"Brother Liangliang, you’re already fine, why are you so concerned about this matter? Is it because of your classmate?"
"Uh, shouldn’t I be?"
"I thought you didn’t like him."
"Whether I like him or not isn’t really the point. Everyone has their own path in life to choose, and I can only walk the path I believe in according to my own judgment. In the end, who’s right and who’s wrong, history will have to be the one to prove it.
Alright, the doctors should be starting work now. I’m going to get the report. If there’s nothing wrong with the report, I won’t come to find you. I’ll go to the History and Culture Museum to look up some materials.
You live in Shinan Si Yuan Village, right?"
"How do I get there by bus? Since your Grandmaster is here, I won’t take you back. I’ll come to find you in the evening."
"After Shijia Bridge, get off at the second stop and walk inside, then ask about Li Sanjiang’s house."
"Are you sure it can be found?"
"Mhm, Grandmaster is very famous in the village."
"Alright, if there’s no bus in the evening, I’ll take a taxi."
Li Zhiyuan asked curiously, "Brother Liangliang?"
"What’s up, anything else?"
"You seem, quite rich."
He said he came from a rural area in Anhui, but his dress and some of his habits didn’t seem constrained at all.
"Oh, I contracted two convenience stores and a stationery shop at school, and also, I’ve pulled together a group of classmates to form a team. We get some design projects from professors or from outside the school to work on.
There are indeed more opportunities in big cities and universities, and it’s also easier to make money. It was not doable back home, without these objective conditions. Now I send money home to my parents every month.
Actually, by rights, I could skip this kind of internship class, but I don’t want to give up this front-line training opportunity."
"Brother Liangliang, you are amazing."
"So are you, smart kid." Xue Liangliang gently touched his forehead to Li Zhiyuan’s. Seeing that Li Sanjiang and the others had returned, he got up and left.
"Has that university student left?"
"He went to see his classmate."
"Mhm." Li Sanjiang nodded, "Let’s go."
"Where to, Grandmaster?"
Yingzi and Aunt San stayed at the hospital to continue handling the aftermath, while her uncle Zhou Hai and aunt Chen Xiaoling took Li Sanjiang and Li Zhiyuan back home. In a rush for time, they called a motorbike waiting at the hospital entrance.
The rural bungalow was very spacious, facing an artificial river. A little further south, one could see the river surface.
Entering the house, Chen Xiaoling went to pour water while Zhou Hai took out a cloth wrap, unfolding it to reveal a hairpin and a wooden carving.
Li Sanjiang picked up the wooden carving and slightly frowned at the characters on it.
Li Zhiyuan leaned over and read it out loud.
It was exactly as Yingzi had described.
"So foolish... really foolish..." Li Sanjiang put down the wooden carving and patted his leg, "Life isn’t that hard these days, there’s no worry about food and drink, why suddenly act like your mind has been clouded by pig lard?"
Without the concern of the hospital environment, Zhou Hai and Chen Xiaoling directly knelt in front of Li Sanjiang, almost kowtowing, begging Li Sanjiang to save them.
It turned out, they too had started having that dream.
After witnessing the old couple’s fate today, they were almost on the verge of collapse from fear.
"Let’s go, first take a look at the farm. Do you remember where the corpse was buried?"
"We remember, we remember." Zhou Hai immediately nodded, "It was us who personally dug the pit and buried it."
"Hmph." Li Sanjiang let out a cold laugh.
The farm wasn’t far from the Zhou family’s place, leaving the village and walking along the riverbank for a quarter of an hour would get you there.
The farm was small in scale, apart from the owner, there were only two workers, Zhou Hai’s parents.
Therefore, in the initial narrative, not only did they beautify and cover up for Aunt San and Yingzi, but they also didn’t tell Li Sanjiang the whole truth.
"Start digging." Li Sanjiang said.
"Not waiting for nighttime?" Zhou Hai asked.
It was daytime now, and even though few people passed by here, there was still the risk of being seen.
Li Sanjiang nodded, "Then I’ll go back to the village to sleep. I’ll come back tomorrow. You dig up the corpse secretly tonight."
"No, no, that won’t do, sir, I’m scared, I dare not."
"You know fear!" Li Sanjiang nearly shouted, "If you don’t dig during the day, when will you dig? Waiting for it to be night to cause trouble, right!"
"Alright, alright, we’ll dig, we’ll dig."
Zhou Hai and Chen Xiaoling, each with a shovel, began to dig.
During this time, Li Sanjiang asked, "The owner went missing, did you report it to the police?"
"No." Zhou Hai replied after lifting a shovel of soil, "We didn’t dare report, we were greedy at the time, afraid the police involvement would reveal things, and we’d have to hand over the stuff."
"What about the owner’s family?"
"His hometown is in the south, he came here alone to lease the farm, didn’t bring any family."
Li Sanjiang suddenly asked in a deep voice, "Don’t tell me you took care of the owner and swallowed his share, did you?"
Zhou Hai immediately cried out, "Sir, I would never do such a thing!"
Chen Xiaoling quickly nodded in agreement, "We wouldn’t dare commit murder, we dare not."
"Mhm." Li Sanjiang didn’t ask any more. He believed these two wouldn’t go to such extremes and stood up, silently preparing his altar.
Li Zhiyuan helped on the side.
Soon, the coffin was dug out.
Li Sanjiang glanced at it and also breathed a sigh of relief—the coffin was buried intact. Upon opening, the bones inside were still complete, not disturbed or desecrated.
This was... a small mercy amidst the misfortune.
Li Zhiyuan approached the coffin, looked at the bones inside, and confirmed it was indeed a female child.
Li Sanjiang performed the ritual and then burned paper offerings.