38.038 Sent to the police station
After everyone had left, Su Yu led Xu Laosan into the main room and tied him to the table. She then pulled an old cotton quilt from a trunk and threw it on him, saying, "Sleep well. I'll take you to see the police tomorrow."
"Waaah..." Xu Laosan looked at Su Yu in fear. This person was not his second sister-in-law. She had changed too much. The Su Yu of the past could only cry and was not good at speaking. She would never put on such a show.
Su Yu ignored him. She was exhausted after all that fuss, and her eyes were too tired to keep open. After leaving, she locked the door to the main room from the outside, just in case something unexpected happened at night, since he was a grown man.
"Mom, get up!" Xiao Yuan called from outside the door. The sun was already up.
When Su Yu got up, it was almost eight o'clock. She had boiled six eggs, two for each of the three of them. Su Yu led Xiao Hei and opened the door to the main room. The man tied to the table leg stared at the door with wide eyes. When he saw that it was Su Yu, he looked her up and down. His walking posture changed, and his eyes changed even more. Sure enough, it was not the same person.
My physical condition is pretty good. Despite bleeding and being cold yesterday, I didn't get a fever, and even the wound showing through the hole didn't get infected. It's true that a scourge can live a long life.
Su Yu led the suddenly behaving man out the door and saw many elderly people sitting by the roadside chatting.
"Xiao Yuan's mom, are you really going to call the police?" someone asked.
"Of course! He dared to sneak into houses at night to steal children. If we don't teach him a lesson this time, he'll get a taste of success. The children in our alley aren't always accompanied by adults. He can easily trick a child with a piece of candy and sell it for several hundred yuan," Su Yu said loudly.
The old man thought that his grandson was indeed greedy, calling him "Dad" for a piece of candy, so it was normal for him to go with someone. They quickly changed their tune and said they would go with Su Yu to take the trafficker to the police station to testify for Su Yu and ask the police to handle the case impartially.
"Officer, I'm here to report a crime." As soon as Su Yu entered the police station, she spotted the familiar young policeman and called out to him, "Officer, this man climbed over my wall last night, trying to steal my child while my husband was away. I found out that he was going to sell my son to a man who can't have children for 300 yuan."
"Yes, yes, he climbed over the wall after 1 a.m. Luckily, the family had a dog, otherwise this inhuman beast would have ruined the whole family. Officers, arrest him and shoot him to prevent him from harming other children." The neighbor behind him echoed indignantly.
"What happened? It's a mess. Tell me the story from the beginning." Two policemen came over. They weren't too surprised to see Xu Laosan with his mouth gagged and hands tied. They thought to themselves that it was lucky this was in town. If this were in a remote village, anyone who dared to touch someone's child would have been killed and buried by the whole village.
Su Yu recounted the story she had made up the night before, emphasizing the blue bricks outside the wall and the footprints on the wall. She also mentioned that her two sons were frightened and would shout and scream when they couldn't see her.
The police pulled the rag out of Xu Laosan's mouth and asked, "Xu Laosan, what do you have to say? What were you thinking when you climbed over the wall into someone's house in the middle of the night? Also, where does the family that bought your child live?"
Xu Laosan's mouth was forced open all night, and two cuts appeared at the corners of his mouth. He stiffly protested, "It's all nonsense, she made it all up to frame me. I didn't want to steal the child, I just wanted to take him back to see his grandmother. My mother is very ill." This was what Xu Laosan had thought of all night. He didn't dare to say that he was taking Xiaoyuan back because his second brother was in mourning and these kinds of activities were not allowed now.
“He’s lying. I remarried over a year ago and my son hasn’t been seen by anyone from his family. When Xiao Yuan’s grandmother came before, she mistook my stepson for her own grandson. The reason I remarried was because my ex-husband died in a quarry accident. They divided up the compensation money and my job with them, and they even tried to kick me out. They also took the house that Xiao Yuan’s father left for him. It’s impossible for a family like that to suddenly remember my son.” Su Yu explained the situation and pointed to the elderly people behind her, saying, “These are my neighbors. They all saw him climbing over the wall and getting caught last night. They can testify for me, and the footprints he left over the wall prove that he snatched my son at night.”
“Yes, we can all testify, officers, please don’t be fooled by this man,” said Aunt Wu.
"Yes, this person is very cunning. Last night, even after my husband tied him up, he still tried to stand up and hit people," said Aunt Liu.
"They're the fools, they've all been fooled by her." Xu Laosan saw the policeman's face change, and with so many old geezers spouting nonsense, he was really afraid of being accused of human trafficking and facing execution. "It was all her doing, you've been fooled. She's not my second sister-in-law, my second sister-in-law isn't like that. If you don't believe me, you can go to our village and ask. My second sister-in-law is an honest woman."
While struggling, he forgot about the injury on his buttocks. He twisted too much, causing him to grimace in pain. In a frenzied manner, he said that he had met his nephew yesterday afternoon and just wanted to take him home to see him. He claimed that the injury on his buttocks was caused by a girl named Er Ya, and the footprints on the wall were not his. He said that she had threatened him with a sickle and forced him to go home with her after dark last night. He even pointed to the wound on his neck to show everyone.
This sudden reversal was somewhat frightening. The police and neighbors stared at Su Yu, and then at the bloodstains on Xu Laosan's neck.
