Chapter 345: Chapter 338 Zhang Banzui’s Words Came True_1
The wailing was approaching bit by bit, and soon it reached the door.
Thump, thump, thump!
The crying woman was knocking forcefully on the door knocker.
“Master Qin… you must seek justice for my daughter! Wuu wuu wuu…”
It was Auntie Hua’s voice.
Qin Niu abruptly stood up and rushed outside, arriving at the courtyard gate after just a couple of strides.
Upon opening the gate, Auntie Hua’s face was smeared with tears, leaning on the door frame, with dishevelled hair and wearing her sleepwear of undergarments and undershorts, patched up in many places.
Many rural women are very frugal.
Mostly because they are poor.
Auntie Hua was normally a very prideful woman. She would dress as decently as possible when going out and apply a bit of makeup appropriately.
Now, wearing a patched-up outfit outside, it definitely indicated that something serious had happened.
“Auntie Hua, don’t panic, tell me what happened slowly.”
She was Qin Niu’s matchmaker; now that something happened in her family, Qin Niu would undoubtedly stand up for her.
Auntie Hua wiped away her tears, but they just wouldn’t stop flowing incessantly.
“This morning, after getting up and preparing the meal as usual, I called my daughter to get up and eat, but there was no response no matter how much I called. I ran to her room to check, and I don’t know which bastard ruined my daughter! There was blood all down below, and she was hanging dead from the roof beam. I beg Master Qin to seek justice for my daughter and bring the murderer to justice.”
Auntie Hua dropped to her knees, repeatedly kowtowing to Qin Niu.
Forehead striking the ground, blood was visible on her forehead in an instant, and a large bruise swelled up.
“Auntie Hua, don’t do this, please get up!”
Qin Niu helped Auntie Hua up.
“First, take me to your home to take a look. If you suspect anyone, you can also tell me who it is.”
Encountering such an incident early in the morning left Qin Niu speechless.
He couldn’t help but think of what Zhang Banzui had predicted a couple of days ago.
Zhang Banzui said that there would be misfortune in Auntie Hua’s family, but at that time, everyone thought Zhang Banzui was spouting nonsense.
Little did they know, it came true so quickly.
Auntie Hua only had one daughter, and now she had been killed. How was she supposed to live on?
Although in these troubled times, human life is as fragile as grass.
But for those families who have lost loved ones, it is an absolute catastrophe.
Most of the villagers in Shuangfeng Village are honest and simple.
Only Wang Haikun could be considered a villain in the village, oppressing the people and wreaking havoc in the area. Ever since Qin Niu severed one of Wang Haikun’s arms, Wang Haikun never again bullied anyone.
He mostly stayed at home drinking or worked in the fields.
He might have thought about taking revenge on Qin Niu in the past, but as Qin Niu continued to rise rapidly and gain fortune, Wang Haikun became as insignificant as a speck of dust.
To put it bluntly, Qin Niu could easily crush him with a single finger.
Qin Niu followed Auntie Hua to her home.
Auntie Hua’s daughter slept in the inner room, separated only by a wall from Auntie Hua’s room.
There were no signs of struggle inside the room.
Neither the door nor the windows had been tampered with.
For families like Silver Coin’s, who were slightly wealthier, if they had daughters, they would construct a loft.
Since ancient times, there has been the saying of keeping daughters in lofty chambers.
This, in fact, was to ensure the safety of daughters.
Because the doors and windows of old were made of wood and easily breached by criminals who could then enter and commit crimes.
Ancient women often pursued an ideal of delicate beauty.
Not only were they easily frightened, but their bodies were also weak and powerless, easily subdued by criminals.
If it were possible to build a loft and raise the daughter there, it would be much safer.
Auntie Hua was poor and couldn’t afford such a thing.
Keeping her daughter in the rear room provided at least one added layer of protection.
Qin Niu first looked at the body hanging from the beam, its lower half undressed, hung by a white silk and dead. The tongue was sticking out of the mouth, and the expression on the face did not show fright or pain; instead, it was somewhat tranquil.
The already washed-out bedsheet had a large stain of blood on it.
Qin Niu leaned closer to examine carefully.
The substance did not seem like ordinary blood, as it appeared to be mixed with some transparent fluid.
“Could this be amniotic fluid?”
Having made this discovery, Qin Niu looked once again at the body’s abdomen.
This time, there was a new finding.
He saw shallow purple lines, spanning from the entire abdomen to the top of the thighs, like the pattern of a watermelon.
These were stretch marks from pregnancy.
“Auntie Hua, do you know if your daughter had a man in her life?”
“Master Qin, what do you mean by that? My daughter was still a virgin, and even though she did go out sometimes, she was always obedient and sensible. If she really had a man, she would have definitely told me.”
“This is odd, looking at her stomach, it seems she was pregnant, and the bloodstain on this bedsheet, it doesn’t look like simple bleeding, but rather like blood mixed with amniotic fluid after giving birth.”
Qin Niu did not understand these women’s matters very well.
He had only heard them mentioned in passing by villagers during idle chatter.
Especially the women in their forties and fifties, who loved to gossip about the households east and west, discussing nothing but the scandals of the village.
Upon hearing this, Auntie Hua wiped away her tears and stepped forward to look closely.
Her complexion changed slightly.
Being experienced herself, she immediately knew there was truth to Qin Niu’s words.
“Was your daughter acting normally last night when you came home?”
“She was normal! Didn’t that plague-stricken Zhang Banzui predict a disaster would befall my house within a month? She’s my only daughter. To be on the safe side, I didn’t let her out even yesterday.
When I came home from your place, I even brought her some food she loves.
She had a very good appetite and ate it all up.
I washed feet with her and watched her go back to her room to sleep.”
Auntie Hua recounted the events of last night.
Who could have imagined that, after just one night, she and her daughter would be separated by life and death.
“Did you sleep in the room next door all night?”
“Yes!”
“Didn’t you hear any noise?”
“I’m a heavy sleeper, I didn’t hear anything.”
Auntie Hua answered.
“Then have you noticed any strange behaviors in your daughter recently?”
Qin Niu remembered that Auntie Hua’s daughter had gone to the city to look for a job not long ago.
And she had worked for about two or three months, returning to the family home around half a month ago, and had not gone out since.
If she really was pregnant, whose child was she carrying?
After the baby in her belly was born, where did it go?
The doors and windows were intact, and it didn’t look like the place had been intruded by criminals.
“Speaking of strange behaviors, there really were some abnormalities; her appetite was noticeably larger than before. One day I even saw her sitting on the edge of the bed in the middle of the night, smiling while looking into the mirror.
Additionally, her body had grown much fatter than before.
When I asked her about it, she just said that she had been eating well while working in the city, which is why she gained weight.”
Now that Auntie Hua reflected on it closely, she realized her daughter had exhibited quite a few abnormal behaviors.
“Exactly what job was she doing in the city?”
Qin Niu pressed on.
The people of Shuangfeng Village were relatively simple, and it was improbable for there to be such vicious individuals capable of murder or causing harm.
Even Wang Haikun, who was normally fierce, had not killed anyone before.
At most, he did some wicked things, beat someone up, extorted some Silver Coin and valuables, or harassed someone else’s wife.