Huang Yuanqing quickly looked out the window. The silhouette was clearly a woman, and he immediately set off after her. When he had entered, he had anticipated someone might try to escape, so he had already blocked off the obvious exit.
Xiao Mandong had just been about to try moving the stone slab when she heard running footsteps approaching. She slipped straight into her space.
A few of them ran into the courtyard, only to find the person gone, with the stone slab still blocking the entrance exactly as before. How was that possible? The courtyard was large, but it could be seen at a glance—there was nowhere to hide.
Huang Yuanqing suspected this family had more people they'd missed, otherwise how could anyone know the place this well? He sent his cousin to fetch a few reliable men to help search. He refused to believe someone could just vanish into thin air—and how could those five large crates in the basement have been spirited away without a trace?
Looking at the depth of the lime footprints on the ground, Huang Yuanqing judged the woman weighed around a hundred jin, deduced from her figure she was in her twenties, and about one meter sixty-five. Who could she be?
Meanwhile, Xiao Mandong's heart was racing in her space, gasping for breath. What should she do? Dawn was coming. If she didn't return soon, would Zhou Qichuan start looking for her at the hospital? Would that raise suspicion?
Xiao Mandong listened carefully to the sounds outside. If only she could see outside! Then she wouldn't be so helpless. But then again, she supposed she shouldn't be greedy.
"Keep that exit guarded—don't let that woman get away."
"Second Brother, rest assured, I'll keep my eyes glued to it."
So there really was another way out. Clever rabbit, three burrows after all.
More than ten minutes later, a breathless male voice reached her ears: "Second Brother, I'm back. These are my brothers. Tell us how to search."
Xiao Mandong was certain those footsteps came from the direction of the artificial rockery, which meant the other exit must be behind the rockery.
"Laizi, you take someone to guard the exit. The rest of you come with me—we're searching the house." He suspected that when they'd chased out earlier, the woman might have slipped back into the old residence to hide.
He really was a proper spy—organized in his arrangements and extremely alert. If it hadn't been for her space, she would have died a hundred times over.
She wrapped herself up tightly, leaving only her eyes exposed. Only when footsteps faded did she step out of the space and examine the big stone slab. She drank a few mouthfuls of spirit spring water, then pushed with all her might. With a crash, the stone slab toppled over, making a huge noise. The outhouse collapsed directly on top. Xiao Mandong quickly jumped to the hole's entrance and ran toward the exit.
She climbed out of the coffin, ran out of the cowshed, and quickly left the alley, heading straight for crowded streets.
Huang Yuanqing and the others heard the crash and shouted in alarm. When they arrived, they saw the stone slab sunk into the latrine pit and the collapsed outhouse.
He gnashed his teeth in frustration. He had underestimated her. That slab took at least three grown men to move, but the person he'd seen was a woman—he never imagined she could push it. He regretted not posting someone to watch the pigpen.
It was too late now; she had gotten away. He re-ran the timeline. He'd spent the day at the hospital yesterday, so she must have been following him when he left. The hole couldn't possibly fit the crates, so the goods had to still be here.
He left his cousin to keep watch for now and headed straight to the hospital with a few men. Once there, he called the public security and reported a suspicious person who might be a spy, requesting assistance with the investigation.
Xiao Mandong found a secluded spot, slipped into her space, showered, changed back into the clothes she had worn yesterday, and swapped her shoes. She bought breakfast at the state-run restaurant and went to where the tractor was parked. But neither the Brigade Leader nor Zhou Qichuan was there. Worried that Zhou Qichuan might be looking for her at the hospital, she hurried over.
Unexpectedly, Director Huang had moved fast. Together with the public security, he was already conducting a sweep of the hospital.
She anxiously looked for Zhou Qichuan and spotted Director Huang interrogating him. Xiao Mandong rushed over: "Company Commander Zhou, what's going on here?"
Xiao Mandong deliberately used the title "Company Commander" hoping it would temper Director Huang's arrogance. Sure enough, the formerly aggressive Director Huang softened his tone the moment he heard it: "So you're Company Commander Zhou! You weren't in uniform—I didn't recognize you."
Zhou Qichuan waved his hand: "Cooperating with the public security is my duty. Given yesterday's emergency, I wore my farm clothes."
When Director Huang saw Xiao Mandong's figure, he remembered the silhouette he had seen this morning, and signaled one of his men. The man immediately stepped forward to question Xiao Mandong: "Comrade, were you at the hospital yesterday?"
"Yes, why?"
"Please cooperate with the investigation. Did you see a woman in a floral shirt at the hospital?"
Xiao Mandong pretended to think, then shook her head: "No, don't recall."
"Then please lift your foot—we need to check the sole of your shoe."
Xiao Mandong lifted her foot, and the man compared it against a piece of paper with an imprint. Same shoe size, but not the same tread pattern. They then asked what time she had left and where she had gone, and finally the man shook his head at Director Huang.
Zhou Qichuan's expression didn't change, but he was certain that the person Director Huang was looking for had to be Xiao Mandong. Yesterday when they arrived, she hadn't been wearing those shoes.
Director Huang had already confirmed that their arrival was coincidental. The tractor had also been inspected—it truly had run out of fuel.
In the end, they had to let them go.
Director Huang's excuse for searching the hospital was that he'd found a spy. As for Zhou Qichuan's long absence from home, it wasn't family leave—it was a secret mission assigned by the military.
Today's events made Zhou Qichuan start to grow suspicious of Xiao Mandong. He recalled how a few days before, she had managed to get Cripple Liu back to the house in no time at all, and set up a trap to bind Hu Guizhen and Cripple Liu together. That was not the kind of maneuvering an ordinary person could pull off.
So who exactly was Xiao Mandong?
Just then, the Brigade Leader returned from borrowing fuel at the commune. The three of them shared the breakfast Xiao Mandong had bought and then went back to the village.
They hadn't even reached the village entrance when they saw Shunzi riding toward them frantically on a bicycle.
"You two didn't come back all night!"
"Qichuan, hurry—ride home. Something's happened at your place."
Zhou Qichuan jumped off the tractor, took the bicycle from Shunzi, and pedaled off at full speed.
The Brigade Leader asked his son what had happened at the Zhou household. Xiao Mandong listened with curiosity too.
"Zhou Xiaomei's ex-husband's family came to take her back. Zhou Xiaomei's parents want her to return too—after all, divorce doesn't sound good, and if she goes back, the Zhou family won't lose as much face."
The Brigade Leader raised an eyebrow. "Back then when they divorced, they nearly beat the girl to death. Old Madam Zhou had to rally the whole brigade to bring her home. And now they want to send her back? What good could possibly come of that?"
