Chapter 1 Review
On the first day after Old Lady Lin was arrested, Lin Qingqing went to the police station to give a statement and had all the necessary questions asked. Afterwards, the police officers came to the guesthouse twice more to ask some detailed questions. So although she appeared calm on the surface, Lin Qingqing was actually very curious as to why she was suddenly called to the police station today.
Lin Qingqing looked at the police officers walking in front of her, thought for a moment, quickened her pace and walked to their side to ask, "Comrade Zhang, may I ask why you called me here today?"
"Taking a statement," Comrade Zhang thought to himself, "Didn't I just say that?"
"Didn't we already give a statement before?" Lin Qingqing said. "And you asked me about it twice afterward, so why do we suddenly need to give another statement?"
“Oh, that’s it,” Comrade Zhang said with a sudden realization. “It’s like this, there was a slight discrepancy between your statement and Comrade Zhao’s testimony. Comrade Xie came over today and came up with an idea, so our team leader arranged for us to come and call you.”
Although he didn't explicitly say what was wrong, Lin Qingqing had already guessed the general idea from the questions he mentioned in the previous two statements. Although Old Mrs. Lin loved her adopted daughter very much, she doted on Lin Ying and would definitely take the blame herself. Therefore, in the previous two supplementary statements, Lin Qingqing insisted that it was Lin Ying who initially proposed this matter.
Nevertheless, due to a lack of evidence, the case has dragged on until today. Therefore, upon hearing the first part of the sentence, Lin Qingqing looked disappointed, but upon hearing Xie Wei's name, she asked in surprise, "Why is Comrade Xie here?"
"I'm not quite sure about that either," Comrade Zhang said, shaking his head.
As they were talking, the two arrived at the police station. Lin Qingqing followed Comrade Zhang into a conference room, where Comrade Zhang said, "Wait here for a moment, I'll go and call someone."
Lin Qingqing nodded in agreement and sat down at the conference table.
After waiting for about three or four minutes, two people came in. The one in front was He Baosheng, the police captain of Yutian Police Station, and the taller one behind him was Xie Wei.
Xie Wei was still wearing his military uniform, but the fabric looked newer and the clothes were crisper. His face was expressionless, but he nodded slightly when he came in. Although the gesture was small, Lin Qingqing still noticed it. She smiled faintly and nodded back at him.
Captain He walked in and sat down, saying, "Comrade Lin, hello." He then pointed to Xie Wei and said, "This is Comrade Xie Wei. He came here with Comrade Lin before, do you remember him?"
"I remember." Lin Qingqing nodded and greeted Xie Wei.
After exchanging greetings, the three sat down. Captain He briefly explained the situation to Lin Qingqing. Just as she had thought, the reason he had called her over was because of Old Lady Lin's insistence that the matter had nothing to do with Lin Ying.
After a brief introduction, Captain He said, "Comrade Xie came over today and gave us a solution. I think the solution is feasible, but whether it will go smoothly depends on your help."
If Old Lady Lin was the perpetrator, then Lin Ying was the instigator of it all. If it weren't for her, Old Lady Lin wouldn't have thought of forcing the original owner to have a child, nor would she have married the original owner to a violent cripple. Therefore, Lin Qingqing wanted Lin Ying punished more than anyone else, and she naturally had no objection to Captain He's words, nodding and saying, "If there's anything I can help with, I'll do my best."
Captain He nodded, pointed at Xie Wei, and said, "Let Comrade Xie explain the specifics of how to do it."
...
The interrogation room at Yutian Town Police Station wasn't as scary as Lin Qingqing had imagined. It was just a small room with a table and a lamp on it.
Lin Qingqing sat on the stool, looking at the desk illuminated by the desk lamp, and waited quietly.
Maybe two or three minutes, maybe longer, the interrogation room door was pushed open from the outside, and the handcuffed Old Lady Lin was brought in and pressed down on the stool opposite Lin Qingqing.
