Reborn in 97, I solved a cold case at the Municipal Bureau

Chapter 463 Coming to the Human Realm to Undergo Tribulation

Logically speaking, Zhou Yi has not yet been transferred to Wu Guang and is currently on vacation, so he does not have law enforcement authority.

But things had come to this point, so he had to find out more about the situation before making any plans.

Through Aunt Ding's account, her grandmother's description, and her questioning of Lü Tiezhu, Zhou Yi basically understood the ins and outs of the matter.

Aunt Ding's full name is Ding Lanying, and she is sixty-two years old this year.

She was a woman with a hard life. She and her husband worked hard farming all their lives but never had children and suffered all kinds of disdain from her husband's family.

She finally conceived at the age of thirty-one, and after ten months of pregnancy, she gave birth to a boy.

This might not seem like much twenty years from now, but back then it was considered having a child late in life.

So the couple loved their son dearly and named him Yao Xi.

Although Yao Xi was treated like a precious gem by her parents, the problem was that the family was poor to begin with, and no matter how much they doted on her, they couldn't give her anything good.

Children from poor families, whether in rural or urban areas, are prone to developing low self-esteem.

Yao Xi was like that: weak, insecure, and timid.

He has a low level of education, no special skills, comes from a poor family, and is of average appearance.

So Yao Xi was still unmarried at twenty-five or twenty-six. Matchmakers had introduced him to many women, but none of them were interested in him.

The elderly couple were so anxious that they ran around asking everyone they knew for a partner, because at that age in the countryside, they were practically considered old bachelors.

When Yao Xi was twenty-eight years old, a matchmaker introduced him to a girl from a neighboring village named Wu Yuemei.

The matchmaker said that Wu Yuemei was about four years older than Yao Xi. Of course, in the matchmaker's words, it was like marrying a woman three years older is like finding a gold brick, and four years older would mean having an extra gold brick.

I used to work in the capital city of a neighboring province. When I was young, there were so many men pursuing me that they lined up from the east side of the city to the west side. I was so picky that I got overwhelmed by the choices.

Otherwise, someone as beautiful as Yao Xi wouldn't have gotten her chance.

The matchmaker raved on and on, making Ding Lanying and her husband overjoyed, so they took their son to see the man.

Although she wasn't as good as the matchmaker described, she wasn't bad either; she just looked a little older and a little overweight.

But the other party didn't seem to mind her son, so after the two young people met a few more times, the matchmaker came to discuss marriage.

The matchmaker said the woman asked for a dowry of 8,800 yuan, and if she gave it, she would agree to get married.

This sum of money, while not a huge amount, was still a considerable sum for the Yao family. It was an amount that would require emptying their savings and forcing them to borrow more.

But what could they do? For their son's sake, the elderly couple had no choice but to swallow their pride and bear the burden. They tried everything they could to scrape together the dowry and gave it to the bride's family. They hoped that the young couple would work together to make their lives better and better.

Things went quite smoothly after that; we got married and had a child the following year, though life became a bit tight.

To save money, the elderly couple ate only coarse food and tried to save every penny.

But they never mistreated their daughter-in-law. They gave her all the good food in the house. The old couple never saw any meat all year round, but their daughter-in-law loved meat. Plus, after giving birth, she became plump and healthy.

At first, this daughter-in-law was alright; she just stayed at home all day, being lazy and good-for-nothing.

However, since becoming pregnant, Wu Yuemei's temper has become increasingly worse. She would curse at her parents-in-law at the slightest dissatisfaction.

Yao Xi's husband was not spared either; he was scolded almost every day, either for being ugly and troublesome or for being useless and unable to earn money.

This family of three was already timid, and for the sake of Wu Yuemei's unborn child, they had to swallow their anger even more.

As a result, Wu Yuemei became increasingly demanding, eventually resorting to not only verbal abuse but also physical violence.

I finally made it to the birth of my child, thinking things would get better.

As a result, during her postpartum confinement, Wu Yuemei, not being able to eat pig's trotters, grabbed a bowl of hot water from the table and splashed it at Ding Lanying, scalding the old lady's hand.

In short, the days that followed were filled with chaos and the family was always struggling to make ends meet. If it weren't for the fact that they had their own land in the countryside, the old couple would probably have starved to death long ago.

