Xia Mian turned around and went downstairs to join the gossip group of middle-aged and elderly women at the entrance of the apartment building.
"What's the matter? You won't open the door?" someone asked knowingly.
"Well, she probably feels too embarrassed to face people," Xia Mian raised her head and glanced at the second-floor window, and said loudly, "After all, everyone in the hospital knows that she is a mistress and abuses children."
"What are you going to do, his aunt?" the onlookers were curious.
Xia Mian said, "Just sue in court. The police station has already issued a notice. I'll sue in court after Xiao Feng's injury report comes out."
"The police station won't be able to handle it then. I can just find a lawyer and sue him. I'll still be sentenced when the time comes. At worst, I can file a lawsuit directly with the Municipal Procuratorate, and he can continue to find someone else if he's capable."
"What did the assessment say about Xiaofeng's injuries?" asked the gray-haired old lady downstairs. "I asked our Xiaobai to hurry up and get it done."
The old lady's surname is Mi. She was a high school teacher before retirement. Her husband's surname is Chen. He was a senior engineer at Huagang before retirement. Both of them are highly respected people in the compound.
The Xiaobai she mentioned was the old lady's grandson. Although the original owner had never seen him, she was very familiar with him.
I heard that he was a genius, a medical doctor who returned from studying abroad at the age of 23. His home was in the capital Yan City. He came to work in the hospital in this small city because he was worried about the health of his grandfather and grandmother.
She is the object of pursuit for people within a radius of dozens of miles. Anyway, ever since this genius moved into the family compound, there have been more and more young women dressed up in the compound.
Xia Mian simply thought it was convenient to have a doctor downstairs. However... she always felt like she had overlooked something.
Xia Mian did not make things difficult for herself when she thought of something unexpected. Seeing that everyone was concerned about Xiao Feng, she showed everyone the medicine in her hand and said, "Except for her face and arms, there are soft tissue contusions all over her body. The most serious one is moderate malnutrition. She needs to take good care of herself."
No matter how many times it was mentioned, Xia Mian's anger remained undiminished. The key point was, "That vicious woman actually stabbed the child's mouth with a needle!"
"real?!"
"This is too cruel."
"You're not a human being."
Everyone condemned in unison.
Old Lady Liu angrily said, "What a beast! At first, I heard the child crying, and I even knocked on the door to tell her not to hit the child like that. I didn't expect her to..."
"That's right, he deserves to be cut into pieces!"
"If she dares to go out next time, I'll drown her in spit!"
…
Everyone was filled with righteous indignation. Xia Mian sneered in his heart as he watched the figure flash past the second-floor window. The law can't punish you, but what about public opinion?
Don't let her in? Then she'll promote it well for her, since not all the people are here at noon.
Although there was no Internet in this era, interpersonal interactions were closer. People living in a family compound almost knew each other, and the relationship between neighbors in a building was closer than that between relatives.
In this era, it is not an exaggeration to say that a rat crossing the street will be chased by everyone.
The Zhang family still wants to be treated like a human? That depends on whether she agrees!
"Such a young child," Teacher Mi sighed, and touched the child who had been nestling obediently in Xia Mian's arms with heartache.
Xiao Feng seemed to be only afraid of young women. He was just a little shy about the old lady's actions and turned his head to look at Xia Mian.
Xia Mian touched his head and said softly, "This is Grandma Mi, calling for help."
Xiao Feng spoke obediently, "Grandma Mi." His voice was not loud and he was still timid, but everyone knew what he had gone through and could only feel sorry for him.
"Oh, how good."
"That's right, she even said the child was naughty and noisy." Someone mocked, "I was really fooled by her before. Now think about it, when has this child ever been noisy?"
"Yeah, it's not easy for children with stepmothers. Who would have thought Huang Xiaojuan was so vicious?"
"Zhang Qiming doesn't care. As expected, if you have a stepmother, you also have a stepfather."
"Fortunately his aunt came, otherwise this child would have suffered so much."
At this point, someone asked worriedly, "Aunt, are you still leaving? What will happen to the child if you leave?"
Xiao Feng understood this sentence and immediately looked at Xia Mian. She twisted her two little hands together tightly, with anxiety in her eyes, but she didn't say a word.
Everyone felt sad when they saw this. It is a child's nature to be willful and express emotions, but this child who is less than five years old is so cautious.
Xia Mian patted his back vigorously, "Don't worry, Auntie will never leave Xiaofeng. I will always be with Xiaofeng, okay?"
The child breathed a sigh of relief and smiled widely, revealing a row of small white teeth.
Xia Mian was stunned. This was the first time she saw the child smile. Perhaps it was because he was born in a quagmire, which made it even more precious.
Xia Mian kissed his little face. Seeing this, the others hurriedly changed the subject, "Xia Mian, where are you from? Why are you coming to their house?"
"I'm from Mingxi County," Xia Mian said with a sad expression. "My father passed away early. Four years ago, my sister was killed by them. My mother fell seriously ill and passed away at the beginning of this year."
"I was the only one left at home, and my relatives were discussing who would take care of me. Originally, I was supposed to live with my grandmother, but then my ex-brother-in-law said I could come to the city to study. The conditions here are good, and I can go to a good school."
"My grandmother thought that going to school was indeed important, and since I was older and lived on campus, the money my parents left me was enough for me to finish college. My family also had a house, so it wasn't like I owed anyone anything. They just needed to look after me and they didn't have to worry about anything."
After hearing this, several people looked at each other and one of them asked, "Your brother-in-law, Zhang Qiming, has always been very close to your family?"
"It's okay. When my sister first came, he almost fainted from crying when he came to our house. Later, he would send gifts during festivals. But after all, we live far away, so we haven't seen each other much in the past two years."
