright red handprint that was shocking to behold.
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