Lin Shuyue sat next to Hang Jiabai, and they were both speechless for a moment.
It must be said that Lin Shuyue was shocked at this moment. Cao Manjin had a very hard life and was very miserable. She was pretty, but she wasn't really that beautiful.
Hang Jiabai couldn't figure out why Hang Jiaqing liked her. The three of them were speechless. After a while, Hang Jiabai said, "Wait, brother. Didn't you have a partner before?"
Hang Jiabai remembered it very clearly. Six or seven years ago, when he was in high school, he came here during one summer vacation and saw Hang Jiaqing writing a letter to a girl. He secretly asked him about it, and Hang Jiaqing said that she was his comrade-in-arms and his girlfriend.
Hang Jiabai asked about their progress, and Hang Jiaqing said they were already discussing marriage, but hadn't told Hang Yuhua and Yin Xin yet. However, there had been no further news. He had asked once, but Hang Jiaqing remained silent for a long time, and eventually, Hang Jiabai didn't ask again.
"She's gone. Six years ago, she was beaten to death by poachers while chasing them." Saihanba borders Inner Mongolia Province, where there are many wild animals on the grasslands.
After the trees on the dam side grew up, wild animals gradually came here to settle down.
Over the years, they have multiplied to a considerable number. Even in the woods behind their yard, after the snow, sometimes when standing in the yard, you can see pheasants and rabbits strolling around, and there are quite a few squirrels on the trees.
"We weren't from the same forest area, but we happened to be patrolling that area. When we got there, she was already dead. She had been stabbed 30 times."
"The poachers didn't go far away. Each of them had a homemade gun. When we met, a fierce battle broke out."
"That time, two of our patrol team members were missing. The poachers were afraid of attracting more people, so they ran away after we fell. Just when we were about to bleed to death, Cao Manjin arrived and took us to a place where we could contact the outside world."
"She was a skinny little woman, but she carried five of us grown men to the bushes by the roadside and went to find someone to rescue us. After we were rescued, she went back and carried my partner and two dead comrades back to the camp."
The fur of wild animals is valuable at all times, especially in the northern region. It is extremely cold in autumn, so the rich have started to wear the fur of various animals, and it seems that there has been no change in this trend for thousands of years.
Because the fur of wild animals can be sold at a high price, many people have begun to hunt animals. The more precious the animal, the more valuable it is. Moreover, in the eyes of those poachers, wild animals are valuable from head to toe. Their skin can be sold for money, and their meat can also be worth a lot.
Poachers have become more rampant over the years.
"Cao Manjin went to look for her daughter." Hang Jiaqing added from the side.
Lin Shuyue keenly heard the way Hang Jiaqing addressed his girlfriend and Cao Manjin. She hesitated for a moment and asked, "Brother, are you sure you like her instead of being grateful to her?"
This was the first sentence Lin Shuyue said to Hang Jiaqing when they met tonight. Hang Jiaqing looked up a little confused.
Lin Shuyue and Hang Jiabai exchanged a glance, and Hang Jiabai couldn't help but pinch his brows. "Let me ask you this: if your partner wasn't dead, but was alive, even if she only had one breath left, lying in bed in a vegetative state, and Cao Manjin rescued you from the woods, who would you choose?"
"What you're asking is nonsense. If my partner is still alive, why would I need to choose?" Hang Jiaqing blurted out these words, and as soon as he said them, he was stunned.
Lin Shuyue was silent. She'd heard before that some people were clueless about emotions, often confusing affection or other things with liking and loving. She'd always thought that was nonsense. How could someone not know what their feelings were?
She finally opened her eyes today. It turns out that there are really people who don't know!
Hang Jiabai glanced at the interrogation room and pulled Hang Jiaqing up: "Come on, let's go outside and have a cigarette."
Sometimes, Hang Jiaqing still dotes on his younger brother. He feels inexplicably guilty towards Hang Jiabai. This is probably because he grew up with his parents, while his younger brother could only grow up with his grandparents.
Although the conditions here are harsh, it is still different after all to be with their parents.
The two went out together. They were of similar height, but Hang Jiaqing was a little thinner than Hang Jiabai.
The two of them didn't walk far. After all, the wind was too strong and it hurt on their faces.
Lin Shuyue was right next to the windowsill and could clearly hear the conversation between the two.
Hang Jiabai lit a cigarette for Hang Jiaqing. Because he had lived in this cold place for many years, his job required him to go out on patrol regardless of the cold or heat, so he had a strong addiction to smoking. Hang Jiabai gave it to him, and he smoked it, even though he hadn't finished the cigarette just now.
Hang Jiabai also smoked a cigarette. He asked, "Brother, let me ask you, do you feel bad when you see Cao Manjin giving birth to another child?"
Hang Jiaqing rolled his eyes at him and said, "Are you crazy? They're a normal couple, having children is a natural thing, why should I be upset?"
