"They have already touched Guo Xiaoguang's line." Hearing the voice from the receiver, the man put his fingers together between his eyebrows, and after a while, he put his hand down as if he had made a major decision.
"Destroy the evidence and do it cleanly."
＊＊＊
Guo Xiaoguang moved in the tables and chairs outside the store, looked around, and saw that there were not many people on the street, so he moved the signboard in, and closed the rolling gate.
In the room, there was only a dim, oil-stained light bulb on. The old man was sitting on the bed, leaning on his crutches.
The bedroom transformed from a utility room was narrow and cramped, next to the kitchen, and there was not much room for people to sit. Song Yuhang packed a cardboard box, took off his coat on the mat, and let Lin Yan sit on it. then stand.
In order to make the transcript official and reliable, she took out the recording pen and revealed her identity first.
"Hello, I am Song Yuhang, the captain of the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Jiangcheng Public Security Bureau. The person next to me is Lin Yan, the Chief Prosecutor of the Technical Investigation Division of the Municipal Bureau. The entire conversation will be recorded, open and transparent, we will keep this evidence properly, and will not use it for other purposes except as evidence in court."
When the old man heard her say that Lin Yan was the deceased's classmate, his lips moved, and suddenly tears rolled out of his blind eyes with only the white part of them left.
"Fourteen years... fourteen years... I finally waited for this day..."
"Mom, mom, don't get excited." Guo Xiaoguang sat on the bed, wiping his adoptive mother's tears with the back of his hand.
Song Yuhang squatted down and held her hand: "You have worked hard, slowly tell us everything you know, and we will return Zhu Yong's innocence."
The old man wiped his tears with trembling hands: "Brother Yong... Brother Yong was wronged... It is impossible for him to kill people..."
Song Yuhang and Lin Yan looked at each other: "How do you say that?"
When asked about this, the old man showed a little embarrassment, but in order to find out the truth, she also gave up this old face.
"At that time... you police all said that Brother Yong killed him in revenge, because... because the deceased's father killed his wife, so he beheaded his daughter..."
The old man shook his head with a hoarse voice: "No, no... Brother Yong, Brother Yong has long thought that his wife is dead, but he has never had the courage... He is such a cowardly person... He usually talks about killing pigs for a long time... How could it be possible to kill someone?"
Guo Xiaoguang's eyes were also a little red: "At that time, the police, the media, lawyers... no one wanted to listen to us, and my dad was beaten into a murderer. He has high blood pressure, and he has not been in the detention center for long. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage."
Lin Yan looked at him thoughtfully: "You and your biological mother..."
Guo Xiaoguang twitched his throat and closed his eyes, thinking about it now is still painful.
"She doesn't deserve to be a mother."
In Guo Xiaoguang's intermittent narration, a love that was somewhat deformed and embarrassing under the secular oppression in that era surfaced.
Zhu Yong and Guo Yuezhen are childhood sweethearts who grew up in the same village. They made an appointment to work in a big city.
Guo Yuezhen was arranged by her family to marry a rich squire from the same village with a few dollars. She was a round older than her and was still a widower.
By the time Zhu Yong rushed home, the rice had already been cooked.
He ran to snatch the bride, but was slapped back by his father: "What's the use of following Yuezhen with all your heart! You're just as poor! Let me tell you, don't go out this time when you come back, just stay at home honestly, your mother will help you!" You have found several girls, all of whom are from wealthy families, and the dowry alone is enough for you to drink a pot!"
In this way, the two young people who loved each other fell apart.
After marriage, Guo Yuezhen went to live in the city with her husband, Zhu Yong also married another woman, and the two couples went to the city to work together.
Relying on his skills in the slaughterhouse, Zhu Yong opened a butcher's shop in the vegetable market, working from dawn to dusk every day to make a living.
His wife is also Guo Xiaoguang's biological mother. She is a selfish and mean woman. She married him purely because she liked his honesty, cowardice and ability to work. Zhu Yong's hard-earned money was sent to her family, and the rest was given to her. Woman With this money, I went to gamble with a few girls I met in the hair salon, and I never went home. Until Zhu Yong went to her place of work to look for her and witnessed her having sex with a man, Zhu Yong asked for a divorce in a rage, but at this time he found out that she was pregnant.
