Disconnection
Living deep in the mountains where one had to rely on luck to get a signal, Wen Dai believed that her cell phone was still the most important thing, the only way to contact the outside world. But just in case, she wrote down Chen Sizhe's phone number on a piece of paper, and naturally, she kept it in her pocket.
Yongza said to put the things away carefully, but it's safer to keep them on your person than anywhere else. Wen Dai didn't believe they could even reach out and rummage through her.
In summer, the sun rises early, and at the moment when the sun sets, Wen Dai goes to the stream with Duo Lan and Yong Zha to wash clothes.
The stream flowing gently down the stone steps carried a crisp, refreshing scent. As Wen Dai weighed down the bucket on the grass and pulled her clothes out, her hand inadvertently brushed against the weeds by the stream. The quick movement left a shallow, bloody scratch on the back of her hand and wrist. A vivid image instantly flashed through her mind—
The woman, dressed in a single shirt, had a voluptuous figure. Above her full hips, encased in cotton-linen trousers, a small patch of white skin was exposed from the pulling motion of washing clothes. Beads of translucent sweat trickled down her neck, and her rolled-up sleeves were damp with the stream. It could be a scene from an art film, a laundry scene, except that something sordid always seems to get in the way.
Suddenly, the bushes behind her rustled, and then a fat man leaped out like a frog. He pounced on the woman's back, his hands reaching out to grab and rub her, his heavy breathing accompanied by relentless kissing.
The woman, who had been stunned by fear, quickly struggled after regaining her composure. She fought back fiercely, and upon recognizing the man's face, she cried out in alarm, "Zhuangfu!? Let go! Let go of me! Don't think you can insult me just because you're the village chief's son!"
The scene abruptly cuts off, revealing a woman who was once vibrant but is now unrecognizable. Her legs are twisted, clearly indicating broken leg bones, and the cervical vertebrae supporting her head are likely cracked as well. A round head is loosely attached to her body by skin and flesh.
The obese man, his clothes disheveled, tossed the woman's body into the bushes across the stream and vanished. A clumsy attempt, or perhaps he never intended to hide it at all.
Wen Dai's eyes flickered, and what reached her ears were the concerned calls from Duo Lan and Yong Zha: "Wen Dai, Wen Dai?"
She turned her head toward the two people squatting beside her and whispered, "I'm fine, it's just... I think I just saw the widow you were talking about. I saw how she was murdered, and the killer is indeed the same one you think."
Dolan and Yongza seemed to have lost their voices; they were as if they didn't exist, as if no one had come to this place. As always, only the sound of the babbling brook could be heard, and occasionally a breeze would rustle the branches and leaves.
“Where the public cannot see, evil thoughts are most likely to grow. It is rare that you can maintain your true nature.” Wen Dai lowered her voice, the volume almost quieter than the sound of flowing water.
Dolan shook her head, letting out a mournful laugh as she continued washing clothes, her gaze fixed on the water's surface. "But we are silent. As Ayong would say, we are all aiding and abetting evil; those who remain silent are accomplices in evil! If it weren't for my Nado's accident, I probably would have buried these secrets with me; if it weren't for my Nado's accident, I wouldn't have sought help from outsiders. None of us are any better off."
...
The tables for the banquet were put together by the villagers and set up in Duolan's yard, with round and square tables filling the empty space.
Dolan and Zha were busy cooking in the kitchen, while Yongzha and Wendai were dealing with the villagers outside.
The courtyard was in an uproar. Boys ran between the tables, their still-sounding screams particularly piercing. Several boys were followed by slightly older girls, who chased after them with distressed expressions. As they passed Wen Dai, one could vaguely make out the words, "Don't go!"
The man and woman blocking their way were dressed in ethnic-style cloth shirts. The village woman held a handful of sunflower seeds, her undisguised gaze sweeping over Wen Dai. She cracked the sunflower seeds faster than an assembly line worker, flicking the broken shells to the ground after each crack, her words quick as well: "You're beautiful! Ah Yong is lucky to know you. Oh, do you have any brothers or sisters?"
She craned her neck forward, staring at Wen Dai with her yellow, watery eyes.
The man standing to the right of the village woman was probably her husband. His gaze seemed to be tainted with oil, sticky and hard to wash off. He grinned, revealing a row of yellow teeth, some tucked in and some bulging out. "Yes, it's best to have sisters. There are so many single guys around here who can't find wives. You should do a good deed."
