"That night, everyone was asleep when I got up to pee and heard some noise outside."
I went to the yard to look, and strangely enough, I could hear a cat meowing, but I couldn't see the cat.
I suspect someone was waiting outside the yard, hoping to set the house on fire in the middle of the night!
Niu Xiaozhou recalled the strange things he noticed before the house burned down that night, and insisted that it was arson.
Lu Qiqi asked, "Then how did you discover the fire?"
Niu Dahang recalled for a moment and said, "The kitchen was the first to catch fire. My room was close to the kitchen, so I was the first to smell the burning smell."
I quickly told my wife to wake up my son and daughter-in-law.
When I ran to the kitchen, the fire was too intense to get in.
The fire spread incredibly fast, setting the roof ablaze in no time. Our entire family fled the scene without taking anything with us.
Wooden houses burn very quickly. If someone deliberately set fire to it, it would be out of revenge, wanting to burn the family to the ground.
However, according to Niu Dahang's account, the fire in the kitchen clearly did not start from the roof, but rather from below the kitchen to the roof.
If someone really started the fire, why didn't they just put the fire on the roof?
Once the roof catches fire, the fire spreads rapidly, making it difficult for anyone inside to escape. Like Uncle Niu Er, they are either killed or injured, and never manage to escape unscathed.
"If the fire started in the kitchen, it's impossible that the sparks weren't extinguished after cooking, right?"
“Absolutely impossible,” Niu Xiaozhou immediately denied as soon as Lu Qiqi asked the question. “Our house is made of wood, and there has never been a fire in over ten years.”
It's because the people in our village always shovel the ashes from the kitchen outside after cooking, to use after they relieve themselves. I was the one who shoveled them that night!
As soon as Niu Xiaozhou finished speaking, he received a hard blow to the back of the head.
"You brat!" Niu Dahang slapped Niu Xiaozhou hard on the back of the head. "Who told you to say such filthy things in front of the village chief!"
Niu Xiaozhou covered the back of his head, hissed coldly, glanced at his father, and dared not speak out against his anger.
After thinking for a moment, Lu Qiqi cleared the option of causing the fire due to momentary carelessness from her mind.
But she couldn't figure out how the fire started.
She didn't go to the scene to check because all three houses that were burned down were completely destroyed.
The original structure of the house was completely unrecognizable, let alone the cause of the fire.
There is currently no evidence to prove whether it was caused by human intervention or by momentary carelessness.
Since Niu Xiaozhou believes that someone set the fire, we might as well investigate along this line of thought.
Following Niu Xiaozhou's words, Lu Qiqi asked, "Since you said that someone deliberately set the fire, did they offend anyone?"
Or, by abusing his position, has he bullied anyone?
"So, you want to hold a grudge, burn down the house, and kill your whole family to vent your hatred?"
Upon hearing Lu Qiqi's words, Niu Xiaozhou and Niu Dahang were both somewhat bewildered. They exchanged glances, unable to recall who they had offended for a long time.
Niu Dahangdao said, "In all my years as village chief, I have never used my position to intimidate anyone."
Everyone knows Tianping Village is poor, and nobody wants to be the village chief. They argue constantly about trivial matters, and if someone in the family gets sick or suffers a disaster, everyone has to find a solution.
As he spoke, Niu Dahang became indignant and said, "If they really set fire to my house just because I'm the village chief, then these people are truly heartless!"
"The whole family survived, but they didn't bring anything with them."
Even the bedding was borrowed from the villagers. If I find out who it was, I'll fight them to the death!
Niu Dahang's words reminded Lu Qiqi, and she said, "You didn't bring anything with you. Didn't you go back to get any money or valuables?"
Niu Dahang shook his head. "My family isn't well-off. We didn't have much money to begin with. I sewed a pocket onto my clothes and carried it with me everywhere I went."
As he spoke, Niu Dahang patted his chest, and Lu Qiqi could clearly see the marks of his sharp edges.
No wonder Niu Dahang's family escaped from the burning house without taking anything.
If they tried to run back to retrieve their valuables, they would likely face certain doom.
After all, most people who die in fires do so because they are reluctant to leave behind important belongings, thus missing the best opportunity to escape.
After asking around, Lu Qiqi didn't find anything suspicious.
The cat's meows were drowsy and ordinary, and could be ignored.
The source of the fire in the kitchen had already been dealt with by Niu Xiaozhou, so the claim is therefore invalid.
It can't be that Niu Dahang set the house on fire himself.
What's the point? Just to stay temporarily in this dilapidated house?!
After much deliberation, Lu Qiqi decided to ask the surrounding villagers to see if she could obtain any useful information.
She said, "Please settle in first, and I will investigate this matter. If you need any help, you can go to Tianxin Village to find Lu Da."
Niu Dahang nodded repeatedly and saw Lu Qiqi out of the courtyard.
After leaving Niu Dahang's house, Lu Qiqi went to the third house that had been burned down.
According to Niu Xiaozhou, most of the family members died from illness, leaving only two brothers.
The two brothers are both in their mid-twenties, but because their family was too poor, neither of them had started a family. Now, due to this misfortune, it seems that they will have no hope of starting a family in the future.
Lu Qiqi pushed open the courtyard gate and saw two men in the yard. One was sweeping the ground with a broom, and the other was sitting on the steps, mending clothes with a needle and thread.
Upon hearing the sound, the two of them turned their gaze toward the courtyard gate.
When the two saw that it was Lu Qiqi, they were stunned for a moment, looked at each other, and didn't know what to do.
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