The woman cried and begged him. Zhu Yong was originally a weak and uninitiated man. What's more, women have no faults other than attracting bees and butterflies. They also send money home on time every month. virtue.
Zhu Yong planned to wait until the child was born to see if it was his, and if not, he would divorce.
When the baby was born and the boy hugged his fingers softly, Zhu Yong suddenly felt reluctant to leave when he saw the weak woman lying on the bed.
At that time, he firmly believed that everything would be fine, life would be good, and the woman would get back on track. The three of them were harmonious and beautiful.
But the good times don't last long, the country is easy to change, and the nature is hard to change. A woman goes out to spend time and wine after her health is restored. She only runs home when she has no money. After seeing the feasting and feasting of the city, she looks down on Zhu Yong for being so honest. Cowardly and poor man.
The big money she was with, the price of a bottle of wine at random, was enough for their living expenses for a month.
Guo Xiaoguang was often carried on his back by his father when he was a child, and he went to sell meat with him.
When Zhu Yong was too busy, he crawled on the ground alone, not knowing whether he could eat it, picked up the broken bones and raw pork and stuffed it into his mouth.
"Hey, children can't eat raw, why do you feed him this?!"
By chance, Guo Yuezhen came to the vegetable market to buy vegetables, slapped the raw meat from his hands, patted his back, and picked out the meat from his mouth.
Fate brought the two young people together again.
Love didn't wear off much.
Zhu Yong's sense of responsibility to his family is real, and he has deeply suppressed his love for Guo Yuezhen in his heart.
But as everyone knows, the more repressed something is, the more astonishing its power will be.
They did it anyway, each betraying their families, biting each other, and sinking forever in the pleasure of violating.
In Guo Xiaoguang's childhood, his mother beat and scolded him, and she didn't return to the family because of his birth. Instead, she felt that he was a burden, which delayed her spending time with those men, because women who had children were worthless .
I don't know which time, or many times, when Guo Xiaoguang called her mother outside, the woman slapped him across the face, causing a nosebleed.
"Don't call me mom, I don't have a son like you, you are just as worthless as your father!"
Gradually, he stopped barking.
Sometimes when Zhu Yong went to sell meat and left him alone at home, women would bring all kinds of men back and ask him to guard the door and guard the door for them.
Barefoot and ragged, the little child squatted at the door of the dilapidated wooden house, staring at the passers-by with wide-eyed eyes.
After a long time, when the neighbors with good deeds saw him coming out, they grinned crookedly: "Yo, it's open again."
Guo Xiaoguang didn't understand, and when he was a little older, he would understand, but he hoped that he would never understand.
Sometimes when a woman gets a lot of money and is in a good mood, she will give him a few cents to buy bubble gum.
Most of the time, she spread all the anger and torment she suffered from other men on him.
A three or four-year-old child can't stand on her own and stumbles when she walks. Guo Xiaoguang has to pour water for washing her feet, pour out the water after scrubbing her body, and sweep the floor with a broom taller than him. Wipe the table with a rag, and roll up her sleeves to wash her socks and underwear.
If something goes wrong, the woman will push his head into the sink, beat him with the washboard until he screams.
Thinking about it so far, it was still a nightmare. The more Guo Xiaoguang talked, the more he couldn't breathe. He clenched the fabric on his knees. Guo Yuezhen felt his son's hand and squeezed it hard. An old wrinkled hand and a young one Hands clasped tightly together.
During those darkest days, only Guo Yuezhen, the father's mistress, would treat him kindly and smile at him because of her love for the house, and would even dig out money from her own limited living expenses to buy him sweets. Pat the dirt off his body and speak softly to him.
A child actually doesn't understand, he will instinctively rely on whoever treats him well.
Once Guo Yuezhen passed by his house after buying vegetables, and saw him squatting at the yard door playing with mud in the cold winter months, and asked him, "Why don't you go in?"
He replied sullenly, "Mom won't let me in."
There was more pity in Guo Xiaoguang's eyes: "Are you hungry, child?"
He nodded: "Hungry."
Guo Yuezhen dug out the steamed buns she just bought from the vegetable basket, they were still warm, and handed one to him.
It happened to be seen by the woman who came back after drinking, and she fought violently. Fortunately, Zhu Yong also rushed back in time.
That was the first time Guo Xiaoguang saw his father lose such a temper, and it was also the first time he had endured for so many years to make a move on a woman, pushing her to the ground.
"Get a divorce!"
The woman began to cry, and at this time she was unwilling to leave. Although Zhu Yongqiong was a little poor, he treated her very well and never said a word of no.
Not only was the woman unwilling to leave, but she also threatened to tell her parents in her hometown if she divorced, and asked them to return the dowry, so that the neighbors from all over the world would know that it was Zhu Yong who abandoned her, and he was a heartless man!
He also said that he would jump into the river with his son, even if he drowned, he would not leave seeds for the Zhu family.
That night, Guo Xiaoguang looked through the small hole in the wooden board of the back room, his father was sitting on the bed, smoking a cigarette with his back to his mother.
The woman is fast asleep.
The man got up and took out the butcher's knife from the kitchen.
The mosquito net casts his back with the knife raised high.
Guo Xiaoguang was so frightened that he sat paralyzed on the ground.
But that knife didn't cut off after all.
In Zhu Yong, Guo Xiaoguang witnessed the weakest and kindest side of a man.
He obeyed his parents' order and matchmaker's words, married a woman he didn't love, endured the cuckold for many years, and couldn't protect his children in the face of violence, but when he was cornered, he put down the butcher knife.
How could such an honest, cowardly, incompetent and soft-eared person do such inhumane acts as murdering and dismembering corpses
Guo Xiaoguang wouldn't believe it even if he was beaten to death.
If Zhu Yong had such courage, it would not be Chen Chunan who died many years ago, but his unqualified mother.
As Guo Xiaoguang said, he closed his eyes and rolled out two lines of clear tears, which he quickly wiped off with the back of his hand and sniffed.
"My dad didn't even divorce her... how could she kill someone for revenge? To say something that shouldn't be said, we are all relieved that she died..."
As for her death, it was really an accident. Chen Chunan's father went to buy meat, and just when the woman came back to ask Zhu Yong for money, Zhu Yong asked her to wait a while and go to the bathroom by himself, begging her for help. Look at the shop.
The woman responded impatiently, because the two cents had an argument with Chen Chunan's father, which developed into a personal attack, and Chen Chunan's father shoved him.
The woman took the butcher's knife first, but the man missed it and was snatched away by the knife.
She rushed forward again: "You stick, you stick, bah, if you have the ability, stick here!"
Then I don't know whether she was dragged by her or Chen Chunan's father didn't stand firmly on his feet, so he really went in and out of the red knife.
In the past, Chu Nan never mentioned this to her, and Lin Yan didn't ask her either. This was the first time she heard about her father's murder.
How should I put it, Lin Yan is a little, a little...
She closed her eyes slightly, her breathing became a little unsteady, and her right hand clenched into a fist.
It's not worth it for Chunan's father, it's not worth it for Guo Xiaoguang, it's not worth it for Chunan who has been called "the child of a murderer" for so many years.
Song Yuhang didn't shy away from getting close to her because of the presence of outsiders, he walked up to her and pressed him into his arms. Lin Yan put his arms around her waist, sucked his nose twice, and quickly pushed her away .
"I'm fine, let's go on."
Song Yuhang wrote down everything they said: "So, after your father died, did you live with Guo Yuezhen?"
Guo Xiaoguang nodded, patted his mother's hand again, and smiled with tears in his eyes: "Well, if it wasn't for my mother, I would have starved to death by now."
Lin Yan still had a little doubt: "Old lady, don't you have any children?"
Guo Yuezhen shook her head, with a trace of regret on her face: "I haven't been pregnant since I got married. At first, I thought my husband was getting old. Later, I went to the hospital to find out that it was my problem. My husband's family also disliked me, so they kicked me out of the house." Luckily Brother Yong didn’t dislike him, after he died, Xiaoguang and I were left to depend on each other.”
