Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Truth is Revealed

Translator: GravityTales  Editor: GravityTales

No one in the house could have imagined that a simple dispute would result in such a bitter ending.

Seeing that both Tang Xiu and Su Shangwen were lying weakly in a pool of blood, everyone lost their minds as screaming, wailing, and cries for help could be heard in successions.

Nobody had the mental capacity to find out who was in the right and who was in the wrong anymore.

In a matter of minutes, the police had arrived.

Strangely, when the police had just arrived at the scene, Su Shangwen, who was still unconscious a moment ago, woke up; following which a groaning sound could be heard coming from Tang Xiu. Seeing that the house was filled with police officers, Su Shangwen was taken aback in shock. As he took a glance at Tang Xiu, who was lying on the floor, Su Shangwen’s eyes turned red momentarily as he immediately recalled the scene where he got struck by Tang Xiu before he passed out.

“Officers,3000 yuan was stolen from my family, and I suspect that it was this stupid rascal who stole it, I trouble you to arrest him.” Su Shangwen couldn’t be bothered with the pain in his finger as he pointed at Tang Xiu’s nose, gnashing his teeth as he said those words.

“Just now I received a report saying that there was a murder case here, who was the one that made the report?” A voice seemingly like a silver chime resounded through the house. The one leading the squad was actually a valiant-looking female officer.

The female officer ignored Su Shangwen’s words as she sweep her eyes over everyone in the house, and finally resting her eyes onto Zhang Meiyun as she lowered her voice and asked.

Under that female officer’s stern gaze, Zhang Meiyun lowered her head as she felt guilty, stammering as she answered, “Officer, I was the one who made the report. I thought that my husband had died when I saw him bleeding and not breathing at all, so I became flustered and said the wrong thing when I made the report.”

After listening to Zhang Meiyun’s explanation, Cheng Xuemei’s facial expression softened a lot.

“Officer, you definitely have to arrest this person. Not only did he steal 3000 yuan from us, he even used brute force to clash with me and broke my arm.” Just when Cheng Xuemei bend over to seriously inspect the condition of both Tang Xiu and Su Shangwen’s injuries, Su Shangwen started to make a ruckus again.

Cheng Xuemei stared at Su Shangwen without saying anything as she continued doing her own stuff. At the same time, she commanded other officers to seal off the area.

“Officer, I’m a close brother of Captain Wang from the Public Security Division, and have also had some drinks with Chief Commander Deng before. Furthermore, I have sponsored your City Police Headquarters on numerous occasions.” Seeing that Cheng Xuemei was not giving him any attention, Su Shangwen felt that he had lost face and hurriedly tried to inform her of his backings.

“Why don’t you say that the City Police Headquarters was opened by you so that I will arrest whoever one you ask me to arrest?” Cheng Xuemei was already annoyed with Su Shangwen’s bossy attitude, and after listening to what he had said, her face was like cold as frost as she lifted her head and ridiculed him.

Su Shangwen evidently didn’t expect that, even when he revealed his connection with the Chief Commander, this female officer in front of him did not buy it, and furthermore, felt more disgust towards him. He couldn’t help but be lost for words in that moment.

Without Su Shangwen disturbing her, Cheng Xuemei had quickly finished up inspecting the conditions of Su Shangwen and Tang Xiu’s injuries. Cheng Xuemei discovered that other than a dislocated elbow, Su Shangwen was hardly injured. On the other hand, there were multiple injuries on Tang Xiu’s waist and abdomen, and he seemed to be in a semi-conscious state.

What made Cheng Xuemei puzzled was the cause of such a large pool of blood on the floor. She could confirm that, although the injuries on Tang Xiu looked terrible, it was in fact not that serious. However, everybody on the scene said that Tang Xiu was the one who coughed out the whole pool of blood on the floor, causing her to question if there were any problems with her eyes.

“Do you feel unwell anywhere?” Cheng Xuemei took a glance at the deathly pale Tang Xiu and inquired, feeling concerned.

“Sis, I’m alright, I don’t need to go to the hospital, I don’t want to let my mother worry.” Tang Xiu shook his head as he used a delicate voice, seemingly like the buzzing of a mosquito, to answer back.

Cheng Xuemei gazed at Tang Xiu for a brief moment before giving a quick glance at Su Lingyun, who looked deeply worried. After seeing that, she fell silent.