Hang Jiabai's expression towards Hang Jiaqing was even more indescribable. "Then let me ask you again, if Cao Manjin decided not to live with that bastard Wei this time, would you marry her?"
Hang Jiaqing fell silent after hearing this. A short-haired girl in a green training suit appeared in his mind. She was holding a hat in her left hand and a handful of light yellow dandelions in her right hand, as if she was slowly walking towards him.
Hang Jiaqing had never thought about living with Cao Manjin.
His silence said it all. He almost choked on his cigarette. "Then tell me, how do you like her? Do you miss her when you haven't seen her for a long time? Do you miss her when you can't sleep at night? Do you dream of being with her? When you see her tired from work, do you feel sorry for her and want to help her? When you see her being bullied, do you get angry?"
"When you see she's having a hard time, do you have the urge to tell her to divorce and marry you?"
Hang Jiaqing answered his brother's questions one by one, saying, "I don't miss her very much. I don't miss her when I can't see her for a long time, nor do I miss her when I can't sleep at night. I've never thought about her in my dreams."
"I did feel bad when I saw her working so hard." Hang Jiaqing thought for a moment and then said, "But when I saw her working with her child, I felt even worse for the child. I did think about helping her, but I always told my mother and let her handle it. I never thought about stepping in myself."
"I get angry when I see her being bullied, but I also get angry when I see others being bullied. I did think about asking her to divorce, but I never thought about asking her to marry me."
Hang Jiaqing only had the urge to get married once in his life, and that was with his girlfriend Zheng Moli.
"Then when did you realize that you liked Cao Manjin?" Hang Jiabai took bigger puffs of his cigarette.
Hang Jiaqing scratched his head. "Just in the past week or two, the new guy in our team found a girlfriend at the bottom of the dam. Every day during patrol, he tells us how he feels about her. I think I have a crush on Cao Manjin too. I haven't wanted to go home these past few days. I feel like I'm a filthy person. I'm coveting someone else's wife."
Hang Jiabai couldn't help it and scolded Hang Jiaqing: "I think you are too idle and have nothing to do, so you think too much. It's really like giving half a catty for eight taels, but you are also half-filled bottle. I don't think you like Cao Manjin that much. At most, you are just grateful." (TL's Note: If you want to understand the meaning of this part, you may read the Author's Thought at the end of the chapter. I'll try to explain it as clear as possible as I can there.)
"If you like someone, apart from other things, at least you have a possessive feeling towards them, but you don't have that feeling towards her. Think carefully about it, do you have that possessive feeling towards her, and do you have that possessive feeling towards your partner?"
This is a good question. Hang Jiaqing had never thought about it before. Now that he thinks about it carefully, he feels that even if Cao Manjin divorces and immediately gets together with someone else, he won't have any doubts. But then he thinks again, if it's Zheng Moli who was with another man, even if he is close with that person, his heart still feel uncomfortable.
Hang Jiaqing was no fool. Breaking out of his mindset, he realized his feelings for Cao Manjin weren't just about liking her, but about gratitude and sympathy. At that moment, all the emotions from the past few days vanished, and he felt a sense of relief. The complex emotions he'd felt when he saw or thought of Cao Manjin vanished.
Thinking of how he had just rushed into the Public Security Bureau with a red face, he couldn't help but squat down, feeling embarrassed but also a little funny.
Hang Jiabai rubbed his head, feeling amused and angry at the same time. He squatted down as well and asked, "How did you and your girlfriend get together before?"
"She wrote me letters, so many letters, and even had the audacity to come all the way from the Third Company's forest farm to find me. Every time we had a meeting, she would bring me so much food, so much so that I wanted more. I didn't want her to come all the way home."
Speaking of his girlfriend, even though she has been gone for four or five years, Hang Jiaqing still has a lot to say. Five years have passed, and when he thinks of the things she did back then, he still feels extremely happy.
"But later on, I went to see her more often. After all, she was my girlfriend, and I quite liked her. We lived 30 or 40 miles away, but we saw each other three times a week and wrote letters almost every day."
Hang Jiabai sighed as he listened to what Hang Jiaqing said. "You already have a partner, and you have no experience in relationships, so how come you still can't tell the difference between gratitude and liking someone?"
Hang Jiaqing's face flushed red and blue. "Isn't she married? I think this is the best way for me to do it. It's based on emotion, but it's also based on etiquette."
Hang Jiabai didn't know what to say anymore: "Then what's the main reason you came after her this time?"
"It's mainly because I'm worried that she can't bear it. She's suffered a lot. After her second child was sent away, she went to look for her children every now and then. She was a little crazy. San Ya was her life. Now that San Ya is gone, I'm afraid she can't bear the blow." Hang Jiaqing told the truth.
