Chapter 20 Suspicious Points: Did he actually save Chunni?
Lu Zhe covered his head with his left hand and stood up, supporting himself with his right hand on the ground. He looked around, wondering which naughty child had thrown stones at him. Then, he turned his head and saw Chu Yanxi's head peeking out from behind an old locust tree.
Chu Yanxi waved to him, signaling him to come over quietly.
Lu Zhe felt a sudden pang of guilt and nervously glanced towards the ancestral hall. After the villagers chased Lu Zhe away, they were all focused on Chunni's movements and couldn't spare any attention for what was happening on his side.
Lu Zhe hunched over and tiptoed behind the tree.
Chu Yanxi grabbed his arm and pulled him to a secluded spot.
Granny Wang was only focused on killing Chunni, and Wang Erzhu was successfully fooled by Chu Yanxi into not daring to touch her. In addition, both of their attention was drawn to the commotion at the ancestral hall, which gave Chu Yanxi the opportunity to slip away.
Lu Zhe felt the icy touch on his arm, and when he saw Chu Yanxi's pale, bloodless face, his heart ached terribly. He asked in a low voice, "How are you?"
Chu Yanxi released his grip, her tone calm: "What happens to me is not important. The priority now is to save Chunni."
Lu Zhe stared blankly at her: "But you told me that we should help others while protecting ourselves. You're not in good shape right now, so don't worry about Chunni for now. Have they been bullying you? I'll try to find a way to get you down the mountain."
Chu Yanxi was surprised that Lu Zhe still remembered what she had said.
Worried about his safety, he got off the bus at Yushutai to call the police, which led him directly to a human traffickers' hideout. When she saw Lu Zhe, who had just woken up from his coma, she said, "You should have gone to a familiar city to call the police, ensuring your own safety first."
The boomerang came really fast.
Chu Yanxi pursed her lips: "I can protect myself, don't worry." She didn't waste any time, quickly explaining her transmigrated identity, then asked him, "And you?"
When Lu Zhe heard that she had just miscarried and was sold to this Shijian Village, his hands trembled slightly. He took out a few milk candies from his pocket and put them in Chu Yanxi's hand: "Then, then you eat some candy first. Don't stand for too long. Sit down first."
He was somewhat at a loss trying to take care of Chu Yanxi, but Chu Yanxi didn't appreciate it: "Alright, stop with the nonsense. Just tell me!"
Lu Zhe took off his clothes and spread the orange jacket on a large rock, insisting that Chu Yanxi sit down to talk.
Chu Yanxi glanced at the jacket, and the pain in her lower abdomen made her sit down.
Lu Zhe said, "When I transmigrated here, I was walking a mountain path with Li Wenshu. I'm still called Lu Zhe, and I'm a full-time writer at the Provincial Writers Association. I've published a few rural novels. This time, I wanted to write a novel about the tremendous changes in the mountain villages after the reform and opening up, so I came here to do interviews. Li Wenshu and I are classmates. He said that Shijian Village has preserved many old customs, which would be a good comparison. I didn't expect... sigh!"
Chu Yanxi gave Lu Zhe a deep look. She hadn't expected that this guy would be a government official with a formal position in both of his transmigrations, and that he could travel on business frequently. His situation was much better than her own.
Lu Zhe felt a chill run down his spine from her gaze and asked nervously, "What's wrong? Is something the problem?"
"It's nothing." Chu Yanxi shook her head. "We're still wearing that documentary literature on female crime, 'Breaking the Cocoon.' The protagonist of this world is Chunni, who committed the rural husband-murder case."
Lu Zhe had heard Chu Yanxi mention that book during his last time travel, and he frowned: "Why are we traveling back and forth like this? Last time I traveled back, I had just returned to the Qingyuan County Cultural Bureau and hadn't even sorted out the work process when I woke up here. There was no warning or pattern at all. It's really a headache."
Chu Yanxi shared her thoughts: "I guess our purpose in transmigrating into the book is to help the protagonist escape their original tragic fate. In that book, Chunni was drowned for killing her husband, and it wasn't until a reporter reported on it that she gained attention."
Chu Yanxi only shared her most certain speculations. As for why she and Lu Zhe were chosen to travel through time, when they would travel to the next world, and what would happen after they finished the entire book, she had no idea.
Lu Zhe asked, "You mean, as long as we help Chunni and prevent her from drowning, we can travel back in time?"
Chu Yanxi shook her head: "I don't know if we can go back. In the world we originally lived in, we might have already died in the explosion."
Although he had suspected it before, Lu Zhe still gasped when he heard Chu Yanxi say it, and grabbed a handful of his hair in frustration: "What are we going to do? Are we just going to drift around like duckweed?"