“Captain Cheng, do we need to hand this case over to Captain Wang?” After making sure that there was no murder case or even any case of serious injury, although it was just a normal public security case, but the few officers that followed Cheng Xuemei out for this operation had the intention to dodge the work.

“At the mass immobilisation convention yesterday, Chief Commander Deng was still yelling at us to economise our manpower, do we need to mobilise our City Police force twice just because of such a small matter?” Cheng Xuemei stared at the police officer who asked that question as she replied in displeased tone.

After finishing her lines, Cheng Xuemei felt that her whole body had relaxed. However, the few police officers that followed Cheng Xuemei out for this operation were all dumbstruck, and they all thought that there were some problems with their hearing. Based on their understanding, Cheng Xuemei was not someone who would meddle into other people’s business. Whenever she met this kind of public security cases in the past, she would distance herself from it as far as possible, needless to say taking the initiative to handle it. But after recalling the conversation that Cheng Xuemei had with Su Shangwen when they had just arrived at the scene, they seemed to vaguely understand what was happening.

In the City Police Headquarters, Cheng Xuemei seemed to be filled with enmity as she especially disliked Captain Wang Hao’s working style. Thus, when Su Shangwen mentioned that he was a close brother of Wang Hao, he unintentionally dug his own grave.

Under Cheng Xuemei’s command, a few policer officers quickly went to work.

Seeing that the police officers were doing a search in the house, Su Yaning and Su Xiangfei’s expressions became deathly white, and their body trembled. They wished that the police officers would stop investigating on the missing 3000 yuan, but at this moment, both of them had already lost the courage to speak up.

“Yaning, Xiangfei, the police officer said that I only have my elbow dislocated, so the two of you need not worry.” Seeing that both his children had an abnormal expression, Su Shangwen thought that his two children were still frightened from him fainting from just now, so he comforted them while smiling lightly.

Listening to their father comforting them, Su Yaning and Su Xiangfei almost burst into tears. They did not dare to explain to their father as the police officers were still around.

Very soon, the police officer found the 3000 yuan in the house. The money was found on top of a wardrobe in a bedroom, and at the time when the officers found the 3000 yuan, they also discovered a distinct handprint. The top portion of the wardrobe had not been cleaned for a very long time, causing a thin layer of dust to be settled there, and the person who hid the money had accidentally left a trace behind.

Cheng Xuemei stared at the handprint for a while before sweeping her eyes onto everybody, and lastly fixating her eyes onto Su Xiangfei.

“Su Xiangfei, can you explain to me what had happened to cause this handprint?” Cheng Xuemei sternly questioned Su Xiangfei the moment she stared at him.

“It’s not my fault, it was big sister who screamed at me to hide the money. Big sister said that she hated Tang Xiu, and Tang Xiu was also a stupid rascal that was notorious for his misdeeds, even if we accused him, he would not be able to defend himself.” Su Xiangfei was already feeling guilty, and when he heard Cheng Xuemei’s stern questioning, his tensed mental state had collapsed, and he pushed the blame away in a flurry.

“I… I … I only wanted to tease Tang Xiu a little, I never had the intention to steal the money.” Seeing that everyone in the house had their gaze concentrated on her, Su Yaning became flustered as she hurriedly explained herself.

After listening to Su Xiangfei and Su Yaning’s explanation, even if Cheng Xuemei didn’t say anything, everybody in the house could understand what had happened.

“After all that ruckus, it was actually the thief calling other people the thief, this family is indeed exquisite.”

“This family doesn’t even lack 3000 yuan, why do they want to unjustly accuse this single-parent child and widowed mother?”

“The mother-son duo must have been struck with bad luck to have such relatives. If I were them, I would sever all connections with this kind of relatives since long ago and not continue to keep in touch, suffering humiliation for no reason.”

“……”

Today was Su Shangwen’s 40th birthday celebration, and although a large number of guests had already left after the lunch banquet, there were still quite a number of guests staying behind to continue with the dinner banquet.

Initially, only the few people that was in the bedroom knew of the matter, but when Tang Xiu blew the matter up, all the guests knew of what had happened in an instant. After all, watching a good show was human nature, and even more so when the main lead of the celebration was closely involved in it. The arrival of the police had undoubtedly attracted all the guests over, and even all the people in the neighbourhood had rushed down to join in on the ruckus.