Throughout the process, Old Lady Lin kept her head down, so Lin Qingqing couldn't see her face clearly, but she could see that her hair was messy, her clothes were dirty, and she looked very disheveled. This was the Old Lady Lin that the original owner of the body didn't remember.
"Long time no see," Lin Qingqing said.
Old Mrs. Lin recognized her voice and looked up abruptly. "How come it's you?"
Upon seeing Lin Qingqing, the fear on Old Lady Lin's face vanished, replaced by a sharp expression. "Why are you here? What do you want? Are you satisfied to see me like this?"
"Yes, I'm quite satisfied," Lin Qingqing nodded.
Old Mrs. Lin suddenly stood up and raised her hand to hit Lin Qingqing, but she was quickly pushed back down and couldn't move. She could only glare at Lin Qingqing with resentful eyes and say, "If I had known you were such an ingrate, I should have drowned you back then!"
"Yes, you should have drowned me back then, but what can I do? I'm still alive, while you—" Lin Qingqing lowered her voice and said with a smile, "Your future doesn't look too bright!"
"You poisonous woman! You have the heart of a snake!" Old Mrs. Lin was even angrier and cursed without thinking.
"My venomous heart was forced upon me by you and Third Sister. If you hadn't forced me to have a child, would I have come out to accuse you?"
After being interrogated for several days, Old Lady Lin became very sensitive to this topic and immediately denied it, saying, "What does this have to do with your third sister? I did it all by myself, it has nothing to do with her!" After denying it, she spat and said, "A vicious woman like you doesn't even deserve to call her third sister!"
"No relation? You dare say that it wasn't Third Sister who suggested it in the first place, persuading you to force me to have her child? You dare say that you didn't conspire with Third Sister to plan everything?" Lin Qingqing asked.
"It has nothing to do with your third sister, why shouldn't I dare to say it!" Old Mrs. Lin said angrily. "I think you're just jealous of her! Jealous that she has a good job, jealous that she married a good man! Father of the child! Open your eyes and see, the ungrateful wretch you saved back then not only wants to kill me, but also wants to harm your daughter!"
Grandma Lin cried and wailed, and Captain He, who was waiting outside, became worried, "Will this work?"
"Let's take another look," Xie Wei said calmly, leaning against the wall and listening to the voices coming from inside.
Seeing Xie Wei's calm expression, Captain He had no choice but to patiently listen on.
Inside, Lin Qingqing watched as Old Lady Lin wailed and cried, her expression remaining completely unchanged. Since transmigrating to the 1970s, she had witnessed Old Lady Lin's tantrums every few days, and now she no longer felt any emotion. Seeing that Old Lady Lin had finished crying and her cries had subsided, Lin Qingqing calmly asked, "Am I jealous of her? Jealous that she can't have children? Or jealous that she was abandoned?"
These words struck a nerve with Old Mrs. Lin. Forgetting all about complaining about Lin Qingqing's ingratitude, she retorted, "You're the one who can't have children! You're the one who got abandoned!"
Although she was cursing like that, a hint of worry flashed in Old Lady Lin's eyes after she finished speaking.
Lin Qingqing smiled and said, "It's no use for you to be stubborn now. Oh right, you don't know yet, do you? The whole town of Yutian has heard about how you and Lin Ying forced me to have her child. The day after it happened, Lin Ying was suspended from her job at the school. I heard that she had a conflict with her mother-in-law when she got home, and the old lady of the Zhao family was so angry that she went to the hospital and still doesn't recognize anyone."
Grandma Lin told herself that Lin Qingqing was lying and couldn't be believed, but her face still turned pale.
"When Director Zhao saw his wife hospitalized, he didn't recognize her and lost his temper. He said that either they get a divorce, or Zhao Liye and Lin Ying move out of the Zhao family home and have nothing to do with him anymore." After Lin Qingqing finished speaking, she asked with a smile, "Do you think Zhao Liye will choose to leave the Zhao family or divorce Lin Ying?"
"Liye, Liye won't divorce Yingzi." Although she said that, Old Mrs. Lin's tone wasn't so certain.