The only consolation is that the little grandson is very cute. He is named Yao Huanhuan, so the Yao family has a successor.

But then something strange happened.

It's one thing that Wu Yuemei beats and scolds her husband and in-laws, but what's outrageous is that she treats her own son in the same way.

When a child cries, instead of comforting them, you scold them.

As Yao Huanhuan grew older, Wu Yuemei became even more physically abusive.

The reasons for hitting the child are either that the child doesn't eat properly or wets themselves, in short, they are disobedient and therefore need to be hit.

Moreover, they showed no mercy when fighting; bare hands were the least of their worries, sometimes they used firewood sticks, sometimes clothes hangers.

The beating left Xiao Huanhuan covered in bruises on her buttocks, thighs, arms, and other parts of her body.

At first, we didn't pay much attention because the family was really poor. The old couple and their son had to go out to earn money during the day. The old couple, in particular, would leave before dawn and eat cornbread for three meals a day, working until dark before returning home.

So at first, the child's injuries were not noticed. It wasn't until that summer, when Wu Yuemei went back to her parents' home alone, that Ding Lanying noticed the child was crying when she held him. When she took off his pants, she saw large bruises all over his legs and buttocks. Only then did she realize that Wu Yuemei had been beating the child every few days at home.

This infuriated the elderly couple. After Wu Yuemei returned from her parents' home, Aunt Ding mustered up the courage to argue with her daughter-in-law for the first time.

But even if a nice guy tries to stand up for himself, he can't really stand up for himself very hard.

A good person tries their best to do evil, but in the end, they are not as good as a bad person who farts.

Wu Yuemei was such a wicked person. In the midst of the argument, she suddenly grabbed a pair of scissors from the table and stabbed her son in the leg.

The grandfather, startled, quickly reached out to stop them, and the scissors pierced his palm, causing blood to gush out.

They even called the police.

Lu Tiezhu and his colleagues responded to the call, but these kinds of family disputes are usually resolved through mediation.

Lu Tiezhu also admitted in front of Zhou Yi that at the time they thought the incident was caused by the grandparents and mother arguing about the child, and then both sides got emotional and accidentally injured someone.

After all, this kind of thing is too common in rural areas; there are plenty of cases where mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law argue to the point of life and death.

As for using weapons, many people in rural areas are like that; they're incredibly reckless.

They mediated the situation, and Wu Yuemei apologized to the elderly couple in front of the police, promising not to hit the child again.

Disciplining children is a common practice, not just in rural areas, but also in cities these days. Parents hitting their children is a very common thing, as the old saying goes, "Spare the rod and spoil the child."

Unlike later on, people's attitudes have changed, and fewer and fewer people born in the 1980s and 1990s hit their children after becoming parents.

But the problem is that it's not simply a matter of hitting someone.

Besides, children are usually beaten when they're older, around seven or eight years old, when even dogs wouldn't want them, because they're disobedient, cause trouble, and then get a beating at home.

Anyway, kids this age are practically indestructible unless you beat them to death, especially boys, who are very resilient.

I've never seen a two- or three-year-old child beaten so badly.

Listening further, sure enough, something bad happened.

Yao Huanhuan died this April.

After the police were called, Aunt Ding stopped going out to work for a while and stayed home watching over her grandson every day, even keeping an eye on him when he went to the outhouse.

So Wu Yuemei stopped causing trouble, but that only meant she stopped hitting the children; she still scolded the elderly and children as usual.

The police report was filed in the second half of last year. After the Chinese New Year this year, Aunt Ding felt that everything was fine, so she went out to work again.

After all, elderly people in rural areas don't have pensions like those in cities; if they don't work, they'll starve.

After discussing it with his wife and son, they decided to go out to work. Spring was coming, and the busy farming season was just around the corner. The old man couldn't possibly manage those few acres of land by himself.

When Aunt Ding recounted this story, she was sobbing uncontrollably that she almost passed out.

She slapped herself and cursed herself, saying that it was all her foolishness that caused her grandson's death.

Many older women secretly wiped away tears after watching this.

On April 17th, the town's brick factory had a big job to do and needed to find workers to move bricks overnight.

The Yao family of three went there to earn some money, and the tragedy occurred during that time.