Song Yuhang sighed a little, and didn't know whether it was luck or misfortune for Zhu Yong to meet Guo Yuezhen.
But there is one thing, there is no doubt that it must be his greatest luck for Guo Xiaoguang to meet Guo Yuezhen.
"Old lady, Xiaoguang, if you think about it again, is there anything else that can prove Zhu Yong's innocence? Just because he has no motive for committing the crime, he cannot be cleared of his suspicion."
Song Yuhang did not affect his judgment because of emotion, and raised the difficulty calmly and clearly.
Guo Xiaoguang shook his head sadly: "If there was my dad, he wouldn't die in the detention center."
The two looked at each other, and Lin Yan asked him another way: "In 1994, it started at nightfall on June 15th, where is your father?"
Guo Xiaoguang recalled for a while, looked straight into their eyes and replied, "He has been at home and never went out."
"Can you guarantee it?" Song Yuhang frowned at him, feeling that the case was getting more and more confusing.
The other party raised two fingers together and swore: "I am willing to take legal responsibility for what I said. If there is half a lie, I will die badly."
Lin Yan looked at him: "I believe you."
Guo Xiaoguang scratched his head, and when he heard her say this, a smile appeared on his face, but he frowned quickly, obviously because he still felt uncomfortable when he said this.
"He usually finishes work at the vegetable market at 5:30, rides a tricycle home for an hour to pick me up from school, then cooks me dinner, then chops pig grass to feed the pigs, and looks for the piglets to be slaughtered the next day. Get up and work when you are bright, how can you have that time."
The old man also tremblingly opened his mouth, with tears in his cloudy eyes: "You... If you don't believe me, I can also testify that I was the one who picked up Xiaoguang from school that day..."
Song Yuhang was sensitive to the unusualness in her words: "Why did you pick him up?"
"Because my dad lost his tricycle and walked back." Guo Xiaoguang replied: "I was impressed because I waited for a long time at school and was so hungry. Aunt Guo went to deliver food to my house during the usual dinner time, but found that the light was not turned on to knock on the door. There was no one at the door, so I thought something happened, so I ran to the school to pick me up."
The recording pen flickered, and Song Yuhang also took a pen and paper to write down their conversation verbatim.
It was a coincidence that the car was lost.
Lin Yan: "When did you lose it?"
Guo Xiaoguang thought for a while: "The night before the incident happened. In the early morning of June 15th, my dad got up to slaughter the pigs, and the car disappeared. I borrowed the cart from my neighbor and transported the pork to the market with him."
After the two of them are together, there will always be times when their eyes meet unconsciously. Lin Yan glanced at her, and Song Yuhang took her palm in with one hand, freed her nails that were deep in the flesh, and just grabbed her on his knee.
Lin Yan struggled for a while but didn't break free, he was very angry.
Guo Xiaoguang watched their series of actions, which was too intimate: "You..."
A smile appeared on the corner of Song Yuhang's lips, and he still held her hand tightly: "That's what you saw, let's talk about the case. The car is lost, have you called the police?"
"I reported it. My dad reported it when he came back from the market that afternoon. The police said it wasn't any valuable property. It was a black light, and they might not be able to get it back, so they just registered it and left."
"Who knows that three days later, on the 18th, the police came to the door again. I thought they were here to deliver the car, and when they came, they pushed my dad to the ground, saying that he was suspected of committing a major crime..." Guo Xiaoguang said here, and then said Not going down anymore, Song Yuhang pulled a tissue for him.
"I'm sorry to remind you of these sad things again, but please believe us, the hardships you have suffered these years will not be in vain, I will definitely let your father—"
"It's a shame to be wronged."
"It's a shame to be wronged."
Clenching two fists together, Song Yuhang made a solemn promise to him in a manly way, as a policeman.
Before signing the record, Guo Xiaoguang knelt down again and swore piously to the recorder on the table, which he reiterated again.
"I, Guo Xiaoguang, swear that everything I say is true, and I am willing to take legal responsibility for what I say. If there is a half-truth, I will be struck by lightning and die a terrible death."
After finishing speaking, he picked up a pen, wrote his name, and pressed his fingerprints.
The old lady also walked over with a cane. Lin Yan supported her, picked up the inkpad, and handed it to her.
