Chapter 451 - 446: A Question of Conduct
Seeing that Gu’er still remembered You Erbaihua, Lin Shan continued, "After what happened last time, he lost his position as the township director and had to return to his village. But even after going back, he didn’t clean up his act. I had people look into it, and they confirmed it was him who instructed a man named Lai Bao Tou to take you and abandon you. Later, when I hired people to search for you, and when I went back to search myself, they were the ones spreading false information to make sure I couldn’t find you."
"It really was him! That man is so vicious. I was just a little kid back then. If I had run into bad people, who knows where I might have been sold off to. No, this can’t be over."
Gu’er was furious. She knew that if it weren’t for this man, she wouldn’t have suffered such a fate in her previous life.
"Don’t worry," Lin Shan said, patting Gu’er’s shoulder. "You Erbaihua is in jail now."
"Huh? How did he end up in there? Dad, did you arrange it?"
Gu’er was surprised. She had no idea about any of this.
"I confirmed it was him, so of course I couldn’t let him off the hook. But the incident from back then happened too long ago, and we didn’t have any direct evidence, so there was nothing we could do to him on that charge. So I decided to approach it from a different angle. It just so happened that I heard You Erbaihua was trying to seize the house and land of a family in his village. The woman of the house is named Liu Fang. Her husband had died, leaving her with a paralyzed mother-in-law and a three-year-old daughter. Life was already hard for them, yet You Erbaihua was still preying on her family. He said he was going to take their house, tear it down, and build a new courtyard for himself. He also wanted to force himself on Liu Fang. She refused and was nearly driven to suicide. When I learned of this, I had someone tell Liu Fang to come and file a formal complaint."
As Lin Shan spoke, a cold glint appeared in his eyes, a clear sign of his intense disapproval of You Erbaihua. He went on, "Liu Fang had nowhere else to turn, so she came and filed the complaint. Once I received it, I immediately sent people to investigate. They not only uncovered You Erbaihua’s history of bullying his neighbors and committing many other wicked deeds, but they also found evidence that he had accepted bribes during his time as the township director. We opened a case, and he was sentenced in less than two months. He won’t be getting out for at least a decade."
Hearing Lin Shan’s words, Gu’er clenched her fist. It was so satisfying. You Erbaihua was already over forty. After spending a decade-plus in prison, he’d be in his fifties or sixties when he got out. What future could he possibly have? That man had done so many unconscionable things; going to prison was his just deserts.
"Dad, you never told me any of this. If I hadn’t asked today, were you just not going to tell me at all?"
Gu’er tugged on Lin Shan’s arm, swaying it back and forth. At the time, her father had told Jia Ming and Li Zhi not to get involved, and she had assumed he just didn’t want to cause trouble. She never expected him to step in and handle it himself, sending You Erbaihua straight to prison.
Lin Shan patted Gu’er’s head. He was a father; how could he not take his daughter’s suffering to heart? But getting revenge for her wasn’t as simple as just beating You Erbaihua up. A simple beating would have been pointless. Afterward, You Erbaihua would have gone right back to his carefree life. Therefore, Lin Shan believed that if he was going to act, he had to make sure You Erbaihua could never recover. Now, with the evidence of his crimes all laid out, it would be very difficult for him to get out of prison. The life inside would be more than enough for him to suffer through.
"What happened then? Did this whole thing affect you?"
"Not exactly. Putting You Erbaihua away was all done through proper procedures. There was a victim, and the evidence of his corruption was real. So it wasn’t because of him. It was because of the woman who was nearly driven to her death by You Erbaihua, Liu Fang."
As Lin Shan mentioned this woman, a complex glint flashed in his eyes.
’A woman?’ Gu’er frowned slightly. ’Things always get complicated when a woman is involved.’
"This Liu Fang, she’s a good person, just unlucky. Her husband died of illness, and they had already spent all their money trying to treat him. After he was gone, her life became very difficult. She had to care for a paralyzed mother-in-law and a young daughter. People in the village said she was a jinx who brought death to her husband, so no one wanted to be near her. You Erbaihua tried to take her house and force himself on her, nearly driving her to suicide. I had someone encourage her to press charges, and You Erbaihua was sent to prison. I thought her life would get better after that. But I never expected what happened next. One day, I was in the area for work and heard her mother-in-law cursing at her. She called her an unlucky star who had jinxed her son to death, and complained she hadn’t even given them a son, ending their family line. She also screamed at her for daring to, as a woman, show her face in public to file a complaint and offend the You family, asking if Liu Fang was trying to get their whole family killed. The words were very harsh. Liu Fang didn’t say anything and just continued to care for her mother-in-law, only crying in secret. I truly didn’t expect this. Seeing how hard her life was, and knowing she was being cursed at because I had urged her to press charges, I left her some money to get by. I also told her to find me if she ever ran into any real trouble, and I would help her resolve it."
As she listened to Lin Shan’s story about this woman named Liu Fang, Gu’er felt a sense of foreboding. She knew that men sometimes take pity on the weak, and what begins as simple compassion can often stir up a great deal of trouble, escalating until the situation becomes unmanageable.
Gu’er knew her father wasn’t a lecherous man. He wasn’t helping Liu Fang just because she was a woman, but simply out of pity for her difficult circumstances. Others, however, wouldn’t necessarily see it that way.
"Liu Fang didn’t look for me after that, so I thought the matter was over. Later, I was doing a work inspection tour, visiting several families in need, and I stopped by her house as well. Liu Fang’s daughter, Xiaohua, ran to me crying, grabbing me and begging me to save her mother. I was shocked, so I went with some people to see what was wrong. We found her unconscious and burning up with a fever, while her mother-in-law was still lying on the kang bed, cursing her. It turned out that while Liu Fang was serving her mother-in-law a meal, the old woman had thrown the hot soup directly on her, scalding her. She didn’t get it treated. Then, at the next meal, her mother-in-law threw hot soup on her again. She was badly burned, but her mother-in-law kept tormenting her, refusing to let her go outside or use any medicine. Her wounds got infected and she developed a high fever. If we hadn’t shown up, she probably would have died in that house without anyone knowing."
"I immediately had my men carry her to my car and take her to the hospital. She was there for many days before she recovered. I wanted to give her some advice, but she just said it was her fate, so there wasn’t much more I could say. I had someone take her back home. Not long after, news came that her mother-in-law had died. She had killed herself by smashing her own head. She claimed that her daughter-in-law had jinxed her son to death, abused her, and was cheating behind her back. She said she couldn’t bear it anymore, so she killed herself. As soon as she died, the village flew into an uproar, shouting about beating Liu Fang to death. When I got word, I sent people to stop them. But a few people who used to be close to You Erbaihua jumped out and started spreading rumors. They claimed the reason I helped Liu Fang was because I had my eye on her. They said her hospitalization in the township was just a cover for us to be together, and that our affair had driven her mother-in-law to suicide."
Lin Shan sighed helplessly as he reached this point in his story. He added, "Once a rumor like that starts, even if most people don’t believe it, plenty of others love to gossip. The whispers just spread. Right at that time, an investigation team came down from the provincial government to review my work. They didn’t find any other problems, but this incident became an issue with my personal conduct."