Chapter 114: Yan Bin
Yan Bin reacted quickly and came to the courtyard. When he saw the black-red blood all over the ground and the footprints at the scene, his face turned ashen, and his heart pounded wildly.
Without a word, he turned back inside the house: all the cabinet doors and drawers were open, clothes and bed sheets scattered everywhere, even…
The secret compartment was completely empty, with nothing left.
There was no time to feel heartache over the money accumulated over many years—the bamboo basket drawing water had directly shrunk by a third, because something even more enraging had happened—
The box containing the protective talisman originally meant for life-saving was actually taken away by someone, turning it directly into a timed bomb that urged death right now!
Who exactly was it?
Was it his enemy, or…
“My heavens! Which grandson without an asshole did this! My money and ration coupons, my coffin money, son, son, come quickly!”
His hands tightly clenched into fists. After the anger came uncontrollable panic. Just as his mood exploded and he wanted to kill someone to vent, he heard bursts of ear-piercing cries and curses from the old woman’s room next door.
No need to think—he knew that what could make the old woman at home cry and wail like when dad died back then must be that her most treasured money and ration coupons were gone.
But right now, where did Yan Bin have the mood? How could he still concern himself with her meager possessions?!
“Yan Bin, this… what’s going on? Did thieves break into the house?”
“Mingzhu, now tell me everything that happened today without leaving out a single detail.”
With a face showing cowardice and fear, her body seemingly trembling slightly instinctively, the stray bangs falling over her forehead concealed the gleam in her eyes. Huang Mingzhu took a small step back to increase the distance between them.
Feeling a bit safer, she then began to quietly answer the questions he asked.
During the day, aside from the old woman nitpicking and treating her like a thief with constant vigilance no matter where she went—even going to the toilet required guarding outside the door—it was as usual.
Neither of them went out today, nor did anyone come to the house. Aside from the black blood falling from the sky at dusk, there were no other strange occurrences.
“You mean, you were in the kitchen and heard a loud noise?”
What noise was so loud that it could be immediately heard by them, who were cooking in the kitchen and already making quite a bit of sound?
“Like, like… oh right, just like the sound of an enamel basin smashed down from a high place.”
Enamel basin?
Yan Bin walked out of the room door, stood under the eaves, and his eyes scanned back and forth a few times. The entire courtyard was just as he had seen when he came in—there was no enamel basin.
“Did you see the enamel basin?”
“No… didn’t notice. At the time, the old woman she…”
“Fox spirit still wants to complain to my son behind my back? Your skin is itching again…”
“Mom!”
The son’s sudden angry shout stunned Liu Jinhua, and the curses at the tip of her tongue got stuck in her throat.
Only then did she notice that her son’s face was very off, with veins bulging on his temples and his tightly clenched teeth making crisp creaking sounds.
She quickly wiped the snot and tears from her face, and Liu Jinhua hesitantly spoke, “Son, you?”
“Don’t tell me, your money and ration coupons are gone too?!”
Life was almost gone, who cared about money and ration coupons!
Yan Bin stepped forward, gripped her shoulders forcefully, and said word by word, “Mom, this is not the time to worry about this. I ask you, when you heard something wrong and came out of the kitchen to the courtyard, besides the blood, did you see anything else?”
“Anything else?”
Seeing her son extremely serious, with the force gripping her shoulders so strong it hurt her, looking like he had lost something more important than money and ration coupons.
Knowing that her own son was in the business of execution, Liu Jinhua couldn’t help but suddenly feel panicked and terrified inside, covering her head and trying hard to recall.
“Right! Besides that blood, there was a big enamel basin!”
“Where’s that basin?”
“The basin, the basin isn’t right there…”
Her hand instinctively pointed to the spot right against the yard wall, and Liu Jinhua suddenly widened her eyes, “Son, how is it gone… it was clearly right there!”
“You ask me? Who the hell am I supposed to ask!”
“Since you discovered something wrong, and clearly someone threw something in, why didn’t you stay in the courtyard and call for help but instead ran out?!”
“There are two or three people guarding outside every day. Haven’t I told you that?”
“I…”
Liu Jinhua was stunned by his successive angry rebukes and couldn’t come back to her senses for a while.