Initially, everybody had believed that it was Tang Xiu who really stole the 3000 yuan as he was poor and in desperate state. However, when the truth was unveiled, they felt that the matter was extremely outrageous. While they were sympathising and pitying Su Lingyun and Tang Xiu, the look towards Su Shangwen’s family was filled with loathe and despise.

Su Shangwen and Zhang Meiyun had obviously not anticipated that the truth would be as such, and both of them couldn’t help but stare blankly.

Hearing the discussion and criticism from the surrounding people, and feeling the mocking and disdain-filled gazes from them, Su Shangwen’s family could feel their faces burning in pain.

“Officer, it’s not stealing if we hide our family’s own money right? We are sorry that we caused you all to make a wasted trip.” After spending much effort, Su Shangwen had somewhat managed to calm his emotions down, and with a forced smile, he walked towards Cheng Xuemei and softly begged.

“It’s indeed not a crime to hide their own family’s money away. However, according to the regulation of our country’s criminal law, to use violence or other methods to publicly insult someone or to fabricate lies to slander someone, in the event of a serious case, he will be sentenced to imprisonment for 3 years and below, detention, supervision or to have his political power stripped off.”

“Additionally, according to our country’s criminal law regulation, intentionally injuring other’s body would render imprisonment of 3 years and below, detention or supervision. To cause serious injury to other people would render imprisonment of 3 years and above, 10 years and below. Because of your assault, Tang Xiu suffered multiple injuries and even threw up blood and fell unconscious. Even if you’re not sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment, 3 to 5 years of imprisonment is unavoidable.”

Cheng Xuemei sneered as she saw that Su Shangwen was still not aware of his own mistakes and even nonchalantly defended his son’s actions.

Ignoring the pleading gazes from Su Shangwen’s family, Cheng Xuemei waved her hand as she said in a clear voice, “Bring all the relevant people involved back to the station to take their statement and interrogate them!”

“Officer, it was a misunderstanding, everything was a misunderstanding. Tang Xiu is our nephew, we would never slander or even intentionally injure him.” Seeing that Cheng Xuemei was truly going to arrest him, Su Shangwen panicked as he pulled onto her sleeves and started begging loudly.

Su Shangwen looked towards Su Lingyun with pleading eyes as he was explaining to Cheng Xuemei. Zhang Meiyun had also realised that at this moment, only Su Lingyun and Tang Xiu, this mother and son, would be able to help their family. She pulled onto her daughter’s sleeves and slowly walked over to face Su Lingyun.

“Lingyun, as the saying goes, ‘if the citizens don’t sound out, the government won’t investigate’. We are all one family, so let’s speak behind closed doors. The joke that Yaning and Xiangfei had played did indeed cross the line, but both of them are still children, so they were just playing around. So how about going over to tell the police officers that we will settle the issue in private?” Zhang Meiyun pleaded as she gave an apologetic smile.

As Su Lingyun heard Zhang Meiyun avoiding the main issue and speak only of the trivial, she directly turned her head away.

“Second Sis, today was indeed Xiangfei that did wrong, and I will let him apologise to Tang Xiu after this matter is resolved. If you really want to make things difficult, then we will sever all connections with you.” Su Shangwen coldly snorted and gave a threatening gaze as he saw that Su Lingyun actually dared to put on airs in front of his wife.

“Don’t forget that Tang Xiu is still studying in Star City First High School, if he doesn’t have me as his backing in the school, based on his grades and character, he may be kicked out of school anytime!” The chilling words coming out from Su Shangwen’s mouth caused the temperature in the whole house to drop over ten degrees. Su Lingyun’s body shivered as well and had no choice but to turn her head to look towards Su Shangwen.

*[advantage]: by having their erection in contact with her

*[ cent bills]: China has cents in bills called jiao

*[Guoshu]: Guo here means country and shu means technique

*[ 190 centimeters]: Over 6ft tall

*[Lake Cui]: Cui Hu, also means Green Lake

*[hundred dyuan bills]: 100yuan is their biggest bill

*[Daoist Fierce Tiger]: The author of this novel

*[Noodles]: made of wheat

*[Rice Noodles]: made of rice

*[Zhang Tian Tian]: Tian means sweet

*[Bajiquan]: Also known as Eight Extremities Fist, but Bajiquan sounds nicer to me

*[Long Taos]: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes

*[12.47 to 13.07]: don’t ask me about the tree sap