Chu Yanxi calmly said, "Let's take it one step at a time. Now let's discuss how to save Chunni."
Having had the experience of working with Chu Yanxi once before, Lu Zhe knew she was full of clever ideas, and listening to her was definitely the right thing to do: "Li Wenshu twisted his ankle, and I don't know the way, so I can't go down the mountain to get help for the time being. What do you suggest we do?"
Chu Yanxi explained her plan: "When the sorceress arrives, you do this and this..."
Lu Zhe listened and nodded, and the bewilderment he felt from being transported to another world suddenly vanished.
At this time, the ritual of inviting the shaman at the Wang Family Ancestral Hall had already begun.
Chunni, her hands bound behind her back, knelt in the center of the ancestral hall. Before her were the dark, layered ancestral tablets of the Wang family, like countless pairs of indifferent eyes staring down at her.
Old Man Wang and several clan elders sat in grand chairs before the ancestral tablets, their faces grim. More villagers crowded inside and outside the ancestral hall, whispering among themselves; the air was thick with the smells of smoke, sweat, and anticipation of the bloody ceremony.
"Quiet!" Old Wang slammed his cane on the ground, his cloudy but sharp eyes sweeping across the crowd, and the noise gradually subsided.
"Please call the sorceress!" Old Man Wang said in a deep voice.
A commotion arose in the crowd as they parted to make way. An old woman, dressed in a strange black, diagonally-buttoned jacket, with disheveled gray hair and a face covered in deep wrinkles, walked in shakily, leaning on a wooden stick wrapped in colorful cloth. Her eyes were cloudy, with too much white showing, and she looked at people with a neurotic detachment. She was the village's shaman, the one who was in charge of communicating with spirits and deities.
The sorceress circled Chunni three times, muttering incantations in a hoarse, indistinct voice. She would sometimes lean close to Chunni to smell her, and sometimes tap the ground with a stick, making all sorts of bizarre gestures.
The villagers held their breath, and even the children dared not cry. The only sounds in the ancestral hall were the breathing of the villagers and the eerie chanting of the sorceress.
Suddenly, the sorceress's body trembled violently, her eyes rolled back, and she screamed, "A vengeful spirit has possessed me! It's Dazhu's spirit that won't leave! He says he died unjustly and wants this wicked woman to pay with her life! Only by making her pay for her blood debt can we appease the wrath of our ancestors, otherwise... otherwise the whole village will suffer a terrible fate!"
These words were like cold water poured into boiling oil, instantly causing an uproar both inside and outside the ancestral hall.
"A life for a life! They must pay with their lives!"
"Drown her! Kill her to appease our ancestors!"
"We can't let her ruin the whole village!"
The crowd was furious. Led by Wang Erzhu, several men pushed forward with red eyes, eager to drag Chunni out and deal with her immediately.
"Shut up!" Old Man Wang slammed his cane down again to quell the disturbance. He looked at the sorceress and asked, "According to the rules of our ancestors, how should we handle this to appease the wronged spirits and cleanse our family's reputation?"
The sorceress danced wildly, her voice shrill: "The evil aura is too strong. It must be sacrificed to the ancestors with impure blood, and then submerged in a wild pond to cleanse its sins with clear water. Only then can the Wang family bloodline be kept at peace and the village of Shijian be blessed with good weather and abundant harvests!"
Just then, Lu Zhe rushed over, ignoring Li Wenshu's attempts to pull him away, and strode to the center of the ancestral hall, facing Old Man Wang and the clan elders.
He bowed slightly to Old Man Wang, trying to make his tone respectful rather than provocative: "Old Man Wang, elders of the clan. I understand your grief over losing loved ones, and I respect the village's traditions. However, this is a new society now. When a matter of life and death occurs, according to national law, it must be investigated and handled by the public security organs, that is, the police. Using torture privately is expressly prohibited by national law, and those responsible will be held accountable!"
Li Wenshu quickly stepped forward, forcing a smile, and said, "Yes, Old Man Wang, Comrade Lu is right. I've already planned to send someone to report this to the township. If we handle this privately, it won't be easy to explain when the police arrive. It won't be good for the village or for your reputation."
Old Man Wang's eyelids drooped, his fingers lightly tapping the end of his cane, and he remained silent. A burly elder, however, sneered, "Li Wenshu, don't try to intimidate us with your official position! This is Shijian Village, a family matter for the Wang family. The rules set by our ancestors are more powerful than any law! This vicious woman killed members of my Wang family and disgraced our clan. She must be dealt with according to the clan rules. Even the Emperor himself can't interfere!"
