The young nurse standing beside glanced at Doctor Fu, looking as if she wanted to say something, but she swallowed the words back.
Doctor Fu returned to the pediatric department from the emergency room. A short while later, he came back to Auntie Gao's ward carrying a bag. He glanced at Auntie Gao, who was still unconscious, said nothing, pulled a chair over to sit by her bed, took out a ball of yarn and knitting needles from the bag, and started knitting a sweater.
Xiao Mandong glanced at Doctor Fu, then turned and walked out of the ward, heading back to the scene of the accident.
When she reached the family residential compound, two public security officers, one man and one woman, were standing downstairs. The older male officer was surrounded by several neighbors, who were chattering away to him about something.
"The eyewitness is here," the public security officer looked over following the neighbors' gaze.
"Comrade Public Security, I'm the eyewitness," Xiao Mandong said.
The officer nodded. "Tell us what happened at the time."
Xiao Mandong took a deep breath. Even now, just recalling the scene made a chill run down her spine.
"I came back from the hospital, and had only said a couple of words to Auntie Gao when a flower pot suddenly fell from the upper floor, hitting Auntie Gao right on the head. She passed out immediately. I looked up and saw a figure moving on the second floor. I called the neighbors over, and everyone helped rush Auntie Gao to the hospital. Right now, she's still unconscious, in Ward 206 of the Surgery Department..."
Xiao Mandong finished recounting the whole incident in one breath. After listening, the officer asked, "Who lives on that floor?"
"Yang Zhiqiang, that's Dr. Yang from our hospital's radiology department," a neighbor standing nearby cut in.
The public security officer nodded and turned to head upstairs, with Xiao Mandong and the other neighbors following right behind him.
"Divorce! I want a divorce! You spent all the money we saved over the years buying a job for your son! Half of that money was mine, why did you spend all of it on him? Give me my money back, and we'll go get the divorce done right now..." Luo Fen's voice was shrill with hysteria.
"Luo Fen, can't you take out the pension money your ex-husband left behind to buy Xiang Nan a job? Then I'll use our savings to get Jin Feng a job too. That way neither of the two kids will have to go to the countryside for the rural resettlement program," Yang Zhiqiang said. He had only found out a few days ago that Luo Fen had been holding onto that pension from her ex-husband all along, and the child's grandparents had never asked for a share of it. He had never expected this woman to be so scheming, hiding that fact tightly from him for all these years.
"You're talking nonsense! I've worked and saved money to buy jobs for your daughter and your son, why would I use Xiang Nan's father's money for that? What am I even getting out of being married to you? Your empty pockets? Or your lopsided favoritism? That money was left by Xiang Nan's dad, it's supposed to be split between the two kids in the future. I've already been doing my part of the duty. Back when we got married, you said you'd treat all the kids equally. If you hadn't promised that, I never would have married you," Luo Fen's voice was shaking with rage.
There was no way she was touching that money. Her late husband had been a soldier who died on duty, and the army had given her that pension. Her in-laws had refused to take any of it, saying it should be kept for the two kids. She was no fool, there was no way she would spend that money on someone else's children.
Before they even reached the landing on the second floor, they could hear Luo Fen and Yang Zhiqiang's quarrel clearly.
The public security officers stopped and knocked on the door. Yang Zhiqiang opened it, and the second he saw the officers, he froze completely.
"P-p-public security comrades, I didn't hit my wife, we were just... just arguing a little," cold sweat broke out all over Yang Zhiqiang's back. He had watched Tang Guanshan get taken away by the officers just a few days earlier. He hadn't embezzled any money at all, he thought. It was just a couple's petty fight, how did it end up drawing the public security out to his door?
The police officers explained their purpose for coming, and asked who had dropped the flower pot from above.
