Chapter 185 It's all over now.
He landed on one bare foot, his sole slamming hard onto the gravel path.
In his panicked escape, Zhou Hairong lost his bearings and the wire he was holding slipped from his grasp and was left by a ditch in the middle of the road.
The sack on Zhou Hailiang's back also tore open with a long gash during his frantic run.
The old cotton wadding kept falling off as the car bumped along, scattering all the way.
Only Zhou Haiwei held onto the bronze whistle tightly, his fingernails digging into his palms, refusing to let go.
He knew that as soon as he blew the whistle...
People from all around will come running at the sound, and by then, they'll be dead.
They ran all the way to the century-old locust tree at the entrance of Liuchang Village before finally collapsing to the ground.
When the four of them returned home covered in dust, the sky was already beginning to lighten.
His face was covered in mud, his clothes were torn, and his trousers were covered in scratches.
Zhou Hairong raised his arm and discovered that it was covered with cuts of varying depths.
He wiped it with the back of his hand, which was covered in mud, but the more he wiped, the more blood appeared.
Zhou Hailiang looked down at his sack, which was already empty.
When the wind blew, the bag rustled.
The half of the old cotton wadding had long been scattered on the road, and someone's footprints had trampled it into the soil.
His throat moved, but he couldn't say a word. He just silently hugged the sack to his chest.
Zhou Haiqing sat on the threshold, his right foot bare, the sole of his foot red from being poked by gravel.
Zhou Haiwei suddenly raised his foot and slammed the mud-covered whistle into a muddy ditch in the corner of the yard.
He stared at the mud puddle, his eyes bloodshot, his voice trembling.
"Just an inch away! Just an inch away from the money box! It's all ruined! It's all that damn cat's fault! If it hadn't suddenly jumped out and knocked over the sugar jar, Yang Qingshan would never have woken up!!"
Zhou Hailiang suddenly squatted down and cried out.
He sobbed, "I promised to buy it for Erniu... She was looking at me longingly last night... Now it's all over... She'll never believe me again... never again..."
"What are you crying for! Are you wailing like you're at a funeral?"
Zhou Hairong kicked his buttocks hard, the force of which made him stumble forward half a step.
He glared at them angrily and roared, "You think crying will make milk powder come out? If you hadn't been carrying the box so slowly, like a turtle crawling, would we have even been found? Now you have the nerve to cry here!"
Zhou Haiqing huddled in the corner, his feet aching so badly he could barely sit up.
"Brother... my feet really hurt... I can't walk anymore... Shall we stop? Yang Qingshan must have slept soundly tonight, he'll definitely be keeping a closer eye on things tomorrow, adding extra locks and staff to the shop morning and night... If we run into him again, we won't be so lucky..."
When I opened my eyes, it was already daylight.
But the light was not bright; it was gloomy outside and even darker inside.
Several people were standing in front of the bed, wearing dark blue uniforms.
"You four, hurry up and put on your shoes and come with us."
The comrade's voice was deafening.
He flicked the flashlight with a "snap," and the bright light pierced through the dim room.
The beam of light illuminated the unbandaged wound on Zhou Hairong's left arm.
Immediately afterwards, the light swept to the soles of Zhou Haiqing's feet.
That bare foot was on the muddy ground, the sole of which was covered with dark red bloodstains.
Zhou Hairong was so frightened that he shrank into the kang (a heated brick bed), his back pressed tightly against the cold earthen wall.
"Comrade...we really didn't steal anything...really! Is it...is it a misunderstanding?"
"Misunderstand?"
"Zhouji Department Store was robbed last night. The door was pried open, the cash box was smashed, and all the day's revenue was gone. This is what we found at the scene."
He took a transparent plastic bag out of his pocket and shook it.
Inside the bag was a whistle covered in mud, its metal surface rusted.
"And your cotton wadding was found by the ditch in the back alley. Bloody footprints led from the back window of the department store to the village path. Should we go and compare the footprints now? And check if this whistle came from you?"
Zhou Hailiang yelled and fell back onto the kang (a heated brick bed), his body swaying to one side.
"It wasn't me...it really wasn't me...it was my brother...my brother forced me to go...he said he'd break my legs if I didn't go, I didn't dare not go...I had no choice..."
"Shut up!"
Zhou Haiwei turned around abruptly, his face flushed red.
He raised his right foot, as if to kick hard, but his comrade next to him quickly grabbed his shoulder.
A crisp metallic sound rang out.
The cold handcuffs tightly locked his thick wrists.
He then looked up as if waking from a dream, his gaze passing through the dimly lit room and landing on the doorway.
There was another person standing there.
Yang Qingshan stood at the door, wearing a faded old cotton-padded coat.
His eyes were sunken, his cheeks were hollow, and his skin was ashen and dull.
His lips were chapped and his voice was so hoarse that he could barely hear what he was saying.
"Haiwei..."
He spoke with difficulty.
“I originally wanted to… leave some room for maneuver… out of consideration for Aunt Zhou, I didn’t want to push things to the extreme. But you… how did you repay her? Before Aunt Zhou passed away, she was still on her sickbed talking about… saying that she raised you all herself, that she should show some mercy, that she should consider the bond between blood relatives… but what about you? You insisted on pushing things to the brink, you insisted on tearing out people’s hearts…”
Zhou Haiqing slumped to the ground, clutching his head in his hands.
"My feet hurt... my feet hurt so much... It wasn't my choice to go, they forced me into the car... I didn't want to go in..."
I still have children to raise, and my wife is waiting for me to come home…
His shoulders were twitching, his face was covered in tears and snot, but no one wanted to look at him anymore.
The comrade frowned, not having time to listen to their meaningless wailing.
With a cold face, he grabbed Zhou Haiqing and Zhou Hailiang, one in each hand, and dragged them out without any mercy.
As they were being dragged, one of Zhou Haiqing's shoes slipped off on the threshold, revealing a foot covered in calluses.
But he couldn't care less about any of that; he just kept sobbing.
The courtyard gate was already crowded with people, men, women, and children forming a circle.
Aunt Pan stood at the front of the crowd, one hand tightly covering her mouth, the other hand trembling as she pointed into the house.
"How could this have come to this... Isn't this a tragedy? Zhou Shufen loved them so much back then, scrimping and saving to provide them with food and clothing, and now look what's happened, they even dare to steal their own mother's things... Stealing from their own mother's shop... Where is justice?"
Not far away, Erniu hid behind an old locust tree, only half of her face showing, her eyes wide open.
She stared at Zhou Hailiang as he was being led away in handcuffs. He had his head down, his neck stiff, and his face covered in a mixture of sweat and tears.
She was so frightened that she held her breath, a chill running down her spine, filled with fear.
"It's just laziness!"
A middle-aged man in the crowd sneered.
"He doesn't farm, doesn't do any work, and spends all his time idling around. He's either playing cards or sneaking into other people's backyards, plotting to steal chickens and other petty crimes! It's no wonder that people like him get their comeuppance! Even God can't stand it anymore!"
Zhou Haiwei was pushed forward, his shackles rattling loudly.
He kept his head down, glancing at the century-old locust tree at the village entrance out of the corner of his eye.
A tabby cat with mottled fur and its tail held high perched on a tree branch.
A pair of bright green eyes stared straight at him.
His heart skipped a beat, and a chill ran from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
In that instant, he remembered something.
It reminded me of what Zhou Shufen looked like when she was young.
She sat on a small stool at the gate of the courtyard, holding a piece of hard candy in her hand, and smiled as she stuffed it into his mouth: "Haiwei, be good, listen to me."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
