Chapter 334: Chapter 334: Striking a Match

At night, the orange light illuminated the window paper brightly, Dong Liangcheng nudged Shen Jinju beside him, “Wife, is it dawn?”

As soon as Shen Jinju opened her eyes, she felt something was wrong. She hurriedly pushed the man, “Liangcheng, get up quickly and see if there’s a fire?”

Dong Liangcheng got up to go down from the kang, but Shen Jinju pulled him back, “It’s cold, put on your clothes first.”

After he dressed and ran out to take a look, the east wing opposite had already been engulfed by flames. Suddenly, the roof collapsed with a loud crash. By this time, more than just the two of them were startled awake; everyone at the educated youth point ran out to see.

There was a faint smell of kerosene amidst the smoke emitted by the fire.

“Quickly, call the team leader, hurry and save people!” Dai Yifeng was the last to arrive, but he reacted the fastest, quickly organizing people for rescue.

The weather was very cold, but fortunately, it had just snowed, and there was no wind for the time being. There was a gap of more than a meter between the east wing and the main house at the back. The house collapsed in time, preventing the main house from being affected.

Dai Yifeng and others pulled open the door that was locked from the outside, and two figures, as black as coal, fell out, indistinguishable as to who they were.

“Quickly, where is Xu Qinghuan, hurry, there are two people burned here.”

Xu Qinghuan came over, took a glance; both of them were severely burned. One was already dead, and the other was barely alive, the one alive should be Jiang Chengxu. As for the deceased, Xu Qinghuan was not interested in knowing who it was.

She handed a pill to Dai Yifeng, “Keep the person hanging on to life!”

The main thing was if everyone died, it would cause trouble for the living. Once the police came, there would be no one to question, and no one could understand the ins and outs of the matter.

The police arrived quickly.

They came around eleven in the morning, the winter sun climbed slowly in the sky, casting light without warmth on the ground.

Snow was falling heavily, the whole world was a vast expanse of white, except for the east wing, which was now a charred ruin, an extremely glaring sight.

The police carried out an autopsy on the deceased, who was completely burned, unrecognizable, making it impossible to determine whether it was Xu Manman or Qu Qiongfang.

In fact, it could be determined through bone age, but this matter had nothing to do with Xu Qinghuan, and she was too lazy to care.

“It should be Xu Manman!”

The police asked Duan Qingmei, who was closest to Qu Qiongfang, to come and take a look. She walked around the body; there was almost no intact skin; she didn’t actually know who it was, but she knew that if Xu Manman was the one who died, then the murderer was Qu Qiongfang.

Being an innocent victim and then being accused of such a crime after death was certainly a worse option.

“Can you determine?” the police asked.

Duan Qingmei shook her head, “I can only tell from the body shape, and Qiongfang didn’t return last night.”

“Do you know what she went to do yesterday?” the police asked.

“Yesterday, Xu Manman bought a chicken and started stewing it in the afternoon; it smelled really good,” Duan Qingmei said. “Later, Xu Manman invited Qiongfang to come over for chicken, and she came along.”

“How was their usual relationship?” the police asked.

“Not good.”

“Then why did she invite her for chicken?”

“Heard it was to apologize.” As she spoke, Duan Qingmei glanced at Zhou Chang’an. The police noticed and pursued, “Apologize for what?”

Duan Qingmei said, “It seems Xu Manman did something to wrong Qiongfang, related to a man.”

“Please clarify, we are handling a case,” the police’s tone turned severe.

Duan Qingmei shivered, “Yes, I overheard, Xu Manman and Zhou Chang’an did that sort of thing, Zhou Chang’an and Qiongfang have very good relations, Xu Manman apologized to Qiongfang for this matter, saying it was not intentional to break them up.”

The police asked Zhou Chang’an, “Who is Zhou Chang’an, please step forward.”

Zhou Chang’an lowered his head and stepped forward. This matter was known to the educated youth point; he just didn’t expect it to be confessed publicly at this time to face judgment.

“Zhou Chang’an, what is your relationship with Qu Qiongfang?” the police asked bluntly.

“We came as educated youths together, initially… I liked her, she probably liked me, I wanted to date her, but then she ignored me and got close to another educated youth named Zhang Tieshan.

I resented her, and later, when Zhang Tieshan was arrested, I realized she was coerced by Zhang Tieshan. I was prepared to forgive her, but then Xu Manman seduced me.”

The onlookers were like watching a movie.

At this moment, Jiang Chengxu woke up.

The police came over to ask, but his throat was so hoarse he couldn’t speak. Xu Qinghuan had to use some medicine for treating the throat for him, and he spat out a black phlegm, making everyone disgusted.

“Jiang Chengxu, do you know who the deceased is?”

Jiang Chengxu shook his head, “No.”

He said this using breathy sounds.

He woke from the burns, desperately crawling toward the door. When he finally reached it, he found the door locked from the outside. He lay there, shouting for help. Fortunately, the gap between the two doors was large, allowing him to breathe.

But the unfortunate Qu Qiongfang didn’t have such luck. Being naturally weak, when she crawled over, Jiang Chengxu pushed her far away from him. She leaned against the door panel and suffocated to death.

In the pitch dark, Jiang Chengxu didn’t care who she was, and subconsciously assumed it was Xu Manman. He had originally planned to sell Xu Manman, and now that she was dead, it saved him a lot of trouble.

But he himself was now useless.

“Let Xu Qinghuan save me, save me!” Jiang Chengxu opened his eyes, frantically searching for Xu Qinghuan, not seeing her, feeling very anxious, “Save me, let Xu Qinghuan save me!”

But the police ignored him, “Send him to the county hospital first, we still have a lot to ask him.”

Xu Manman curled up in the mountain cave, very cold, as if she was the only person in the vast mountains, but fortunately, the cave was not big and was actually quite warm.

She squatted in the cave, wearing all the clothes she brought, eating the leftover pancakes from last night, which were very hard. She soaked them with saliva until they softened before slowly swallowing them.

Everything from last night seemed like a dream.

She heard Jiang Chengxu discussing selling her to mountain people. Originally, when the child was gone, she couldn’t help but hate Jiang Chengxu fiercely.

She was devoted to him, but he never paid her any attention, his eyes always following only Xu Qinghuan.

At that moment, she wanted Jiang Chengxu to die.

But she didn’t want to risk her own life, so she came up with this plan called ’shedding the chrysalis’.

As for why she chose Qu Qiongfang, if she could, she would’ve chosen Xu Qinghuan, but she knew that wasn’t realistic. Xu Qinghuan would not fall for her trick since her bait was simply not enough.

Qu Qiongfang was different; one chicken soup was enough to fool her.

There weren’t many female educated youths in the educated youth point, only Qu Qiongfang and Duan Qingmei. Although she didn’t like Duan Qingmei either, Qu Qiongfang made her hate more.

Initially, it was by pretending to be Qu Qiongfang that she got involved with Zhou Chang’an.

Blame shifting is always a scoundrel’s trick.

She took out all the firewood, surrounding more than half of the east wing. To avoid making noise, she skipped the wall nearest to the main house on the north side and the wall facing the west wing on the west side, thus leaving Jiang Chengxu a way out.

Then, she poured the kerosene all over the firewood and struck a match.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep