Chapter 35

Song Jinping’s punches were viciously powerful, beating Liu Mazi until he was bawling for his parents and grandparents.
“Aiyo, ow ow ow!”
A few young men, who’d slipped out into the fields under cover of night to catch eels and yellow loaches for a better meal, were on their way back with bamboo baskets at their waists when they heard the commotion and came over to take a look.
Good grief, wasn’t that Comrade Song?
His eyes were blood-red, his expression almost feral. He looked downright terrifying, like a god of slaughter descended to earth.
Normally, he was the easiest person in the village to talk to. He always greeted people with a mild smile. Was there a single young woman or married woman in the village who didn’t like him? He was educated, too.
And the one pinned beneath him was…? The young men hesitated and shuffled closer.
Seeing people arrive, Liu Mazi seized the chance while Song Jinping paused for breath. He spat out two mouthfuls of blood and then spewed out a whole basin of filth with his tongue.
“Song Jinping’s gone crazy! I caught him rolling in the mud with the Bai widow, and now he’s trying to kill me to shut me up!”
Bai Xinmei: ?!
The young men wavered. They knew Liu Mazi didn’t have a good reputation in the village, but looking at Bai Xinmei with her hair all mussed up to the side, and remembering the way they’d just seen Song Jinping go at him like a madman…
They couldn’t help but wonder. However bad Liu Mazi’s name was, could what he said… actually be true?
Hearing that, Bai Xinmei dropped her sobbing act and let righteous fury blaze across her face. This damned Liu Mazi, he dared to play the thief crying “stop, thief,” and dump all the filth on Song Jinping’s head right there on the spot.
Her tone sharpened with anger.
“He’s full of crap! Complete nonsense! He was the one lying in wait for me by the river, then tried to… tried to molest me!”
When the young men had approached, Song Jinping had already stopped hitting him. He drew in a deep breath. His sculpted face was cold and severe, his expression like carved stone.
The moment the hand clamped around Liu Mazi’s throat let go, Liu Mazi felt as if he’d just climbed back out of the underworld. A second ago, he’d truly believed this so-called intellectual youth was capable of strangling him to death with his bare hands.
“It was you two rolling around together, I saw it with my own eyes! Now you want to kill me to shut my mouth!”
Liu Mazi, with no sense of self-preservation, kept shouting. Now that others had seen them, there was no way this could be quietly settled. If it had just been the two of them, he might have swallowed his pride, begged a little, then run off to another village and gone on with his life.
But with more witnesses, the mess was only going to get bigger. So he struck first, dousing the pair of them with dirty water. Once their reputations were ruined, no one would believe a word they said.
If people found out he’d dragged a woman into the shrubs by the river to assault her, he’d be facing a firing squad… The thought made his heart seize. His whole back broke out in cold sweat, even worse than before.
No. There was absolutely no way he could let Bai the Widow tell anyone what happened tonight.
And if she did, he had to make sure no one believed her.
Song Jinping’s lips pressed into a hard line. He didn’t argue. The slight tilt at the corners of his eyes held a razor-sharp chill when he looked at Liu Mazi.
He didn’t yet know exactly what had happened between the two of them before he arrived. If he tried to explain now and slipped up anywhere, Liu Mazi would latch onto the hole and twist it.
After a brief pause for thought, he said in a low voice, “This isn’t something we can clear up in a few sentences. It concerns Comrade Bai Xinmei’s reputation and mine. We’d better let the team leader handle it.”
The young men finally snapped out of it and nodded repeatedly.
The team leader had already spent the entire day putting out fires, Wus, Wangs, Qins, three families all tugging at his sleeve demanding an explanation. The village party secretary was in town making his report.
He felt like the Monkey King with a tightening spell being recited in his ear and no way to let his temper blow.
The Qin family said the Wu family were just being shameless and insisted they restore the original boundary of the household plots. That part was easy enough. But then the Qins also wanted them to compensate for lost yields and work points, plus pay the medical bills for their injured family members… That was the hard part.
The Wang family, meanwhile, were even more of an unlucky case. Wang Shuisheng, a perfectly healthy young man, had walked into their village in one piece and left for the town hospital lying flat. And the medical fees aside, he was a factory worker. According to Shuisheng’s uncle, there should be lost-wage compensation, nutritional subsidy…
As for the Wus, good grief, the old granny had tied a belt to the rafters and was dangling herself as a threat, saying it’d be one life for another. Basically: no money, just this one life to pay with.
Sigh… Give it another year or two, when Shuanzhu comes back, he’s quitting this team leader job.
By the time it was properly dark, the stars were out. He lay on the heated brick bed with his wife, grumbling about the whole mess.
Then came a long, urgent pounding on the door. The dog in the yard, Wangcai, was barking like crazy.
“Team leader! Team leader! Something’s happened! Something’s happened again!”
Qi Lianshan heaved a long sigh, rolled over, and stayed flat on the kang, pretending he hadn’t heard.
“Team leader!”
The voice went on and on like a wail from beyond the grave. “Something really happened, are you asleep? Aiyo, they’re fighting again! I heard Song Jinping tried to molest the Widow Bai, and then got caught by Liu Mazi, who she was having an affair with. They’re both coughing up blood from the fight!”
His wife jabbed several sharp elbows into his chest. “Get up and go look!”
Dew heavy, night deep, Qi Lianshan dragged on a thin cotton army coat, coughed twice, and went to open the door, grumbling in a rough voice, “Coming, coming, you lot really are here to kill me.”