On the 17th, during the day, according to Wu Yuemei herself, four-year-old Yao Huanhuan spilled a bottle of eight-treasure porridge, and she immediately became furious.

Grabbing a wire hanger from the side, she whipped the child's legs and buttocks hard, causing redness, swelling, and localized bleeding.

That evening, she discovered that the area where her child had been hit was severely swollen.

She was afraid that her husband and in-laws would argue with her again when they came back, and she found it annoying.

So she thought of giving the child a hot bath to reduce the swelling, because she believed that hot water could improve blood circulation and remove blood stasis.

Then she boiled water, added cold water, poured it into a tub, and gave the child a bath.

When the water cooled down, she took the child out and discovered that Yao Huanhuan's lower body had extensive peeling skin.

If he had been taken to the hospital immediately, perhaps this tragedy could have been avoided.

But Wu Yuemei didn't take it seriously at all. She just found some erythromycin ointment at home, applied it to the child, and then put the child to sleep.

She added that the child slept very soundly that night, without making a sound.

The next morning, Yao Xi, still exhausted, returned with her parents. Yao Xi went inside to check on the child and found that the child's hands and feet were cold and his breathing was weak.

They immediately took the child to the village's barefoot doctor. The barefoot doctor was so frightened when he saw the child that he quickly called a villager's tractor, and together they took the child to the town's health center.

However, when she was taken to the hospital, four-year-old Yao Huanhuan had already lost her vital signs.

Zhou Yi felt a chill run down her spine. A four-year-old child, gone just like that.

"Where is Wu Yuemei now?" Zhou Yi asked, his face ashen.

Lu Tiezhu said, "He is currently in the county detention center."

If it's a detention center, then it means they've been arrested.

"So how has this case been classified now?"

Lu Tiezhu looked at the large group of people around him, hesitated for a moment, and whispered to Zhou Yi, "How about we talk inside?"

Zhou Yi nodded, offered some words of comfort to Aunt Ding, and then let Lü Tiezhu follow him into the house.

The three single-story houses in Zhou Yi's maternal grandmother's house have the middle one serving as the kitchen, which also serves as a place for meals.

The room on the left is where Zhou Yi's maternal grandparents lived, and the room on the right is where Zhou Yi's mother and her four siblings lived when she was a child. So there are two beds inside. Zhou Yi used to sleep in this room when he came to visit during summer vacation.

Zhou Yi led Lü Tiezhu into the room on the right and pulled the light switch. When the light came on, he was momentarily stunned.

On the large bed on the left side of the room, there was a mosquito net, a straw mat, two pillows placed side by side, and a blanket that I had brought from home. It was quite neat and clean.

The bed on the right had no mosquito net, and there wasn't even a mattress; it was just piled with bedding and other odds and ends.

Zhou Yi quickly tidied up while asking about the situation.

Luckily, Lu Xiaoshuang didn't see it, otherwise she would have thought it was her idea.

"Brother Tiezhu, what's the situation with this case? Is it handled by your police station or the Yunshan County Public Security Bureau?"

“Initially, it was indeed under our jurisdiction. On April 18th, after Aunt Ding and the others took the child to the town’s health center, the doctor pronounced him dead on the spot. It was Uncle Yao, the child’s grandfather, who came to the police station to find me,” Lu Tiezhu said. “Because after that incident, I told Uncle Yao to remember to contact me if there were any more problems.”

"Then we took Wu Yuemei back to the station for questioning."

"What did she say?"

"It's pretty much what Aunt Ding just said. Wu Yuemei admitted to hitting the child, but she said she didn't expect the child to die, and she felt that the child's death had nothing to do with her."

"Was an autopsy performed on the child?"

Lu Tiezhu shook his head, and his answer surprised Zhou Yi: "No, Aunt Ding and the others don't agree."

"why?"

“Sigh, the thinking of rural people is too outdated. They believe that a person should be left with a complete body after death. If someone cuts open a person’s body, they will never be able to reincarnate,” Lu Tiezhu said helplessly. “This case cannot be legally defined easily. If the family does not agree, then an autopsy cannot be performed.”

