Ruan Bei and Qin Gu returned to Zhou Linlin's house, ready to listen to the important audio evidence together.
The two of them had already made three trips back and forth today, and this time they brought Niu Niu along as well. Fortunately, Ruan Bei had thought about meeting Grandma Sun before leaving home, so he brought the big black umbrella along just in case.
Although Grandma Sun didn't need it, Ruan Bei was actually more at ease holding the umbrella for Niu Niu—he was furious after hearing Qin Gu's account of Zhou Linlin's explanation of Grandma Sun's cause of death.
"Your husband won't suddenly come back, will he?" Ruan Bei asked anxiously.
When he first came here, he didn't know it was Tong Hanming's house; otherwise, he wouldn't have come over so casually without any preparation.
Although he was very reluctant to admit it, he did look more like a member of the Lu family than Lu Sibai, which made him very frustrated and he didn't even want to look in the mirror.
As Lu Minghai's special assistant, Tong Hanming knew everyone in the Lu family and was quite cunning. Seeing Ruan Bei's appearance, it was hard to guarantee that he wouldn't become suspicious.
Ruan Bei has no patience to dwell on the Lu family's affairs right now. He hopes that he will never find out that the children were switched at birth. Even if he does find out, he will try to delay it as long as possible. He doesn't want his peaceful life to be disturbed.
"Don't worry, he won't be back right now." Zhou Linlin had shared a bed with Tong Hanming for many years and had seen him busy with work and serving his boss.
Although she was dissatisfied with her husband for not taking care of the family enough in the past, she also felt sorry for him because he worked hard to earn money, so she was very understanding.
Ruan Bei was still a little worried. To be honest, he had suffered quite a few losses at Tong Hanming's hands.
As the chairman of Haiming Group, Lu Minghai has several special assistants, both male and female, who are in charge of different tasks.
Like Tong Hanming, although not a full-time personal assistant, he had many dealings with other members of the Lu family because he was in charge of interpersonal relationships. He was adept at reading people and using subtle methods to please his superiors. Otherwise, a village boy with no connections or backing, even if he got into a good university, would find it difficult to build up his current fortune before the age of forty.
Before Ruan Bei went to the Lu family, Lu Siyuan and Lu Sibai had a very good impression of him. This was the foundation that Tong Hanming had slowly built over the past ten years. From the time he became Lu Minghai's assistant, he had been carefully trying to please everyone in the Lu family.
Later, Ruan Bei was brought back. At first, Tong Hanming carefully observed him for a period of time, but later he found that even his biological mother, Feng Zhihui, preferred Lu Sibai. As the eldest son and heir, Lu Siyuan was wholeheartedly protecting his adopted brother.
Tong Hanming immediately stopped hesitating and stood firmly on Lu Sibai's side. Now that he was on the same side, he had to prove himself and do something to show his master.
He was in charge of interpersonal relationships and had a wide network of contacts and information, so he intentionally or unintentionally spread some remarks that were detrimental to Ruan Bei.
These comments naturally reached the ears of Lu's relatives, friends, and business partners. Before Ruan Bei was even officially introduced, there were already a lot of rumors about him outside.
Whenever he is mentioned, he is always compared to Lu Sibai, praising Lu Sibai to the skies and then crushing him into the ground, finally sighing, "What a pity about Young Master Bai."
When Ruan Bei officially appeared as the second young master of the Lu family, he had never experienced those banquets where even a simple conversation about food involved subtle exchanges. In addition, Lu Sibai followed him around under the guise of taking care of him, deliberately picking topics that Ruan Bei was not good at, and then “helping him out” to show off his own excellence. This further confirmed the truth of the rumors—the Lu family’s child who was switched at birth had nothing but a face.
It was only much later, after Ruan Bei had gradually adapted to the so-called upper-class life and was able to understand those roundabout conversations, that he slowly figured out that he had been set up from the very beginning.
However, that was quite a while later, and Ruan Bei was no longer in the mood to pursue the matter. He had suffered more than just that one loss at the hands of Tong Hanming, who deliberately made him lose face in front of the guests, resulting in him being scolded and kicked out of the banquet by Lu Minghai.
Of course, Tong Hanming didn't get the better end of the deal either. Ruan Bei was gentle by nature, but that was only towards his family. He held grudges against those who bullied him since he was a child.