"Yes! Follow the clan rules!"
"Outsiders, get out!"
The villagers' emotions were stirred up again, and they glared angrily at Lu Zhe and Li Wenshu.
Lu Zhe suppressed his anger and tried to reason with her: "Old man, there are other reasons why Chunni committed the crime with a knife. Wang Laowu has been beating her for a long time and even wanted to sell his daughter to pay for alcohol. Many people in the village know about this, right? This was Chunni's resistance after being abused for a long time. Even if she is guilty, she does not deserve to die!"
"Hidden story? What hidden story?" Granny Wang screamed as she jumped out of the crowd, pointing at Chunni and cursing, "It's only natural for a man to beat his wife! Which woman doesn't get beaten? Is she the only one who's precious? She dares to kill someone for a worthless girl? Such a vicious woman is a menace to the world! If she's not drowned, all the young wives will learn to take up knives on their husbands, and our village will be in chaos!"
Granny Wang's words were very persuasive, and a group of farmers who often beat and scolded their wives got excited, waving their hands and shouting.
"Yes! Dazhu's wife must die."
"Let those disobedient women see what happens when they dare to defy a man!"
"Don't listen to this writer. He's a greenhorn, he doesn't know anything!"
Lu Zhe looked up at the crowd. Chu Yanxi's eyes were calm. She gave him an OK sign, indicating that he shouldn't panic.
Lu Zhe nodded almost imperceptibly, took a deep breath, and said what Chu Yanxi had taught her: "Chunni didn't kill anyone! I know medicine, I've seen the scene, and Wang Dazhu's death was not right."
The sorceress was the first to object: "Dazhu's vengeful spirit is still in this ancestral hall. He told me that Chunni killed him!"
Lu Zhe did not back down: "Where is the wronged spirit? Summon him out so everyone can hear it!"
The sorceress was speechless for a moment. She had originally only learned some herbal medicine from an itinerant doctor, but later discovered that pretending to be a shaman was easier to make money than healing people, so she started calling herself a sorceress. Over time, everyone in the village respected and feared her, and whenever the clan had a problem to solve, they would ask her to perform rituals and communicate with the spirits.
When faced with questioning for the first time, she was at a loss for words. She knew perfectly well that she had no way of summoning spirits; it was all just a pretense.
Lu Zhe sneered: "Since you can't summon a spirit, then listen to my explanation of the science!"
Seeing that the fortune teller was silent, the scene suddenly fell silent.
“I examined the crime scene and there are three suspicious points,” Lu Zhe said, trying to find the right words. Chu Yanxi was using forensic terminology, which was somewhat obscure, so he needed to replace it with more vivid, everyday language that the villagers could understand.
"First, there was too little blood on site."
“If someone’s neck had been slashed that big, the blood would have gushed out like a burst water sac, splattering everywhere. The walls, the roof, and even the perpetrator would have been covered in bloodstains. But as everyone saw, the blood on the kang (heated brick bed) was mainly a small pool that slowly flowed out, with no splattering bloodstains.”
As soon as Lu Zhe finished speaking, some people below began to whisper among themselves.
"It really seems like that. I knew it. With that big cleaver slashing down, there was such a big gash on the neck, but how come there wasn't much blood on the ground?"
"Chunni is always hungry, how much strength can she have? If she were to slash Wang Dazhu, wouldn't he wake up in pain? And once Dazhu wakes up, will Chunni get away with it?!"
"Could it be that Chunni really didn't kill him?"
Taking advantage of everyone's distraction, Lu Zhe blurted out all the doubts in one go.
"Secondly, the blood in the wound is not the right color or condition."
“When a person is alive, their blood is bright red and will keep flowing out. But the blood at the wound on the boss's neck is dark in color and flows slowly, more like… the blood that slowly seeps out of the body after a person has died.”
"Third, Wang Dazhu's face was ashen, and there was vomit on his mouth and stubble."
"If you don't believe me, you can go and see for yourselves right now. Aren't there some food scraps stuck to the corners of the boss's mouth and chin, and a sour, fermented smell? I'm close enough to see clearly that those are definitely traces of vomit!"
"Therefore, I believe that before he was stabbed, he had already vomited due to drunkenness, blocking his throat and suffocating to death. Sister Chunni's knife was actually on a dead body. So, she didn't kill anyone! At most, she only mutilated the corpse. Does stabbing a corpse twice mean it has to be thrown into the pond? The clan rules aren't that unreasonable, are they?"
No murder? Or mutilation of the body?
If Wang Dazhu was already dead before Chunni attacked him, then it cannot be said that she killed him.
