Chapter 120: Not to kill, but to kill the heart

Yi Awen had a few more very brief relationships, and she didn't want to pretend anymore.

A gentleman is a gentleman, and she wants to try to be one.

But the results were dismal.

No one wants to buy an apple with a rotten worm's eye, no matter how much it is "on sale" or "on sale".

When the men find out about her family history, they come up with all sorts of strange excuses and end up leaving her in return.

Yi Awen started with sadness and resentment, and ended up numb and cold.

Then one day, sitting in a bar at four in the morning, watching drunken women being picked up by ill-intentioned men, she suddenly realized that this place, in fact, wasn't all that different from her village.

Both places are the same dirty, following the same unspoken rules in operation, that rule is, you have money and power, no one dares to bully you to earn you, you are poor and humble, they can only wait for a lifetime of others to pick and choose, pointing fingers.

She received a letter in the mail from her sister.

This little sister, who was not from the same mother as her, was the only one in the world who could understand her, who had suffered more because she was weaker than she was.

Her little sister wrote that she missed her and wanted her to come home. They said their father wanted to marry her off to the crippled man from the next village who had lost his wife.

Yi Awen read it, and was outraged.

The crippled man was fifty years old. How old was her sister? Of course she knew what the man they called "father" was up to.

The crippled man is sick, ugly and old, but at least he runs a small gambling house in the village frequented by his father, who, having lost all his money, tries to use his daughter as a bargaining chip on the table.

She certainly couldn't allow that to happen.

So, she simply packed her bags, left her disappointment and trauma in the city, and returned to Qingli County with a cold heart, and all the insights and experiences she had learned and accumulated in the city.

She approached her father, Yi Qiang, and asked him point blank if he wanted money.

Subsequently -

The result was that another family of poppies, nourished by darkness, blossomed in the barren land of Yi's village.

Wen, the hair salon is open.

Yi Awen has finally gone from being a victim to an abuser. She blames her misfortune on her poor family, her lazy father and her criminal mother.

She couldn't change the latter two, but she thought she could change the former if she paid the price of her soul.

Everything was supposed to go on like that.

If only Yi Qiang hadn't gotten more and more puffed up and wanting more and more, and his little girl had gotten prettier and prettier.

-- Yi Qiang met Ma Zai, a big casino player in town.

The head of Ma Zai is also favored because he can be a fox and a tiger.

Ma Zai has had enough of the city's glitz and glamour, and wants to take a break from it all and hit the countryside once in a while.

Yi Qiang then took Ma Zai back to his family's shampooing workshop in the village.

Yi Awen was not in the store that day, only Lulu was in charge. Ma Zai looked around and saw no one, and was about to get angry when he saw Yi Lulu, who looked like a lotus flower.

That night, Yi Lulu was humiliated by that man with the tacit approval of her own father, and with Yi Qiang standing by, not daring to be offended.

She didn't dare talk to Yi Awen until she got pregnant, and then it was too late.

Yi Awen was so angry that she was shaking, she took the girl who was still so small to the hospital in town, and before her sister was pushed into the operating room, she pulled her sleeve and asked her in a daze, "Sis, if we had a mom, wouldn't it be so hard to live ......"

In that moment, Yi Awen's heart was so choked that he couldn't even breathe.

She went home, turned on the store's security camera, called up the day she was away, and watched the whole thing with cold hands and feet.

She had wanted to find a reason to forgive the man she called her father.

But what she saw with her own eyes was the man groveling to Ma Zai beforehand to please, during the incident stood indifferently outside the door, as if he could not hear the maiden's cries of distress, and afterwards he received a large sum of money from Ma Zai, and even bowed to the other side with folded hands and smiles on his face to thank him.

She looked on woodenly.

She didn't move a muscle until the screen went black and the video ended.

Much later, she saw herself in the reflection of the black screen.

She saw a face that belonged to the devil.

"I killed him." Yi Awen concluded by telling them, "If I don't end the roots of this family's rot, there's no way my sister and I can start our days over. I have no choice. ......"

She said, "I didn't have a choice at all."

"What do you know ...... You are well clothed and well fed, and you have cleverly come to investigate some truths, I am used to seeing people like you, go back and write an eye catching article about the so called truths, and other people's flesh and blood becomes the corrupt sustenance that nourishes you as you go on with your lives. "

What started out as an irresponsible story, a fledgling reporter's presumption of justice, ended up growing into this intricate web of demons. Yi Awen took them for granted as people who had come to the countryside to dig up some stories, just like that reporter at the beginning.

She said, tilting her head back and laughing.

"You people ...... don't know or understand anything, and all the suffering we've endured is just talk for your teatime amusement!"

Xie Qingcheng didn't explain too much to her. Yi Awen was an accident they encountered during the investigation of the RN13 case. They see the end of Lu Yuzhu's husband and daughter after twenty years of broken families.

At that moment, a siren suddenly sounded from the distant mountain pass.

Yi Awen bit his lip and turned white when he heard this.

-- "You guys called the cops?!"

