Chapter 260

"If it has nothing to do with you, why are your legs shaking?"

Lin Dongfan retorted offhand, choking Zhao Lianyue until tears welled in his eyes, his lips trembling more and more severely.

Zhao Lianyue really wanted to retort: "Don't spit blood at me! My legs shake because my Parkinson's syndrome is acting up!" But the words reached his lips and he swallowed them back.

There's no room for quibbling anymore.

He is now not just shaking his legs.

He is so nervous he lost bladder and bowel control, wetting his pants.

Panic and embarrassment fly together, urine matching the color of his trousers! What state is this? Even if Wang Bo came, he couldn't save his trembling soul.

Now his life's dictionary contains only six words: "Nothing is more grievous than a dead heart."

"Speak! What's hidden in this cesspit?"

A judgment-like voice came at him again.

Facing Lin Dongfan's cold, knife-like gaze, Zhao Lianyue trembled, at a loss, as if seeing his great-grandfather beckoning him on the Bridge of Helplessness.

Zhao Lianyue stammered: "I... I really don't know..."

"Not talking? Fine, then hold it in." Lin Dongfan turned and ordered Zhang Yong: "Haven't you borrowed the waste tubs yet? Tell your men to work swiftly and empty the cesspit immediately."

"Alright, I'll urge them."

Zhang Yong turned and had just reached the hall door when he bumped into the two criminal police sent to borrow the waste tubs; each carried a pole with two tubs, and they also brought back two waste scoops.

Afterwards, everyone got busy.

Not far from the Bai family's pigpen, just a few dozen meters away, there is a large fish pond.

To prevent odor, everyone stuffed cotton balls in their nostrils and held their breath while working. They scooped the waste water from the cesspit into the waste tubs, carried them to the fish pond, and poured it in.

That counts as recycling resources.

Some omnivorous fish will eat fecal residue and rotting meat.

The criminal police came to the village to carry night soil, a truly novel sight; more and more villagers gathered to watch, the scene buzzing with chatter about everything.

Someone said the foul, pungent smell from the cesspit might be coming from a dead rat.

Someone also brought up Bai Yujin, missing for half a year, speculating she might have fallen into the cesspit and drowned. With no one at home, no one would retrieve her body—truly pitiful.

The Bai family originally had five siblings.

Eldest Bai Jianping, now 45, after marrying lives separately from his parents.

Bai Jianping is the type who loves to eat and loathes work, taking care of nothing at home. His father died half a year ago; the funeral arrangements were handled by his daughter, and Bai Jianping didn't spend a penny. He once said: "People are dead, why bother with a funeral? Just wrap them in a straw mat, dig a hole on the hill, and bury them."

Even his son Bai Yongjun couldn't stomach it at the time, nearly cutting off father-son ties.

Lao San Bai Jianwu, Zhao Lianyue's wife.

Bai Yulian differs from her elder brother Bai Jianping mainly because she has money; she values her personal reputation above all, paid for her father's funeral herself, and held a lavish affair.

Lao San Bai Jianwu died young.

When he was herding cattle on the mountain as a child, he was bitten by a five-pace viper; his parents, unaware of the severity, took him to the village herbalist who applied some herbs, and he died the next day, only nine years old.

Fourth Bai Yuping also died in infancy, not even a month old, killed by her eldest brother Bai Jianping.

Back then the parents were busy working in the fields.

They couldn't keep up with the care.

So they had the eldest, Bai Jianping, watch the child at home.

Bai Jianping only cared about playing with village kids, blowing up cow dung, leaving his fourth sister Bai Yuping at home. Later he returned to find she had fallen from the bed onto the floor, bleeding from the head, crying nonstop. Afraid of being beaten, he took advantage of the parents' absence to throw her into a blind well behind the mountain, then lied that she had been dragged away by a wolf dog.

That year, Bai Jianping was already 12.

The fourth sibling was killed by this 12-year-old brat; the parents, knowing, dared not speak up, fearing the brat would be snatched by public security and sent to juvenile detention, since he was their only son.

After a few years, the parents had another daughter.

This daughter is the Bai family's fifth child, the pitiful person the villagers speak of—Bai Yujin, Zhao Lianyue's younger sister-in-law, now 28.

Bai Yujin went missing on the seventh day after her father's burial.

It's been over half a year now.

Whether she's already dead in the cesspit, now everyone is just guessing; before the waste water is cleared, no one knows what is emitting that foul stench.

While the criminal police were busy carrying night soil,

The Bai family's eldest, Bai Jianping, was still playing mahjong at the village entrance shop at that moment.

The village entrance shop, every day a crowd of idlers gathers to watch people play mahjong, more than those actually sitting down to play.

The loudest person at the mahjong table is Zhao Lianyue's elder brother-in-law—Bai Jianping.

"Coffin!"

Bai Jianping threw a blank tile onto the mahjong table.

Despite holding a lousy hand, it didn't stop him from blowing his own horn: "What's that old coot? My son's a driver for the district leadership—am I afraid of him? Even if I've taken his land, he'll have to grit his teeth and bear it! Calling the village head over won't help; when he sees me, he'll still have to tuck his tail and behave."

When his boast rang out, some laughed, others were speechless.

A youth suddenly came over and joked: "Elder Bai, your brother-in-law's been cuffed by the police—do you still have the mood to play mahjong here?"

"Cut the crap." Bai Jianping didn't believe it at all, smiling proudly: "My brother-in-law is the director of the management committee, a deputy bureau-level official—what petty cop would dare arrest him? You lot, you country bumpkins probably don't even know what deputy bureau level means; let me tell you, in an ordinary prefecture-level city, a deputy mayor is at that level."

The youth laughed: "But your brother-in-law really was arrested—don't believe me? Go see for yourself. Now your family's old residence is surrounded by police, with police tape up."

"Bang!"

Bai Jianping slammed his palm down on the mahjong table.

He rose, pointing angrily at the youth's nose: "You damn well deserve a beating! My luck's lousy today because of your bastard's curse—believe it or not, I'll whip you!"

The youth knew Bai Jianping was a tough guy who always brought a weapon when he got violent.

To avoid suffering a loss.

The youth snorted embarrassedly: "Who cursed you? Don't believe me? Forget it—lots of villagers are watching, and I'm not talking nonsense."

He was still speaking.

Another old man walked into the convenience store: 'Bai Lao Da, your old residence really has been surrounded by police; just now police even came to my house to borrow a manure bucket, saying they want to clean out your old residence's manure pit.'

Clean out the manure pit?

Hearing these four words, Bai Jianping's face immediately tensed.

He forgot about mahjong and sprinted home.

'What are you doing? Who let you steal my family's night soil!' Bai Jianping, a total legal novice, actually grabbed a kitchen knife and charged at the old residence's pigsty, shouting at the criminal police who was shoveling manure: 'Put it down!!!'

This scene left Lin Dongfan, Zhang Yong, and the others stunned.

The main reason is that the two of them didn't know Bai Jianping.

Lin Dongfan turned his head and asked Zhao Lianyue, 'Who is that person?' Zhao Lianyue, heart as dead as ashes, now also taking a stance of non-cooperation, didn't say a word.

Since he wouldn't speak, Lin Dongfan also couldn't be bothered to ask further.

Seeing Bai Jianping brandish his kitchen knife and charge over, Lin Dongfan immediately gave Zhang Yong a look: 'Let him see what truth really is!'