Chapter 18: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 18: Shanggou Village 18

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Wang Zhanggen bought pork and fish at the market, arriving fashionably late.

Guo Fuqiang asked the couple what they had come to find him for.

Li Xiulan said:

"Chief Guo, we came specially to thank you. Those local specialties just now, and the fish and pork Changgen bought, were all originally for you. If it weren't for your help, Changgen might have had to go to prison."

"This is my duty, no need to thank me!"

Guo Fuqiang smiled and declined:

"Your family isn't well-off either. Take this pork and fish back and eat it yourselves!"

Li Xiulan hurriedly pressed them on him:

"Yes, yes, Chief Guo, please accept them. We still have a matter we need your help with."

"What matter?" Guo Fuqiang was stunned, his expression turning vigilant: "Let me declare in advance, if it's about getting a household registration for a child, I can't help you with that!"

As the police station chief, Guo Fuqiang often had relatives and friends come asking him to handle things, and the most common request was helping with household registrations, because many over-quota birth children couldn't get registered through proper channels.

If Guo Fuqiang privately registered their children, that would be illegal and against regulations; if the higher-ups found out, the consequences would be severe.

"Chief Guo, you misunderstand. It's not about a child's household registration, but a very small matter. Last time, didn't I write a statement for Yang Dafu? The statement said I willingly seduced Yang Dafu, but the actual situation, Chief Guo, you know very well. Recently Yang Dafu actually posted the statement on the village entrance bulletin board, so now rumors and gossip are flying all over the village. Everyone privately calls me the Pan Jinlian of Shanggou Village. I don't care what they say, but my husband cares deeply. Last night he even got up in the middle of the night to sharpen a knife, almost doing something stupid again. It scared me to death. Chief Guo, could you help us go to the village to dispel the rumors? So my husband can untie this knot in his heart."

Li Xiulan explained the whole sequence of events in detail.

Guo Fuqiang immediately dropped his vigilance, then agreed readily:

"So that's the matter. No problem. I happen to have nothing to do today, I can go with you to Shanggou Village right now!"

Mediating neighborhood disputes among villagers was originally part of Chief Guo Fuqiang's core duties. Moreover, he had over ten years of grassroots experience, so handling such trivial matters was child's play for him.

That very noon, Guo Fuqiang accompanied Wang Zhanggen and Li Xiulan, the couple, to Shanggou Village.

Upon arriving at Shanggou Village, Guo Fuqiang didn't go find Yang Dafu to chat first. Instead, he found Village Committee Secretary Liang Yuanchao and had him go door-to-door to notify every household that at seven o'clock tonight, each family must send at least one person to the Village Committee for a meeting, as there was an important matter to announce.

Soon, in the blink of an eye, it was seven o'clock in the evening.

The villagers had pretty much all arrived.

Yang Dafu, the former Women's Federation Director, came.

Wang Zhanggen and Li Xiulan also came with their family.

Even Liao Chunhua and He Dazhu, that quarreling couple, came.

Facing the crowd of Shanggou Village villagers, Guo Fuqiang said loudly:

"I am Guo Fuqiang, Chief of the Town Police Station. Here I want to solemnly tell you all: stop spreading rumors about Li Xiulan. She is not a promiscuous Pan Jinlian. That statement was forced out of her by Yang Dafu. If she hadn't signed it, Yang Dafu wouldn't have dropped the charges against her husband Wang Zhanggen, and Wang Zhanggen would have had to go to prison. Yang Dafu's attempted rape is an undisputed fact. We police have long had the evidence. It's only because both sides didn't want to go to prison that we mediated and produced this outcome!"

Guo Fuqiang's words immediately caused an uproar among all the villagers present.

Yang Dafu's face turned ugly. He never would have thought that Li Xiulan and Wang Zhanggen could actually get Guo Fuqiang to come speak for them!

"Chief Guo, don't think just because you're a police station chief you can speak nonsense!"

Yang Dafu suddenly stood up, jumping with rage.

Guo Fuqiang smiled coldly:

"Yang Dafu, if you think there's a problem with what I said, you can apply to go through the court process and retry your case with Wang Zhanggen. Wang Zhanggen has already told me he'd rather go to prison than let his wife be slandered. But, Yang Dafu, are you willing to go to prison?"

Yang Dafu's body trembled slightly, and he couldn't utter a word.

Guo Fuqiang continued:

"Back then, I had Li Xiulan sign that statement merely to let you avoid a prison sentence. It wasn't so you could take that statement and stir up trouble!"

At this point, Guo Fuqiang's expression became incomparably stern, his attitude extremely tough:

"I want you right now, in front of all these villagers, to apologize and admit fault to Li Xiulan and Wang Zhanggen. Otherwise, I will have the previous case retried. Your attempted rape is far more serious than Wang Zhanggen's excessive self-defense. I'd say you'd get at least ten years!"

"Wang Zhanggen is attempted murder, how did it become excessive self-defense?" Yang Dafu was very unconvinced.

"I say it's excessive self-defense, so it's excessive self-defense. You raped someone's wife, and you still think you're in the right!"

Guo Fuqiang shouted sternly, his attitude extremely tough.

Because he knew, handling these village disputes, you can't be too gentle, can't reason too much. Most villagers are uneducated people; they fear authority but not virtue.

"In my capacity as police station chief, I order you to apologize. Immediately. Right now!"

Guo Fuqiang shouted again.

Yang Dafu held a fire of anger in his heart, very unconvinced.

Making him apologize to Li Xiulan and Wang Zhanggen in front of the whole village — wasn't that forcing him to admit he attempted to rape Li Xiulan in front of everyone?

How would he ever hold his head up in the village after this?

However, facing the power and authority represented by Police Station Chief Guo Fuqiang, Yang Dafu ultimately lowered his head and backed down. After all, no matter how shameless and roguish he was, he was just an ordinary villager who had been dismissed from his Women's Federation Director post. He knew deep down he couldn't fight Guo Fuqiang.

"Li Xiulan, Wang Zhanggen, sorry. I was wrong."

Yang Dafu unwillingly apologized to Li Xiulan and Wang Zhanggen.

Li Xiulan didn't push her luck, quickly forgiving Yang Dafu:

"Since you know you were wrong, that's good. I don't want to haggle over so much either. Let's let this matter pass."

She didn't care whether Yang Dafu's apology was sincere. She cared that from now on, the whole village would stop spreading rumors about her.

Only if the rumors were curbed would her husband's knot untie.

"Fellow villagers, I guarantee to you that I, Li Xiulan, am absolutely not a promiscuous woman. I only love my husband. I have never seduced any other man!"

Li Xiulan declared to all the villagers.

She spoke these words with a clear conscience, because she had indeed never done such immoral things as seducing other families' men.

However, the moment her words fell, a sarcastic voice came from behind her — Liao Chunhua's:

"Heh, you make it sound better than a song; then what about the matter of you seducing my husband?"