Good and Evil, Chapter 84: Truth, Judgment, Reflection, and the Silent Man in Tears

After discussion between the village head and the village Party secretary, and after several respected elders from the village spoke up, the families of the two deceased men finally agreed to let the police exhume the bodies for an autopsy.

So Xu Lang and the others, escorted by the families of the dead, went to the back of the village’s mountain.

The rear slope behind the village was one vast burial ground from the mountainside to the summit, where most of the dead from the village had been laid to rest.

Once they arrived, the village head called out seven or eight young, strong men from the village, armed with spades, hoes, pickaxes, and the like, and together with several police officers they began to dig.

As the spades and hoes rose and fell, the little mounds visible above ground slowly disappeared. The earth they dug out was piled to one side. Once the graves had been leveled, they began digging deeper into the soil beneath. Because it had rained for several days, the ground was soft and easy to work. Even so, after the police and villagers took turns, it still took more than half an hour before they reached the coffin.

Only when they saw the coffin, already rotten beyond recognition, did the pace of the digging slow. With every lift and fall of the hoe, with clods of dark red earth flying through the air, the black coffin gradually emerged before their eyes.

The first grave they dug up was that of Xie Xintong’s first husband, Xie Ruiyi. He had died six years earlier, and the pine coffin had long since been nearly eaten away. After the soil on its surface was cleared, the moment it was touched, the coffin collapsed, revealing the skeleton inside.

Once the bones were exposed, Li Lei called over a few villagers to help clear away the remains of the coffin. Then he carefully lifted out the skeleton and laid it upon a brand-new white sheet spread outside. Ye Xuefei, dressed in a white coat, then stepped forward with her medical kit, wearing a mask and gloves, and began the postmortem examination.

In truth, there was no need to wait for Ye Xuefei’s conclusion. The moment Xu Lang saw the bones, he knew at a glance that Xie Ruiyi had not died of heart disease, but of poisoning, because the remains had turned black, a classic sign of death by poison.

Xu Lang noticed it, and so did the others present. Though everyone had suspected as much, when they actually saw the skeleton, they still could not help but suck in a sharp breath.

Soon afterward, after an anxious wait, Ye Xuefei completed a careful and professional autopsy. She stood up, walked over to Xu Lang and Ning Yanran, removed her mask, and said, "The deceased died of poisoning, and it was a highly lethal poison."

The words caused an immediate uproar among the villagers who had come to watch the excitement. Xu Lang, however, felt no surprise at all.

After thinking for a moment, Xu Lang nodded and asked, "Can it be confirmed that the deceased died of poisoning?"

Ye Xuefei said nothing, only nodded firmly.

Seeing that, Xu Lang asked no further questions. Instead, he turned to Ning Yanran and said, "Let's go look at Li Jiazhi's remains."

Ning Yanran naturally had no objection. Under the guidance of Li Jiazhi’s parents, they went to Li Jiazhi’s grave, while Zhang Lei stayed behind, using a camera to photograph and document Xie Ruiyi’s skeleton.

The process was the same: first dig up the grave, then open the coffin, then remove the bones, and finally let Ye Xuefei conduct the autopsy.

The results of Ye Xuefei’s examination of Li Jiazhi soon came back as well. Li Jiazhi had also died of drug poisoning, not from overexertion in bed, as had been claimed.

Once the true causes of death for Xie Ruiyi and Li Jiazhi were laid bare, the villagers of Xiejia Valley erupted at once. At that point, everyone thought of the same person: Xie Xintong, the wife of both men. Xie Ruiyi and Li Jiazhi had both died not long after marrying her, and she was clearly implicated. The families of the three dead men, who had half-believed and half-doubted the police when told their sons had not died by accident but had been murdered by Xie Xintong, were now fully convinced after seeing these results.

When Fang Honglang’s parents saw the bodies of the first two dead men exhumed and autopsied, they no longer tried to stop the police from digging up Fang Honglang’s grave. That also saved the police the trouble of finding the village cadres and asking them to help persuade the family.

