Xu Huiqing’s high lift of the wooden stool scared the people who followed her in. They all rushed to embrace her, trying to snatch the stool from her hands: “Don’t smash! If you hit someone with that stool, you’ll kill them!”
But even though Xu Huiqing’s hands were restrained, she still exerted force with her wrists, sending the stool in her hand smashing down onto Zhao Zongbao’s head.
Although not as forcefully as the first strike, the solid wooden stool falling on his head still hurt a lot.
But no matter how much it hurt, it was nothing compared to the pain of his leg that had been smashed and broken!
At this moment, Father Zhao, Mother Zhao, Eldest Sister Zhao, and the others had all followed inside, witnessing the scene where Xu Huiqing, while being held back, still threw the stool at Zhao Zongbao’s head. She continued smashing and shouting: “Was it you who told them to sell Xiaoxi? Was it you who told them to sell Xiaoxi!”
She seemed like one possessed.
When they saw Zhao Zongbao’s leg bent at a 120-degree angle, Eldest Sister Zhao and the others were horrified, their eyes nearly splitting with fear, and they cried out: “Zongbao!!!”
They approached in disbelief, none daring to touch Zhao Zongbao.
At this moment, the older sisters-in-law who were cooking in the kitchen heard the noise and ran out. Third Sister Zhao had the loudest voice, still holding a spatula: “What’s going on? What’s going on? Why is it so noisy?” Upon seeing Zhao Zongbao’s leg bone bent at 120 degrees, she screamed: “What happened? How did Zongbao’s fine leg get broken again?”
Seeing everyone gathered around, she quickly shouted: “What are you all standing there for? Go call a doctor!”
Mother Zhao, heartbroken and nearly fainting, cried out: “I’ll fight you to the death, you wretch!”
Xu Huiqing, surrounded and held by many people around her body and arms, could barely move. But Mother Xu and the sisters-in-law were present, as were Eldest Brother Xu and Third Brother Xu. The sisters-in-law hurriedly pulled Mother Zhao away.
The people holding Xu Huiqing saw Mother Xu arrive and assumed that Mother Xu and the Xu sisters-in-law would surely be able to persuade Xu Huiqing, and they quickly advised: “Let’s talk this out calmly. Is there some misunderstanding? You, child, haven’t even made things clear, yet you struck so harshly? His leg is like this—if he becomes a cripple, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life, I’m telling you.”
Mother Xu also embraced Xu Huiqing and persuaded her: “Huiqing, what are you doing? Do you not want to live your life anymore?”
But Xu Huiqing seized the moment when everyone loosened their grip, grabbing Zhao Zongbao, who was pale with pain and sweating on his forehead, by the hair: “Your second sister said you agreed to her selling Xiaoxi?” She slapped him hard across the face, demanding loudly as she struck: “Was it you? Was it you? Was it you?”
She put all her strength into those slaps, making even the onlookers wince at the force.
Father Zhao, who had been dizzy from being hit with a porcelain plate earlier, finally recovered. He searched all over the yard, and after finding a wrench for repairing televisions, picked it up and walked toward Xu Huiqing. Without a word, he raised the large wrench to smash it down on Xu Huiqing’s head.
Xu Huiqing didn’t notice his actions, but Eldest Brother Xu and Eldest Brother-in-law Zhao did. Eldest Brother-in-law Zhao moved even faster than Eldest Brother Xu, grabbing Father Zhao from behind and dragging him backward: “Dad, Dad! Calm down, don’t be rash, don’t be rash!”
Father Zhao had more than one life on his hands when he was young, and his strikes were extremely vicious.
He had completely lost his reason at this moment, wanting only to kill Xu Huiqing. He struggled desperately to throw off Eldest Brother-in-law Zhao, shouting: “Let go of me! I’ll beat this wretch to death, let go!”
He was over sixty, with not many years left to live, and now he just wanted to kill Xu Huiqing, who had broken his son’s leg.
Eldest Brother Xu also reacted, snatching the wrench from Father Zhao’s hand, and Fifth Brother-in-law Zhao also came to pull Father Zhao away.
Fifth Sister Zhao, who had been tending the fire in the kitchen, came out and saw Xu Huiqing hitting Zhao Zongbao. Her mind went blank, and she screamed: “Why are you hitting my brother?”
She, who had previously been quite polite to Xu Huiqing, now rushed at Xu Huiqing like a madwoman, reaching out to claw at her face and hair.
Eldest Sister Zhao also charged forward to hit Xu Huiqing and Mother Xu, but Xu Huiqing’s three sisters-in-law weren’t pushovers. Regardless of how they usually got along with Xu Huiqing, at this moment they had to stand united against outsiders. They immediately blocked Fifth Sister Zhao and Eldest Sister Zhao, preventing them from attacking Mother Xu and Xu Huiqing, while still trying to persuade: “Everyone, calm down, calm down!”
Third Sister Zhao and Fourth Sister Zhao were both stunned.
Third Sister Zhao and Third Brother-in-law Zhao kept shouting from the edge of the crowd: “Stop fighting! Stop! Stop fighting!” Then she said to Third Brother-in-law Zhao: “Quick, go fetch a doctor!” And she shouted to Fourth Sister Zhao and Fourth Brother-in-law Zhao: “Hurry up and pull them apart!”
Fourth Sister Zhao and Fourth Brother-in-law Zhao then seemed to wake from a dream, rushing forward to pull people apart, but not knowing whom to pull.
Eldest Sister-in-law Xu was slower to react, but Second Sister-in-law Xu was formidable, facing off directly against the equally tough Fifth Sister Zhao!
