Courtyard House: My Wife is Xu Huizhen

Page 175

"Don't say anything, leave this to me. I'll make sure this scoundrel is sent to the police station and jailed today."

Then he yelled, "Drag him out and beat him, so he doesn't get the ground dirty."

Several younger brothers shouted "Good!" and then one of them grabbed Xu Wude's ankle and dragged him out. Xu Wude pleaded repeatedly but to no avail, and was dragged into the main room.

Liao Xiuye ​​was startled. If the matter were reported to the police station, the truth would come to light quickly after an interrogation.

This wasn't the first time for either of them; at most, it was adultery, and it was impossible for it to be judged as rape.

She would be in trouble then, and might be kicked out of the Cheng family. With no one from her own family, she wouldn't be able to go back home and would have to beg for food.

Liao Xiuye ​​pleaded urgently, "Dayuan, we can't report this to the police! Otherwise, I'll have no face to live on."

"But..."

"Dayuan, as long as we don't report it to the police, I'll do whatever you say."

Cheng Dayuan reached out and touched Liao Xiuye's chest, saying, "Did you say that?"

Liao Xiuye ​​breathed a sigh of relief. She had nothing left but this body. Her encounter with Xu Wude was purely by chance, and she had been tempted by his small favors.

Under these circumstances, he has no choice but to agree to whatever Cheng Dayuan asks, or he'll have to resort to begging.

She wasn't the kind of chaste and virtuous woman who had previously been willing to be with Old Xu Wude for some money, so having Cheng Dayuan serve her was no big deal. After all, she was just herding one sheep or two.

"You can have whatever you want, your sister-in-law will agree to anything." Liao Xiuye ​​told the truth and even reached out and touched Cheng Dayuan's crotch.

After what happened today, Xu Wude probably won't come to my door again. Cheng Dayuan can fill the void left by Xu Wude and make a seamless transition.

"Okay, it's settled then. Leave the rest to me."

This woman isn't a virgin anymore; it doesn't matter whether she's had one or two men. Cheng Dayuan doesn't mind how many men she's had.

When they came out of the inner room, they saw that Xu Wude, who was naked, had been beaten black and blue, and his body was covered in bruises.

He threw the clothes he had taken out at him and said, "Alright, guys, don't kill him, or we'll have to pay with our lives."

His cousins ​​then stopped fighting. Xu Wude hurriedly put on his clothes, and just as he was about to speak, he heard Cheng Dayuan say:

"Xu Wude, now that we're dressed, let's go. The police station is still quite a distance away, so we need to walk quickly."

Hüwood felt like dying. The worst thing in the world is to have an affair with a widow and then be caught in bed with her.

It's important to know that before liberation, there was zero tolerance for adultery and rape. If someone was caught, they would either be beaten to death by their spouse or drowned in a pig cage.

The "pig cage drowning" punishment in ancient times involved placing the prisoner in a pig cage, tying a rope to the opening, suspending him, and then submerging him in a river. For minor offenses, the prisoner's head would remain above water for a certain period; for serious offenses, the prisoner's head would be submerged until death. This punishment was usually used to execute people who committed adultery.

Fortunately, we are now liberated, and this kind of punishment has been banned. Even if someone is guilty, they cannot be sentenced to death simply by a few people discussing it.

Although we don't know how the rumors spread, since things have come to this point, we should try to minimize the losses.

If you go to the police station, although you can clear your name of being a rapist, you will still be considered an adulterer, which is something you can't avoid.

Adultery is only slightly better than rape, but the punishment is still unavoidable. He will definitely lose his job as a projectionist and will have to serve ten or eight years in prison, or even fifteen or twenty years.

After all, he had more than a dozen women besides Liao Xiuye, and he also colluded with others to secretly show movies to earn extra money and accept some benefits.

If I were taken to the police station, I wouldn't be confident that I could grit my teeth and not confess to these things. Wouldn't I be punished for multiple crimes, spending my whole life in jail at best? I might even get a beating and go see Marx early.

Xu Wude, disregarding his pride, pleaded, "Dayuan, for the sake of our factory, you can't go to the police station!"

Xu Wude couldn't help but burst into tears as he thought about how he had ended up in the police station, then in jail, and what tragic fate awaited him.

Cheng Dayuan asked, "Don't you want to go to the police station?"

Xu Wude nodded frantically: "Dayuan, she seduced me. I didn't rape her. It's not to the point where we need to go to the police station. Please, for the sake of our long-standing friendship, don't go to the police station."

Xu Wude's speech became incoherent. Even if he survived after going to the police station, his family would be destroyed and his life would be ruined.

"If you don't want to go to the police station, that's fine too. Just leave one paw behind."

Cheng Dayuan asked with a grin, "Do you want to keep your left hand or your right hand?"

"what!"

Xu Wude was terrified. He hadn't expected to pay such a price without leaving the police station. Both his left and right hands were important, and he could be at the mercy of the other party cutting one off.

Startled, he touched his left and right hands together, instinctively thinking that losing either hand would be disastrous.

He exclaimed, "This...this is too cruel, Brother Dayuan! Things can't be done this way! Losing either the left hand or the right hand is unacceptable!"

"Now you know how serious it is? Why didn't you think about the consequences when you raped our sister-in-law?"

Hulwood shouted, "I didn't rape her!"

"Is adultery enough? Don't think this crime is light. In the past, people in your situation would have been drowned in pig cages or thrown into the river."

