An explanation? What was there to explain? The villagers had no interest in hearing excuses from a child trafficker.
They weren’t listening.
Lin Jiandong’s face was ashen.
He was supposed to be the village’s good old boy, yet he’d just wet his pants in front of everyone. How could he ever show his face in public again?
The thought made him wish he could just pass out.
But Leng Yuan was standing right there.
He had stopped hitting him out of sheer disgust.
But if Lin Jiandong dared to pass out, Leng Yuan would just kick him awake.
Lin Jiandong didn’t dare to move a muscle.
The farce wasn’t over yet. Chen JianShe soon arrived with the brigade leader and the village chief.
When the crowd saw the brigade leader and village chief, they imdiately parted to make way.
On the way over, Chen JianShe had already explained the whole situation to Chen Beiguo.
’He couldn’t believe Lin Jiandong had been audacious enough to sell Xiao Yang to traffickers.’
’And this was supposed to be the village’s resident good guy!’
’The man was an animal!’
When he arrived with his n, he saw that the entrance to the Lin Family’s ho was surrounded by a massive crowd, packed several layers deep.
All the villagers were there to watch the spectacle.
Despite the strong winds, heavy snow, and freezing cold.
But they were packed together for warmth, none of them bothering to brush the snowflakes from their clothes. They craned their necks, straining to see inside, afraid they might miss a single detail of the drama.
There wasn’t much entertainnt in the village. Most days were just filled with idle gossip, and they were sick of hearing about the trivial, everyday squabbles of their neighbors.
But today’s events? This was a real shocker.
One of the gossiping aunties had even made a special trip ho to grab a handful of sunflower seeds.
She usually saved them for a special occasion, and this spectacle was exactly that.
She even kindly shared them with a few other aunties she knew nearby.
Just as Chen Beiguo ca over, he happened to walk right into the seed-sharing and had about twenty of them pressed into his hand.
Chen Beiguo...
His face darkened and he snapped,
"There’s a full-blown fight going on in there and none of you think to break it up? All you know how to do is gawk!"
With that, he shoved the sunflower seeds back into her hand.
The auntie didn’t seem to mind being scolded. Seeing the brigade leader return the seeds, she just bead.
’If it wasn’t for having a good ti watching the show, she wouldn’t have been willing to share them in the first place!’
The brigade leader couldn’t bear to look at them. With a grim expression, he pushed his way to the front of the crowd.
There, he saw Lin Jiandong sprawled on the ground, a large, dark patch soaking his pants where the falling snow lted on contact.
Chen Shulan was hiding in the courtyard, her head ducked as she tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible.
The villagers were gathered outside, enjoying the show.
Leng Yuan stood to the side, protectively shielding Gu Jiaojiao. Sweet Girl and Xiao Yang were with them.
The two children clung tightly to Gu Jiaojiao. One side of Sweet Girl’s face was swollen up like a bun.
The brigade leader was furious.
"Lin Jiandong, you’ve really done it now! You were the one who wanted to adopt Sweet Girl and Xiao Yang. Is this how you treat them after taking them in?"
Forgetting he was being reprimanded, Lin Jiandong lunged forward and grabbed onto Chen Beiguo’s leg, tears instantly streaming down his face.
He felt so wronged.
’That butcher Leng Yuan beat half to death! I nearly died!’
He was freezing in his wet pants and wanted to get up to change, but Leng Yuan’s unblinking stare kept him pinned to the ground.
At this point, he couldn’t care less about being scolded by the brigade leader.
Seeing the brigade leader felt more reassuring than seeing his own mother.
Wiping away his tears, he tattled.
"Brigade Leader, you have to help ! Leng Yuan is trying to kill !"
’I’m an honest man! How dare Leng Yuan treat like this? It’s outrageous! Couldn’t they have just talked things out? Why did he have to get violent?’
Chen Beiguo shot Lin Jiandong a disgusted look and kicked him away.
"Alright, that’s enough. None of you are going anywhere. You’re all coming back to the brigade headquarters with ."
With a cold expression, Chen Beiguo ordered a few n to haul them to the brigade headquarters.
Seeing things were going south, Chen Shulan tried to sneak away, but Aunt Zhao grabbed her.
The Zhao family didn’t live far from the Lin Family, so Aunt Zhao had rushed over as soon as she heard the commotion.
’She’d seen the whole thing from start to finish, and what a show it had been.’
Caught, Chen Shulan gave a hollow laugh.
"Sister-in-law Zhao! I was just about to head over there myself!"
Aunt Zhao didn’t call her out on the lie, instead pointing behind her.
"The brigade headquarters is this way. I’m just letting you know, you were walking in the wrong direction."
It was the epito of seeing the truth and not saying it aloud.
Everyone knew, but no one said a thing.
With no other choice, Chen Shulan resigned herself to her fate and followed the brigade cadres.
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