When Yang Zhiqiang heard that the flower pot he had knocked over had hit someone, he was so terrified that his hands began to shake. His lips trembled for a long time without him managing to utter a single word. He then ignored the police officers, pulled Luo Fen into the inner room, and said, "Luo Fen, listen to me. Later, you tell them that you were the one who threw the flower pot down. I earn a higher salary than you, and your job is only a temporary contract position. If you get arrested, I promise I will take good care of our two kids. But if I get locked up, our whole family will be ruined."
The flower pot had been knocked over by him by accident when he was venting his anger by smashing things on the balcony just a moment earlier. He had truly had no idea that it would hit someone. He could not afford to lose his stable, lifelong government job, so the only way out was to get Luo Fen to take the blame for him.
Luo Fen stared at Yang Zhiqiang in total disbelief, and her eyes instantly welled up with tears. Her ex-husband had been a soldier, a man of great courage and a strong sense of responsibility.
Back when her ex-husband was still alive, she never had to worry about a single thing at home. After he died in the line of duty, she got her first job through arrangements made by his military unit.
She had lived alone taking care of her kids for five years. Later, some hooligans kept hanging around peeping through her windows, and she was so genuinely scared that with the help of her family, she got to know Yang Zhiqiang.
She never in a million years expected Yang Zhiqiang to be such a cowardly, selfish, and self-serving man. Luo Fen took a deep, steadying breath, roughly pushed Yang Zhiqiang away, and walked out of the inner room.
"Officers, Yang Zhiqiang was the one who accidentally knocked the flower pot loose when he was throwing things around by the window," she said. "How is Auntie Gao doing right now, may I ask?"
There was no way she would take the fall for him, not even with his empty promise that he would treat her kids well. He was already blatantly biased against them right in front of her eyes. If she were locked up, Yang Zhiqiang would even sell her daughter off into a marriage just to make some money.
At Luo Fen's words, Yang Zhiqiang's face drained of all color.
"Luo Fen, don't talk nonsense! You were the one who smashed that pot, not me..."
*Slap!* Luo Fen smacked Yang Zhiqiang hard across the face.
"Yang Zhiqiang, can you ever act like a real man? How shameless are you, trying to make your own wife take the blame for your crime?"
Luo Fen was so furious that her chest heaved violently. She was going to divorce this man, and there was no other option. A man like him was never worth spending her whole life with. She had spent years living with him, and she never realized what kind of person he truly was as long as there was no conflict of interest between them. It was really true that you could only see a person's true colors when a crisis struck.
Yang Zhiqiang froze for a split second after being slapped. Then his eyes turned bloodshot, and he glared at Luo Fen furiously. He could not believe this woman had dared to hit him, especially in front of so many people. Where was he supposed to put his face now? The more Yang Zhiqiang thought about it, the angrier he got...
"You damned woman..." he cursed, raising his hand to hit her back, "you little bitch..."
Luo Fen had always had a fiery, unyielding temper. She immediately reached out and started scratching Yang Zhiqiang's face, all the while yelling at him nonstop, "You worthless piece of trash! You kept saying you would treat all the kids equally, but I knew perfectly well that you were sneaking eggs to your own daughter when you thought I wasn't looking. You knew Xiaona got excellent grades while your own daughter was a poor student, so you kept making Xiaona do all the chores around the house. And when your son had to repeat a grade, you even tried to make my son repeat the year just to keep him company. You rotten bastard! I've put up with you for way too long. I must have been completely blind to end up with a useless, good-for-nothing loser like you..."
Luo Fen was getting more and more enraged as she spoke, and she did not hold back her strength at all. She left several bright red scratch marks on Yang Zhiqiang's face, but after all was said and done, a woman could not match a man in raw physical strength. Seeing that the situation was getting out of hand, the police officers quickly stepped forward to stop the fight.
"That's enough, everyone, stop right now..." The older male police officer stepped forward to pull Yang Zhiqiang apart, while the female police officer wrapped her arms around Luo Fen and dragged her to the side. No sooner had the two been separated than a figure shot in like a cannonball, hurling a large schoolbag right at Yang Zhiqiang. "You bastard, how dare you hit my mom, I'll beat you to a pulp..."