This answer left Zhou Yi feeling helpless. The elderly people in the countryside, of course, did not understand what an autopsy was. They only knew that it involved opening the abdomen. In their minds, reincarnation in the next life was more important than finding out the cause of death.

Although it's frustrating, that's the truth, and there are even some more outrageous perceptions.

"Where is the child's father? Where is Yao Xi?" Zhou Yi asked, because the parents are the guardians, not the grandparents.

"You haven't met Yao Xi. He's not a bad person, but he's incredibly spineless. He has absolutely no opinions of his own, and he's easily swayed. He listens to his parents when they say something, and to his wife when she says something."

"What if your parents and wife start arguing?"

Lu Tiezhu said with exasperation, "Then he should just hide and not show his face!"

Zhou Yi almost fainted upon hearing this. What kind of family is this? Is Yao Huanhuan here to undergo a tribulation in the mortal world? To be born into such a family is simply unbelievable.

"Where is the child's grandfather?" Zhou Yi asked.

"He had a stroke."

"Is it because of the child?"

Lu Tiezhu nodded: "Yes, when Uncle Yao ran from the hospital to our police station, he was already acting strangely. When he returned to the hospital, he collapsed on the spot."

Zhou Yi sighed, thinking to himself, "What kind of modern-day Xianglin's wife is Aunt Ding? She's in such a miserable state."

"If the case hasn't been classified, why is Wu Yuemei being held in the county detention center?" Zhou Yi asked.

"Well, our director felt this matter was too complicated. He was afraid that if we released her, something might happen later, so he reported it to the county bureau. After the county bureau reviewed it, they took over the case, and Wu Yuemei was sent to the county to be detained for a while."

"Later, for some reason, the county released him."

Zhou Yi was immediately startled: "Release them?"

This matter is indeed difficult to characterize, and it's normal that the police station couldn't handle it. Therefore, the decision made by the head of the Yunlai Town police station was correct.

However, the Yunshan County Public Security Bureau should not have released her so easily. Even if Wu Yuemei did not intend to cause death, she is still suspected of manslaughter and should be classified as a criminal case.

How can someone be released before a criminal case has been adjudicated by the court!

Could it be that the Yunshan County Public Security Bureau has classified this incident as an accident?
Lu Tiezhu nodded and said, "Yes, Wu Yuemei has gone back to her parents' home. When Aunt Ding found out, she took her son and a large group of relatives to Wu Yuemei's parents' home to demand an explanation. The two sides almost got into a fight, and we even had to call the police."

"Then how was Wu Yuemei arrested?" Zhou Yi asked, because since she was in a detention center, it must have been criminal detention.

"Later, it seems a newspaper reported on this, and then Aunt Ding and the others went to the county bureau to report the case. The county bureau sent officers and arrested the person. I heard that he was put in the detention center and has been there ever since," said Lü Tiezhu. "As for the specific arrangements made by the county bureau, I don't know, since it's not something we can ask about."

Zhou Yi expressed his understanding, saying that he had worked in a local police station for several years in his previous life and was very clear about the cases handled by higher-level units, which were generally not known to those below.

Unlike now at the municipal bureau, where if you're involved in something, you can just ask someone at the lower levels and they'll tell you everything clearly.

So it seems we still have to go to the Yunshan County Public Security Bureau to find out more about this.

However, the other party might not pay attention to him, after all, he is from Hongcheng City Bureau and has not been transferred to Wuguang City Bureau.

According to the rules, I really have no right to interfere; at most, I won't be turned away directly.

"Brother Tiezhu, how about this: you first send all the villagers away, since there are so many of them. Then call Aunt Ding in, and I'll ask her again. What do you think?"

Lü Tiezhu nodded quickly, then turned and left.

Zhou Yi lowered his head in thought, recalling the information about Wu Guang's murder case in his mind.

There are no case files related to Wu Yuemei and Yao Huanhuan.

In other words, regardless of how the case was classified in the previous life, it was never ultimately classified and sentenced as a murder case.

So even if a sentence is handed down, if it's lenient, it's just manslaughter, and they might even get a suspended sentence.

If it's serious, it's considered abuse, and the sentence would probably be around four or five years.

When Aunt Ding kowtowed to herself, she said, "Why don't you police officers shoot her?"

Of course, it's normal for an old woman from the countryside to not know the definition of the death penalty; the only one she could recognize was the police.