Wen Dai put on a polite smile, shrugged, and said, "Well, there's nothing I can do about it. I only have one older brother. He'll probably be here in a couple of days."
Upon hearing this, both the village woman and the village man's expressions changed slightly. The friendly smiles they had just worn vanished, and their lips drooped. The village woman continued cracking sunflower seeds, the crisp sound as jarring as a shriek, "You have a brother? What's he doing here?"
“No brother wouldn’t worry about his sister, right? Blood is thicker than water, after all. His sister ran all this way alone, even into the mountains, just to find her boyfriend. Of course, a brother would be anxious. If he wasn’t worried, what kind of human would he be? Even a dog that’s been raised for a long time knows its owner. Dogs kept at home will recognize their owners and protect their own. You can’t expect a human to be worse than a dog, can you?” Wen Dai spoke with veiled sarcasm, accompanied by an innocent smile. She ignored the two men’s darkening expressions; her peach blossom eyes fluttered, and the sunlight shone brightly in her dark pupils.
Suddenly, a few more people walked into the courtyard.
The villagers, scattered across the land, swarmed around the newcomers like moths drawn to a light. Wen Dai couldn't understand their flattering words, but she could glean some information from their expressions and tones. Yongza stepped closer to her, turned his head slightly towards her, and said in a low voice, "The village chief and the others are here. Be careful. If you encounter any problems, follow the script we discussed last night."
Surrounded by the crowd, the village chief and his family were led by the village chief, with his wife Yi Cai standing next to him. The obese man behind them could not be hidden even by the two of them, and his sticky gaze pierced through the gap between the village chief and Yi Cai, sticking straight to them.
The village chief's lips curled up. He waved away the villagers surrounding him, stepped up to Yongzha and Wendai, glanced at Yongzha out of the corner of his eye, and said in a dialect with an ambiguous meaning, "Yong, you don't quite trust your girlfriend, do you?"
"Huh? No, no. Why did you suddenly ask that, Uncle Afu... Well, a little." Yongza's eyes snapped open, a fleeting look of surprise in his pupils. He looked away, occasionally exchanging glances with the village chief who had been staring at him. After pursing his lips, he turned his head and admitted.
A strange laugh, "Hehehe," drifted out. The village chief slowly shook his head twice, letting out a soft sigh. Then, he turned his attention to Wen Dai: "How was your night? Did you adjust well? Was there anything that bothered you?"
Those triangular eyes give off a sinister feeling. If his son's eyes are disgusting, his are chilling. It's hard to believe that this skinny, monkey-like man could raise a son who is as big as a grown bear.
"I'm fine, there's nothing that bothers me." Surrounded by two pairs of gazes, Wen Dai suppressed her discomfort and responded with a smile, silently hiding her arms behind her back—she had goosebumps all over her hands.
Yi Cai pulled Zhuang Fu, who was following behind, and pushed him in front of her. She could only peek out from behind the man with her head tilted to the side. The petite woman chuckled and said, "Hey, girl, do you have any friends here? Girls, let's invite them over. We'll drive to pick them up. Look at my son, he's big and reliable, so reassuring!"
The intense gaze from Zhuang Fu across the street nearly made Wen Dai vomit on the spot. Pressing her stomach against the nausea, she forced a formulaic smile and said, "I'll see later. I don't have many female friends around me. I'll talk to them when I get back."
As soon as the word "go back" was uttered, Yi Cai lost interest. She withdrew her hand from Zhuang Fu's body, first turning her head to look at the sky, but after a short while, she silently walked over to chat with other village women.
For some reason, the children who were playing wildly in the yard suddenly turned their attention to Wen Dai. A little boy, who looked as clever as a monkey even at a young age, rushed to Wen Dai's side and looked up at her. Wen Dai lowered her head to meet his gaze, and pretended to be gentle because there were other people present. "What's wrong?"
The boy just stared at her without saying a word. Just as she was about to coax him away, he suddenly reached into her pants pocket and snatched her phone. In the blink of an eye, Wen Dai's phone was violently thrown out by the boy, flying to the edge of the yard and crashing to the ground. The black screen instantly popped open, revealing a white shattered piece.
