Secretary Song was not surprised to hear Su Man's words.
As the mayor's secretary, she has to deal with villagers on a daily basis.
They were no strangers to such acts of jealousy and foul play. Previously, they had wanted to support a village's fish pond, but they had not expected that the fish fry were poisoned to death by jealous villagers in the same village not long after they were put into the pond.
The village is vast and sparsely populated, so no one saw who was responsible and had to swallow the loss.
Although she had not known Su Man for a long time, she could see that Su Man was a woman with a vision. Such a person had long-term goals and would never block her own path for the sake of petty gains.
It's one thing for her to understand this truth, but it's another thing for her to stand up for Su Man.
She would give Su Man a chance to plead her case, but if the final evidence all pointed to her, she would not take the risk to guarantee her. After all, people's hearts are hidden, and one cannot understand a person without experiencing something.
...
"Gao Man, since Secretary Song has given you the opportunity to explain, just speak up," said the village chief.
Under everyone's gaze, Su Man slowly spoke, "Since the village chief and Comrade Zhao Baili both believe that we cut down these trees without permission, then I have a question for you. How much can the wood from these three trees be sold for?"
Before they could answer, Su Man continued, "If this inspection goes well, how much funding can we get? Even a child can figure this out, so I don't need to explain it."
One is sesame and the other is watermelon. Anyone with a discerning eye knows which one to choose.
Seeing that the village chief was persuaded, Zhao Baili could no longer sit still.
"That's not how it's meant to be. If I had to choose between the two, I'd choose the first payment, but what if I could have both? If I hadn't accidentally fallen and broken my wallet, you'd have both sums of money in your pocket right now."
Zhao Baili still felt it wasn't enough after his impassioned speech, so he added, "And lately, you've been the only ones working up the mountain, carrying things down the mountain. If it weren't for you, could this tree have grown legs and flown?"
After hearing these words, the village chief's gaze towards Suman changed.
Secretary Song shook his head slightly, as if he also felt that there was no solution to this problem.
Just when Liu Ping was feeling disheartened and thought that the Wang family was about to collapse, Su Man suddenly said, "There are no people working, but there are many people going up the mountain to visit the graves."
"Visiting the grave?"
The village chief looked bewildered. "Even if the tree was cut down during a grave visit, it has to go somewhere. It can't just disappear like that."
Su Man answered irrelevantly, "The Huang family has a large population, and the west side is basically all their graves. Recently, two elderly people have been in poor health, so they prepared coffins to auspiciously bring good luck, and also paved the ground with bricks. But the Huang family took people up the mountain to visit the graves these past two days, and after they came down, the two empty graves were sealed."
Su Man stared at Zhao Baili's nervous face and slowly smiled. "You said, the two old men are still alive, so who are the people buried in the tomb? Huh?"
The air grew quiet.
Secretary Song's eyes moved between Su Man and Zhao Baili, looking thoughtful.
But the village chief didn't understand and kept asking, "We were talking about where the tree went, why did you bring up the cemetery?"
Su Man smiled and said, "Village Chief, if we cut down this tree, cut it into pieces and bury it in an empty grave, will anyone find it?"
Before the village chief could react, Zhao Baili pointed at Su Man's nose and shouted, "You are slandering me! How could someone disturb our ancestors for a few pieces of wood?"
Although he spoke righteously, Su Man still saw the guilty conscience behind it. She said calmly, "If it's for money, then no, but if it's for revenge, then it's very likely."
Zhao Baili choked.
At this moment, the village chief's son also understood Su Man's meaning and hesitated, "Are you saying that Zhao Baili framed you? Do you have any evidence?"
Su Man turned her head and looked towards the middle of the mountain. "The evidence will be here soon."
"What?"
Zhao Baili was puzzled.
But he immediately understood what Suman meant.
...
Several people from the forest area came down carrying a load of timber and ran towards them.
"Who is Zhao Baili?"
Zhao Baili didn't dare to say a word.
Su Man was afraid that some people didn't understand, so she kindly explained, "This is what happened. I reported it to the forest officials early this morning. Someone had cut down timber illegally and hidden it in an empty grave. It seems that there is a result."
Even at this critical moment, Zhao Baili was still denying it, "I haven't been up the mountain for the past two days. What if..."
"Brother Baili!"
Not far away, a woman with a big belly came over quickly, holding her belly. She spoke without even catching her breath, "Yes, I did it. It has nothing to do with Brother Baili."
“…”
Hearing this, Zhao Baili seemed to have been drained of his strength, and a feeling of powerlessness enveloped him.
He knew that everything was over.
If Huang Ermei hadn't come out, he could have argued for himself. But Huang Ermei was so eager to protect her husband that she rushed over as soon as she heard about the incident, which was like admitting guilt.
Huang Ermei didn't understand what was going on, and she was still trying to get the village chief to plead for mercy. "Uncle, I did all this. It has nothing to do with Brother Baili. If you want to arrest someone, just arrest me."
This time, not only forest rangers but also forest police came.
The forest police officer frowned and said, "Comrade, please don't disrupt our enforcement."
"take away."
Seeing that they were about to take Zhao Baili away, Huang Ermei became anxious. She stood in front of Zhao Baili and said, "No one can take Brother Baili away!"
Whenever someone came forward, she would threaten them and tell them not to come any closer.
She was pregnant and no one dared to touch her. For a moment, the atmosphere was deadlocked.
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