Su Yu felt wronged and disappointed. She pointed to herself and said sadly, "You actually believed his crazy talk. She even said I wasn't the same person as before. So what am I now? A demon or a ghost? My closest parents, son, and lover didn't think anything was wrong with me. How could you believe him?"
She was delighted when Xu Laosan suddenly said that she was not the original owner of the body. How could a living person say that he was not the previous person? This involves superstition. She could even insist that he had mental problems.
She covered her face and continued to protest her innocence: "I'm a woman, and my husband has been away from home for a long time. Would I be crazy enough to bring a man home? Do you think my reputation isn't bad enough already? He was caught and locked up in the house all night. Who knows how long he made up stories? Who knows what other things he might have up his sleeve? He even knows the name of my neighbor's little girl. Who knows if he's already scouted the place? He probably knows the names of everyone in the whole alley." She implied to the neighbors that Xu Laosan might be after their grandson.
She stood up and stood next to Xu Laosan. "Take a good look at him. With his build, and with mine, how could I possibly have the strength to threaten him into coming home with me?"
Xu Laosan saw the vile woman approaching him and felt a surge of malice. He wanted to strangle her, but his hands were still bound. So, he endured the pain and kicked her. Su Yu dodged the kick and fell to the ground with his force, crying out, "I don't want to live anymore. I have no face to live. Rather than be threatened by others, I'd rather die early so as not to be a burden to my child."
"Mom! Waaah—" Xiao Yuan and Ping An ran over, one hugging her and crying shrilly, the other lying on the ground rolling around, also shouting that he didn't want to live anymore.
"No, we don't suspect you. Get up, you've scared the child." The neighbors helped Su Yu up, glaring angrily at Xu Laosan and the police, as if they were in cahoots.
"Ahem... We've already investigated the matter thoroughly. Xu Laosan is a complete liar. We'll be going to his home to investigate, as well as Cai Xiaohua and Cai Dagen. If the situation is true, Xu Laosan will be sent to a labor camp. As for whether he should be executed, that will be determined based on the severity of the circumstances," the middle-aged policeman said with a righteous expression, his brows furrowed.
“Officer, concealing the truth is an even more serious crime. He has been lying all along and protecting others. You must investigate thoroughly. If they have already bought and sold other children, the entire family deserves to be executed,” Su Yu shouted from the crowd.
"No, I didn't abduct any other children." Xu Laosan panicked. He had never encountered anything like this in his more than 20 years of life. This was his first time going to the police station. He was worried that he would be shot without knowing why, because of that bitch's embellishment. He quickly revealed everything, even how Cai Dagen had made it so that he would have no descendants.
Su Yu breathed a sigh of relief. Things had gone as she wanted, and yesterday's events had been covered up. Neither Er Ya nor the two boys were involved in the matter. Especially Er Ya, who dared to hurt someone at such a young age, which would definitely instill fear in people and affect her future studies or marriage in this town.
Before she decided to cover it up, she had considered having Ping An or Xiao Yuan take the blame for slapping someone's bottom, just in case it might cause trouble for Er Ya, who had finally settled down.
After leaving the police station, Su Yu didn't go home with her neighbors. Instead, she took her two children to the hospital and told the doctor about Ping An's condition: "He hit the right side of his head on the ground, and his stomach was also kicked. Could he be injured? Especially his head, is there any bleeding inside?"
The doctor frowned at her. "Are you the doctor or am I? If he had a brain hemorrhage, how could he still be jumping around like that?"
Su Yu was so angry that she stopped talking. When she saw that Ping An had a bruise on his stomach after lifting his clothes, she was about to ask if there was a problem with his internal organs, but when she saw the doctor's tense face, she swallowed her words.
"It's nothing serious. When you get home, heat some wine and massage the bruise on his stomach. It will go away in a few days."
In the end, they didn't even get the medicine. The three of them walked out of the hospital relaxed. This time, Xiao Yuan didn't stick to Su Yu like usual. Instead, he walked with Ping An, and the two of them whispered to each other.
I had barely gotten home when Ping An's grandparents arrived, barging in with a loud voice: "What's going on? What's going on? I heard you called the police again? And that someone came to steal the child at night?"
"It's alright, everyone's fine." Su Yu briefly recounted the origins of the story she had made up, and showed Old Man Ning the stomp marks on the wall. At the same time, a policeman of that age came over, rubbed the clods of mud that had been kicked off the wall, and went inside to look at the almost blurred footprints. However, the size of the footprints definitely did not belong to a woman. Afterward, he visited a few neighbors to ask about the commotion last night, and then left quickly.
"Ping An, come home with Grandma and sleep with us. You can come back when your dad comes back." Zhao Guixiang said, stroking her grandson's head. Her grandson was family after all, and she was afraid that he would be implicated by these two troublemakers. Now he dared to climb over the wall into the house at night. Who knew if the Xu family would come to cause trouble again?
"I'm not going, I want to stay at home." Living with Mom is so interesting, exciting and thrilling, and she can even make up stories, it's so much fun.
"You idiot!" Zhao Guixiang was displeased. "You're really heartless, you can't tell right from wrong."
Ning Mancang wandered around the yard and spotted the black dog yawning against the wall. Its teeth were clenched into the flesh, which was quite a sight.
"Let's go, old woman," he called to her, turning back before leaving to say, "If you get into trouble, go home and ask for help. Brother Wu and Brother Er are both home. Don't call the police so easily." They've practically been living in the police station.
Su Yu ignored this old blockhead.
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