The conspiracy of the courtyard

Chapter 62: Doing all kinds of evil

Chen Ping, holding Lu Zixuan and Director Wang, led a large group of people to the Military Control Commission. All the people they brought went to take statements. After Chen Ping and Director Wang reported to the Military Control Commission, they immediately went to the district government to report today's events to the District Government Security Group. Within half an hour after the report, the staff member who was responsible for receiving Qin Baogen was taken away by the Military Control Commission for investigation.

After leaving the public security team, Chen Ping was taken to the external relations department. Although the two places were not far apart, it was an inter-provincial case after all, and the external relations department needed to cooperate. The public security team and the military control committee had the right to handle affairs in other provinces. Chen Ping's cooperation was needed to provide more reliable intelligence in order to get rid of this inter-provincial criminal gang as soon as possible. Chen Ping felt that she was a troublemaker. Although there would be rewards after a big event, she really didn't want to experience a big event again. Big events foreshadowed big cases, and big cases symbolized danger. She secretly vowed in her heart not to meddle in other people's business anymore.

Chen Ping reluctantly recounted her experience today. The staff member was quite friendly and asked in a gentle tone: "Can you tell me what you know about Qin Baogen's bad incident? Any amount is fine. We will follow up in due time. Don't worry."

Chen Ping began to recall the things about Qin Baogen. "My hometown Chenjia Village is right next to Qinjia Village. It should be in 44 when I went to the township to change oil. I saw him for the first time. He was nodding and bowing and leading a squad of Japanese soldiers towards the mountains. I didn't catch up. But I heard that the next day, the old village chief of Qinjia Village and his family of eight were killed by the Japanese. That day, Qin Baogen became the village chief himself. He gathered all the girls over 8 years old from every household to the open space for drying grain, and picked out the pretty ones and took them away. The villagers were angry but dared not say anything."

"Two months later, two girls escaped and came back. They told everyone that Qin Baogen had taken all the girls to the mountain and forced them to get married one by one. He then collected betrothal gifts in the guise of a grandfather or village chief, and warned the girls not to spend the wedding night with the men, or else he would kill their entire families. After three days of marriage, they had to return to their parents' home alone, and then go to the next family. In that year or so, almost all the men who got married nearby were deceived, and it was easy to investigate."

"The next year, the Japanese soldiers were driven away, so he forced his brother Qin Suogen to be the village chief. After his brother became the village chief, he treated everyone well. Qin Baogen wanted to continue to release hawks, but the village chief refused, so Qin Baogen broke his legs. Now he is a cripple. Later, it was heard that he found the bandit's lair again, joined forces with the bandits to rob girls from other villages, and continued to release hawks to make money.

About half a year later, the bandits were wiped out, and he returned to the village to find a few nephews from the same family, and began to rob villages in all directions. They gathered another 40 or 50 people from nowhere, and did almost all kinds of evil things, such as selling tobacco, robbing girls, stealing children, breaking into homes to rob money and food. During the second fight against the bandits, I heard that he was beaten to death as a bandit. I was also surprised to see him today. Seeing him go to find Qin Huairu, I guess he started doing the same things again. That's all I know."

After Chen Ping finished talking about Qin Baogen, it was getting dark. She declined the dinner invitations from the district government leaders and Director Wang, and hurried home with Lu Zixuan in her arms. After a whole day, she really couldn't take it anymore. It wasn't that she was tired, but it was very taxing and gave her a headache. But there were always people who didn't have good eyes. When she returned to the courtyard and just arrived at the middle courtyard, she was stopped by Yi Zhonghai again. "Chen Ping, where did you take Sister Jia and Huai Ru? You..." Before Yi Zhonghai could finish his question, Chen Ping dismissed him with a "get out" without even looking at him.

After returning home, the mother and son continued their work from the previous day, grinding flour. You read that right, grinding flour. After trying the legendary corn flour steamed bread, Lu Zixuan never wanted to try it again. He also knew why it made his throat sore, because the corn flour was almost unfiltered. No wonder Chen Ping said that eating pure corn flour also made her throat sore. That flour should not be called flour, but grains. It is equivalent to cutting corn kernels into dozens of pieces. It is not an exaggeration. Sometimes a corn kernel is divided into several pieces.

Lu Zixuan suggested that Chen Ping look for this small mill. Luckily, he found one in a bankrupt tofu shop. From that day on, Chen Ping became the flour miller, and Lu Zixuan became the vibrator of the sieve. Fortunately, he had a small family and a large space to accommodate this small mill. He Yuzhu had to come to grind flour whenever he had nothing to do, and he kept saying that Lu Zixuan was pretentious while grinding flour. But he ate more than anyone else, so he probably didn't eat much from grinding. If you average it out, it's only a little over two taels per hour.

Now Lu Zixuan finally understood that it was not that they did not understand, but that it was unnecessary. The whole family had to stop doing anything and just grind the flour, but it might not be enough to eat. Lu Zixuan once again realized that the fine flour at this time should be more expensive, it was too much work. Later, I learned that there were experts at that time, and they said that large grains were slow to digest and could not resist hunger.

When the mother and daughter were talking about how many times they had to grind the few pounds of corn flour, there was another knock on the door. "Chen Ping, open the door. I have something to discuss with you." It was Lu Zhihai's voice. Chen Ping didn't even open the door and shouted, "Get lost. If you want to find Jia Zhang, go to the Military Control Commission. If you knock on the door again, I'll chop off your hands." Then there was no sound outside.

Chen Ping asked uncertainly: "Is he gone? How come Lu Zhihai has no self-awareness at all? He knows that I don't like him, but he still comes here to get scolded?"

Lu Zixuan shrugged and said, "I guess he feels that we have some old feelings for each other. To be honest, I am also annoyed with him. If we were not related by blood, he would have paid to break his arm just based on the slap he gave me when I was three months old. I felt that slap was meant to kill me, he didn't hold back at all, and I only recovered my hearing in the past few months."

Chen Ping touched her son's head with some distress and said, "In fact, it's okay not to regard him as your father. No one knows it anyway. I just hate myself for being so cowardly at that time. I should have broken his legs when he was drunk. Now I really regret it. I was so stupid. I wanted to kill my son, but I still thought about the friendship between us from the same hometown."

Lu Zixuan quickly interrupted her: "Mom, don't you dare have such thoughts, our good days are still ahead. Don't be stupid, him? If I want to break his legs, I won't even spend the night with him. I just don't want to bother with such a clown. I guess he's almost killed himself. Do you remember the mental control I told you about? He's been tricked, but he doesn't know it."

"Don't you feel that his eyes have been a little dazed recently? Yi Zhonghai scolded him like a grandson that day, but he didn't resist and had an expression of "I was wrong". I don't know who made him like this. Have you visited Lu Zhihai's wife recently? Is there anything different?"

Chen Ping thought for a while before answering, "I went to see her. I saw her a few days ago. She was no different. She was still at home with her daughter. I just felt that the atmosphere in her home was a little strange. I didn't ask. Didn't you tell me to mind my own business? I feel like I'm a busybody. Son, do you think Qin Huairu was involved in this?"