Xie Qingcheng They didn't have time to call the police. They didn't know who had done it, and they just watched as the police car came whizzing down the mountain road.

Yi Awen couldn't help but take a step backwards. It seems to be destiny that both she and her mother have a strong aversion to the police. Only her mother was framed for the crime, while she was doused because of her first full-blooded love, when her ex-boyfriend's father, being a police officer, investigated her family history, and her secrets to the core.

She felt like she was being stripped naked and put under a shadowless lamp for inspection.

That shame, to this day, does not fade.

"Sister! Sis! How are you doing!" The police car soon pulled up to the mountain road near them, and Yi Lulu rushed from the police car-

Ironically, it was Yi Awen's sister who ended up calling the police in time!

The little girl didn't know that her father had been killed by Yi Awen, let alone that Yi Awen had built the man's body into the wall in order to hide it. In her eyes, her sister is still the same kind, helpless, good person, and when she sees her sister get into an argument with someone else, she assumes it's someone else's fault, that someone else is trying to bully the two sisters.

Yi Awen stared in disbelief at the scene in front of him, never expecting it to end this way.

Xie Qingcheng did not want to talk to her, and he really did not know what to say to this woman who was both sad, hateful and pitiful.

But He Yu is different.

He Yu was not a saintly father. Xie Qingcheng wouldn't let him kill, so he didn't, but full of hatred and malice, he suddenly said, in front of Yi Lulu, after the police came over, "Wait a minute."

"I have something else to tell her."

Yi Awen: "......"

He Yu approached slowly, pacing forward like a predator with its hunting fangs bared. He looked condescendingly at the woman who had harmed his kind for a moment, and vindictively - precipitously - opened his mouth, "Ms. Yi, you think you're so innocent and helpless, and that what you did, you couldn't help it, didn't you?"

Yi Awen covers his bleeding hand and turns his head in fear.

He Yu was in front of the crowd, as if he were speaking the words of a righteous and regrettable man, but Yi Awen met his gaze and saw in his eyes nothing but a green-faced, red-eyed demon.

He's taking revenge.

This clotheshorse is taking revenge in his own way!

He Yu chimed in, "But what difference is there between you now, and those who have bullied you?"

"You didn't want your sister to suffer that kind of humiliation, but what did you do to get out of your fate, to make money and take power? Did you ever think about how they felt when you searched one girl after another into your store to do all those skin jobs?"

He was going to rip away her entire disguise in front of her sister - in front of the only person she still cared about.

Yi Awen was afraid, she shook her head in horror, He Yu was as accurate with hearts as a butcher is with fish.

While watching Yi Lulu's look from bewilderment to consternation, she said to He Yu, "Stop it ...... you stop it ......"

He Yu where cares about her.

Since she let him hear Xie Qingcheng say such heartbreaking words as "I return you", he wanted her to taste the same sting. He knew that it was something more brutal than real killing.

He Yu morosely continues, "You let others do such things because your family is unfortunate, because you can't stand the idea of other people calling you the daughter of a criminal, the son of a gambler."

"They volunteered! Voluntarily! I didn't force them!!!"

"But have you thought about whether their daughters, their fathers, would want this too? When they have children in the future, those children will be fingered in this village just like you used to be, and when they talk about a boyfriend they will be disliked by the other parent, have you thought about that Yi Awen? You only have yourself in mind!"

"You haven't paid any attention to your mother's whereabouts again all these years, have you?"

"......"

"As long as you dare to admit that she is your mother, don't hide from her, as long as you go and read more about her, you will realize that many years ago, your own mother--Lu Yuzhu, she was vindicated! The trial against her back then was a case of wrongdoing, and the prosecutor personally went to Huzhou to find her, apologize to her at her door, and give her justice for her wrongdoing."

Yi Awen shuddered suddenly when he heard this and raised his eyes, staring at him incredulously, as if he had seen a ghost.

"You have no idea. And I'm not surprised at all." He Yu said word for word, "Because you're so selfish, all you can think about is why she's a corrupt official like that, in your eyes, your mother is an official first and foremost, before she's your mother. You wouldn't want to know about her past, you wouldn't want to know that she once came back to this house, only to be broken by you, who didn't recognize her at all, and your father, who had a new love interest, and that's why she left you forever!"

"It's not at all difficult to be inquired about these things, but why don't you know? Because you didn't want to inquire at all. You were ashamed of her the moment you learned that she was a corrupt official and a criminal, and you hated the fact that she had never existed in this world, so you would not go out of your way at all to take it upon yourself to learn even a little bit about your mother's past."

"......"

"If you had asked around, you would have known that the only decent road in this ghost village of yours was personally planned by her when she was in office. You would have known that the Hope Elementary School that still exists in your county was built when she was secretary for the children of this county who were eager to study. You will know the insults, the pain, the suffering, the torture, the framing that your mother has suffered, if you inquire, you will know that she has finally been rehabilitated, if you inquire ......"

He Yu paused.