Xu Wude pleaded, "Brother, we're all liberated now, and this kind of punishment is long gone. Please, have mercy, can we find another way to solve this problem?"

Chapter 129 Yi Zhonghai is Robbed

"Okay, then I'll get you another one. Go get a thousand yuan to apologize, and we'll call it even."

Although Chen Dayuan had promised his sister-in-law not to send Xu Wude to the police station, he hadn't actually agreed to let Xu Wude go easily.

He deliberately suggested sending him to the police station and then threatened to cut off his hand so that Xu Wude wouldn't think that the 1000 yuan compensation was an excessive demand.

At that time, the wage level was very low, which was basically around 20 yuan, and some jobs could only reach a level of 10 yuan or so.

Moreover, prices are very unstable now, and you never know when some goods will suddenly become ridiculously expensive.

This 1000 yuan is equivalent to four years of Cheng Dayuan's salary, which is quite a lot.

After much painful reflection, Hüwood realized that transporting grain was not something he was familiar with, and that showing movies was the only way he could earn extra money.

He did manage to make some money, but even so, he only had a few hundred yuan in savings, including 300 yuan he had extorted from Yi Zhonghai.

Xu Wude was startled; 1000 yuan was far too much.

He said awkwardly, "Brother, isn't this too much? Could you reduce it a bit?"

"You think I asked for this money myself? I have to give a share to the old fitter who reported me, and most of it is compensation for my sister-in-law. She was raped by you, shouldn't she be compensated?"

"Compensation is due; it's only right."

As Xu Wude spoke, he kept thinking about the information Cheng Dayuan had revealed. No wonder Cheng Dayuan caught him in bed with another woman; it turned out someone had tipped him off and reported him.

An old fitter? Who could this person be?

The steel rolling mill now has a larger workforce, approaching 1000 people, but the vast majority of them were recruited in the last two years.

The old fitter could only refer to the older generation. He knew quite a few fitters, but among them, there was only one with whom he had a grudge: Yi Zhonghai, who lived in the central courtyard.

Last year, because of his grain trading business, Yi Zhonghai instigated Da Mao to attack He Yuzhu. Afterwards, He Yuzhu and Da Mao extorted a total of 1500 yuan from Yi Zhonghai, and that matter was finally over.

Later, his relationship with Yi Zhonghai deteriorated, and they would at most exchange greetings when they met, and the two families had no contact with each other.

Only Yi Zhonghai could have known that after learning about his affair with Liao Xiuye, he would tell Cheng Dayuan and ask him to catch them in the act.

At this moment, the thought of He Yuzhu also flashed through Xu Wude's mind. But after thinking about it, he felt it was unlikely. He Yuzhu had never worked at the steel mill and could not possibly know such a secret of his.

Based on the fact that He Yuzhu schemed against him before they got married, if He Yuzhu found out, he would just report it to the police station and ruin his family.

It seems that the possibility of it being He Yuzhu is extremely low, almost impossible.

Only Yi Zhonghai would plot against me like this.

Thinking of this, Xu Wude gritted his teeth in hatred and cursed Yi Zhonghai's ancestors for eighteen generations.

Yi Zhonghai always felt that he was an orphan with no children and no one to rely on, so he always pretended to be a good person and helped others in the factory and the courtyard, hoping to leave a good reputation.

But Xu Wude knew that Yi Zhonghai's act was all for show, and that Yi himself was no good.

He previously claimed to be deeply in love with Yi's wife, but in reality, he was afraid of Yi's wife's father, who was also Yi Zhonghai's mentor.

He also had an ambiguous relationship with Widow Bai in private, and they both had two sons, namely He Daqing. He seemed very shrewd, but he was also muddle-headed at crucial moments, and went to Baocheng to raise Yi Zhonghai's son.

Yi Zhonghai harbored resentment towards him for the 1500 yuan he had previously demanded. Now, after so much time had passed, he seized the opportunity to plot against him.

After much deliberation, Hüwood concluded that this was the most likely answer.

Unable to resist asking, "Brother Dayuan, the old fitter you're talking about isn't Yi Zhonghai, is he?"

After speaking, he stared intently at Cheng Dayuan's face, hoping to glean some information from it.

"Yi Zhonghai? How did you come to the conclusion that it was him?"

Cheng Dayuan hadn't guessed who had passed him the note before. The handwriting was crooked and messy, unlike what a normal person would write, and there was no way to find out.

In his opinion, all the people who worked at the steel mill before were possible, but he thought that the other party had a good relationship with him and couldn't stand his sister-in-law seducing other men outside, so he revealed the information to him.

However, it was not easy to say such things openly, so they secretly sent a note.

I had never thought it was because of Xu Wude, but after his reminder, I feel that it really might be the case.

Yi Zhonghai and Xu Wude had a major falling out last year over selling grain, and Xu Wude even ended up in the police station. The incident was widely discussed in the steel mill.

It's possible that Yi Zhonghai waited until this year to report Xu Wude in retaliation.

Xu Wude couldn't discern the outcome from Cheng Dayuan's face, but he was already convinced that it was Yi Zhonghai. No other fitter would stoop so low as to report him.

Cheng Dayuan didn't bother to think about whether it was Yi Zhonghai or not. If everything went smoothly and he got the money, he would go and thank him.

The most important thing right now is to get Hulwood to give in and obediently hand over the money.

Xu Wude retorted angrily, "I knew it was him. Stop covering for him. That damned old Yi, I never expected him to be so insidious."