But these words reflect her attitude: she hopes Wu Yuemei can pay for her grandson's life.

That would be a charge of intentional homicide, meaning that the perpetrator subjectively intended to kill another person and objectively committed an act sufficient to deprive another person of their life.

Even so, whether Wu Yuemei will be sentenced to death remains to be seen.

Zhou Yi believes that it is highly unlikely, and at most he will be sentenced to life imprisonment.

Unless an autopsy reveals that the child was actually strangled to death.

However, Zhou Yi's thinking was not influenced by Aunt Ding's request.

Instead, he found it strange from the very beginning that Wu Yuemei was abusing her own son.

This doesn't align with a mother's instincts; after all, she is the child's biological mother, not a stepmother.

Even if she was dissatisfied with the Yao family's conditions and wanted to vent her anger, she had already been beating and scolding her in-laws and husband, so there was no need to treat the child the same way.

So there must still be problems here, and I'm afraid the county bureau might close the case hastily without investigating it thoroughly.

In fact, this is a possibility.

Unless it is a clear-cut murder case, ambiguous cases like this are generally not handled with seriousness.

Either the suspect has an emotional breakdown and confesses during interrogation that he had the intention to cause harm.

Zhou Yi was sitting on the edge of the bed thinking when Lu Xiaoshuang walked in.

Zhou Yi looked up and saw that her eyes were red, clearly she had also shed tears.

"This family is really pitiful."

Zhou Yi sighed helplessly: "Oh, what a mess this is, Yao Huanhuan is so pitiful."

“Brother Zhou, although I know you have rules, I still want to ask, can you help them?” Lu Xiaoshuang asked eagerly.

"Rules are rules, but people are flexible. If there's anything wrong here, I'll definitely see it through to the end!"

Hearing this, Lu Xiaoshuang felt relieved. She knew that since Zhou Yi had said this, the truth would definitely come out.

Just then, Grandma called out from the kitchen, "Xiao Yi, they've all gone home."

"Coming," Zhou Yi replied and went out.

The front door was already closed, leaving only six people inside: the maternal grandparents, Aunt Ding, and Lü Tiezhu.

Aunt Ding sat there, her back hunched, like a withered tree stump.

"Aunt Ding," Zhou Yi called out.

"Sigh." Aunt Ding looked up blankly.

"Don't worry about this matter. I will try my best to find out the situation and then help you. But I have to make this clear from the beginning: I am not a righteous official, and I can't execute Wu Yuemei for you. I can only investigate the matter thoroughly, and the final outcome will be decided by the court according to the law."

He needed to make some things clear first, even though Aunt Ding's family was very pitiful.

But some people are truly pitiful yet hateful. Putting aside everything else, just the disagreement with the child's autopsy is creating difficulties for the case.

Without an autopsy, the cause of death cannot be determined, and without determining the cause of death, it cannot be proven that there is a necessary connection between Yao Huanhuan's death and Wu Yuemei's behavior.

This not only affects the nature of the case, but also the judgment.

Zhou Yi doesn't want to be like the Mr. Dongguo. Being uneducated, from the countryside, and old—these three factors combined are practically synonymous with being stubborn.

Zhou Yi's maternal grandmother chimed in, "That's right, Aunt Ding. Our Zhou Yi is a policeman. You'll have to find the judge to decide your case, you know?"

Aunt Ding nodded mechanically.

"Aunt Ding, let me ask you, after Wu Yuemei was released, did you go to the county to report the case again?"

Aunt Ding nodded.

"On what grounds did you file the police report?"

Aunt Ding shook her head: "I...don't know, it was my son Xizi who reported it to the county."

Zhou Yi then asked, "Did someone teach you this?"

Upon hearing this question, Aunt Ding hesitated noticeably and turned to look at Zhou Yi's maternal grandmother.

Grandma was an impatient person and urged, "Why are you looking at me? I don't have anything written on my face. My grandson is asking you a question."

Aunt Ding then spoke up, "It was...it was that reporter. He told us not to tell anyone that he taught us to do it."

"What's this reporter's last name?" Zhou Yi quickly asked.

Aunt Ding shook her head: "I don't know his name, I only know that his surname is Li."

(End of this chapter)