Tong Hanming thought he would be like those young masters who valued face above all else, not only caring about his own reputation but also the reputation of his family.
Ruan Bei doesn't care about anything. He cares about the Lu family, but no one from the Lu family cares about him.
Tong Hanming wanted to embarrass him, so he flipped the table, ripped off his fig leaf, and in front of all the guests, revealed the whole story of how Tong Hanming had tricked him, questioning Lu Minghai whether he was dissatisfied with him and that was why he had arranged for someone to humiliate him like this.
Lu Minghai almost fainted from anger.
The Lu family's banquet was a disaster, becoming a laughing stock for a long time. Ruan Bei was severely reprimanded by Lu Minghai, but he was unmoved. He didn't care about having his allowance deducted, since he didn't need it anyway. The Lu family's reputation and honor had never been his concern.
Moreover, no matter how angry Lu Minghai was with him, he couldn't do anything to him. Tong Hanming misjudged this point. No matter how much he looked down on Ruan Bei, as long as Ruan Bei still held the title of Lu family's young master, he was not someone that a lackey who relied on the Lu family for food could bully to death.
Lu Minghai couldn't vent his anger on Ruan Bei, so he took it out on Tong Hanming, the troublemaker. He was first marginalized, and then he found a pretext to start a fight.
For a special assistant like him who has followed Lu Minghai for so long and knows too many of the Lu family's secrets, the best path to promotion is to be demoted to a branch manager. At worst, he can work until retirement and still have a large pension to live comfortably in.
Once fired, he would never be able to get into a reliable big company, and Lu Minghai wouldn't let him in either. After that, Tong Hanming faded into obscurity and was never mentioned again.
Ruan Bei never expected that after being reborn, she would unexpectedly have an earlier encounter with Tong Hanming's family.
Seeing that he was really worried, Zhou Linlin suggested that they go to Niu Niu's room to listen to the recording. Tong Hanming made an excuse that he didn't want to be reminded of Niu Niu and was too heartbroken, so he never went into Niu Niu's room.
Now Zhou Linlin understands that he felt guilty and sorry for his daughter, so he wanted to avoid seeing it.
Ruan Bei and Qin Gu went into Niu Niu's room and sat on the puzzle mat to listen to the recording.
The recording was very short, starting and ending abruptly. It began with the sound of Grandma Sun and Tong Hanming arguing and pulling at each other—Ruan Bei had heard both of those sounds before, and although there was background noise, he could confirm that it was the two of them.
Grandma Sun cried and made a scene, saying that Zhou Linlin was only focused on finding her child and didn't do anything else, and that she wasn't a proper person. Since the child was going to be lost anyway, she wanted Tong Hanming to divorce Zhou Linlin, marry someone else, and have a son to carry on the family line.
Tong Hanming objected, saying they had wronged his wife and that Grandma Sun shouldn't say such things; he wouldn't divorce her. He added that if she insisted on having a child, they could have another one later; they were both still young and capable of having children.
Upon hearing this, Ruan Bei and Qin Gu exchanged a glance. No wonder Zhou Linlin had kept the recording a secret before. She probably thought that her husband had clashed with his mother because of her, and with the matter of her daughter being lost by her mother-in-law involved, she chose to keep it a secret.
Tong Hanming was in a hurry to leave, saying he had work and they could talk about it later. Grandma Sun grabbed him, refusing to let him go, and insisted on a divorce.
Ruan Bei guessed that the old lady was feeling guilty. She had killed her own granddaughter, and her daughter-in-law kept nagging her to find her. No wonder she was afraid, so she urged her son to get a divorce.
Tong Hanming was probably annoyed by the noise, or perhaps he really had something to do. Judging from the noise, it sounded like he pushed her. In the recording, Grandma Sun fell down and cried out on the ground, asking Tong Hanming to come back and help her up.
Tong Hanming said impatiently, "Mom, stop making a fuss. I just shook my hand. There's such a thick carpet on the floor. Get up quickly. I really have something to do."
After saying that, there were footsteps and the sound of a door closing; Tong Hanming was gone.
Then came the increasingly faint calls of Grandma Sun, calling her son by his nickname, saying she had a headache, and then there was silence.
