Shocked by the cold well water and the screams, Qiu Baolin cursed loudly, "Who, who the fuck splashed water on me?"
He had completely forgotten what he had done before.
The team leader said angrily, "Qiu Baolin, who do you think you are?"
Qiu Baolin’s mind went blank for a moment, unable to comprehend the situation at hand.
When he realized he couldn’t move, he finally came to his senses, his mind working quickly. "Let me go! Who did this?" ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ novel⦿fire.net
The team leader stepped forward and kicked him. "You don’t know what you did, and you still dare to be arrogant here?"
Qiu Baojuan, who didn’t have her brother’s nerve, was shivering all over from the dousing. After her initial screams, she cowered and fell silent.
The Branch Secretary opened the office door, had them brought inside, and asked, "Tell me, what were you doing at Chu Zhiqing’s house in the middle of the night?"
Qiu Baojuan quickly shook her head. "I didn’t, I didn’t go."
Yunyi scoffed coldly. "You didn’t enter the courtyard, but you helped your brother keep watch outside."
Qiu Baojuan panicked. "I didn’t! You’re talking nonsense!"
Yunyi couldn’t be bothered to argue with them. "Whether you did it or not isn’t up to you to say, and of course, it isn’t up to me either. I trust that when the police arrive, they’ll be able to investigate."
These words scared Qiu Baojuan so much she started to tremble. "I, I, I was just passing by."
Nobody in the room believed her words, and likely neither did she.
The team leader, with a stern face, looked at Qiu Baolin. "Well? Are you going to confess, or wait for the police to investigate?"
Qiu Baolin knew very well that involving the police was not an option; that would truly be the end of him.
He was still young, after all. Though he didn’t respond, the way he nervously clutched the hem of his clothes betrayed his inner turmoil and anxiety.
Yunyi didn’t want to waste any more time on him here. "I think we should call the police; it’ll save us wasting time here."
The siblings cried out at the same time, "Don’t!"
Qiu Baolin had already thought it through by now. He couldn’t let his sister speak first. If she said something she shouldn’t, they would be well and truly finished.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again. "I’ll talk. I’ll confess. I heard Chu Zhiqing had money and wanted to steal some. But I only entered the yard; I never went inside the house. Really. If you don’t believe me, you can check."
The Branch Secretary, grinding his teeth in anger, also kicked him. "Why be a thief? With your current situation, you can’t even be honest and stay out of trouble, yet you still dare to cause such a ruckus? I think your head must’ve really been kicked by a donkey!"
Indeed. After that previous incident, if the Branch Secretary and the Team Leader hadn’t held a meeting to keep things quiet, the troublemakers in the brigade would have surely jumped at the chance to cause problems for them.
Great. Now they’d really gone and caused trouble again.
He was truly furious. The last time, with the Xu Wenchang incident, he, the Branch Secretary, had been disgraced all the way to the county. The commune leaders had returned so incensed they had wanted to dismiss him on the spot. But then he recalled that Xu Wenchang had been their appointee, so they couldn’t very well make an example of him, the Branch Secretary. That’s how he had managed to escape that particular disaster. He had also been warned, though, that if another shameful incident occurred in the village, his tenure as Branch Secretary would be over. The thought made his frown deepen enough to trap a mosquito.
He sighed and looked at Yunyi. "Chu Zhiqing, you tell me, what do you want to do?"
Yunyi had also heard about the warnings the commune cadres had given the Branch Secretary, so she naturally wouldn’t recklessly insist on sending the siblings to jail.
Even if she didn’t insist on sending them to jail, she wouldn’t let these two off easily. She stated, "Either settle this privately, or we report it to the police. Let them choose."