Lin Qingqing exposed her words, "I bet even Lin Ying herself doesn't believe that, right? If she firmly believes that Zhao Liye won't divorce, why would she think of having a child through surrogacy?"
"She was driven to desperation by her mother-in-law!" Old Mrs. Lin exclaimed, then realized, "No, you must be lying to me. You want me to say that this has something to do with Yingzi? I won't! She doesn't know anything about this. I only came up with this idea because I felt sorry for her!"
"Clap clap clap!"
The sudden applause startled Old Mrs. Lin. She looked at Lin Qingqing with a puzzled expression, only to see a mocking smile on the face of her usually honest adopted daughter. "What a touching mother-daughter relationship! It's just a pity that it's too late for you to admit it."
"What do you mean?" Old Mrs. Lin asked warily.
“It’s exactly what it sounds like,” Lin Qingqing said, looking at Old Lady Lin with pity. “You want to take all the blame, but unfortunately, Lin Ying couldn’t withstand the shock and interrogation and has already admitted to participating in the plot.”
"No, impossible!" Old Mrs. Lin shook her head repeatedly.
Lin Qingqing seemed not to hear what the old lady Lin said, and sighed, "You say Zhao Liye won't get a divorce? My opinion is exactly the opposite. He will not only get a divorce, but he will also completely sever ties with Lin Ying. After all, the Zhao family cannot tolerate a daughter-in-law who has been to prison."
She spoke so truthfully that even if Old Mrs. Lin didn't want to believe it, she couldn't help but believe it. "Is what you said true?"
“Just take it as me lying to you,” Lin Qingqing said, standing up. “That’s true. Although Lin Ying was abandoned, can’t work, has a bad reputation, and can’t have children, it’s still better to live a life of hardship outside than to go to jail, right? If you and your daughter hadn’t been assigned to the same prison, you might have been able to lie to yourself for the rest of your life.”
The more she said this, the more convinced Old Mrs. Lin became of what she was saying, and the hatred in her eyes deepened. But Lin Qingqing didn't care at all, and said earnestly, "Although you don't want to acknowledge me anymore, in my heart, you are still my mother. I didn't come here today to show off, I just wanted to tell you that confessing is the way to go, and resisting is the way to go. If you confess honestly, maybe the mother and daughter can spend fewer years in prison. If your statements don't match, who knows what will happen."
After saying that, Lin Qingqing got up and left the interrogation room.
The moment she closed the door, Lin Qingqing's eyes suddenly stung with tears. She quickly lowered her head, covered her mouth with her hand, and tried to stop herself from crying.
A hand holding a blue handkerchief was extended in front of him, and Xie Wei's deep voice rang out, "Wipe it off."
Lin Qingqing took the handkerchief and wiped away her tears. After the sudden sadness subsided, she sniffed and looked up at Xie Wei with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry you had to see this. The handkerchief... I'll wash it and return it to you, okay?"
Although she had a smile on her face, tears still clung to her eyelashes.
Xie Wei rubbed his hand together, suppressing the urge to wipe away her tears, and said calmly, "Whatever." He then turned to discuss the next steps with Captain Zhang.
...
Zhao Liye opened the door to the ward and saw Lin Ying standing outside. It had only been a few days since Old Lady Lin was taken away, but she had lost all her former energy. When she saw him, her eyes lit up, and she called out "Liye" with a mixture of expectation and worry.
If it were the Zhao Liye of the past, he would have felt sorry for Lin Ying seeing her like this, but recently, one thing after another has happened, and he is exhausted both physically and mentally. He really has no mind to feel sorry for Lin Ying, and asks in a cold tone, "Why are you here?"
Lin Ying was stung by his tone, her eyes gradually reddened, and she said in a low voice, "I want to come and take care of Mother."
Hearing this, Zhao Liye felt a surge of anger and blurted out, "Can't you just stop making things worse? Don't you know what Dad will say if he sees this?"