The sound of a heavy object falling briefly caught the attention of the other villagers, but they soon resumed their conversation.
The boy who had done something bad grinned smugly. Seeing his smug face, Wen Dai clenched her fists at her sides. She really wanted to teach this wild monkey a lesson.
But the current situation doesn't allow her to do as she pleases.
"Oh dear, I'm so sorry, that child is young and just likes to be mischievous. Please forgive him." Without mentioning compensation, the village chief used these few words to gloss over his actions, his face still bearing a smile, which was so hypocritical that it was repulsive.
Wen Dai lowered her eyes and pondered for a moment, then put on a generous expression. She waved her hand dismissively, "It's nothing, it's just a cell phone, it only costs around ten thousand. I'll just get a new one anyway, out with the old, in with the new."
His triangular eyes narrowed slightly, a glint of shrewdness flashing within them. The village chief lightly brushed his tongue against the inside of his lips as he scrutinized Wen Dai, his mouth uttering only astonishment: "You just bought a phone worth over ten thousand yuan like that? Your girl is really extravagant. Your family must be rich, right?"
Wen Dai raised her chin, glanced at the sky, and said casually, "My family... it's not just about being rich, but I can't say more."
Her nonchalant attitude made the village chief think twice. He clenched one fist and rested it on his chin, tapping it slightly against his fist. He raised his triangular eyes and suddenly said, "Oh dear! Those rascals have run upstairs. Let's hurry up; they know how to pick locks, and we don't want your things to get ruined again!"
Wen Dai and Yong Zha instinctively turned their heads back and saw several children gathered at the door of the second-floor bedroom, seemingly fiddling with something. Without hesitation, they rushed up the stairs. When they reached the second floor, the leader of the group of children had just pried open the door lock.
The boy holding the door lock was the same wild monkey who had smashed Wen Dai's phone earlier. Wen Dai licked her cheek, stepped in front of the boy, grabbed the back of his head with one hand and pulled his hair down. She bent down and leaned close to him in his horrified gaze. "Little boy, in my own home, I'm always the one who gets to give way to others. Putting up with you once is already my limit. If it weren't for not wanting to put A Yong and Aunt A Duo in a difficult position, and not wanting to make things difficult for the village chief, I would have slapped your face to pieces long ago."
Instead of lowering her voice, she deliberately raised it, and as she withdrew her hand, she seemed to be vengeful, slapping the wild monkey across the face. The crisp "smack" was masked by her surprised voice as she turned around: "Uncle Village Chief?!"
Wen Dai straightened up, lightly biting her lip, her pupils shifting left and right as if embarrassed, her tone shy as if she had done something wrong and been caught by an elder: "You saw it... Oh dear, after all, I've never been bullied like this before, my temper is indeed not very good. I'm sorry you had to see this."
"No, no, it's me who should be apologizing to you. You're a young lady from a big city, willing to come to such a poor place like ours, and you didn't complain about such difficult roads. This isn't a bad temper! It's understandable, understandable." The village chief suddenly became much more polite. He glared at the boy picking the lock and shouted, "Who taught you to be so unruly? Your parents may not care about you, but I will. He's a guest!"
He stepped forward, grabbed the boys who had stopped moving, and herded them away like sheep.
Wen Dai stood on the balcony, glancing at the village chief who was leading the child into the yard. Only after confirming that he wouldn't come up again did she turn her gaze to Yong Zha.
"What were you just now...?" Yongzha, stunned by Wen Dai's actions, stared at her in disbelief.
Wen Dai walked back to the bedroom door, took off the lock that the child had pried open earlier, pushed the door open, and glanced at Yongzha, saying, "Let's go inside and talk."
They locked the door from the inside. Having learned her lesson, Wen Dai ignored what the villagers outside might think and drew the curtains tightly as well. It was best if they could think whatever they wanted.
“I think the village chief doesn’t want me to leave. He must have been behind all those things that the kid did. I can only prove my worth and, incidentally, reinforce the image I created yesterday. He’s too suspicious.” Wen Dai walked to the wooden chair and sat down. She leaned back in the chair and turned her gaze toward the window at the other end, where thin clouds were scattered across the lake-like sky.
Now she has no choice but to cut off contact with Chen Sizhe, and she doesn't know... what he will do.
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