r18novel Chapter 35 Stabbing her heart with a steel needle
Chapter 35 Stabbing her heart with a steel needle
The moon above the wall was as cold and clear as the whites of a dead person's eyes, casting a shadowy image of the old locust tree in the Zhao family's courtyard, making it look like a menacing ghost.
Li Xianglian crawled out of Qin Rushan's warm bed, climbed over the wall, and before she even landed, she heard a very faint creak from the broken wooden door in the Zhao family's backyard that wasn't closed properly.
Her heart tightened, and she moved even more lightly than the startled raccoon, rolling into the haystack behind the woodshed and holding her breath.
Who will come at this time?
A hunched, dark figure, like a rat crossing the street, scurried in along the wall.
By the dim moonlight, Li Xianglian recognized the tattered felt hat at a glance—it belonged to Sun Laowai.
That old geezer was scared out of his wits during the day, and now he actually dares to come back?
Sun Laowai was clearly familiar with the place. He crouched down and reached the window of the main room, gently tapping three times on the paper covering the window.
"Who?" Zhao Da Niang's terrified voice came from inside the house, like an old hen being strangled, with a nervous air about to suffocate.
"Cuifen, it's me, Lao Sun." Sun Laowai lowered his voice, his voice trembling with guilt.
The room was quiet for a moment, followed by a rustling sound of people getting off the kang (a heated brick bed).
The door bolt was pulled open a crack, and a withered hand suddenly reached out and pulled Sun Laowai inside.
Li Xianglian curled her lips into a cold smile, silently crawled out of the haystack, and like a ghost, clung to the base of the window of the main room.
She wanted to hear what tricks these two grasshoppers tied to the same rope could come up with.
The room was dark, with no lights on.
"You heartless bastard! You dare to come here?!" Aunt Zhao's voice was low, but it carried a fierce rage that seemed to want to devour someone.
Then came a series of dull thuds, presumably fists landing on Old Man Sun's thin spine. "Where's my daughter? Tell me, where did they take my daughter? Why didn't you go after her? Huh?!"
"Ouch, stop hitting me! Stop hitting me!"
Old Sun cried out in pain, not daring to raise his voice, "Old sister, don't you think about it? That donkey cart has been traveling for most of the night, it's probably deep in the mountains by now. Can my two legs outrun a donkey? Besides, the driver is a skilled fighter, if I chase after him, I might get killed!"
"What can we do? Huh? Are we just going to let Xiaoyun suffer in that remote mountain valley? She's my own flesh and blood!"
Aunt Zhao cried her heart out, but dared not let out a sound, holding it in her throat, making it sound especially eerie. "It's all that Li Xianglian! It's all that little bitch's fault! She must have done it on purpose! She was awake a long time ago, and deliberately changed Xiaoyun's clothes. She's a ruthless ghost who eats people without spitting out the bones!"
"Alright, alright, what's the point of scolding her now?"
Old Sun was clearly calmer than Aunt Zhao, or rather, he was more afraid of death. "The problem now is, we have to get him back, but we can't risk our own lives. If we call the police, you'll be the mastermind, and I'll be an accomplice—we'll both get shot!"
Upon hearing the threat of being shot, Aunt Zhao's crying abruptly stopped, leaving only heavy breathing: "Then what do you suggest we do? I can't just stand by and watch Xiaoyun die!"
After a suffocating silence, Sun Laowai's hoarse voice rang out again, filled with sinister calculation: "Cuifen, the two of us definitely can't do this. It's deep in the mountains, and we can't find anything without at least ten or eight strong men. We need to find someone, someone who dares to go into the mountains and isn't afraid of trouble."
"Who should we look for? If the villagers find out, how will we face them?"
"Looking for the Li family!"
Old Sun slapped his thigh and said, "Xiaoyun is a daughter-in-law of the Li family. Although that old woman Li is no pushover, the tiger cub that comes out of Xiaoyun's belly is a Li family child."
Just say that Xiaoyun got lost on her way to the county town, or that she was kidnapped. The Li family has many able-bodied men, especially her brother-in-law, who I heard works in a coal mine and has a bunch of brothers under him.
"As long as we incite the Li family to go into the mountains to search, we'll follow behind. Once we find her, we'll pin the blame on that human trafficker driving the cart, saying that Xiaoyun was kidnapped and we knew nothing about it. Wouldn't that settle things?"
Silence fell again in the room, clearly as Aunt Zhao weighed the pros and cons.
Li Xianglian, who was listening outside the window, almost laughed.
That old scoundrel Sun is truly rotten to the core.
By dragging the Li family into this mess, we not only gained more helpers but also managed to absolve ourselves of any responsibility.
