Chapter 180: There’s a Thief

Chapter 180: Chapter 180: There’s a Thief

"Someone’s keying the car..."

Without a second thought, Li Yuan broke into a run and chased after them.

"Stop, thief! There’s a thief!"

The roar startled the sparrows in the treetops, sending them fluttering away.

His booming voice made lights flick on in the neighboring houses.

"A thief? Where?"

Someone else had clearly heard what Shen Yujie shouted.

"Pengfei, run!!"

They immediately turned their heads east and yelled.

"Quick, stop him! Don’t let him get away!"

In the end, Song Pengfei didn’t manage to escape.

He had only dashed about twenty meters before Li Hanchen grabbed him by the back of his collar.

Song Pengfei lurched forward, his feet slipped, and he was instantly slammed into the mud.

Shen Yujie rushed over and started swinging her fists at Li Hanchen’s arm.

"Let go! I did this! It has nothing to do with Pengfei!"

Li Hanchen remained expressionless and uttered a single sentence.

"Both of them. Take them away together."

That night, Wujiacun Village was in an uproar.

Flashlight beams were all focused on the car’s body.

The brand-new front of the car was covered in scratches where Shen Yujie had keyed it.

Li Hanchen immediately called his unit. The political commissar answered and asked, "Is everyone okay?"

"Everyone’s fine. We caught the person who keyed the car on the spot."

"Then just handle it by the book. Don’t panic."

"But the car was damaged on my watch..."

"Alright. Just submit a report on the situation when you get back."

"Yes, sir. I’ll remember."

Shen Yujie had just sprinted back to the village entrance.

When Wei Guilan grabbed a slipper and chased after her, slapping her on the rear.

"You little drama queen! How can you be so vicious? Huh?"

The sole of the slipper landed with a sharp, vicious SMACK.

Song Yao leaned against a wall, cracking melon seeds. Spitting out the shells, she chuckled, "The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!"

The people nearby all nodded in agreement.

"Isn’t that the truth! She’s just like her mother. Daring to mess with a soldier’s car... she must have a death wish."

Nearby, Song Pengfei was rolling on the ground, wailing his head off.

"Let me go! I didn’t do it! I really didn’t!"

He was tied up with hemp rope like a dumpling, his hands bound behind his back.

Shen Yujie started screaming too.

"I did it alone! Come after me! Let Pengfei go! This has nothing to do with him!"

Song Yao crossed her arms and rocked back and forth slightly.

"Whether he’s involved or not isn’t up to you."

She pressed her foot on a broken branch on the ground, grinding it lightly a couple of times.

"Ptooey!"

Shen Yujie turned her head and spat in Song Yao’s direction.

"You wretched girl..."

The glob of spit had barely left her mouth before the wind blew it off course.

"SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!"

Wei Guilan raised her hand and slapped her across the face. "That’ll teach you to run your mouth! That’ll teach you!"

Each slap was heavier than the last, and Shen Yujie’s left cheek quickly began to swell and turn red.

That night, Wujiacun Village was more lively than on New Year’s, with crowds gathered in front of every house.

Inside the Song Family home, Zheng Cuiyun sat waiting alone.

She waited until midnight, but there was still no sign of the siblings. Her eyelid began to twitch uncontrollably.

’It’s impossible... They couldn’t have been caught so quickly.’

She stared at the kerosene lamp by the stove.

The flame flickered, casting her shadow dancing on the wall.

’Even if... even if it really went south, they wouldn’t be able to pin it on my husband.’

She poured herself a bowl of cold water.

After gulping it down, she crawled under the covers, closed her eyes, and pretended to be asleep.

The next morning, the two still hadn’t shown up.

Zheng Cuiyun found an old headscarf, wrapped it around the lower half of her face, and slipped into Wujiacun Village with her back hunched.

She didn’t dare take the main road, sticking to the shadows along the bases of walls.

She didn’t even need to ask around. Everyone squatting by the roadside or cooling off under the trees was talking about what happened last night.

"My goodness, those two have some serious nerve!"

"That car belongs to a soldier! Keying it... they’ll be locked up for at least a few years!"

"They basically dug their own graves."

Zheng Cuiyun understood immediately.

Song Pengfei and Shen Yujie had definitely been taken away.

But she hadn’t given up hope. Steeling herself, she grabbed a familiar-looking person to ask.

