Chapter 71: Chapter 71 Red Neck, Painful
Although Ma Jinbao’s family was taken to the police station, the case was not yet closed.
Lin Chunju, however, decided to take her daughter back to Daye Village first.
Yue Xiaofang’s condition was very wrong.
These past few days, she knew to open her mouth to eat when she was hungry and to drink water when thirsty, and she would go to the toilet by herself as usual.
But beyond that, Yue Xiaofang didn’t have any normal behaviors, always staring out the window with a vacant look, for half a day at a time, without even shifting her gaze.
Lin Chunju had seen this kind of situation when she was young.
It was a mother whose child had been kidnapped; after searching for several days without success, she would sit day after day on a dirt pile at the entrance of the village.
Gazing foolishly into the distance.
Lin Chunju’s mother told her that the woman had gone mad.
Lin Chunju was worried that Yue Xiaofang had also gone mad.
Yue Qingqing, however, asked Lin Chunju to wait a bit longer, “Grandma, someone might come looking for us later.”
Lin Chunju could only suppress her worries and stay.
Just as Yue Qingqing had said, shortly afterward, a police officer came to knock on the door of the medical room.
“Are you Yue Xiaofang’s family? We’ve found the child’s body.”
Just as Lin Chunju was about to reply, Yue Xiaofang suddenly leaped up from the bed as if she had been electrocuted.
“Bao, my Bao, where are you?”
The officer was startled and after a moment said, “Please come with me.”
Just as Ma Qiang guessed, the Ma family was more difficult to deal with than they had imagined.
To prevent collusion, they conducted separate interrogations.
Ma Jinbao and Ma Cuicui were silent, answering nothing to all the questions with “don’t know.”
Li Zhaozhi would only repeat the same coarse cursing, but Ma Zhuzi insisted that they did not kill the infant and had not done anything to Yue Xiaofang.
When asked where the child’s body was buried, it was as if they had rehearsed, all claiming ignorance, only admitting they had Ma Jinbao bury the child after discovering the child dead.
Ultimately, it was Ma Qiang who led his team to the site by following soil traces, searching many places around the vicinity.
Finally, they located the burial site in the woods outside the village, a very hard place to find, already leveled smoothly, with the surface barely showing any signs of disturbance.
Upon digging, they discovered a bare infant girl, her tiny body covered with post-mortem spots, not even dressed in a single piece of clothing.
When Yue Xiaofang saw the body, she threw herself onto it, ignoring the foul smell that had already begun to emanate.
“Bao, oh Bao, it was mother who harmed you, mother shouldn’t have stayed at these beasts’ home, mother failed to protect you,” she cried.
The heartbreaking screams could move even the stoniest of hearts.
Lin Chunju, wiping away tears, finally decided to carry the child back and lay her to rest in the Yue Family ancestral grave.
Before leaving, Ma Qiang specifically came to find them; the tall, thin man seemed somewhat desolate.
“Ma Zhuzi is very stubborn, admits to nothing, just says the child was a difficult birth and didn’t breathe upon birth, they buried the child early to spare Yue Xiaofang from excessive grief,” he said.
Yue Jiandong angrily responded, “That’s a pack of lies. Then why didn’t they send my sister to the medical room?”
Ma Qiang shook his head, “Ma Zhuzi claimed it was because Yue Xiaofang had just given birth, and they were worried that moving her might cause severe bleeding, planning to wait a couple of days before calling a doctor, just when the in-laws happened to show up.”
Although everyone knew the family was lying, Ma Zhuzi was indeed clever; his lie was seamless, leaving no evidence of murder.
Ma Qiang, with many years of experience in law enforcement, knew that domestic abuse between family members was often the hardest to prove, and yet the most cruel.
Especially in this era, many times he felt powerless even with the desire to help.
The little girl Lin Chunju was holding spoke up.
“The baby was in pain.”
Ma Qiang was startled, “What do you mean?”
He knew the child, Yue Qingqing, who despite not having asked her exact age, clearly looked to be only one or two years old.
But through the few encounters they had, he found her to be very intelligent, and even precocious.
Always well-behaved, not rowdy like other children, but whenever those clear eyes looked at you, it felt like she understood everything.
Yue Qingqing looked up, pointing to the infant in Yue Xiaofang’s arms.
“Neck red, pain pain.”