In the interrogation room, Lu Datou’s psychological defenses crumbled, and he confessed before dawn. However, Shi Surong remained steadfast. No matter what questions the police asked, she refused to cooperate. She neither denied nor admitted anything, responding to everything with silence.

This tactic, Shi Surong had learned from those she had persecuted during the political movements. When those people were criticized too harshly, they too became unable to speak. After all, the more one speaks, the more mistakes one makes!

When she saw Tang Hongen enter, she still felt panic. Tang Hongen had come too quickly… Indeed, in Tang Hongen’s heart, Tang Youru was his true sister, worth more than all other Tang family members combined. But what a pity, Shi Surong thought with great satisfaction, that no matter how successful Tang Hongen was now, Tang Youru couldn’t benefit from it at all.

“I made a terrible mistake,” Tang Hongen spoke first.

“If I had known you and Tang Xianzhong were such beasts, I wouldn’t have let you survive in the hometown for so many years.”

Was returning to the farm in the countryside such a punishment?

For Tang Xianzhong and Shi Surong, it was too lenient! They were originally farmers, and it was only because he had considered family ties that they had lived in the city for a few years. Returning to farming merely restored them to their original state, hardly a punishment. In fact, over these dozen years, although he hadn’t kept in touch with his hometown, this couple hadn’t been entirely without benefits.

Tang Hongen didn’t blame the Tang Fujun couple for keeping quiet to protect themselves; he could only blame himself! Blame himself for not thinking more thoroughly, for not seeing through to the truth.

Shi Surong became angry, “You won’t even call me Sister-in-law anymore!”

“Does he deserve it?” Tang Hongen spoke calmly, stating facts: “He doesn’t deserve to be my brother, he doesn’t even deserve to be part of the Tang family. He still has the nerve to be buried with our parents? I don’t care about these things, but I know you do, so I’ll have him dug up from the grave and remove him from the Tang family genealogy.”

Shi Surong’s eyes widened.

“You… you dare… Don’t you care about your reputation!”

Tang Hongen couldn’t help but laugh, “Of course, I won’t do such things myself. After thinking it over, why not have nephew Chunlei do it? What do you think?”

It would be perfectly normal for a son to relocate his father’s grave.

Tang Chunlei was so eager to repair relationships that when he learned what Shi Surong and Tang Xianzhong had done, he would be scared to death first. As long as Tang Hongen showed even a slight inclination, Tang Chunlei would voluntarily “share the burden”… There was no helping it – with parents like Tang Xianzhong and Shi Surong, it would be difficult to raise children with backbone and loyalty. At crucial moments, they would protect themselves first!

“No, you can’t do this, you—”

Tang Hongen interrupted her, “Of course I can. You’ve been in the countryside too long, your perspective is too limited. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

He had his aspirations in his official career.

Water too pure has no fish – Tang Hongen couldn’t claim he’d done everything right, but everything he’d done could face his conscience.

There were times when he needed to counter political struggles, but he would never sacrifice the interests of the common people to deal with political enemies.

He had never thought of using his power to oppress the common people – this power was given by the masses, and as long as he didn’t forget this initial intention, he wasn’t afraid of political struggles… But using it to deal with bad people, why not?

Shi Surong began to feel afraid.

She had once enjoyed ‘power’ too when she and her husband Tang Xianzhong had led the charge in reporting and criticizing Tang Hongen. People around them had looked at them with fear in their eyes, afraid of being dragged down too.

That fear was fear of ‘power.’

She and Tang Xianzhong had tasted the benefits – the more people they criticized, the more others feared them.

But after the political correction, their groundless ‘power’ dissipated instantly.

They had fled back to their hometown from Yunan shamefacedly, afraid of retaliation from Tang Hongen or others… So the word ‘power’ had magic to it, and Tang Hongen wasn’t the young cadre from over a decade ago anymore – he was now a leader! He didn’t even need to act himself; just a hint would have people rushing to help eliminate them.

Shi Surong judged others by herself, and the more she thought about it, the more afraid she became. Her previous stubborn defiance finally crumbled!

“Leave Chunlei out of this!”

“And Ruojia has nothing to do with it—”

“And your other two nephews, they weren’t even born when this happened!”

“Spare them, if you want revenge, come after me!”

Shi Surong loved her eldest son and youngest daughter the most; the other two sons were merely mentioned in passing, and because they had amounted to so little, it would be meaningless for Tang Hongen to make things difficult for them.

But Tang Chunlei and Tang Ruojia were different – one was Shi Surong’s most successful son, and the other was Shi Surong’s most promising daughter!

Tang Hongen quietly looked at her for a while.

“Why did you sell Little Ru?”

Shi Surong’s eyes darted away.

“I’m asking for the last time, why did you sell Little Ru? I want the truth!”

In the interrogation room, the pressure Shi Surong felt was indescribable to outsiders.

Once Tang Hongen had torn through the pretense, she couldn’t pull rank as ‘sister-in-law’ anymore.

What rank was there to pull? Tang Hongen didn’t even recognize his brother anymore, so what was a sister-in-law worth?

“…She was too favored!”

What?!

The answer Tang Hongen heard was too absurd.

Shi Surong, now feeling fear but also a kind of vengeful satisfaction that had been suppressed for many years continued:

“That’s right, she was too favored. A mere girl, it was already generous not to drown her in the chamber pot, yet she got to learn reading and writing. Did she deserve that kind of life? From the moment she married into the Tang family, I hated her!”

“And you too, why did you get to study while your elder brother had to be a farmer? We’re all Tang family members, but the water wasn’t held level. Your parents were too partial!”

“I hated both of you siblings. I had Lu Datou sell her far away, to the poorest place, so she could never return, hahaha—”

“Your elder brother didn’t agree to sell her at first, but after I had sons and said there were too many mouths to feed and too few workers, he agreed! The money from selling that girl, I spent it all on him!”

“And you becoming an official, marrying a city woman, no, I wouldn’t allow it…”

Shi Surong was emotionally agitated, her expression twisted and ugly, her words spewing out like venom.

Tang Hongen realized she was telling the truth!

Such an absurd reason.

An adult is jealous of how a child is treated in the family.

So some people’s evil wasn’t due to external pressure, but because they were evil by nature.

Tang Hongen had wanted to explain that he could study while his elder brother Tang Xianzhong had to farm because Tang Xianzhong got headaches just looking at books and had no talent for studying, as for his little sister, she had been premature at birth, and required much effort to raise, so naturally the family—

What was the point of explaining?

Why should he still explain anything to Shi Surong?

Tang Hongen turned and left, just wanting to get as far away from Shi Surong as possible… He had only one thought in his mind: he must find his little sister!