About two or three minutes later, the door opened, and Zhou Linlin screamed and rushed over, shouting, "Mom?! Mom, what's wrong...?"
There was some background noise, like Zhou Linlin calling 120 (emergency services), but the recording stopped halfway through, probably because the memory was full.
Ruan Bei held the teddy bear and pondered for a moment. If Zhou Linlin was determined to sue, she would be able to get away with manslaughter if she submitted this evidence.
The line "I just shook my hand" in the recording is especially crucial.
Even without the grudges between him and Tong Hanming in their past lives, Tong Hanming deserves to be punished for what he did, whether it was ignoring the truth about his daughter's death as a father or killing his mother and concealing his mistakes as a son.
Ruan Bei had some thoughts in his mind. Tong Hanming deserved to be punished, but he was more concerned about Niu Niu. What should he do about Niu Niu?
Worried that Zhou Linlin outside would hear, Ruan Bei pulled Qin Gu down by the neck and whispered in his ear that Tong Hanming's identity was simple. Of course, she didn't dare to mention his past life here, only saying that he was Lu Minghai's special assistant.
Qin Gu understood immediately and nodded calmly, his big red ears showing.
Ruan Bei curiously reached out and touched his earlobe, exclaiming in surprise, "It's so hot, what's wrong?"
Qin Gu: "..."
He hooked his arm around Ruan Bei's neck and pulled him close, then blew a breath into his ear, instantly earning a matching red earlobe in return.
Ruan Bei obediently shrank back, no longer asking questions he shouldn't, and instead rolled his eyes and changed the subject: "Um... what should we do about Niu Niu's situation?"
When it came to serious matters, Qin Gu remained very earnest. He said, "Sending her to be reincarnated now is of course impossible; we don't have the connections."
Actually, his sect has a method to open the gates of hell, but it is very expensive. It requires a special altar, a ritual, and specific timing, such as an inauspicious month or time. It's not something he can think of right now.
"What should we do then?" Ruan Bei was very worried for Niu Niu.
"If we don't send her to be reincarnated and leave her in the mortal world, the first thing we should do is to bury her properly, build her a grave and erect a monument, so that her body is no longer left to rot in the wilderness."
"Living... in the wilderness?" Ruan Bei stared wide-eyed in disbelief.
Qin Gu nodded and said, "She's young and doesn't remember the way. The reason she was able to find her way back to the small park after she went out is because her body was there. Do you think Grandma Sun would bury her properly?"
Ruan Bei froze. Grandma Sun was so old; she wouldn't have brought a shovel or anything like that when she took her granddaughter out to play. If she smothered Niu Niu to death, she would have disposed of the body on the spot.
He suddenly remembered that many years later, when the small park was being renovated, the project was stopped halfway through, perhaps because Niu Niu's remains were unearthed.
I can't bear to think about it anymore. The most urgent thing now is to collect Niu Niu's remains and give her a proper burial. But this matter must be discussed with Niu Niu's mother first.
In the living room, Zhou Linlin watched with gentle eyes as her daughter ran around the house like a child. The little girl was too young, and no one could bear to let her know the cruel truth that she had been killed by her grandmother. So they used Ruan Bei's version of events, saying that her grandmother had cast a spell on her.
Niu Niu tilted her head and asked, "Is Grandma an old witch?" In the fairy tale book she was reading, the old witch turned the prince into a swan, while her grandmother turned her into an invisible person.
Zhou Linlin was filled with hatred, but she didn't want to affect her daughter. Besides, Master Qin had said that Niu Niu was young and innocent, and if she maintained this pure and untainted mindset, she would be more likely to be reborn into a good family in the future.
So Zhou Linlin could only force a smile and coax her daughter: "It's not Grandma, it's the old witch. The old witch turned into Grandma, just like Little Red Riding Hood's wolf grandmother. The big bad wolf ate Grandma and pretended to be Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother."
Niu Niu exclaimed in surprise, "Did the old witch eat Grandma too?"
"Yes, Grandma was eaten by the old witch." Zhou Linlin wished that an old witch would really eat that cruel old woman.
Niu Niu was a little scared and huddled closer to her mother. When she saw Ruan Bei and Qin Gu come out, she immediately called out happily to Ruan Bei, "Brother! Niu Niu is home!"