After the autopsies of Xie Ruiyi and Li Jiazhi were completed, Xu Lang and the others hurried straight to the village where Fang Honglang had lived, called in several young and strong men, and once again dug up a grave to open a coffin and perform an autopsy.

The result was roughly the same as for the first two victims: death by drug poisoning.

With that result in hand, the police finished photographing and collecting evidence, then returned to the Fangxi County police station. The case was thereby officially brought to an end. Ning Yanran and the others took Xie Xintong and Xiang Shuifeng back to City S, while Xu Lang stayed in Zhangjiatun and did not return with them.

Not long afterward, the judicial authorities filed public charges against Xie Xintong and Xiang Shuifeng.

When the First People's Court of City S held the trial, not only had the relatives of all four victims come to the courtroom, but many villagers from Xiejia Valley, Zhangjiatun, and Fang Honglang’s village were also present, along with a number of media reporters. They all wanted to know what kind of judgment the law would render upon this venomous mother and daughter.

After a trial lasting three full hours, the court delivered its verdict on the spot.

Xie Xintong was found guilty of intentional homicide and sentenced to death, to be carried out immediately. She was also convicted of fraud, sentenced to three years in prison, and fined ten thousand yuan. For her combined crimes, she was ultimately sentenced to death.

Xiang Shuifeng was found guilty of intentional homicide, including incitement to murder, and sentenced to death, to be carried out immediately. She was also convicted of fraud, sentenced to three years in prison, and fined ten thousand yuan. For her combined crimes, she was ultimately sentenced to death.

Upon hearing the death sentences, the mother and daughter broke into loud wails on the spot and collapsed to the floor. After the trial ended, they had to be helped out of the courtroom by court police.

These two, with hearts like poison scorpions, had cruelly murdered four people for the sake of a bit of bride price money. Their crimes were monstrous; they had lost all humanity. The death sentences were the law’s best answer to them. Yet although Xie Xintong and Xiang Shuifeng had been sentenced to death, many questions still led people into deep reflection.

The reason this mother and daughter had been able to marry men only to kill them and swindle their bride prices for their own lavish spending, and had managed to murder four people in six years without ever being suspected, was surely the greatest irony of all. People always say that villagers are kind, honest, simple, and straightforward. But Xie Xintong and her mother were villagers too, and in them not a trace of that supposed kindness, simplicity, or innocence could be found—only naked greed.

Behind this case, in addition to exposing the beastly nature of the mother and daughter, it also fully revealed a fact: the villagers in the three settlements had a profound lack of legal awareness. If the families of the victims had understood the law, then after Xie Xintong committed her first murder and Xie Ruiyi died, they should have called the police immediately and had doctors at the hospital perform a thorough examination of his body. If they had done that, the later three deaths would never have happened.

If Li Jiazhi, Fang Honglang, and Zhang Chengwang had all been a little more vigilant after marriage, they might not have met death either. In these cases, Xie Xintong’s methods and the course of her crimes were by no means ingenious. Quite the opposite: they were the simplest, crudest, and most full of flaws. Yet it was precisely such crimes, so obvious and so poorly concealed, that repeatedly succeeded. That was, without doubt, an even greater irony and warning.

People often demand that others obey the law. But while urging people to abide by it, should not the relevant authorities also do more to publicize and popularize the law? Only by knowing the law and understanding the law can people better obey the law and prevent crime.

And when the local police learned of the matter, should they not have taken it seriously earlier and investigated the true cause of death? If they had, would Xie Xintong and her mother not have been brought to justice sooner, and would there not have been fewer victims?

For that reason, after the Xie Xintong murder case came to an end, the City S Public Security Bureau immediately decided that every county and every township police station in City S, together with the village cadres, would organize study sessions and then launch a legal education campaign in the countryside. After every case, in addition to giving the criminals the punishment they deserved, one should draw lessons and experience from it in order to better prevent, stop, and combat crime.

