chapter 48

My last two sentences seemed to have struck the Old Woman’s fatal weakness.

She looked at me in a panic, her face not only anxious but also shocked.

Perhaps she couldn’t understand how I knew about what she and her son had done.

Actually, it was quite simple.

When Li Liang was throwing something by the well, Song Xiaotian and I happened to catch him in the act.

Although the water in that particular well wasn’t used for daily drinking, there’s more than one well in this village.

We didn’t know whether Li Liang had only put something in one well, or in all the wells.

But too many people had died in this village, and the Village Chief had said that almost everyone in the village died of illness, mostly the elderly. Young people rarely died of illness, but many suffered from infertility.

Connecting this to Li Liang’s act of throwing things into the well, Song Xiaotian and I had already discussed it before coming here.

It was very likely that Li Liang had put some kind of chronic poison into the well, though we didn’t know exactly what kind. The villagers had been drinking water with chronic poison for a long time; the elderly couldn’t withstand it, so their organs were damaged, and they died painfully.

The young people, being healthier, might not have been poisoned as deeply, but their fertility was affected.

After they left for the city and stopped drinking the village water, they gradually recovered.

As for when Li Liang started poisoning the wells, I think it was probably after his father died.

Li Liang is mentally challenged; he doesn’t know what poison is, nor how to make it. So where did the poison come from? Someone must have instructed him.

And the only person who could have instructed him was his mother-the Old Woman. There was no one else.

After all, the Old Woman had lost her husband, and he was forced to death by the villagers. She and her son were often bullied by the villagers, so her hatred for them ran deep. Her actions were understandable.

I also asked the Village Chief whether the Old Woman knew any medicine.

The Village Chief said she didn’t, but her father did-he used to be the village doctor.

I thought, maybe the Old Woman wasn’t entirely ignorant; she might have picked up some knowledge from her father over the years, especially about making poison.

Actually, these were just speculations by Song Xiaotian and me; we had no solid evidence.

But the Old Woman’s reaction now was no different from a guilty thief-she had basically admitted it herself.

I looked at her and said, “We don’t care about what you and your son have done, and we won’t meddle in your affairs. We just want to ask a few questions. Once we’re done, we’ll leave.”

The Old Woman sighed and put away her hostile gaze. “Go ahead and ask.”

I said, “Back then, Li Liang fell seriously ill and you had no money for treatment. Later, you suddenly got ninety thousand yuan for his medical bills. Who gave you that money? Did you ever meet that person?”

The Old Woman shook her head. “I never met him, and I don’t know his name.”

I continued, “But you knew there was such a person, and you must have realized afterward that after your family received the ninety thousand yuan, your daughter committed murder. You should know what happened. Did your daughter ever mention that person to you?”

The Old Woman thought for a moment and said, “I only heard our girl mention that the person looked gentle and refined, was from the city, and could give money for Liangzi’s treatment. She might have told me his name, but I didn’t remember it, and after so many years, I’ve forgotten.”

“My husband and I didn’t know what that person did at the time. We just thought we’d met a kind-hearted person.”
As she spoke, the Old Woman suddenly burst into tears, choking up: “We still treated him as a benefactor. Who would have known, it was him who instructed our girl to kill. Our girl was foolish too-she ruined herself just to cure her brother’s illness.”

“Our girl, she was a good person-filial and obedient. But you police just wouldn’t let her go, forced her to run away with that Lv Zhengxian, and in the end, she didn’t meet a good end either.”

Everything she said after that was just the Old Woman’s complaints.

She believed Li Xiumei was a good person, and that the police should have let her go. If the police hadn’t kept pursuing her, Li Xiumei wouldn’t have died. In her eyes, it was the police who drove her daughter to her death.

I couldn’t be bothered to argue with her. With such a stubborn old person, reasoning was pointless.

“Old Woman, try to remember that person’s name. Even if you can only recall his surname, that’s fine.”

Now, the only one who might have any impression of that person was probably this Old Woman.

But she racked her brains and still couldn’t give me the answer I wanted.

“I’m old. There are many things I can’t remember.”

“Sometimes, even when it comes to Liangzi, I have to think for a long time to recall who he is. There’s no use pressing me.”

Hearing the Old Woman’s words, I was startled.

This seemed like symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease-commonly known as senile dementia…

Seeing that she truly couldn’t remember, I didn’t press further.

I asked another question: “Old Woman, how did you know your daughter had died?”

The Old Woman was stunned, and tears streamed down her face again: “It was the girl who told me in a dream.”

A Ghost appearing in a dream…

I swallowed and asked, “What did she say in the dream?”

The Old Woman choked out, “She said she died fifteen years ago, was put inside a wall, and only just released. She said she couldn’t come back to care for me in my old age, and told me to take good care of myself.”

I remembered that Seventh Master once said that the range of activity for a Ghost is limited. The city where they died is the only place they can stay, unless someone takes the Ghost’s ashes out of that city.

“Did she ever say who killed her?”

“She did.”

The Old Woman gnashed her teeth, stomping her foot as she spoke: “It was that Lv Zhengxian, and the person you just asked about. The two of them killed my daughter together!”

I took a deep breath, feeling inexplicably uneasy.

Li Xiumei… it turned out she was murdered by Lv Zhengxian and the primary perpetrator working together.

Before, I didn’t understand why that primary perpetrator wanted to help me.

Now, I was even more confused.

I had asked everything I needed to. I took out a thousand yuan in cash and stuffed it into the Old Woman’s hands.

She looked at me, her expression incredulous, and tears fell uncontrollably again.

Her crying was the kind of crying that comes from the deepest grievance, so much so that she didn’t even dare to make a sound.

I knew that ever since Li Xiumei died, she had been bullied by the people in this village. Perhaps for more than ten years, she had never been treated kindly.

“Stop now. Don’t let your son poison anyone else.”

“You’ve already killed many people. If you don’t stop, what you’ve done will be discovered sooner or later.”

“When that happens, your son will be finished.”

After advising the Old Woman, I didn’t say anything more to her.

Song Xiaotian and I left, preparing to head to the neighboring Lvjiagou.