Chapter 70 - "Comrade Tong, the suspect Tong Yanliang accused you for setting him up. What do you have to say?" (2)
Some background on the Tong’s family:
Tong Genlai, Tong Jiaming’s grandfather, had two brothers and one sister. Both of his brothers died from illnesses before they were of age and his only sister remaining also died later on.
Tong Genlai’s parents died early and, with no elders at home and being utterly poor, no girls from the village were willing to marry him. It wasn’t until he was 30 years old that he was finally able to marry Jie Jinhua, who was too ugly to find herself a husband, through the introduction of others.
Jie Jinhua might be a little ugly, but she was fertile. She had a son the first year into their marriage and then two more after that. That allowed her to have speaking power at home.
Jie Jinhua had given birth to three sons, Tong Dajun, Tong Erzhu, and Tong Sanzhuang.
Tong Dajun married a girl from the village and had two sons and two daughters.
Tong Erzhu married Sun Guilan from the neighboring village. Sun Guilan’s father was the team lead of the production team and had given birth to the oldest grandson immediately after they had gotten married. As such, she was Jie Jinhua’s favorite daughter-in-law.
With the exception of Tong Yanliang, they had two more daughters. The youngest one is just 6 years old.
Tong Sanzhuang married Feng Zhaodi from the same village. Feng Zhaodi’s mother named the four sisters Zhaodi, Pandi, Laidi, and Qiudi,* and finally had a son on her fifth try.
Feng Zhaodi, much like her mother, gave birth to two daughters. That made Jie Jinhua very unhappy with her.
In other words, with the exception of Tong Dajun’s two sons, the old Tong family only had one more grandson, which was Tong Yanliang.
Sun Guilan, with her son, had always been rubbing that into the third brother’s family’s face. As such, the two branches had never gotten along well with each other.
Now that Tong Yanliang had been arrested, Feng Zhaodi and Tong Sanzhuang were not worried at all. In fact, they were secretly pleased.
Jie Jinhua, however, was genuinely worried about her grandson.
Once she had calmed down, she thought about it long and hard and did not want to give up on the option of asking the other Tong family for help. “You will head over to your adoptive parents’ place and tell them to get Yanliang out one way or another.”
They owed them that much.
They had raised Tong Zhenzhen for them for 15 years. If it wasn’t for them, Tong Zhenzhen would have been long gone!
Tong Xuelu said to her, “I am not going, Grandma. I am firmly drawing the line between myself and someone who holds the national laws and regulations in contempt and undermines social order. If you want to go, Grandma, be my guest!”
Jie Jinhua was so angry that her face turned green. “Yanliang is your brother. Do you have a conscience?”
Tong Xuelu placed her hand over her chest and said, “I do have a conscience, Grandma. You shouldn’t praise me like this all the time. It will get to my head.”
Jie Jinhua almost died from frustration from her shamelessness. “……” I wasn’t praising you!
“Oh, and, Grandma, I phoned my adoptive parents this afternoon. They said that my cousin’s situation is very dire and there was no way they would interfere. And that if you dare go and talk to them, they will report you to the police right away.”
“…………”
Jie Jinhua had a headache from anger and grunted in bed.
Sun Guilan and Tong Erzhu only returned after it was dark outside.
Tong Xuelu felt for certain that they would make a scene with her when they returned. Lo and behold, when Sun Guilan saw her, she got down on her knees right away.
“Big niece, your Aunty is begging you. Please go and talk to your adoptive parents and have them help out Yanliang. Please. I will kowtow to you!”
As she spoke, she kowtowed to Tong Xuelu making loud slamming sounds with her head on the ground.
Tong Xuelu was surprised that Sun Guilan would do that.
Nevertheless, she would not be helping Tong Yanliang. Not in this lifetime.
***
Tong Xuelu returned to work like normal the next day.
She was quickly taken to the police station by a comrade cop.
She put on a worried look on her way there. “Comrade Cop, have I done something wrong? Why are you taking me to the police station?”
Seeing that Tong Xuelu was only the age of her daughter and was looking pale, the comrade cop who came looking for Tong Xuelu couldn't help but felt compassionate toward her.
“There’s nothing you need to worry about. It’s all just formality. All you need to do is to cooperate with us! That being said, your cousin is accusing you of setting him up on the underwear stealing incident. You should be prepared for that.”