This time, his father was determined to force them to divorce. He even contacted the middle school to have his job suspended and prevented him from entering the hospital. Zhao Liye had no choice but to ask a friend to rent a room for Lin Ying to move out. He also told his father that he would wait until his mother's condition stabilized before going to the county town to get a divorce, and his father reluctantly nodded.
If his father finds out that Lin Ying came to the hospital to take care of his mother, this matter will definitely not end well.
Lin Ying was well aware of all this, but she was terrified. Although they had managed to appease her father-in-law, what if he didn't change his mind after her mother-in-law recovered? So she wanted to take advantage of the time to come to the hospital to take care of her mother-in-law and then reveal the truth after her mother-in-law recovered, hoping it might move her father-in-law's hard heart.
Lin Ying felt that she was making plans for her and Zhao Liye's future, and when she heard his words, she felt extremely wronged. "How would you know if you didn't tell me?"
"With so many people coming and going in the hospital, how could we possibly keep it from my dad!" Zhao Liye said, sensing someone looking at them. He then pulled Lin Ying towards the water room at the end of the corridor.
The washroom was empty. After pushing Lin Ying inside, Zhao Liye closed the door and said with a helpless expression, "Can you please stop causing me trouble?"
"You think I'm just causing you trouble?" Lin Ying stared at Zhao Liye with wide eyes, tears welling up. "You're still blaming me, aren't you? But I didn't want to! You have no idea what your mother did. She hired a matchmaker to arrange a blind date for you and told me to make room for her. I couldn't take it anymore, so I went back to my parents' house. I never expected that just a casual remark would lead my mother to do something like this. Liye, please believe me, okay? I really didn't want to!"
Zhao Liye was well aware of his mother's pressure on his wife. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't have believed Lin Ying so quickly when she tearfully told him that she had nothing to do with forcing Lin Qingqing to have a child. That day when he returned home, his mother and Lin Ying had an argument, and she pressured them to divorce again. He wouldn't have insisted on refusing and blamed his mother for it.
If it weren't for this, his mother wouldn't have been so angered by him that she suffered a stroke and was hospitalized.
Thinking of his mother lying in the hospital bed, unable to recognize anyone and unable to control her drooling, Zhao Liye not only didn't soften his heart as before, but also questioned, "Are you blaming my mother?"
Lin Ying's voice stopped abruptly. She paused for a moment, then immediately shook her head in denial, "Of course not! But Liye, you're all I have left... This really makes me uneasy..."
Lin Ying walked to Zhao Liye's side, hugged his arm, and sobbed softly.
Amid her sobs, Zhao Liye lowered his head, embraced her, patted her shoulder, and said, "I should go back now."
After saying that, Zhao Liye pushed Lin Ying away, opened the door to the water room, and went out.
Watching his retreating figure, Lin Ying's sobs gradually turned into loud wailing.
She couldn't understand how everything had changed overnight!
Lin Ying cried for a long time, until her voice was hoarse, before returning to her ward. She still wanted to talk to her husband again. But as soon as she reached the ward door, she was stopped by two men in police uniforms. "Excuse me, are you Comrade Lin Ying?"
Lin Ying, who had been frequently visiting the police station in recent days, trembled reflexively when she saw the police and asked, "It's me. What can I do for you?"
"I have a few questions I'd like to discuss with Comrade Lin at the station," the police officer said.
Lin Ying nodded and said, "Can I talk to my husband about it?"
The police officer stepped aside, and Lin Ying entered the ward, calling out "Liye." But Zhao Liye didn't turn around. After waiting a while, Lin Ying had to speak up herself, "I'm going to the police station with them. Can you come over for dinner tonight?"
Zhao's mother, lying on the hospital bed, made two soft "ah" sounds. Zhao Liye quickly reached out and grasped her hand. After a long while, he said, "I will consider it."
Lin Ying smiled and said, "I'll wait for you. You must come!"
After saying that, she turned and walked out, leaving with the police. She thought it was just a brief questioning, like before, and that she would be able to go home soon. Little did she know that she would never be able to return to that newly rented house.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
