The door with the words "Director's Office" on the second floor was closed. Yang Xiuli stepped forward, knocked on it, and said loudly: "Director Zhao, there are two police officers looking for you."
As the word "please come in" came from inside, she pushed the door open, and a young man in his fifties or sixties stood up from the desk and put the newspaper in his hand on the table.
Lu Wuchuan took the initiative to show his ID and said, "Hello, Director Zhao, we are from the Special Case Team of Liancheng City Public Security Bureau. My name is Lu Wuchuan, and this is my colleague Duan Mo."
"Please take a seat!" Director Zhao enthusiastically made a gesture of invitation towards the sofa on the side of the wall, "Xiuli, go and make two cups of tea."
Yang Xiuli responded and walked out of the office briskly. Not long after, she came back with a tray on which were two tea cups with lids for meetings.
She put the tea cup on the coffee table, smiled and said, "The cups are all sterilized, you can drink with confidence."
Then he opened the thermos cup on the desk, took a look at it, filled the water dispenser in the room, closed the lid and placed it in front of Director Zhao.
Director Zhao seemed to be used to her approach. He didn't even say a polite word and waved his hand directly: "You go ahead and do your work."
"Okay, I'm going downstairs first. Call me if you need anything." Yang Xiuli left the office with her smile still on, and closed the door behind her.
After she left, Director Zhao asked: "The two police officers came all the way to our Zhaojiaying Village. Is there anything important?"
Lu Wuchuan said: "It's like this. There used to be a family named Hu in your village. They had a son and a daughter. The son was named Hu Yifan and the daughter was named Hu Yiyi. I wonder if Director Zhao knows this family?"
"Oh, those are the two children of Hu Tiankui's family. We know each other, of course we know each other." Director Zhao nodded frequently, "Aren't his two children also guilty of something?"
Lu Wuchuan keenly caught the word "ye" in his words and said: "Something happened in Hu Yifan's unit. We need to have a detailed understanding of each employee. You just said 'ye' was an offense, could it be?
What happened to his family before?"
"That was many years ago. Let me think about it..." Director Zhao looked at the sky forty-five degrees and thought for a while, "Oh, if you think about it, it's almost twelve or thirteen years ago. Don't talk about us at that time.
Zhaojiaying is a big deal even in the whole of Mingyang."
This little old man whetted people's appetites, and Duanmo couldn't wait to ask: "Can you tell us in detail?"
"We have to talk about this from the beginning, otherwise you won't understand." Director Zhao sat up straight, "Hu Tiankui was one of the few people in our village who graduated from high school, and he was considered a cultural person. He was young.
When I was young, I married a wife named Li Xiaoying. After they got married, the relationship between the two was very good. Within a few years, they gave birth to a son and a daughter."
"This Li Xiaoying was brought back by Hu Tiankui from outside. Let's put it this way, she is different from the women in our village. The women in our village all have loud voices. When they talk at home, people can hear them through several courtyard walls.
It’s true. As for Li Xiaoying, not only is she beautiful, but she also speaks slowly and slowly. How should I put it..."
Director Zhao racked his brains and finally came up with an adjective: "It's what people often call gentle. Yes, very gentle. Listening to her talk makes people feel comfortable."
"But it's just this one person. I don't know how she got it done. She wasn't very talkative to begin with. After giving birth to the little girl, she became even more introverted. She didn't go out much all day long. Other women in the village
Even if I try to find her, she won’t pay much attention to me.”
"Old Hu's neighbor said that he would always listen to her crying in the middle of the night. Life was not as good as now, but their family was pretty good. Hu Tiankui always loved her and had two children. I really don't know why he was like this all day long.
What?"
Director Zhao smacked his tongue, expressing his incomprehension.
He didn't understand, but Lu Wuchuan and even Duanmo thought it might be postpartum depression. However, neither of them interrupted Director Zhao, but continued to listen to him.
"Later, iron ore was discovered on our Maoshan Mountain. The first person to discover this was Hu Tiankui. He didn't know where he found people. He looked around on the mountain and said that the iron content was quite high. At that time, the villagers were
I don’t understand this, and I think it’s just iron, and it’s not a rare thing. Hu Tiankui is different from us. He got a farm tricycle, hired a few villagers to go up the mountain to dig ore, and then took it outside to sell.”
Duanmo couldn't help but ask: "Private mining of ore is not allowed, so the villagers dare to go with him?" Private mining of ore without approval is illegal and subject to criminal liability.
"This was more than 20 years ago. Who knew this at that time?" Director Zhao said, "We farmers face the loess and our backs to the sky. We can't make much money all year round. We only pay for digging rocks."
Everyone is willing to do it."
"It's not like this anymore. The management from above is very strict. If you mine without formalities, you will be sentenced if you are caught."
Director Zhao took out the cigarette case and handed it to Lu Wuchuan. When he waved his hand to indicate that he would not smoke, he popped a cigarette and lit it, and continued: "Don't talk about the villagers at that time. Even the village chief didn't understand these things."
"Hu Tiankui didn't make any money in those two years, and his family was getting richer and richer. But his wife was getting worse and worse. She kept herself at home all day long. The child was hungry and cried, and she only remembered to cook and do housework.
She doesn’t do much either. Hu Tiankui took her to a big hospital in the city to see what kind of depression it was. Tell me, she doesn’t have to worry about food or drink, so why is she so depressed?”
"Hu Tiankui was busy making money outside and didn't have much time to take care of her and the child, so he asked the villagers to help take care of her. But everyone has a lot of things to do, so how can he watch her all day! Their boy is the only one who goes to school.
That year, Li Xiaoying committed suicide by hanging herself from the beam in her house. At that time, his little daughter went out to play. She got hungry and came home for dinner at noon. Only then did she find that her mother had hanged herself. The child was so frightened that she cried hard.
He screamed. Neighbors heard the noise and rushed to their house and took him down. But he had already died and there was no way he could be saved."
"He died like that!" Duan Mo was shocked. He knew that Hu Yifan's mother died when the siblings were young, but he never expected that he died like this.
"That's right!" Director Zhao sighed, "The most pitiable thing is the little girl, who was only four or five years old at the time. She watched her mother hanging from the beam and cried so hard that her throat
It’s all broken.”
"Such a young child... is quite pitiful." Duanmo lamented. Her heart twitched as she imagined the scene at that time.
In contrast, Lu Wuchuan seemed much calmer. He asked, "What about Hu Yifan's father? He never wanted to marry again?"
In Hu Yifan's household registration information, except for him and his sister Hu Yiyi, his parents' status is all canceled. If his father remarried, there should be a stepmother in it.