The Republic of China: I, Xiangzi, a Hero in a Chaotic Era

His tone was indifferent, as if he were talking about an ordinary trinket.

"Follow the rules. Notify the family to come and collect the body and make funeral arrangements."

"Yes, Director."

Zhang Kui understood immediately and responded.

"Understood, I'll arrange it right away."

He bowed to Liu Jiaxiang again before turning around, walking briskly out of the office, and gently closing the door behind him.

Silence returned to the office. Liu Jiaxiang picked up his pencil again, lightly tapped the "Noon: Sparring with Grappling Techniques" section, and then smoothly wrote down the line, as if the incident had never happened.

Only from further away outside the window could one faintly hear Zhang Kui giving instructions to the patrol officers in a low voice:

"...Go to the back alley of Maojiawan, find Erqiangzi's house, and tell them that something happened to the head of the household, and ask them to come to the station immediately..."

About half an hour later, two stumbling figures appeared in front of the slightly dilapidated gatehouse of the Xisi North Police Station.

Wang Xiue, Erqiangzi's wife, had disheveled hair and a pale, ashen face. Her patched-up jacket looked even more tattered.

She leaned half her body on her daughter Xiao Fuzi's thin shoulder, her steps unsteady, almost being dragged forward by Xiao Fuzi. Xiao Fuzi was also pale, her lips pressed together, her clear eyes filled with immense fear and helplessness, like two fledglings trembling after being battered by a storm.

Zhang Kui was already waiting in the courtyard. When he saw them come in, his face immediately changed to a serious expression that mixed sympathy and business. He led them to the cold, temporary morgue in the backyard.

As the door opened, a smell mixed with the stench of river mud and a faint odor of disinfectant wafted out.

In the center of the room, a dirty white cloth covered the outline of a human figure.

When the white cloth was lifted by the expressionless servant guarding the area, revealing Erqiangzi's face, which was swollen and pale from prolonged soaking and still bore traces of filth around his mouth and nose, Wang Xiue let out a short, choked sob. Her body went limp and she collapsed to the ground.

Xiao Fuzi screamed, using all her strength to barely support her mother's heavy body, but she herself was also swaying precariously. She stared intently at the familiar yet unfamiliar face under the white sheet, and a wave of immense fear and despair instantly overwhelmed her.

The sky is falling.

In this chaotic world where people prey on each other, the absence of a man in the family, even if that man is a despicable scoundrel who only drinks and beats his wife and children, means that the widows and orphans have lost their last barrier to struggling for survival at the bottom of society.

No matter how incompetent Erqiangzi was, as long as he was alive, his strength and status as a rickshaw puller were like a thin, hole-ridden layer of oil paper, barely covering their heads and making those more vicious wolves think twice.

As long as he's alive, no matter how dilapidated the house is, at least he still has the title of "head of household" to hold it together.

With his death, the protective paper was instantly torn to shreds, leaving the mother and daughter like fish on a chopping board with no protection.

Wang Xiue's wailing was filled with heart-wrenching despair, not only for her dead husband, but also for the bleak future that she and her daughter could not see any way out.

Xiao Fuzi hugged her mother tightly, tears streaming silently down her face. Her thin shoulders trembled violently, and the overwhelming sense of helplessness almost suffocated her.

She remembered her father's drunken punches, her mother's suppressed sobs, and the indifferent looks in her two younger brothers' eyes...

But at this moment, these very things have become the twisted pillars that support their survival.

The pillar collapsed with a crash, leaving only a bottomless black hole in sight.

Zhang Kui stood aside, coldly watching the mother and daughter weep uncontrollably. Only after the crying subsided into suppressed sobs did he clear his throat and speak in a deliberately slow, almost sympathetic tone:

"Sister-in-law,"

He looked at Wang Xiue, who was slumped on the ground with a vacant look in her eyes.

"The dead cannot be brought back to life, and crying yourself sick won't help. When Erqiangzi was alive... sigh, let's not talk about it. Now that he's gone, it might be a relief for you and your children."

"To be honest, we've lost a troublemaker and a burden."

"The most important thing right now is to give him a proper burial. You should hurry up and take the body back to handle the funeral arrangements."

Wang Xiue seemed not to have heard Zhang Kui's words at all; she just stared blankly at the corpse covered with a white sheet, tears streaming down her face.

Xiao Fuzi looked up at Zhang Kui with tearful eyes, feeling helpless.

Zhang Kui frowned and emphasized his tone:

"Sister-in-law, did you hear that? We need to complete the formalities before we can pick them up."

Wang Xiue seemed to be pricked by a needle, suddenly regaining her senses, nodding haphazardly, her voice hoarse and broken:

"I...I heard you, boss...I...I'll go ask someone...I'll ask the neighbors for help...to carry...him back..."

She struggled to stand up, but her legs were too weak to obey her commands.

"Don't rush."

Zhang Kui reached out and pretended to stop him, the slight "consideration" on his face instantly replaced by a formulaic indifference.

"The formalities aren't finished yet. According to the police department's regulations, the family members have to settle all their fees with the police station before they can claim the body."

Wang Xiue and Xiao Fuzi were both stunned, staring blankly at Zhang Kui.

Zhang Kui counted on his fingers, recounting the accounts at a steady pace:

"The coroner's fee for the autopsy was two silver dollars. The police station paid one silver dollar for the thin coffin used to store the body."

"Plus, there are the miscellaneous expenses incurred by the brothers in the station who were busy with the salvage, transportation, guarding, and registration..."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the mother and daughter's tattered clothes and desperate faces, and he sighed as if "mercifully" taking pity on them.

"Sigh, I see your family has really had a tough time. How about this, we'll round it down, you only need to pay five silver dollars in total."

"Five...five silver dollars?"

Wang Xiue's eyes widened instantly, as if she had heard a fairy tale, and then she burst into an even more piercing wail.

"Boss! Please have mercy! My family... my family is so poor that even a mouse would come out crying if it went in! We can't even afford to cook, where... where would we get any money! We can't even come up with a single copper coin, boss! Please..."

She struggled to kowtow to the ground again, but Zhang Kui caught her.

Little Fuzi panicked and pleaded tearfully:

"Boss, please... please talk to the director, we really don't have a single penny left..."

Zhang Kui's impatience finally showed. He took a step back, avoiding Wang Xiu'e's hand that was trying to grab his trouser leg, and his tone became harsh:

"Sister-in-law, Xiao Fuzi, it's not that I, Zhang Kui, am making things difficult for you."

"These are the rules, written in black and white, set forth in the hall! If you don't believe me, ask around the entire capital; which police station doesn't follow these regulations? No money?"

He snorted.

"If you don't have money, you won't be able to take the body away today."

"We can only follow the rules and send it to the cemetery outside the city for storage."

"Once you get there, in addition to the five silver dollars we owe you here, you'll also have to pay the cemetery a fee for storing the corpse, calculated on a daily basis."

"What if I can't raise enough money by the due date and can't get the money back..."

He drew out the words, with a cold, judgmental tone.

"Then the only option is to have them all taken to a mass burial site for cremation and buried in a random pit."