After the case ended, the families of the four victims made new coffins for the deceased, reburied them, and on the day of burial, firecrackers rang out to the heavens, offering comfort to their spirits above. Six years had passed, and at last the killers had received the punishment they deserved. That was surely something to be glad and relieved about. On the day Zhang Chengwang was buried, Xu Lang came to the scene and stood among the crowd, watching all of it.

Compared with the families of the four victims, Xu Lang’s feelings were far more complicated. Unlike Xu Lang, the killers of Xie Ruiyi, Li Jiazhi, Fang Honglang, and Zhang Chengwang had been caught and punished as they should have been. But what about Xu Lang’s own family? The killers of Zhang Lan twenty years ago, and the killer of Xu Chan ten years ago, had still not been found. That made Xu Lang’s once-relieved heart heavy again, with a thick shadow settling over it anew.

For years afterward, Xu Lang would often wake in the middle of the night, startled from sleep, seeing in his dreams his mother Zhang Lan lying in the living room covered in blood, his sister Xu Chan dismembered into pieces, and his father’s despairing, aggrieved eyes before death. These scenes became the nightmares Xu Lang could never shake, the thorn forever lodged in his heart, and the force that drove him relentlessly onward. No one hated evil more than Xu Lang, and no one could truly understand or share his feelings. Perhaps the only person who truly understood his inner world was Shu Yue. All these years, Shu Yue had never abandoned him, silently guarding his side. If not for her guidance, Xu Lang might already have drifted toward another extreme.

Good and evil, light and darkness, justice and wickedness—though they seem worlds apart, in truth they are separated by only a thin line. They are opposites, and they are extremes.

No one is born a criminal, yet everyone has the impulse to kill.

What makes human beings human, rather than animals, is that they know how to restrain certain instincts. Perseverance in doing something is resolve, and it deserves praise. But when resolve hardens into obsession, it can easily lead a person to another extreme. Once a person goes to extremes, it becomes very easy to step onto the road of crime. Therefore, one must constantly remind oneself: one is human, not an animal that survives only by instinct.

Xu Lang and Shu Yue stayed in Zhangjiatun for more than half a month. During that time, Xu Lang took Shu Yue all around the village, introducing her one by one to every place he had once lived in or been to. As Shu Yue came to know him better, she grew even more moved and saddened for this man who seemed so intelligent and capable.

Xu Lang’s parents and grandmother were buried on the mountain behind Zhangjiatun, while the body of Xu Lang’s sister, Xu Chan, still remained in the Public Security Bureau’s morgue. After all, the killer had not yet been found, and according to the relevant regulations, the body of the deceased could not be handled lightly until the true murderer had been captured. Even so, Xu Lang still erected a symbolic grave for Xu Chan beside his parents’ tomb.

That day, a fine rain was falling, the sky was leaden and gray, and summer had quietly passed while autumn had arrived without notice. Along the mountain path leading from the back of Zhangjiatun to the cemetery, a young man and woman walked side by side. The man, dressed entirely in black, carried yellow paper offerings in his hand; the girl in white held an umbrella. Both of them wore grave expressions.

The man and woman were Xu Lang and Shu Yue. This day was the anniversary of Xu Lang’s grandmother’s death, and also the day he returned to Zhangjiatun each year to pay respects at the graves.

After they reached the cemetery, Xu Lang, as usual, bent his knees and knelt before his parents’ grave, silently burning the paper offerings, while Shu Yue stood some distance away watching. She did not come over. It was not that she did not wish to burn offerings, but that Xu Lang would not allow it. This was an old rule in Zhangjiatun: women were not permitted to go to the graves and burn paper.

After the paper offerings had burned to ash, Xu Lang remained kneeling there, murmuring softly to himself. In the fine, intermittent rain, amid the whistling autumn wind and the chorus of birds and insects, Xu Lang’s voice was so low and faint it was almost inaudible. It seemed that beyond the dead lying beneath the earth, and this stretch of heaven and earth, no one knew what Xu Lang was saying.