Before coming out, Ruan Bei had composed himself and waved to Niu Niu with a smile: "Brother saw that Niu Niu has a lot of toys. Come and teach brother how to play with them, okay?"
Niu Niu responded crisply, and then said to her mother, "Mom, I'm going to play with my brother for a while."
Zhou Linlin knew that Ruan Bei wanted to speak to her privately, so she agreed and asked Ruan Bei to bring Niu Niu into the room.
After the door closed, Qin Gu didn't waste any words and went straight to the point, telling Ruan Bei about the situation regarding Niu Niu that he and Ruan Bei had discussed.
Previously, because Niu Niu was right in front of her, even though she had become a ghost and she couldn't touch her, at least she looked perfectly normal and lively, so Zhou Linlin subconsciously ignored the problem.
Now that Qin Gu brought it up, she had nowhere to hide. Clutching her chest, she gasped for breath, her scream caught in her throat, finally turning into a sob: "My poor Niu Niu..."
Qin Gu let her cry and vent for a while, and only after she calmed down a bit did he ask, "Have you thought it through? What do you plan to do?"
"Give me... give my Niu Niu a proper burial," Zhou Linlin said with difficulty. She wanted to buy the best burial plot for Niu Niu.
"What was the cause of death? Have you decided how to handle it?"
She couldn't very well go and collect the child's remains herself; they'd been dead for over a year, and the funeral home wouldn't dare cremate them so easily.
Zhou Linlin hesitated for a moment, then said firmly, "I'm going to sue them. I can't let Niu Niu die in vain."
Even though the old woman was dead, she wanted to make her infamy known to the world.
Just then, the master said the old woman had also become a ghost. Let her see how the good reputation she had built up turned into something utterly filthy, and how she and her son became villains that everyone would curse.
Qin Gu: "Then what do you say? You have evidence that Tong Hanming killed his mother, but you don't have evidence that Grandma Sun killed Niu Niu. You can't just tell the police that Niu Niu's ghost told you, can you?"
Zhou Linlin was stunned for a moment, and obviously realized the problem. She wiped away her tears and hurriedly said, "Master, please, please help me, can you take a picture of that talisman for the police as well?"
As she spoke, she got up to get her wallet. Her mother had to donate money when she went to the temple to burn incense, but she had met a truly wise person who had helped her a great deal, so it was only right to give her a reward.
Qin Gu stopped her: "No rush. Now that we've taken care of this matter, we won't abandon it halfway."
The key point is that his son, Xiao Bei, couldn't bear to abandon the little girl.
As for payment, those in this line of work are particular about doing the job first and then getting paid. If the job isn't done well, it means they're not good enough and they're too ashamed to ask for money.
Once the matter is settled, the person who received the gift can decide how much to give. The Taoist priest usually won't say how much, but he has his own judgment in mind.
To renege on a debt? You'd have to have the guts.
Qin Gu said, "Here's what we'll do: you go ahead and accuse Tong Hanming of murdering his mother first. Once the police take it seriously, then you can report Niu Niu's case."
He took out his ID and showed it to Zhou Linlin: "Remember this, Special Affairs Bureau. Find someone in charge first. When someone asks you how you know this, just report it to Zhulong."
Zhulong was his official internal code name, which he thought was too childish and didn't dare tell Ruan Bei.
This Special Affairs Bureau certificate isn't obtained for nothing. There's an evaluation every three years, requiring the completion of at least three tasks. The task level is linked to the certificate level; the higher the certificate level, the more difficult the tasks are, and the fewer tasks are required, but the salary and benefits will increase.
Qin Gu had no intention of working in this field before. He thought that getting the certificate was just a way to get by. He figured he could just wait until the evaluation in a year, have the certificate taken back, and then go back to university with Xiao Bei.
But that won't work now. Since Xiao Bei wants to enter the industry, he can't be fired from his job first, or he'll lose face.
This is a good opportunity for Niu Niu. If he helps Zhou Linlin on his own and then takes the reward from Zhou Linlin, that's it.
If Zhou Linlin contacts him again through the official channels, then the mission will be considered complete. Not only will Zhou Linlin receive a reward, but the official channels will also give her a mission bonus.
He will work hard to earn money in the future, give Xiao Bei pocket money, and buy materials for Xiao Bei to make magical implements.
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