The messenger was one of the village layabouts, a young man who drifted through each day however he could.
What kind of mess is this now…
The team leader rushed over. By the time he arrived, Liu Mazi and the Qin family’s third son’s widow were locked in a shouting match fit to shake the skies.
“You two are having an affair! And you still beat me, pay up! I’m telling you, without ten big unity notes, this won’t blow over!”
“Liu Tiangui, believe it or not, I’ll call the police!”
Song Jinping stood off to the side, face dark and serious.
The team leader’s head started to ache again. “What’re you all yelling for! How is it you again, Xinmei, can’t we have a few peaceful days? No matter who you’re seeing, if you want to be with someone, just interact openly. Our village isn’t some backwards hole like in the newspapers. We had Liberation Army soldiers stationed here before, people’s ideological awareness is very high. Your man’s been dead over three years. If you want to remarry, no one’s going to gossip about you.”
“If you want to be with Liu Mazi, then be with Liu Mazi. As for Comrade Song harassing you, why didn’t you say so earlier…”
He’d originally planned to repeat exactly what the young man who’d come running to report had said, but after a moment’s thought, he softened the wording.
What do you mean I’m with Liu Mazi and Song Jinping harassed me? Bai Xinmei felt like she’d suddenly forgotten how to understand human language.
The crowd was stunned too. What on earth is he talking about?
After another round of noisy back-and-forth, the team leader went through everything from beginning to end and summarized the two “versions.”
First: Liu Mazi lay in wait by the river for Bai Xinmei, tried to assault her, got caught by Comrade Song, and Comrade Song beat him up in a rage. That made sense. It would mean Liu Mazi was awfully bold, insulting and attempting to rape a woman was a crime you could get a bullet for.
Second: Comrade Song and Bai Xinmei had something going on, Liu Mazi walked in on them, mouthed off, and Comrade Song lost his temper and hit him too hard. That also… wasn’t impossible.
Given Liu Mazi’s lousy reputation in the village, the team leader didn’t really believe him and leaned toward the first scenario. But then again, he couldn’t just condemn a man purely based on a bad name. If Liu really hadn’t done anything and he, as team leader, misjudged the situation, and it got overturned later, that stain would sit squarely on his record.
He’d been team leader for years and was about to be replaced. He absolutely could not afford a blunder now.
As for that layabout kid who came to deliver the message earlier, what he’d babbled was complete nonsense.
“Team leader, let’s call the police. Whether it’s Liu Mazi accusing me of causing bodily harm, or Comrade Bai Xinmei’s claim that Liu Mazi tried to molest her, both already fall under criminal offenses. This kind of thing should be defined by professional police comrades.”
Song Jinping, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly spoke. His words were like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky: call the police.
What a mess. Calling the police was the one thing the team leader did not want to do. If they came, it would mean a major case on his watch as team leader.
“No way!”
Hearing the word “police,” Liu Mazi panicked. Police had guns; they were professional. People said they were fast at making arrests and even had police dogs and all kinds of equipment.
Seeing his resistance, the corner of Song Jinping’s thin lips lifted, three parts mockery, seven parts icy calm. He had no intention of letting Liu Mazi off. The man had angered him too much.
“Why not, Liu Mazi? Are you feeling guilty?”
Bai Xinmei pounced on that immediately and pressed the attack.
“Aiyo, aiyo, my chest, hurts! I’m dying! I can’t breathe! Team leader, you have to stand up for me! I’ve lived in Lotus Village over ten years, I’m one of you!”
He rolled back and forth on the ground, acting as if he were in unbearable pain. He was convincing enough to fool quite a few people.
The team leader wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. He’d basically made up his mind, but those few young men had seen Comrade Song beating Liu Mazi with their own eyes. Better to let a doctor take a look first. If the man really keeled over…
So the tractor was called out yet again to haul Liu Mazi to the town hospital.
Bai Xinmei was about ready to explode, rolling her eyes so hard they nearly stuck.
Because she and Song Jinping had to go along to pay the medical fees, how was she not supposed to be furious?
Sitting in the back of the tractor, her little face flushed with anger until it was almost the color of pig liver.
Song Jinping wanted to comfort her, but was afraid Liu Mazi would overhear and ruin his plan.
So he mouthed the words instead: Don’t worry. This will be resolved soon.
In the pitch-dark night, with Bai Xinmei fuming, she couldn’t see his lips clearly, only a vague outline.
She thought he’d made no response and had resigned himself to trudging all the way to the hospital to pay this bastard’s bills. As if!
She muttered softly, trying to console him, “Comrade Song, really, thank you for today. You’ve helped me so many times already. Once we get to the town hospital, you should head back on your own. I can handle the rest.”
The way she pouted, full of indignation and unwillingness, yet still forced to accept reality and even spare the effort to comfort him, made Song Jinping’s mood suddenly soar.
He couldn’t help letting a smile slip out. It wasn’t his usual polite, standard-issue smile, nor the half-smile he wore when he was scheming, but something genuine, from the heart.
Bai Xinmei stared, stunned. His presence was radiant, his brows and eyes like a painting. She stammered, “Comrade Song, you’re… really good-looking.”
“…Mm. You’re good-looking too.”
Her straightforward comment turned his ears scarlet. His face burned, and he desperately tried to make his mind think of something else.
Right. Liu Mazi.
Since Liu Mazi wanted to go to the town hospital so badly, he’d make sure the man stayed in town forever, stayed inside a prison.