Hang Jiabai looked carefully at Hang Jiaqing's expression. Seeing that he didn't have any erotic thoughts when he said this, and his eyes were clear, he resisted the urge to curse.
Lin Shuyue was listening inside and was also speechless.
Yin Xin and Hang Yuhua came out from inside, followed by the young policeman they had met before. Hang Jiaqing walked up to them, mature and steady, and greeted them.
Hang Yuhua and the young policeman were not surprised by his arrival. Hang Jiaqing was the deputy captain of the forest farm police team. The captain was already quite old, so it was normal for Hang Jiaqing to come.
Only Yin Xin looked at Hang Jiaqing carefully several times, and was finally very disappointed. She saw Lin Shuyue in a blink of an eye, and she pulled Lin Shuyue to the corner behind the door.
Yin Xin asked, "Ah Yue, when your eldest brother came in just now, did he seem anxious?"
Lin Shuyue looked at Yin Xin. She didn't want to lie to Yin Xin, but she also didn't want to tell her about Hang Jiaqing. Yin Xin kept looking at Lin Shuyue. Seeing her expression, she didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
Seeing Lin Shuyue looking at her, as if curious about why she asked that, Yin Xin liked Lin Shuyue the first time she saw her.
She and Hang Jiabai came here and agreed with her meaning. This was already his future daughter-in-law, and there were some things that she should know. Besides, those things were not shameful, so it was okay to tell them.
"As for your eldest brother, he had a girlfriend six years ago, but that girlfriend later died, and he hasn't gotten over it. He spends all his time working and fighting poachers. Every time I mention starting a family to him, he either keeps silent or says he already knows."
"I noticed he was avoiding Man Jin a while ago, and I thought he fell in love with her because she saved his life."
"I originally wanted his father to spank him, but then I took a closer look and realized this idiot couldn't even differentiate whether he like her or just feeling grateful to her. Tell me, why is he so clueless?"
Yin Xin had long seen what her son's feelings were for Cao Manjin, but she still had some hope in her heart that he will really realize what he feels.
Forget it, just like what Old Hang said, children and grandchildren have their own blessings, why should she care so much.
This is the only way Yin Xin can comfort herself.
The greetings on the other end were still going on, and Aunt Wang also came out. There were traces of tears in the corners of her eyes, obviously she cried while talking about the details.
Li Xiaohe and Wei Guoyong, mother and son, had not come out yet. Zhao Fu came out to pour water, and Hang Yuhua walked up to them and asked quietly about the situation.
Everyone was an old acquaintance, and Zhao Fu did not hide it from Hang Yuhua. It was also because he really wanted to find someone to talk to, and he couldn't hold it in any longer: "They are interrogating, this woman is really interesting."
This sentence attracted everyone's attention.
"This woman is truly cruel. When she was little, she pushed her sister into the water, causing her to be washed away. After she got married, she was dissatisfied with her mother-in-law, so when her mother-in-law was sick and bedridden, she sent her water and food laced with rat poison. The amount was very small, and her mother-in-law died after drinking the poisoned food for half a month."
"After that, she came to the forest farm to be with her husband. However, she was not disciplined and fell in love with a man at the bottom of the dam. Her husband discovered her. After beating her, she was furious and felt that she could not live a carefree life with this man around. So she used the same method to kill her husband."
"Her husband died while working because he took too much poison. You all thought he died suddenly, right?"
"Then there were the two bachelors at the bottom of the dam. Because they didn't give her the money she wanted and because they threatened to sue her, she killed them. Her eldest granddaughter was pushed down by her because her son and daughter-in-law were both formal employees of the forest farm, and their eldest and second child didn't meet the policy requirement of a five-year age gap between children."
"In order to avoid being fined and to keep her son's job, she pushed her eldest granddaughter into the river. The second child was a daughter, and she sold her in anger. It's said that within two years, the child was gone too."
"She was annoyed with her third granddaughter. She feels like she's blocking her grandson's path to reincarnation. So she heard from a fortune teller at the bottom of the dam that letting the child die in the most painful way possible would scare the girl away. If Cao Manjin has another child next time, it will be a boy."
"This woman is quite cruel. The man she's with now in the dam wants to marry her and have her son and daughter-in-law take care of him in his old age, but she's not happy about it and has already poisoned him. Xiao Wang, go find that old man and drive him to the city for an examination. I'll call the higher-ups."
"There are too many people involved in this matter. We can't investigate it. The police from the county have to come and investigate. If the county can't investigate it, the city has to come." Zhao Fu touched his head.
Everyone present looked at each other in bewilderment. Lin Shuyue knew that Li Xiaohe had a high sin value. She thought that she had at most killed her three granddaughters, but she didn't expect that she had so many lives on her hands.
"This one is really a bad news." Lin Shuyue couldn't help but say it out loud.