Chapter 192

Xu Ran went with some people of the village. Afraid the carriage would be stolen, Liu Tong didn’t go with him, waiting by the side of the carriage.

Xu Ran ran very quickly. It was so strange that the villagers didn’t know that Mr. Hu was back. Even though Mr. Hu lived in a separate house, he couldn’t stay in it all the time.

Xu Ran had thought that Mr. Hu was picked up by his son, so the people who didn’t associate with him much in the village might not know about it. But the look on their faces just now, as if no one knew about it, was very strange.

Arriving at Mr. Hu’s house, Xu Ran found that it was a house with a flat area in front of it instead of a yard, where he could have done some house work, such as drying something there.

From the outside, it did not look like an inhabited house. Xu Ran also found that the objects outside the house were arranged the same as on his previous evening visit. Even it was night, he could see it.

Looking back at the villagers behind him, Xu Ran asked, “Are you sure none of you have ever seen Mr. Hu?” It was me who sent him back on the New Year’s Eve. And I was also driving a carriage at that time. Didn’t you see me? ”

Xu Ran remembered that he had met two people that night.

“Was it about to dark, at the entrance of the village?” someone asked.

Xu Ran nodded hurriedly, “Yes, yes, I brought Mr. Hu back during the day, but when we got to the entrance of the village, he didn’t let me in. I was afraid something would happen, so I quietly came over at night. I knocked on the door, but there was no response. I didn’t think much about it, after all, I saw Mr. Hu entered the village. I guessed he must have fallen asleep, so I went back.”

Someone did see Xu Ran that day and Xu Ran drove a carriage over today, so they believed Xu Ran’s words. Looking at each other, they didn’t know what had happened.

Suddenly, someone said, “What smells so smelly?!”

With a gust of wind blowing over, everyone present smelled it. It was really stinky, just like something had rotted.

“It’s coming from inside!” The person who smelled the smell first said again, then all eyes turned to the house.

Without thinking too much, Xu Ran rushed up to the door and kicked it open.

Suddenly an even thicker stench came out of it.

It was certain that something had died in the house and begun to decompose, which meant it had been dead for a long time.

Otherwise, it was March and the weather was not very hot, how could it give off the bad smell?

Smelling the stinky smell, the villagers  walked to Xu Ran’s side. Just as Xu Ran was about to enter, he saw the blood on the doorsill.

He pointed to the doorsill and said, “Look here, this is blood, and the color of it shows that it was left a long time ago. I suspect Mr. Hu may have had an accident. Let’s go inside and have a look.

It was obvious what he meant. Only if they went into the house together would they not be suspected to have killed Mr. Hu.

They were from the same village and none of them had any objections, so they all went in.

Everyone walked in the direction where the stinky smell had come from and entered a room. Like a normal room, there was a bed in it. What mattered was that there was a person lying on the bed. No, it was more like a corpse than a person.

And it was a rotting body.

After they entered the house, the smell became even more stinky. Many people couldn’t bear it and ran out. Only a few were still standing there with Xu Ran.

“Ah! This is Mr. Hu! “Someone recognized him.

Xu Ran knew that it was Mr. Hu, and he also noticed that there was something in his hand. Although the hand was rotten, Xu Ran could still make out that it was a block of wood, as if it had been pulled down from another piece of wood.

Xu Ran thought for a while and walked out. He went to the door and brought the door button back. It was obviously broken and there was still blood on it.

Xu Ran showed the deadbolt to the people in the house and said,” Look at this, the piece of wood in Mr. Hu’s hand seemed to have been torn from the deadbolt.”

Xu Ran could figure it out so quickly was because he didn’t kick the door too hard, he thought it had not been locked.

Seeing the piece of wood in Mr. Hu’s hand, he soon guessed that the door was not unlocked, but because the deadbolt was broken and too short to lock.

Looking at the deadbolt in Xu Ran’s hand, and then at the block in Mr. Hu’s hand, they found that the break in the two pieces of wood matched perfectly, and the most important thing was there was blood on both of them.

Xu Ran said, “It must be broken off the deadbolt by Mr. Hu, and he did it with great effort. In that case, there was probably other causes for Mr. Hu’s death. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have broken the deadbolt for no reason. Let’s go to Yamen to report the case!”

No sooner had Xu Ran said that than someone immediately objected, “No, we’d better inform the village head to come over first and wait for him to decide!”

“Yeah, yeah! I’ll ask the village head to come.” the man said and walked out.

Xu Ran knew that it happened in their village after all, it was better to inform their village head.

After that, Xu Ran looked at Mr. Hu’s body without saying anything. He thought to himself,’ Did goodbye mean never to see again?’

If he had known what would happen, he shouldn’t have allowed Mr. Hu to come back. No matter what his son would do, at least Mr. Hu was still alive.

Having been together for almost a year, he had developed a deep bond with him. At this moment, apart from sad he was more regret. If only he hadn’t sent him back, or he had opened the door when he knocked, nothing would have happened.

After a long time, Xu Ran heard someone say, “This must be done by his goddamn son. He is a real jerk to kill his own father.”

Being stunned for a moment, Xu Ran asked, “What do you mean?” Is Mr. Hu’s son very filial? Mr. Hu said that his son had gone on business somewhere else.

The man sighed, ” He is not in business. His son is the black sheep of the familhy. Previously, his family made some money by growing strawberries, then his son said that he wanted the money to go into business. But for some reason he became addicted to gambling. As soon as he lost all his money in gamble, he came back for it. We often went to the town and definitely heard about it. We pretended not to know it was because we were afraid the old couple would be sad. It was fine if only a few people knew about it, but as more people knew, it couldn’t be hidden.

Another person continued, “Mr. Hu’s wife was also killed by his son. Mr. Hu hid it from the people in our village, so we didn’t know at first. I heard about it one day I was in town. At that time, Mr. Hu had no longer lived in the village, and his son never came back, so we didn’t say anything. If I had known what was going to happen today, I would have reported it to the government.”

After hearing that, Xu Ran felt a bit disbelieveing. If this was the truth, then what Mr. Hu had said to them was all lies. Did Mr. Hu do this to protect his son?

But why did he ask to come back suddenly when he lived well in his family? Did his son really go to Xu Village and how did his son know that Mr. Hu was in Xu Village?

Xu Ran asked the two people, “Have you ever seen his son come back after Mr. Hu left the village? On New Year’s Eve, Mr. Hu insisted on going home. He said that his son would come to pick him up to enjoy a happy life. So I brought him back, but I didn’t see his son.

Then someone said, “We met his son once, but every time he was unkempt. He always came back when it was getting dark and left at dawn the next day. The people of the village didn’t like him, so he didn’t come back very often.”

“Then do you remember the last time you saw him?” asked Xu Ran.

“It seems to be on New Year’s Eve! Quite a few people in the village saw him, but all didn’t speak to him .

Shaking the deadbolt in his hand, Xu Ran said, “If it is true that Mr. Hu’s son killed his father, how could he be so cruel? Moreover, Mr. Hu was wounded at the door but now he is in his bed. His son must have carried Mr. Hu onto the bed, then why didn’t he ask a doctor for his father ?

Someone immediately added, “His son is a white wolf. How could he ask Mr. Hu for a doctor? He is probably looking forward to Mr. Hu’s death, but we don’t know what happened, so we’d better wait for the village head to decide.”

These people had a blind faith in the village head.

After all, Xu Ran was not from this village. It was not good for him to say more.