Chapter 84

Chapter 84

Qiu Ziyu recalled when he went to find Nurse Lin’s mother and what that woman said to him: “Actually, I don’t need to investigate to know my daughter is telling the truth. My brother-in-law was spoiled rotten by my in-laws since he was little. My ex-husband was afraid his younger brother would be ruined, so he treated him like a son. Whenever his younger brother made a mistake, he would always call him over to criticize and educate him. Once, I was sleeping in my room and heard my brother-in-law cutting my ex-husband’s clothes with scissors, muttering, ‘You hit me, I’ll stab you to death…’ Then I told my ex-husband about it, hoping he would stop meddling in his younger brother’s affairs. But he always thought his younger brother was still young, a seven or eight-year-old kid who didn’t know any better, and that teaching him a lesson would fix things… In the end, he paid with his life. Do you know why I remarried and left? My in-laws took the one million yuan compensation from my husband’s death and built a house. Life was actually much better than before… But I still wanted to leave because I was afraid that one day I’d die there too.”

Before leaving, Qiu Ziyu couldn’t help but ask, “Then why didn’t you take your daughter with you?”

“I wanted to… but they wouldn’t let go, I had no choice. Later, I secretly went back several times to take my daughter away, but each time they’d come with a big group to make trouble, I had no way… I had to live too.”

Qiu Ziyu said, sighing, “The Lin Family kept Nurse Lin in their grip, but Nurse Lin’s life in the Lin household was actually not good at all.”

“So Nurse Lin and Lin Zhengfeng weren’t on the same side?”

If that’s the case, Nan Mu found it even harder to understand why Nurse Lin would push Wen Miao or cover up the real murderer’s crime.

“Also, about the rape case that Lin Zhengfeng might have committed that you mentioned earlier, I’ve looked into it.”

Qiu Ziyu opened his phone’s photo album, flipped to a few photos, and handed it to Nan Mu.

“These guys have been hanging out with Lin Zhengfeng since they were kids. Around the age of eighteen, they gang-raped a left-behind girl in the village. The case caused quite a stir at the time; all four were arrested. But in the end, only these three were sentenced, and Lin Zhengfeng was released.”

Nan Mu was a bit surprised and carefully looked at the group photo of the four. All of them had a thuggish look at a glance. “Why?”

“Lin Zhengfeng is wicked, but he has some cunning. The day they committed the crime was Lin Zhengfeng’s eighteenth birthday. That girl was this guy’s girlfriend.” Qiu Ziyu pointed to a young man standing next to Lin Zhengfeng in the middle, with dyed yellow hair, who looked relatively handsome among the four. “People nearby call him Yellow Hair. The victim was his girlfriend, sixteen years old, or to be exact, fifteen and a half. On Lin Zhengfeng’s birthday, he was the only one who brought his girlfriend along. They drank too much at the table, and someone-no one knows who-started saying, ‘Lin Zhengfeng is already eighteen and still doesn’t know what it’s like to sleep with a woman…’ Then someone egged Yellow Hair on to give his girlfriend to Lin Zhengfeng. They were saying some nonsense like ‘brothers are like limbs, women are like clothes,’ and ‘share blessings together.'”

“Probably fueled by alcohol, Lin Zhengfeng ignored the girl’s resistance, dragged her to a nearby grain-drying yard, and committed the crime. Yellow Hair probably sobered up midway, regretted it, and then went with the others to the grain-drying yard to stop him. But what happened next is unclear. In the end, not only did they fail to stop it, but it turned into a gang rape. Afterward, because the girl’s condition was serious, someone took her to the hospital, and the doctor called the police. Then everyone was arrested.”
“After the crime, because Lin Zhengfeng was under eighteen, he wasn’t held in the same place as the other three. So when it came to the specific details, the other three were mostly guessing. But there was one thing they could be certain of: by the second interrogation, they never saw Lin Zhengfeng again. I looked into it afterward and found that, at the time, the case did indeed have someone named Lin Zhengfeng taken into custody. But that Lin Zhengfeng was probably someone arranged to take his place and serve the sentence for him. That was why the other three said they never saw Lin Zhengfeng-because he had been swapped out.”

“When Lin Zhengfeng was arrested, the whole village was in an uproar. But his parents argued desperately with the villagers, insisting that Lin Zhengfeng had only been implicated because he often hung around with people like Yellow Hair, and that he hadn’t actually been involved in the case at all. So although some people in the village were suspicious, most of them still believed what his parents said. Later, when the other three were all arrested and Lin Zhengfeng was the only one released, it made his parents’ version of events seem even more credible.”

Hearing this, Nan Mu gave a cold laugh. “The victim was a minor, the crime was committed by multiple people, and it involved a sexual scandal. Cases like that spread fast and have a huge impact. Most people wouldn’t want to get involved… Whoever got Lin Zhengfeng out was no ordinary person.”

Qiu Ziyu agreed with that as well. “Lin Zhengfeng’s parents were just ordinary farmers, and the men his sisters married were all honest, ordinary people too. The Lin family didn’t have the ability to get Lin Zhengfeng out. Anyone capable of helping Lin Zhengfeng make such a huge problem disappear must have been someone formidable.”

Nan Mu thought of the business card he had picked up at Lin Zhengfeng’s house. If it was Huangfu Junsheng of Wisdom Biotech Company, then getting Lin Zhengfeng out really would have been no more than lifting a finger for him.

But he quickly thought of something deeper. “Lin Zhengfeng came from an ordinary family, and he himself wasn’t exactly presentable… If there really was someone so capable behind him, why would that person go to so much trouble to save Lin Zhengfeng? What could Lin Zhengfeng offer him?”

What reason could Huangfu Junsheng have that made Lin Zhengfeng indispensable?

“It definitely wouldn’t be an ordinary reason. People in the village said that after that incident, Lin Zhengfeng became much more low-key. He often left early and came back late, and people could hardly catch sight of him in the village. Some were curious and asked his parents about it, but all they learned was that Lin Zhengfeng had gotten to know some businessman outside, a sworn brother or something, and that Lin Zhengfeng was following him and doing work for him. But as for what exactly Lin Zhengfeng was doing out there, no one knew. Several of Lin Zhengfeng’s sisters said he brought quite a lot of money home every month, so he must have been earning plenty. He was also very generous when it came to spending on the family’s food, drinks, entertainment, and things for his young nephews…” After saying that, Qiu Ziyu asked, “This so-called brother of Lin Zhengfeng’s-do you think he could be the person who got him out?”

“Even if he isn’t the one who got him out, the person helping Lin Zhengfeng must be closely connected to that person.” Nan Mu clenched his fist. “As long as there’s a connection, that’s enough. Start investigating from what happened to Lin Zhengfeng afterward. I want to figure out the relationship between Lin Zhengfeng, Nurse Lin, and Xu Lei.”