Back to 1984: Earning Money, Raising Kids, and Keeping the Household Busy

Chapter 121 Finding the whereabouts of Zhu Fugen and his wife
Huang Yuezhen hadn't really thought that much about it. But after Lin Qin's suggestion, she suddenly understood. She immediately grabbed Lin Qin's hand gratefully, "Good cousin, you're so smart and far-sighted. You're right. I need to think long-term. I'll listen to you. I'll take a batch of goods back to set up a stall at the end of the year. If my eldest son can handle the job, he can do it. I'll come back and continue cooking!"

Xu Dahai also benefited greatly from Lin Qin's words and praised her profusely, saying, "That's why they say knowledge is power. My sister-in-law's thinking and awareness have changed since she went to school!"

Lin Qin was a little embarrassed.

After seeing Xu Dahai off, she continued to live her life as usual.

Before they knew it, it was the tenth month of the lunar calendar, and frost had fallen here.

The sweet potatoes and calla lilies that Lin Yi planted are ready to be harvested. This year, he planted a full four acres of calla lilies. As long as they are not dug up, they can be kept in the ground until the New Year.

Lin Yi didn't plan to dig up the calla lilies right now; he only asked Huang Yuezhen to help harvest the sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes are grown by every household, especially in fishing villages by the sea, where there is no shortage of them. They certainly don't fetch a good price when sold, so they keep them for their own consumption or sell them cheaply to the Tanka people.

The Tanka people have no land and don't know how to cultivate it. They have to buy their food or trade it with other villagers, and in most cases, they end up losing out.

All Chen Wenjun had to do was go to the port, greet everyone, and casually announce a price slightly lower than the market price. The nearby Tanka people would all drive their boats to Nanyu to buy sweet potatoes. Not only were there many buyers, but the quantity was also quite large.

Lin Yi planted eight mu of land and sold 80% of it in just three days, earning less than three thousand yuan. He kept the rest for his own consumption.

With this sum of money, Lin Yi, who had been short of cash, straightened his back again and worked especially hard.

It was at this time that Shen Wenfeng finally caught up with Zhu's father, who was delivering grain to his son and daughter-in-law outside the village, and followed the clues to find the rented house of Zhu Fugen and his wife.

The couple had been hiding in the suburbs of Anshi for a while, which coincided with the government's road construction project, and they were working on the construction site.

When the police came to their door, Li Lan was so frightened that she couldn't speak, and Zhu Fugen was also shocked and scared.

The two police officers exchanged a glance and explained the situation regarding the abandoned baby at the city hospital. "We now suspect that you abandoned the child. Please come with us to the police station to cooperate with the investigation."

The couple were terrified.

Zhu Fugen vehemently denied the allegations, saying, "No! We did not abandon the child!"

The police officer's face darkened, and he said sternly, "Whether it's what you said or not, so many nurses at the city hospital saw the child's parents. They could easily identify you. Cooperating with the investigation is every citizen's duty."

Zhu Fugeng still insisted that they had not had children, much less abandoned them, and refused to cooperate no matter what.

The police interviewed people at the construction site and in the vicinity, and only knew that Zhu Fugen and his wife had only been there for a short time and were completely unaware of the situation.

The police could only contact the officers at the local police station and ask them to bring over nurses from the city hospital to identify the suspect.

Several nurses, accompanied by police officers, came over and carefully examined the couple. They exclaimed excitedly, "It's them! It's this couple! Their medical bills haven't been settled yet!"

"That's really despicable! They abandoned the baby right after it was born, and right there in the hospital! We got scolded by the hospital director because of it." "Exactly! Such a tiny baby, doing something so immoral—aren't they afraid of being struck by lightning?"

A group of nurses, filled with righteous indignation, berated Li Lan until she was pale and swaying, while Zhu Fugen, his eyes bloodshot with rage, frantically drove the nurses away.

The police officers immediately became enraged and stepped forward to subdue Zhu Fugen. "Take him away!"

Zhu's father, who had been silent until now, finally couldn't sit still any longer and started cursing at Li Lan, "Useless thing! If my son gets arrested, you go jump into the river! My Zhu family can't keep a useless daughter-in-law like you! Get to the river right now!"

Upon hearing this, everyone's expression changed.

Li Lan, forced by Zhu's father, cried pitifully, her eyes filled with terror.

The police officer angrily rebuked Zhu's father, "You're trying to drive someone to suicide, do you want to end up in the police station too?"

Mr. Zhu plopped down on the ground, looking reckless, "Anyway, she has to take responsibility for what happened to my son. It's all her fault! It has nothing to do with my son!"

The police officers were not easily intimidated, and immediately ordered Li Lan to be arrested as well, completely ignoring Zhu's father who was throwing a tantrum.

When Zhu's father saw that his son and daughter-in-law had been arrested, he had no choice but to go to Nanyu to seek help from Lin Yi.

Lin Yi opened the gaping gate to the courtyard and his first reaction upon seeing Zhu's father was to press him about Zhu Fugen and his wife. Unexpectedly, Zhu's father interrupted him, blurting out, "Brother-in-law, Fugen and Li Lan have been taken away by the police. I know you in the city. Can you help me think of a way to help them?"

Lin Qin had already followed.

Lin Yi said angrily, "Brother-in-law, I'm not trying to criticize you, but Fu Gen handled this matter very unfairly. He just abandoned the child at the hospital after she was born, and ran away without paying the medical bills. Even if they didn't want to raise a girl, they should have settled the medical bills and found a proper family to adopt the child! How can they do things like this?"

Zhu's father was so anxious that he kept stamping his feet, and he was quite impatient. He didn't even bother to figure out how Lin Yi knew about these things.

"It's no use saying all this now. My Fugen is a good boy. If Li Lan hadn't been pregnant, Fugen wouldn't have done this! He was forced into it! Brother-in-law, do you know anyone who can help?"

Before Lin Yi could speak, Lin Qin stepped forward coldly and said, "Uncle, what are you saying! My husband is a Tanka (boat people), and my father has farmed all his life. If he could get involved with the police station, he wouldn't have suffered his whole life. My cousin and his wife's situation shouldn't have come to this, but they wouldn't listen to advice, and we had no choice. Now we just have to see how they plan to handle it. If they apologize properly, pay the hospital bills, and take the child back, maybe everything will be fine."

If they insist on going their own way and going down this path to the bitter end, not even a god can help them! After all, whether my cousin's wife has given birth or not can be found out by a hospital checkup; can they really deny it? Besides, so many medical staff have seen them; it's impossible for everyone to conspire to frame them! They have no choice but to admit it themselves!

Seeing the unpredictable changes in Zhu's father's expression, Lin Yi quickly tugged at Lin Qin's clothes to shut her up. He then turned to Zhu's father and said gently, "Brother-in-law, Qin speaks frankly, don't take it to heart. But she's not wrong. We can only accept this. We can't act tough with the police station. What if we anger them and they really arrest us?"

Mr. Zhu clenched his fists and stamped his feet, cursing through gritted teeth, "It's all that good-for-nothing's fault! If you ask me, we should have taken him out of the hospital and thrown him into the water to drown him, so he wouldn't have brought trouble to our family!"

Seeing that Lin Qin was about to curse, Lin Yi quickly covered her mouth and urged Zhu's father to go to the police station to bail her out as soon as possible.

Lin Yi only closed the gap in the gate after Zhu's father boarded the fishing boat, and breathed a sigh of relief. When he met Lin Qin's murderous gaze, Lin Yi had to appease her for a while.

(End of this chapter)