Shu Yue naturally did not know either. Standing at a distance beneath her umbrella, she looked at Xu Lang, who in days gone by had always stood tall, with that sly smile forever on his face. At this moment he looked like nothing so much as a helpless and pitiful child. Watching his slightly trembling shoulders and hearing the suppressed sobs forced down to the very edge of his breath, Shu Yue was moved by a nameless ache, tenderness, and sorrow.

She had liked Xu Lang since childhood. She had always loved this man and never once changed. She knew his pain, his helplessness, and his sorrow; she knew the inexpressible anguish in his heart. Yet though she understood all of it, she could change nothing. Especially after Xu Lang fell ill psychologically because of it, Shu Yue felt even more heartache for him. She wanted to help him, but did not know how, and could not help him anyway. The only thing she could do was stand behind him and keep him company in silence. Perhaps only in this way would Xu Lang not completely go to extremes.

After Xu Chan was murdered, Xu Lang changed greatly inwardly. Shu Yue had always worried about him, and that was why she had abandoned economics, which she excelled at, and turned instead to psychology—to help Xu Lang. She feared that one day Xu Lang might go to extremes because of the deaths of his family and step onto the road of crime. That was not what she wanted to see. She knew how intelligent Xu Lang was, especially after he became a police officer. More than anyone else, she understood him. If he truly did go to extremes and down the path of crime, he would become terrifying indeed.

Everyone has a Pandora's box in their heart, and inside it is Satan. Once that box is opened, the consequences are unimaginable. More frightening than ordinary crime is high-intelligence crime, and more frightening than high-intelligence crime is the change within human nature itself. When human nature turns into beastliness, that is the moment an angel becomes a devil.

What Xu Lang and Shu Yue did not know was that not far behind them, another person was also standing on the narrow mountain path beneath an umbrella, watching them from afar. It was a woman, or rather a girl: Ye Du.

It was true that Shu Yue and Xu Lang had grown up as neighbors, and true that they were childhood sweethearts. But that was only before Xu Lang turned five. After Xu Lang’s mother, Zhang Lan, was murdered, and his father, Xu Yuan, was arrested and sentenced for killing his wife, Xu Lang was taken by his grandmother to Zhangjiatun to be raised. Before Xu Lang entered high school, the people who truly accompanied him were only his sister Xu Chan, Ye Du, Zhang Ruide, and the recently deceased Zhang Chengwang.

After Xu Chan was murdered, Xu Lang’s grandmother passed away not long after, and Xu Lang left Zhangjiatun to stay in City S. For all these years, the graves of Xu Lang’s parents, sister, and grandmother had been quietly tended by Ye Du. Thanks to her, not a single weed had ever grown on the graves, and the grave mounds had remained intact.

Shu Yue loved Xu Lang and loved him deeply. But was Ye Du any different? She too pitied that man whose life had been so full of hardship and whose fate so cruel. Every time Xu Lang came back to sweep the graves, Ye Du would silently follow from a distance and watch him from far away. She wanted very much to do something for him. She did not dare hope to accompany Xu Lang for the rest of his life; she only wanted him to stop suffering like this.

This time, when Xu Lang returned to sweep the graves with Shu Yue, Ye Du clearly understood that she could never be with Xu Lang. She buried the green and tender longing deep in her heart. Seeing Shu Yue by Xu Lang’s side, Ye Du finally felt at ease. At last, she could go and do something for him without restraint.

The rain kept falling, with no sign of stopping, as though even heaven and earth themselves were weeping for the man kneeling before the grave and refusing to rise. After standing there for a long while, Ye Du gave Xu Lang’s back one deep look, then clenched her slender hand and turned away.

That day, Ye Du disappeared, leaving Zhangjiatun for good. A long, long time later, when Xu Lang and Ye Du saw each other again, everything had already changed beyond recognition.