How could she have thought that a reckless thief would dare come to their Yan family to steal? So how could she have thought to call people in for help?
She only thought it was some dirty trick by a bastard bug from the gutter to disgust people.
Moreover, as an old lady from the countryside who was illiterate, how could she immediately react that this was the ‘lure the tiger away from the mountain’ trick from the storyteller’s notebook?
“It’s all her fault!”
Liu Jinhua glared viciously with her drooping eyes at the thing still whimpering there. If not held by her son’s arm, she would have rushed up to scratch her.
“If not for chasing her, how would I have gone out!”
Huang Mingzhu, who was silently shedding tears and playing the weak role, heard these shameless words of shifting blame, and her trembling shoulders couldn’t help but pause.
She incredulously lifted her head, habitually pinching her crying voice, “Mom, but you told me to go out and see if Yan Bin was back…”
“Shut your mouth for me. Do you have any say? You just blabber blabber blabber!”
“Enough!”
Yan Bin’s face darkened as he slowly released his tight grip on his old woman’s shoulders. The words he spoke carried a terrifying cold menace, “All of you shut up.”
With quiet finally restored in his ears, he worked to calm his mood and adjust his breathing, then turned around and squatted down.
These footprints had obvious overlapping traces; that person had some petty cleverness that wasn’t presentable.
Using this flawed method to lay a suspicious formation, what was it truly trying to cover up?
He didn’t believe one person alone could pull this off. Just those few boxes— no matter how strong, could they carry or hug all the things and make them disappear into thin air?
According to what his old woman and Mingzhu said, from when they left the courtyard until he arrived, it was only a dozen minutes, and neither had gone far from the courtyard gate.
Able to avoid the people outside and silently coordinate inside and out to leave quickly, aside from the wall with the deliberately left footprints, the only option left was…
He raised his head, his gaze intensely turning toward the backyard, where right next to his house was the former old Li’s place.
But after the person was gone, it fell into his hands.
The house was dilapidated and he hadn’t tidied it up, planning to demolish the courtyard and merge the two families into one.
On the surface, he let it lie abandoned, but secretly, not only did he dig a secret room underground, he also opened a very concealed hidden door.
No one besides himself knew about the secret room, but that hidden door…
“Fuck, damn it, if I find out which insider ghost it is, I’ll stew him and feed him to the dogs!”
Amid the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law both trembling in fright from his outburst, Yan Bin rushed out of the courtyard gate without looking back, full of fierce malice.
Until her son left and the loudly slamming courtyard gate stopped, Liu Jinhua patted her chest and glanced sideways at her daughter-in-law, whose little face was scared pale.
“Why aren’t you rolling off to cook? It’s dark, who do you want to starve to death?! Liangpi thing!”
“Old woman, I, I’ll go right now.”
Without someone to back her up, Huang Mingzhu never dared to talk back, because this old thing was truly vicious and ruthless, specializing in women’s sore spots.
She quickly turned and trotted to the kitchen. Without anyone around, her face instantly lost all trace of weakness and vulnerability.
Who exactly did this good deed?
The place she had groped around for so long without finding was hidden under the bed—how did he find the mechanism?
It seemed just as she thought: Yan Bin indeed had unspeakable things hidden…
She only wanted to say: Well done!
She also hoped that the person who got the things knew how to make use of them.
Instantly, only Liu Jinhua was left in the courtyard, sinisterly staring at her daughter-in-law’s back, her heart aching terribly at the thought of the lost money and ration coupons: One day she would make her son see this fox spirit’s true face and thoroughly kick her out!
That way, once she grasped the household management rights, not only could she get back what was lost, but get even more!
……
Su Ning, who was in the space preparing her own dinner, had no idea about the three people outside with their various thoughts, especially Yan Bin, who had been perfectly misled.
After eating and filling her belly, over an hour later, she glanced at the time and, estimating the situation outside, cautiously slipped out.
Staying in the gap between the kitchen and the yard wall, she tiptoed, trying not to make any sound.
Without incident, she circled to the backyard. Based on her observation before coming in, she knew that right behind next to the Yan family was an abandoned house, and flipping over the wall of that abandoned house would lead directly to another street.
Things just happened to turn out this way—purely a lucky mistake.