A buzz of discussion arose from below, and even those who had initially clamored for Chunni's execution were now somewhat skeptical.
The sorceress, not to be outdone by Lu Zhe's challenge to her authority, immediately shrieked, "Nonsense! Our ancestors and the wronged spirits have all pointed to her!"
Lu Zhe didn't argue with the sorceress. Instead, he turned to Old Man Wang and said loudly, "Old Man Wang, there's definitely something fishy about this. Why don't we wait for the police to arrive and use scientific methods to get to the bottom of this? If Chunni really did kill her, the law will never forgive her. But if there's another reason, it will also reveal the truth to everyone and prevent innocent people from being wrongly accused and our ancestors from being disgraced!"
Li Wenshu quickly chimed in, "Yes, yes, Old Man Wang, to be on the safe side, it's best to wait for the police to investigate. I guarantee on behalf of the township government that if Chunni really did commit the murder, we will definitely bring justice to everyone!"
The village chief coughed and whispered in Old Man Wang's ear, "If Chunni dies, who will take care of Brother Dazhu's two girls? I think we should listen to Li Wenshu and put this matter aside for now. The township government said a while ago that they were planning to build a road for our village. We can't afford to offend Li Wenshu."
Ultimately, it's family who understand each other best. The village chief's words successfully silenced Old Man Wang, who exchanged glances with the other elders. The reason Shijian Village is so poor, and why so many young men can't find wives, isn't it all because of poverty? If the mountain road could be repaired, making it easier for everyone to go down the mountain, and the local produce could be sold promptly, life would naturally improve.
The allure of getting rich through road construction is immense. Combined with the suspicious circumstances surrounding Lu Zhe's death and the official pressure represented by Li Wenshu, a powerful force was formed that shook the once-unbreakable status of the clan rules.
A brief silence fell over the ancestral hall as the villagers watched the elders, awaiting their final decision. Chunni remained kneeling on the ground, seemingly oblivious to everything around her.
Old Man Wang finally raised his head, glanced at Chunni who was kneeling obediently on the ground with mixed feelings, then looked at Lu Zhe and Li Wenshu, and slowly said: "Since Li Wenshu has given his guarantee, and there are these doubts that writer Lu mentioned, then let's do it according to Li Wenshu's opinion for now."
He turned to the sorceress: "Let's perform a ritual to help Dazhu's soul find peace."
The sorceress's eyes darted around, and after glancing at Wang Pozi, she reluctantly replied, "Okay." She had accepted Wang Pozi's bribe, which was why she was determined to kill Chunni, but she hadn't expected that things would turn out this way.
Old Man Wang then instructed the burly men: "Lock Chunni in the storeroom behind the ancestral hall and keep a close watch on her! Guofu, take your men down the mountain and wait for the township police to arrive before we talk about it."
"No! Elder, Chunni must die!" Granny Wang rushed forward, grabbing Old Man Wang's leg and wailing, "My poor son, he died so inexplicably. That wicked woman who harmed him is still breathing! Father, come and see! They're bullying us, a widow and her son, with no one to stand up for us!"
Wang Pozi's actions immediately made Old Man Wang lose face, and he shouted at Wang Erzhu, "Erzhu! Take your mother away right now!"
When the clan elder became aggressive, Wang Erzhu was also a little scared and quickly stepped forward to pull Wang Pozi away.
"It's settled then." Old Man Wang's tone was firm and left no room for argument. "Everyone, disperse. Keep an eye on your own people and don't cause any more trouble."
The crowd gradually dispersed amidst discontent and discussion.
Chunni was dragged deeper into the ancestral hall, while Chu Yanxi walked out with Wang Lao Er. She glanced back and saw Lu Zhe standing there with his brows furrowed.
A chilly mountain wind swept across the open space in front of the ancestral hall, leaving Lu Zhe feeling utterly empty.
He had already revealed the suspicious points at the crime scene as arranged by Chu Yanxi, and he had also cooperated with Li Wenshu to use road repair as an incentive to win over the village chief.
Science has finally defeated the belief in ghosts and gods.
Did he save Chunni?
Will Chunni be saved after the police arrive?
Looking at Chu Yanxi's slender back, and thinking about how she had just suffered a miscarriage and was still recovering before devising a plan to save Chunni, Lu Zhe felt a mix of emotions—admiration, heartache, and a touch of bitterness.
The thought that beneath Chu Yanxi's calm exterior lay a warm and kind heart and an indomitable soul filled Lu Zhe with self-reproach. He wished he were stronger and more outstanding so that she would have less to worry about and suffer less.
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