He had originally said these things out of revenge, in order to take the mask off the woman in front of everyone, in front of Yi Awen's cherished sister, to give her a taste of what it would be like to be viewed with disappointment by her favorite people.

However, when he said that, his eyes really floated in front of his eyes at that time in the Cantonment Tower, the woman who threw back her head and laughed and covered her face and cried.

Truth be told, if not for the difference in positions, He Yu would probably have pitied Lu Yuzhu at that time.

Because until the day of the Canton Tower case, until the day Lu Yuzhu decided to die for the organization, that mother would still be heartbroken for the daughter she would never see again.

When Xie Qingcheng asks her, "Have you seen the eyes in the sky?", she still feels the same feelings for her child that she shares with Zhou Muying, whom she has never met before, and she still hesitates and feels uneasy about it.

He Yu actually doesn't dislike Lu Yuzhu that much.

When he said that, he really had a few knocks on his heart, "If you had inquired, Yi Awen, if you had but treated her as your mother, believed her, and asked for the truth about the past, she should not have been a disgrace to you, but should have been your pride, and should have been your mother whom you trekked out to save as well. Then everything, it wouldn't be like it is now, her and you, in time."

"But do you know what your mom ended up doing out there with sins that didn't belong to her because of your indifference to her?"

"She went to another shampoo in this world, to be a hair salon girl in order to live. And the owner of that shampoo parlor probably had all sorts of out-of-body misery, just as you do - and while you were here using these girls to make money for your happiness, your mother was selling her life 'willingly' just as the girls under you were. And you could have changed all that-if only you had known her a little, if only you hadn't been ashamed to think of a criminal as your own mother, you could have gone to her after you had learned of the grievance."

"And, perhaps, take your sister with you."

"She won't enter a terrorist organization, you won't fall this far, and your sister won't have to be afraid. As for your father-"

He Yu paused for a moment, but finally told the truth that creeped out all the police and Yi Lulu around him, "Nor would you have been killed in revenge and brutally sealed in the wall of your store's attic."

Yi Awen, who had tried to stand up earlier, crumpled to the ground.

"You once had a key that could have changed the fate of everyone in your family. If only you were willing to really, peacefully, get to know a little bit about your own mother."

"But, you threw it away without a glance."

Thunder runs and treads from the vault of the sky.

A muffled rumble.

The thunder, like the last drumbeat of a grand concerto, finally brought the sequel to the Cantonment Tower incident, to a close this night.

What followed was a silence that knew no bounds.

The police finally stepped forward and clicked off the handcuffs on Yi Awen's wrists, and as the woman walked past her sister with her head bowed, Yi Lulu looked at her in fear and uncertainty with tears in her eyes, not knowing what to do, "Sis ...... I, I didn't mean to... ...I don't know ...... why you ......"

She was speechless and didn't know what to say.

Yi Awen doesn't dare to look at her and keeps his head down.

She eventually became a disgrace to her loved ones as well, and she dreaded seeing the look of utter disappointment on Yi Lulu's face when she rubbed her shoulders.

It wasn't until she was about to be escorted to the car that Yi Lulu snapped out of her senses, breaking away from the police officer who was holding her up, and staggering toward her--

"Sis! Sis!"

Constable: "What for!"

"Stop her--"

But the officer leading the group shook his head, stopping them from moving.

Yi Lulu cried out and jumped behind Yi Awen, hugging her tightly: "Sister, it's okay, it's okay. Don't be afraid, I don't blame you, I don't blame you, I know you're spoiling me, you're doing it for my own good ...... I've only had one family in this world before, and I'll only have one family in the future, Ah Sister, no matter what you've done, you're still my Ah Sister!"

Yi Awen was shocked, and looked back at the tiny girl.

Tears came to his eyes in a flash.

--She seemed at that moment to suddenly understand the feelings of her own mother, who was not seen in the jungle, when she left Yi's village back then.

At that moment, didn't Lu Yuzhu wish that someone could say such a thing to her?

Whether it is the secretary Lu whom people praise, or the female prisoner who cries out for wrongful imprisonment, she is always their mother and a man s wife ...... She was, perhaps, returning home with such a mood.

She wanted very little in those days.

She probably, just wanted her man to call her ma'am.

Or maybe, just wanted her daughter to call her mom.

But none of them gave her such comfort.

So she left, and for long years afterward she never came back.

Yi Awen choked up and tried to say something to her sister, but in the end said nothing as she turned around hastily and fled, following the police and leaving ......

He Yu watched as her figure was blocked by the closed door of the police car.

Then he turned back and was just about to say something to Xie Qingcheng when he saw that Xie Qingcheng was already leaning his back against the stone wall, covering his bleeding arm.

He Yu's breath, which had been slightly loosened, was lifted up again, and he blurted out--

"Xie Qingcheng!!!"

"......"

"Xie Qingcheng! How are you ...... you--"

Xie Qingcheng didn't answer him, the hard impact combined with the gunshot wound in his arm, he was able to hold on until now and had already exhausted all of his physical strength. He along the stone wall, his face white without any blood color, just hang his head and close his eyes, slowly slipping down.