Fu Youcai whispered to Li Xiangdong, "I asked around among the neighbors, and they all said that Zhou Rujin's wife is an honest person who doesn't show off. She stays at home all day and rarely interacts with others."
Li Xiangdong frowned. "Do you know where her family is from?"
Fu Youcai shook his head. "The couple came from out of town more than ten years ago. I don't know whose connections they used, but they became workers at the slaughterhouse. I went to the slaughterhouse to ask, but it wasn't mentioned in their files."
That's quite normal. A murderer ran away to eastern Zhejiang and became a regular worker. Presumably, the information in his file was all fake.
"What about Zhou Rujin's son?"
"That kid is only five years old, a little chubby boy, and doesn't understand anything."
Li Xiangdong sighed slightly. Zhou Rujin was about to die, but Zhou Rujin still had a wife and children. If his son inherited Zhou Rujin's abnormal genes, he would be a landmine that could explode at any time.
That's why he asked Fu Youcai to inquire about the mother and child's situation.
"In that case, it seems this mother and son won't cause too much trouble. Just be careful!"
Fu Youcai nodded in agreement.
With the matter closed, Li Xiangdong began preparations to return to Lijiapo.
In his original plan, he would stay in Sishibawan Village for a while longer, but the appearance of Pan Jixian disrupted his original plan.
This Pan Jixian is ruthless.
If someone's business fails, even if they want revenge, they wouldn't think of killing someone.
Pan Jixian is a ruthless man by nature. He will incite others to poison others at the slightest disagreement, and now he is even directly hiring someone to kill.
If he stayed here any longer, Li Xiangdong feared that there would eventually be a moment when he couldn't protect himself.
He wasn't the type to passively take a beating. Once he returned to Lijiapo, he would find a way to get rid of Pan Jixian and eliminate him completely.
With that in mind, he took Chen Zaohua with him first, as the clivia at home also needed her. Fang Shilan and Feng Yucai stayed behind to take care of the export trade, and Zhou Hongsong also stayed temporarily to teach the young villagers some basic footwork skills.
The night before he left, the villagers brought him a lot of local specialties, such as water-milled rice cakes, dried peaches with licorice, loquat syrup, and dried bayberries—all delicacies not produced in Huichuan.
Li Xiangdong gladly accepted the gift and was saying goodbye to everyone when suddenly someone staggered in from outside the door.
"East, east, blast, it exploded!"
The visitor was none other than Fu Youcai.
He was panting heavily, out of breath, and covered in sweat.
The villagers around him helped him up; some brought him a stool to sit on, some poured him water so he could catch his breath and drink some water, and some rubbed his back.
Fu Youcai took the water glass, took a big gulp of water, and after catching his breath for a while, he said, "I was in the county town just now, bought some braised beef, and was about to come back when I saw flames shooting into the sky not far away, and the explosion was so loud it almost deafened me!"
His eyes gleamed. "I went to find out, and guess who had the explosion?"
Li Xiangdong's heart raced, and his throat went dry. "Is it Pan Jixian's house?"
"No! It's not his house! But it's kind of his house, it's the house of his old flame!"
Li Xiangdong had investigated Pan Jixian, so Fu Youcai knew that Pan Jixian had a special relationship with that old man, and also knew that the old man's house was the most luxurious five-story villa in the entire eastern Zhejiang region, even surpassing the newly built houses of the Eight Great Families.
"A daughter-in-law and a granddaughter escaped from that house. It is said that they were cooking in a side room, which is quite far from the main building, which is how they managed to escape."
Fu Youcai had dark marks on his face, clearly indicating that he had just returned from the site of the explosion.
He lowered his voice and said, "That daughter-in-law was crying and making a scene, saying that her husband, father-in-law, and Pan Jixian were all in the building."
The surrounding villagers asked in shock, "Were all the people inside the main building killed in the explosion?"
"I reckon so! I don't know who hated their family so much, but they planted a lot of explosives, and half of the five-story building collapsed!"
Li Xiangdong's heart was pounding. Could it have been done by one of Pan Jixian's other enemies?
Suppressing his doubts, Li Xiangdong unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.
If Pan Jixian really dies here, that would be the best outcome for him.
Since such a major event has occurred, Li Xiangdong decided to stay and see how things go tomorrow.
Early in the morning, Li Xiangdong, Zhou Hongsong, and the Fu brothers set off for the county town.
Before the sun had fully risen, the group arrived at the explosion site.
miserable!
That's terrible!
The entire five-story building was bombed into ruins, with blackened walls and rubble everywhere, and black smoke rising from many places.
The explosion site has been cordoned off by the police, with cordon tape everywhere and several police officers patrolling.
A small group of people nearby were pointing and whispering.
Therefore, it didn't seem out of place for Li Xiangdong and the others to stand here and watch.
Soon, Li Xiangdong received the news that Pan Jixian had indeed been killed in the bombing. Four other people were also killed in the same bombing: the old man who owned the mansion, the old man's son, and the identity of the third person was currently unknown.
Given the magnitude of the explosion and the high number of deaths in the area, the police took the matter very seriously and immediately launched an investigation and manhunt for the suspects last night.
The police acted swiftly, and the suspect, Mo Chunmei, was quickly apprehended.
To everyone's astonishment, the suspect in the bombing case, Mo Chunmei, turned out to be the wife of Zhou Rujin, the butcher who murdered his entire family!
Fu Youcai exclaimed, "I never expected that this honest and simple woman would be even more ruthless than her husband!"
Zhou Hongsong was very puzzled, "Where did she, an ordinary housewife, get so much explosives?"
Li Xiangdong was also puzzled. "Right, they had to transport all the explosives to the Western-style building without being discovered. Did she have an accomplice?"
Several people at home speculated about the situation, while Fu Youcai constantly sent people to inquire about Mo Chunmei's trial progress.
Two days later, Mo Chunmei confessed.
"They say that Pan Ji bribed her husband to kill you, giving his family three thousand yuan. Unexpectedly, Zhou Rujin failed and was instead sent to prison by you."
Fu Youcai spent a lot of money to find out the inside story.
"If that were the case, Mo Chunmei would have accepted it. Anyway, Zhou Rujin has cancer and won't last much longer. But she never expected that Pan Jixian would be so shameless, bullying a widow and her children after their husbands died, and coming to their door demanding that three thousand yuan back!"
Fu Youcai, as if telling a story, sighed repeatedly, "Although Zhou Rujin is a scoundrel, he did lose his life because of Pan Jixian's affair. If we're being honest, we shouldn't accept this money."
Zhou Hongsong nodded in agreement, "That's right!"
"But Pan Jixian insisted on taking it! How could Mo Chunmei possibly hand over the money meant to buy her husband's life? Guess what? That despicable bastard actually took Zhou Rujin's youngest son away!"
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