"Will this... work?"
Aunt Zhao was still a little hesitant. "That old hag from the Li family is as cunning as a ghost. Can she really trust us?"
"You have to believe it whether you want to or not!"
Old Sun said fiercely, "You take Hu'er there, leave the child there, and make a scene, crying and screaming, saying that your daughter died on her way back to her husband's house. If the Li family dares not to help, you stay at their house and refuse to leave! Although they are poor and arrogant, they are afraid of unreasonable people. As long as they are willing to send someone into the mountains, there is hope!"
"become!"
As if grasping at a last straw, Aunt Zhao gritted her teeth and said, "Tomorrow morning, I'll go to Li Family Village! Even if it means losing all my face, I'll drag those Li family members down with me!"
*
As dawn broke, the east was tinged with a deathly white, like the belly of a dead fish.
The dilapidated gate of the Zhao family's courtyard creaked open.
Aunt Zhao, carrying a blue cloth bundle and with her drooling cub Hu'er on her back, shrank out like a thieving mouse.
She hadn't slept a wink all night; her eye sockets were sunken, and her eyes were swollen like rotten peaches. Her wrinkled old face was frighteningly sallow.
Last night, I talked with Sun Laowai for half the night. The more she thought about it, the more scared she became, and the more scared she became, the more she hated it.
I wish I could tear that little bitch Li Xianglian to pieces right now, but for now I have to keep this show going.
Li Xianglian got up earlier than the chickens and was now sweeping around the yard with a bald broom.
Hearing the noise, she straightened up, her virtuous demeanor perfectly concealed.
"Mother, are you leaving already?"
Xianglian wiped her hands on her apron and hurried over. "It's only just dawn, and the road is difficult to walk on. Why don't you rest a bit more? I'll make you two pancakes to take with you. If Xiaoyun really is staying at Auntie's house, you can't go to pick her up empty-handed."
To Aunt Zhao, that cry of "Little Yun" felt like a steel needle piercing her heart.
Aunt Zhao trembled, partly from anger and partly from weakness.
She glared fiercely at Li Xianglian, gritting her teeth as she forced out a sentence: "I don't need your pretense! It's my own daughter, and I love her dearly! You stay home and behave yourself. If you dare to embarrass the Zhao family, I'll skin you alive when Gangzi gets back!"
After saying that, she didn't dare to linger, afraid that she would lose control of her anger and reveal her true feelings. She carried Hu'er on her back and ran towards the village entrance without looking back.
Standing at the door, Li Xianglian watched the hunched and flustered figure gradually disappear into the morning mist before a smile slowly spread across her lips—a cold smile tinged with a chill.
"Go ahead, it's good that you're going."
She murmured to herself, then turned and closed the door. "That den of wolves and tigers is just looking for a place to run wild. If you go there, it'll be like throwing a meat bun to a dog. There's going to be quite a show to watch."
Li Xianglian knew all too well what kind of people her family was.
That was a den of monsters that devoured people without spitting out their bones.
The stepmother, Niu, was a woman who only cared about money and not people. If she found out that the daughter-in-law she had acquired had "lost," she would not only make a scene, but she would squeeze every last drop of Zhao Da Niang's flesh out of her.
Along the way, Aunt Zhao walked with great distress.
Tiger was spoiled rotten. Even when he was on her back, he wouldn't behave. One minute he would cry for his mother, and the next he would cry because he needed to pee. He was so fussy that Zhao Da Niang's old bones almost fell apart.
But she dared not stop, her mind filled with images of her daughter suffering in the deep mountains and forests, as if her heart were being fried in oil.
The scorching sun hung overhead, baking the dirt road until it was practically steaming.
Aunt Zhao shuffled along, her back soaked with sweat that made her blue cloth jacket sticky and uncomfortable.
The tiger cub on her back had long since stopped fussing and was fast asleep on her shoulder, drool dripping all over her neck.
Xinghua Brigade is not close to Hongxing Brigade; it's more than ten miles away.
When Aunt Zhao saw the dilapidated courtyard wall of the Li family, her legs trembled, and her throat felt like it was filled with a burning coal, burning painfully.
The Li family was in a similar situation to the Zhao family; they were also poor.
The courtyard wall was built with yellow mud mixed with wheat straw, and many parts of it had collapsed. It was barely held up by a few rotten pieces of wood.
There were only three low mud-brick houses in the courtyard. The middle room was slightly more spacious, while the side rooms were dark and gloomy, with windows that weren't even properly covered with paper.
Before Aunt Zhao even entered the door, she straightened her clothes, pinched her thigh hard, and tears immediately streamed down her face.
"Mother-in-law! Something terrible has happened!"