"Those two kids who keyed the car, what’s their surname?"

The person didn’t answer, just stared at her for two seconds.

Suddenly, they slapped their thigh.

"I remember now! You’re from the Song Family, aren’t you? You’re the one who was shouting at the gate of Li Hanchen’s courtyard yesterday!"

Zheng Cuiyun quickly pulled her headscarf up higher to cover her eyebrows.

"It has nothing to do with me... It really has nothing to do with me..."

The person couldn’t be bothered to listen and cut her off.

"Your husband and his sister were cuffed and taken away last night. If you want to know more, go ask at the commune office!"

Zheng Cuiyun turned and fled, her headscarf blown askew by the wind.

She really did go to the commune office.

The guard let her in, saying she could deliver two sets of clean clothes.

Zheng Cuiyun clutched the cloth bundle to her chest, her steps heavy and hurried.

She didn’t say much to the guard, just gave a nod and headed inside.

The hallway was empty, with a patch of plaster peeled off the wall.

The moment Song Pengfei saw Zheng Cuiyun, his legs turned to jelly.

He threw himself against the iron bars, gripping them tightly with both hands.

"Cuiyun! You have to go beg Song Yao! For the sake of us growing up together, ask her to go easy on me! Don’t let them really send me to prison!"

He wiped his face with his sleeve as he cried.

"Didn’t your older sister thump her chest and swear she’d never rat you out?"

At the mention of Shen Yujie, Zheng Cuiyun’s teeth began to ache with rage.

"They were caught red-handed with the evidence!"

Song Pengfei wiped his runny nose.

"We were caught right in the act... I’m regretting this so much my guts are turning green!"

He suddenly kicked the iron bars.

"It’s all Shen Yujie’s fault! What kind of rotten idea was that? Now look, we’ve lost everything, and my life is on the line!"

Zheng Cuiyun gave a cold laugh.

"Fine, I’ll go ask her! I’ll ask her to her face: Was it you who incited Pengfei to do this or not?"

She bent down to pick up the cloth bundle and dusted it off.

Song Pengfei nodded eagerly.

"Yes, yes! You have to throw those words in her face! I don’t want to go to prison, and I especially don’t want Xiao Wen calling some other man ’Dad’ in the future!"

When he mentioned Xiao Wen, his voice cracked.

His eyes darted around, then he suddenly lifted his left hand and scraped the back of his right hand hard with his nails.

"I haven’t slept a wink all night! I was so scared I nearly jumped out of my skin!"

Zheng Cuiyun turned and headed for where Shen Yujie was being held.

Her strides grew longer and longer, her pant cuffs brushing against the foxtail grass by the path.

The dewy tips of the grass dampened the tops of her shoes.

In the past, Shen Yujie had utterly looked down on Zheng Cuiyun.

When they ate, she would angle her chopsticks toward Zheng Cuiyun, and wouldn’t even pick up the grains of rice she dropped on the table.

When hanging laundry, Zheng Cuiyun’s clothes had to be hung on the lowest line.

Why?

Because back then, they had Song Yao up front acting as their personal ATM, subsidizing all the family’s food and expenses.

Every month, Song Yao would send money, and Shen Yujie would personally open the letter, tucking the folded paper under her pillow after she was done.

Shen Yujie felt that Zheng Cuiyun was just a freeloader who ate without working, and she would find fault with her at every turn.

Whenever the two of them met, it was like cats and dogs; they just couldn’t get along.

This time, however, the moment Shen Yujie saw Zheng Cuiyun, her eyes immediately reddened.

"Cuiyun... you... you really came?"

Zheng Cuiyun rolled her eyes.

"I didn’t come all this way just to see you. I’m here on behalf of Pengfei."

She stared at the fire poker in Shen Yujie’s hand without a word.

Before her own words had even faded, she launched into a tirade.

"You’re really something, aren’t you! The moment you make a move, Pengfei falls right into the pit with you!"

She slammed the cloth bundle onto the ground, and it fell open.

"You’re a walking disaster! Nothing good ever happens when you’re around, but you’re always there for the bad stuff!"

She reached out, grabbed a jacket, and shook it open, holding it up to the light to look at the patches on the cuffs.

"Patch after patch... no matter how neatly you mend things, you can’t shut that mouth of yours! Didn’t you swear up and down you’d keep him safe? Now he’s behind bars, left out in the cold!"