Fifth Sister Zhao and Second Sister-in-law Xu were tangled together. Seeing that Third Sister Zhao and Fourth Sister Zhao couldn’t even fight, Fifth Sister Zhao shouted hoarsely in anger: “Zhao Pandi, Zhao Youdi, why are you pulling me? Pull them apart!”
She was referring to Second Sister-in-law Xu and Mother Xu, who were fighting with her side.
Mother Xu was also caught off guard. She had originally come to embrace her daughter and break up the fight, but somehow she got dragged into the melee, tussling with Mother Zhao.
She was tall and fought dirty. Mainly, because she was tall and sturdy, when she tangled with the thin and frail Mother Zhao, she almost effortlessly pinned her down.
Fourth Sister Zhao looked at Fifth Sister Zhao, whose hair was being pulled by Second Sister-in-law Xu as she was held down, then at pitiful Mother Zhao, pinned under Mother Xu. She wanted to rescue Fifth Sister Zhao, then wanted to rescue Mother Zhao, her steps hesitant. In the end, she could only mutter helplessly, like someone with social anxiety, softly saying: “Stop fighting, just stop fighting.”
Her flustered appearance nearly made Fifth Sister Zhao spit blood in anger. Even with her face pressed to the ground by Second Sister-in-law Xu, she didn’t forget to shout with a twisted expression: “Hit her, you!”
The three large storefronts of the Zhao family were all located in a bustling part of Water Wharf Town, with roads leading in all directions. The Water Wharf Town Police Station wasn’t far from the Zhao family, and Second Brother Xu, being tall with long legs and resourceful, arrived there in no time.
When the police at the station heard that the Zhao house was a den of human traffickers, that the Zhao family were all traffickers, and that their niece had been sold by them, they were all startled. Without delay, they gathered all the officers from the station, grabbed their equipment, and hurried to the Zhao house.
When they ran to the Zhao house, they saw this exact scene of a brawl, with onlookers gathered all around watching the excitement.
Upon seeing the police, the bystanders quickly shouted: “The police are here!”
“Officer Wu, come quickly! The Zhao family is fighting!”
“Someone’s going to die!”
Several officers quickly stepped forward to pull them all apart, demanding sternly: “What’s going on? What’s going on? Why are you fighting? Where are the traffickers?”
Xu Huiqing, having just completed her postpartum confinement, was already weak. After her earlier outburst, her body was exhausted. Supported by others, she sat in a chair in the central room of the back courtyard, leaning feebly against the backrest, crying and pointing at Father Zhao, Mother Zhao, Second Sister Zhao, and Zhao Zongbao: “Officer Wu, I want to report! The Zhao family are human traffickers! They built their fortune on selling people, and they conspired to sell my daughter!”
Upon hearing Xu Huiqing’s words, Father Zhao lunged forward again to hit her: “I’ll kill you, you foul mouth!” He was firmly held down by Eldest Brother Xu, unable to move.
Mother Zhao, her face pressed to the ground by Mother Xu, still didn’t forget to cry out: “Misunderstanding! It’s all a misunderstanding! There are no traffickers, no kidnapping! Xiaoxi was just sent to my second daughter’s house to stay temporarily, and my daughter-in-law accuses us of selling her daughter. No sale! It’s a misunderstanding! All a misunderstanding!”
Xu Huiqing shrieked in a piercing voice: “I heard with my own ears you saying you sold Xiaoxi. Just now, Zhao Daidi admitted it was you who instructed her to sell Xiaoxi. So many people here heard it—do you still want to deny it?”
If it were any other matter, the bystanders might have been afraid of trouble and preferred to smooth things over. But with an anti-trafficking issue, they dared not gloss it over. If the traffickers weren’t dealt with, what if the next child trafficked was from their own family? Moreover, the Zhao family was the first and currently the only household appliance distributor in the town, and who knew how many secretly envied the Zhao family. Now, when Officer Wu asked, they all stepped forward and said: “I heard it too! Second Sister Zhao personally admitted that Old Zhao and Old Lady Zhao told her to sell their eldest granddaughter!”
“I heard it too!”
“They’re truly black-hearted, selling even their own granddaughter and niece. Who knows how many children they’ve sold in secret to amass such a family fortune!”
“Comrade police, you must thoroughly investigate the Zhao family! Their wealth clearly comes from illegitimate sources!”
Since the Zhao family was so wealthy, there was no shortage of those jealous of them, who egged on: “The Zhao family must be traffickers. Otherwise, how did they get rich in just a few years? Where did the money come from to buy these three large storefronts and run this color TV business? They must have made their money as traffickers!”
When the police station personnel heard it was about child trafficking, they didn’t dare take it lightly. They took everyone back to the station for investigation. Not only that, they also called the County Public Security Bureau, and soon public security officers from the county drove over in the bureau’s only two police cars to Water Wharf Town.
In those days, losing children and trafficking were very common. Especially with the strict enforcement of the family planning policy in recent years, trafficking was generally a case of ‘no prosecution if not reported by the public.’
Second Sister Zhao was selling a child for the first time. She had thought that since it was her own niece from her parental home, and her own father and mother wanted to give her away, it was no big deal. Who would have imagined that her sister-in-law, who had always had a good temper, would suddenly explode, not only breaking her brother’s leg but also calling the police, getting them all arrested at the station.
“It was all my dad and mom who told me to sell her. Otherwise, how would I dare?”
Facing interrogation by the police station officers, Second Sister Zhao was terrified out of her wits. She wailed and cried, saying it had nothing to do with her, not daring to hide anything, and confessed everything she knew.