Xia Mian was talking while flipping through his memories, and couldn't help but be amazed. No wonder people had a good impression of Zhang Qiming. This guy's work was really impeccable.
But the fox will always show its tail.
"So you followed him?" someone asked.
"The main reason is that I want to go to school in the city." Xia Mian said, "Actually, I don't plan to trouble them too much. I will live on campus after school starts. My ex-brother-in-law said that it will just be a little troublesome to find a school."
In fact, the original body yearned for the big city. As a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl, she was in her rebellious period. She listened all day long to the eldest sister of Uncle Xia's family bragging about how great the big city was and how backward and poor the small county town of Mingxi County was. Naturally, she wanted to run away.
Moreover, Uncle Xia from her hometown was indeed interested in her property, so when Zhang Qiming said it casually, the original owner couldn't wait to
Come running.
However, it was just a matter of running from a wolf's den to a tiger's den. Otherwise, why would Zhang Qiming's "casual remark" be so appropriate?
Thinking of this, Xia Mian suddenly asked, "Teacher Mi, how many thousand yuan does it cost for me to transfer to Huagang High School?"
Teacher Mi was stunned. "Transferring depends on your grades. If your grades are good, you only need to pay a few hundred yuan in tuition. Who said it costs thousands of yuan?"
"Thousands of dollars?" Old Mrs. Liu exclaimed in surprise, "Are the teachers in that school made of gold? They're so expensive!"
Xia Mian said, "But Huang Xiaojuan said it would cost several thousand. Since she wasn't sure how much it would be, she asked me for my passbook and password, saying she would figure it out..."
"That's nonsense," Old Lady Liu said, pounding her cane with dismay. "Silly girl, how could you just give away the passbook your parents gave you?"
Teacher Mi said, "Yes, you can't just give your passbook to anyone."
"The passbook was given to me in front of my ex-brother-in-law. Didn't I trust him? And I really didn't know that Huang Xiaojuan would abuse Xiaofeng."
Xia Mian sighed and explained, "My mother only told me about the two of them being unfair to my sister before she left."
"My mom never came to ask for an explanation because she thought Xiaofeng still had to live with them, and it would be bad for the child if things got out of hand. I thought they would treat the child well even if it was out of guilt. I didn't expect..."
"Only kind people will make amends out of guilt," Teacher Mi said. "For those without conscience, there is no guilt, only oppression and exploitation."
Old Mrs. Liu put it more bluntly, "They'll only become more intolerant of the child out of guilt. If this child is ruined, wouldn't that be like 'cutting off the root of the problem'?"
"Do you know how much money she spent on you?" Old Mrs. Liu still couldn't help but worry.
Xia Mian said, "I don't know. She has the passbook and I told her the password." At this point, she asked, "I know how much money I have. If there's less, wouldn't that be considered theft? Theft?"
There was a click from the window on the second floor, and everyone looked up at the same time. The window of Zhang's house on the second floor was ajar.
"We should be able to go back now." Sister Wang said with a smile.
"No, let's chat for a while." Why should she go back? Huang Xiaojuan wanted to lock her out and told her to go back. Who did she think she was?
Besides, besides the neighbors, most of the people gathered here were the loudspeakers in the yard, gossipmongers and chatterboxes. What a rare opportunity! Not to mention, the fiery feeling of being in the crowd and gossiping was quite refreshing!
Xia Mian continued to ask, "How much money do I have to steal to go to jail?"
Teacher Mi said, "It seems to be more than two hundred."
Xia Mian said, "They say that impoverished lands produce unruly people. I've experienced that. Huang Xiaojuan's family is just too poor. They're so poor that they have no bottom line at all."
"Is their family's conditions really that bad?" People suddenly became curious.
"Of course!" Xia Mian said, "It's not even as good as the village."
Xia Mian gave everyone some basic information about Huang Xiaojuan's family situation. Because they were so hateful, she remembered the family situation of everyone in the Zhang family very clearly.
"Her father was an educated youth who went to the countryside. After returning to the city, he had no job and felt ashamed to be a self-employed person. He has always relied on the elderly in the family for support."
"Her mother is the country woman her father married. She's smart and tough, and she was very wary of her father. She followed her father back to Chengdu. She has five brothers and sisters, and her family is very patriarchal..."
"A family of seven lives in an old house of just over 40 square meters...with no stable income, so the whole family is good at scamming people..."
The fresh gossip was so interesting that everyone ignored the windows on the second floor that kept opening and closing, and listened with great interest.
Xia Mian concluded, "If she had the right conditions, could she have followed Zhang Qiming as his mistress? But she has a city hukou and is good at pretending. I heard from the adults that Zhang Qiming probably wanted to marry into a better position than her."
After hearing this, combined with the Huang family's situation from the popular science of summer hibernation, everyone immediately speculated on the cause and effect.
Zhang Qiming was also a man who cared about appearances and liked to pretend to be respectable. Although he was a worker, people who didn't know him would mistake him for a cadre. Huang Xiaojuan also kept hinting that her family was well-off and she had a city hukou. The two of them had their own ulterior motives, so they got together...
In the room, Huang Xiaojuan's face turned blue with anger, and she regretted it very much now.
She had gotten out of the police station safely. If that girl had any brains, she would have known the power of her brother-in-law. If she wanted to continue to stay in the city, she would have to obey him. She had never expected that the other party would be such a fool.
Not only did she continue to oppose her, but she even dared to join the crowd in the courtyard and chat with them even though she was unfamiliar with the place. She wasn't even afraid at all! The key point was, how did she know so much?!
Huang Xiaojuan heard Xia Mian reveal all the things she had tried so hard to hide. She gritted her teeth and was about to shamelessly call for help.
Suddenly, someone outside called out in a playful tone, "Hey, Qiming is back."
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