False evidence

Chapter 359 Partiality
Officer Wang said, "The year after Xiaohua's grandmother passed away, I went to her grave to pay my respects. I saw Sanwazi collapsed in front of the grave. He had fainted from hunger, but he had brought offerings for the old lady... Although they were all begging, they were very plentiful. He hadn't touched a single bite."

"Even a madman knows how to be grateful. Compared to him, some people don't even deserve to be called animals."

I asked Officer Wang, "Since Sanwazi is considered a disabled person, can't the relevant authorities provide him with employment?"

“After returning from that visit to the grave, I started making arrangements for him. But Sanwa refused to go anywhere else, saying he wanted to stay in the village and keep his wife company.”

I asked in surprise, "He has a wife?"

Officer Wang nodded: "There used to be. There was a woman from the neighboring village who was also intellectually disabled. After her family died, she was left with no one to rely on. With the encouragement of some well-meaning but unscrupulous people, the two of them started living together. I heard from the villagers that when Sanwazi had a wife, he was quite normal."

How is his wife now?

"I don't know, I heard she was kidnapped by someone from out of town."

Officer Wang sighed, "Back then, Xiaohua left without saying goodbye... When Xiaohua disappeared, I was completely distraught and didn't care about a crazy woman at all."

"You should care about that."

Officer Wang was taken aback: "What?"

"Have you ever met Sanwazi's wife?" I asked, staring intently at the photo on the table.

The person in the photo had somehow transformed back into the woman I first met!

At this point, the woman's face was still in profile, dirty, with shifty eyes, as if she wanted to look at us but dared not look directly at us.

Officer Wang recalled, "When I first came here, I came with Xiaohua and saw that woman once. But at that time, it was just me trying my best to see the village where Xiaohua grew up. Her grandmother didn't know about our relationship. I saw that woman, but my impression of her was very vague..."

I stared at the photo and slowly said, "Short hair, round face, a slightly flat nose... one corner of the eye... there's a mole on the left corner of the eye."

"Yes! Yes, yes! I remember now, when Xiaohua and I saw her, she and Sanwa were sitting under the big willow tree at the end of the village, and Sanwa was picking the hairs from her mole..."

Officer Wang walked up to me in two steps. "How did you know?"

He followed my gaze to the photo, but clearly saw something different from what I was seeing.

At this point, I already had a preliminary plan in mind. Looking at the time, I decided not to delay any longer and to use the most direct method to confirm certain suspicions!

I looked at the photo and said, "Don't be afraid, we're not bad people. Sanwa is sick and has been taken to the hospital. You...you're his wife?"

The woman in the photo nodded quickly, appearing quite apprehensive.

Officer Wang asked, "Who are you talking to?"

I ignored him and spoke to the photo again: "You're dead, aren't you? You can't speak, but I can help you. You...you turn your face towards me...okay?"

The woman covered her face with her hands, trembling.

No matter what I said, she seemed afraid and refused to let me see her face.

As time ticked by, I could no longer contain myself and said sternly:

"Put your hands down! Turn your face around! If you don't obey, I won't treat Sanwazi! He'll die!"

The woman in the photo was visibly startled, quickly lowered her hand, and turned her face away.

I finally saw her face clearly, but I was shocked by the extreme fear on her face.

The expressions of a person with intellectual disabilities are the most genuine.

What is she afraid of?
Or perhaps she had witnessed something terrifying that gave her such an extremely frightened look in her eyes?

"What exactly happened?" Officer Wang's voice trembled slightly.

I grabbed his hand, my pupils suddenly contracting. "Come with me!"

……

A strong smell of firewood filled my nostrils, and the scene before me quickly became clear.

A dilapidated house.

A broken bed, broken tables and chairs, and a small mountain of junk piled up in the corner.

A short-haired woman squatted in the middle of the room, frantically adding branches to a brazier made from a broken iron pot. Above the brazier hung another chipped iron pot, containing only water. A layer of ash from the burning firewood floated on the surface of the uncooked water.

"Ya! Yaya!"

A man's muffled voice came from inside, and then the drafty, broken door opened, and Sanwazi ran in.

"Hey, hey! Roast chicken! Roast chicken!"

Sanwazi sat down on the ground next to the woman and hurriedly opened a plastic bag he was holding.

I couldn't see what was in the bag, I could only tell it was bulging.

Sanwazi reached into the plastic bag, and when he pulled his hand out, he was holding a greasy chicken wing between his fingers. "Hey, roast chicken! Eat it, you eat it!"

"You...you eat."

"I won't eat it, you eat it!"

Sanwazi insisted on stuffing the chicken wing into the woman's hand.

Then, he grabbed various foods from the plastic bag with his bare hands and threw them into the pot.

Officer Wang and I watched clearly as they added food to the pot: rice mixed with vegetable broth and leaves, steamed buns with obvious bite marks, meat, vegetables... and then chicken heads, chicken feet, and chicken butts...

"Hey!"

Sanwazi rolled up the empty plastic bag, put it aside and tucked it away. He turned around and mysteriously pulled a lotus leaf pouch from his pocket.

"Huh?" The woman slurped up a chicken wing while looking at the lotus leaf bun.

Sanwazi's eyes lit up: "It's a chicken leg! I went to a restaurant today, and they made me kowtow, so I did, and they gave me half a roast chicken! Here, have the chicken wings, and I'll break off the chicken leg separately. You... you take it to our aunt right now!"

"hold head high!"

The woman tossed the chicken wing, which was only a third of the way through, into the pot, took the lotus leaf bundle, stood up, rubbed her nose, and asked, "What if the old lady doesn't want it?"

Sanwa chuckled, "She's nice to us, but she doesn't want our things. Don't give it to her in front of her. Just leave it at the door and run back. Come back quickly, I'll watch the pot and wait for you to come back so we can eat stew together."

The woman nodded, tucked the lotus leaf bundle into her bosom, and hurriedly walked out.

Officer Wang and I exchanged a glance, then followed him out without saying a word.

After leaving the dilapidated house at the end of the village, they followed the woman all the way to Lin Xiaohua's maternal grandmother's house.

The woman first placed the lotus leaf bag at the gate of the courtyard, but then seemed to feel it was inappropriate, so she picked it up, pushed the gate, and the gate opened.

She tiptoed to the door of the main room like a thief.

Just as I put the lotus leaf bag down, I suddenly heard voices coming from inside the room.

The woman definitely had intellectual problems; without thinking, she brazenly peered through the crack in the door.

At that moment, Officer Wang and I also peered in.

Inside the house, an elderly woman with a full head of white hair was handing a bag of Hui Muslim pastries to a man, saying, "Ming'er, have some, have some quickly."

When I saw the man's face clearly, my temples throbbed.

Qin Shengming!
Qin Shengming didn't take the snacks, but stared straight at the old lady and said:

"Grandma, I'm the grandson, and Xiaohua is the granddaughter. You can't do it this way."

The old woman trembled: "What's wrong?"

"About the house."

The old lady's hand trembled, and the pastries fell to the ground. "Ming'er, what are you saying? What did you do? What did you do to Xiaohua?!"

Qin Shengming squatted down, picked up a loose pastry, blew on it, took a small bite, and chewed it with a crunching sound, while his eyes rolled upwards, staring intently at the old lady:
"Grandma, you shouldn't be so biased. If you weren't so biased, Xiaohua wouldn't have died."

(End of this chapter)