The old lady pressed down hard, and her fingertips sank deeply into the ink.
Her lips trembled, and under Song Yuhang's guidance, she also pressed her bright red fingerprints on the black and white words.
When she stood up, she couldn't hold on any longer, shed two lines of tears, holding Song Yuhang's arm, she was about to kneel down and kowtow to her.
"I beg... I beg of you... I must... I must return Brother Yong's innocence... I must return Xiaoguang's innocence... I am holding on to this old bone, and I will not wait until the day when the truth is revealed.
The old man wailed, Guo Xiaoguang lifted him up and wiped away her tears.
"Mom, what are you doing, what are you doing, have you forgotten why your eyes are blind? The doctor said you can't cry, you can't cry..."
Lin Yan couldn't bear it anymore, but still remembered another thing.
She took out her business card from her wallet and handed it over: "You can't live here anymore, you will move at dawn tomorrow, here is my business card, take this to Fangyue Cleaning Company, they will give you a new one work and housing."
Guo Xiaoguang looked at this bronzing business card and hesitated: "You..."
Lin Yan stuffed it into his hand: "Hold it if you tell me, mother-in-law!"
Song Yuhang also left him his phone number: "When you have difficulties or encounter danger, call this number, and I will definitely do my best to help you."
They were so solemn that Guo Xiaoguang felt uneasy.
"Is there something to solve the case—"
Song Yuhang shook his head: "I can't tell you anything now, you have to remember that we came here today for tourism, but we just happened to have a meal at your place, helped you deal with a few hooligans, and then left Nothing happened."
"What you said to me today is rotten in your stomach, and you must not leak it to others, otherwise—"
She paused for a moment, and the unfinished words made people shudder.
Guo Xiaoguang got goosebumps and felt numb in his heart, but he also nodded solemnly and held the business card tightly.
"Okay, don't worry, I won't let the next person know that you have been here. This is a secret between us."
"As long as it can bring back my father's innocence, I'm not afraid, I can do anything."
Lin Yan got up: "Then we will take our leave, you..."
Her eyes flicked over the young man's face and the old woman's wrinkled face one by one.
"Take care of yourself."
"Take care of yourself."
Guo Xiaoguang sent them out, and when he was about to close the shutter, he brought out the packed lunch from the kitchen.
"Here, Tangshui, didn't you say that you want to pack a copy to take away? I was thinking, I can't do this job, this may be the last one I made, if you like it, I will give it to you."
"Hey, it may not be the last one, right? Your craftsmanship is pretty good. When the dust of this case is settled, come to the Lin family to cook. I still need a Cantonese chef."
At that time, she didn't know that Guo Xiaoguang said that the last one was really the last one.
Lin Yan was stunned, and took it with a smile. After the rolling gate closed, he stuffed another wad of money into the gap at the bottom.
She always has a cynical look, often utters wild words, has a brilliant tongue, most of the time she is indifferent, paranoid and sharp, and there is always a bit of meanness in what she says and does.
Thanks to Song Yuhang and her being together for a long time, he was able to see the softness and kindness wrapped in this hard shell.
She pulled him up: "Let's go, let's find a place to sleep."
It was cold in winter, Lin Yan stuffed his hands into her jacket pocket to keep warm, and scratched her palms with his nails again and again.
"Open the room?"
Song Yuhang turned his head to look at her, and felt the knuckles curled up and down in his palm. He couldn't help thinking that when the love was strong, she would also clutch the bed sheet so hard and in vain.
"Let's go, couples still have a big bed? With or without a bathtub, or in the wild—"
She hugged her shoulders, smiled meaningfully, and breathed out in her ear like blue, what she said was true.
"Don't look back, keep walking, have you brought your ID card?"
Lin Yan's eyes instantly turned cold.
"Bring it."
"Separate at the intersection ahead, each find a hotel to check in, and contact them in half an hour."
Song Yuhang grabbed her palm: "Be careful in everything."
Lin Yan nodded, at this time a bus just stopped to unload passengers.
When the green light came on again, there was no one at the intersection.
The man in black who was following him dropped his headset: "Fuck, lost his heel again!"