Green Lotus Peasant Girl

104

Once everyone had left, Zhou Chengkang finally went home. It seemed as if nobody was trying to avoid him when discussing matters around the village. Some people were even deliberately speaking in front of him.

In other words, the villagers made it clear to him that they had no intention of returning the silver.

Mother Zhou sighed, "I always felt they might not return it. Unless the people from the Yang family can find some money."

This was impossible, the Yang family was truly poor with no resources except for selling their house and land to save about 10 taels of silver. Even if they could save some money up, Xu's mother still had 15 taels of IOUs on her side.

"It doesn't matter," Li Qinghe remembered something and asked, "Did you see Yang Lanhong today?"

"No!"

The group of people exchanged glances and shook their heads. She asked, "If the thief can’t be caught, will the Yang family still admit it?"

Zhou Chengkang frowned and said after a while, "I saw a bruise on Old Master Yang's neck."

Li Qinghe asked in surprise, "Does he want to take the blame for his son?"

Zhou Chengkang thought for a moment and said, "It's possible. I'll ask tomorrow."

The next morning, Zhou Chengkang took the whole family with him in a carriage to the town. At the town mayor's house, they specially found a room and locked up the Yang family.

When they arrived, Eldest brother Zhou was already there. "So now we can't find out who the thief is?"

The mayor sighed, "Yes, he still doesn't open his mouth and tell us where Yang Lanhong has gone. We can't even catch the person, let alone find the rest of them."

"No matter what I say, he still won't open his mouth."

Li Qinghe said as she walked to Father Yang’s room and opened the door. She saw him sitting on the chair. He squinted his eyes because the sunlight was too strong. After seeing her clearly, he was somewhat surprised, "It's you?"

She sat down opposite him and said, "Yes, it's me. I'm here to ask you where your son has gone?"

Father Yang shook his head, "I don't know, he hasn't been living at home for a long time, you don't need to look for him. The things in your elder brother's house were taken by me, but I didn't beat him up. I didn't lay a hand on him, I was only responsible for taking the silver."

"Then tell me who the rest of the people are."

“I don't know them. Someone put a note in my courtyard before, asking me to go steal things. If I didn't do it, I was supposed to pretend that I didn’t see it. I owed so much money to the villagers that I felt uneasy, so I went to the pre-arranged place in town late at night. They all had their faces covered and gave me a cloth to cover mine. I didn’t know that it was your elder brother’s house before. Later, your elder brother discovered us, so we had no choice but to tie him up, beat him, then ask his wife to get the money… To be honest, I did help out. Someone in the group saw that your elder sister-in-law is beautiful and wanted to spoil her, but I stopped them. If you don't believe me, you can ask your elder brother.”

Li Qinghe was sitting opposite him, listening to him say that after going out, several people split the silver and left, and he returned home when it was dawn. He knew that the silver couldn't be kept, so he hurriedly asked the mother-in-law to find people in the village to pay off the debt. "I really want to pay back the villagers' money, as soon as I have it I will pay it back immediately…"

Li Qinghe was impatient listening to this and thought that the Yang family had been able to eat deliciously and live grandly even though they owed so much money. If it was really embarrassing, they should have repaid the debt earlier. She interrupted him and asked, "So, apart from you getting the silver, you don't know who the others were, or how much silver they had, nor do you know who took away my elder sister-in-law's jewelry, right?"