Chapter 123: Ironclad Evidence in Hand! The Household Register

Chapter 123: Chapter 85: Ironclad Evidence in Hand! The Household Register

“Hey, young fella. Take a look at my eyes. See anything?”

Wang Chao stared intently for a moment, then decided to lay on the flattery.

“I can see you have an incredibly sharp gaze.”

“Bullshit!”

Old Zhou smacked his lips and grunted.

“Can’t you even tell I’m farsighted?”

Wang Chao: ?

‘Far… farsighted?’

Wang Chao wanted to say something but held his tongue. He looked at the old man before him, then at the extremely blurry photo in Xu De’s hand, and fell silent.

“Well, sir, do you recognize these two people?”

Xu De paused, then took out the two sketches Lin Yue had drawn.

Old Zhou lifted his eyes to look, and the moment he did…

His expression darkened instantly.

“Who are you people!?”

Old Zhou’s face was hostile, his voice heavy.

Seeing his expression, the hearts of the three skipped a beat.

‘He… knows them!?’

Wang Chao quickly said, “Sir, we’re…”

“Get out, get out, get out!”

Old Zhou mumbled indistinctly.

Lin Yue quickly spoke up, her voice gentle. “Sir, we’re lawyers. Please don’t get upset. We’re here because of a case…”

Old Zhou listened patiently, and his expression softened a little.

Wang Chao was filled with indignant grief.

‘It’s a damn world where looks are everything! Even a farsighted old man treats people differently based on their face!’

After a moment.

“Nan?”

“That ungrateful wolf! That little beast is still alive!?”

Old Zhou’s cursing tone was filled with rage.

With that, he turned around.

“I get it.”

“Come with me. If you’re looking for something… you can look at my place.”

The three of them followed.

On the way, Xu De asked him a question.

“Sir, this Nan… you know her?”

“How could I not? The whole village knows that ungrateful wolf!”

“Nan and her mother came from out of town. Her mother married Tao Ming, who had lost his wife during a difficult childbirth.”

“Tao Ming’s wife was gone, but the baby survived. When the child turned one, Tao Ming realized he couldn’t raise the baby on his own. So, he shacked up with Nan’s mother, and she brought Nan along with her.”

“Aiya, we folks in Taocun Village treated her well, but in the end…”

“In the end, her mother took the bride price money and disappeared the very next day, leaving Nan behind.”

As he walked, Old Zhou sighed and continued.

“What could be done? The adult made a mistake, but you can’t just abandon the kid, right?”

“So Tao Ming gritted his teeth and raised her too. But… that Nan is a heartless, ungrateful wolf, just like her mother!”

“Back then, the family only had a few eggs. He scrambled them all for the two children to eat. But since Tao Ming’s own child was still small and needed the nutrition, he gave that one a slightly bigger share…”

“But because of that, that little wolf held a grudge!”

“Later, during the New Year, that little wolf tricked the toddler into going outside, abandoned the kid in a mountain gully, and ran home pretending nothing had happened. It was only after she was found out that she ran off and disappeared without a trace…”

“Tao Ming searched for the child all night but couldn’t find him. The next day, he collapsed from illness.”

“Not long after, he died from the illness.”

“At this point…”

At this point, the old man stopped walking. He sighed again and again in anger, slapping his thigh.

“Nan’s mother came back! She took over Tao Ming’s house, claiming they were husband and wife and that it was her home!”

“She still refuses to leave to this day.”

‘So… she was preying on a family with no heir?’

‘And not just preying, but picking the bones clean!?’

Suddenly, Wang Chao felt a chill run down his spine, his hands and feet turning ice-cold. He was stunned.

‘A bad seed… No wonder the old man called her that.’

‘As a child, Liu Jingqi got so jealous over a few eggs that she abandoned a three-year-old in the deep mountains?’

‘And after doing all that, she could run home and act like nothing happened… only fleeing after she was exposed!?’

“Alright, if you’re looking for something… it should be at my place.”

Saying this, Old Zhou pointed to the courtyard-style, thatched-roof house in front of them. This was his home.

He opened the door and led the three inside.

The thatched house wasn’t large. The only electrical appliances were a radio, a light bulb, and a fan.

The walls were made of mud. The place was small overall, with some vegetables planted in the courtyard.

Old Zhou led them into the dim main room of the house.

He rummaged around.

Finally, he pulled out a cardboard box from under the bed.

“When Tao Ming died, I was the one who handled his funeral arrangements. I collected all his things here. Nan’s mother never came asking for any of this.”

Old Zhou said, puffing on his long-stemmed pipe.

“Then please excuse us… we need to look for something.”

Xu De said as the three of them crouched down and began to sift through the various miscellaneous items in the box.

The logic was simple.

When Liu Jingqi’s biological mother left, she probably didn’t have time to take Liu Jingqi’s household registration book or medical birth certificate…

After all, from Old Zhou’s description, it was clear Tao Ming was a good man. Since he had decided to raise Liu Jingqi, there was no reason for him to throw away her documents.

Therefore, theoretically, the item should still be in this box.

But unfortunately…

“Nothing.”

Lin Yue searched until the very end, her brow furrowed. She looked up and met Xu De’s gaze.

Wang Chao hadn’t found anything either and shook his head.

“That’s strange… Could it have been lost when everything was packed up?” Xu De frowned, lost in thought.

They needed Liu Jingqi’s exact date of birth.

Or rather, they needed objective evidence!

But… there was nothing of the sort here.

Could it be that days of hard work and exhaustion were all about to be for nothing!?

He thought back to Yang Huan in Lusen City, and the two funeral urns, already filled with ashes, sitting in his home.

Xu De’s expression grew grim, his breathing a little heavy.

They had come all the way to her family’s home, yet still had no ironclad proof…

“What are you three kids looking for?”

Old Zhou asked curiously.

“We’re looking for Liu Jingqi’s… I mean Nan’s, birth certificate or household registration book.”

Xu De said with a sigh.

In the legal system, not just any document can be used to alter one’s age.

If you show up with a household registration book, they might just glance at it and set it aside. But if you have a birth certificate in hand, that’s a different story.

Of course.

This was the case in later years, where a birth certificate held more weight than a household registration book.

Medical birth certificates were only standardized in ’96. Before that, hospitals issued their own, and they came in all sorts of colors and formats.

The result was that, at the present time, the household registration book held more weight than a birth certificate.

Of course, Xu De wasn’t picky. Any proof would do.

“Household registration book? Birth certificate?”

Old Zhou took a couple of puffs from his pipe.

“It’s a piece of paper, green… or maybe red or white.”

Xu De held out his hands, gesturing to show the size.

“The household registration book is about this big, with official stamps on it. It’s not easy to damage, it’s waterproof, and it’s very durable.”

Green, waterproof, and very durable.

Old Zhou thought for a moment.

Then, he slapped his forehead, crouched down again, and pulled something that had been sealed in plastic from a crack under the bed leg.

“Take a look and see if this is the thing. The bed leg was wobbly, so I used this to prop it up,” Old Zhou said.

Xu De quickly took it.

A booklet, red all over with a red cover, appeared before the three of them.

On it were several distinct, indented characters.

[Dongguo Resident Household Registration Book]

The moment they saw those five words…

The three of them felt as if an invisible hand had suddenly clenched tight around their hearts.

GULP.

Xu De’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He opened the booklet and saw…

[Name: Zhang Yueyue (Liu Jingqi)]

[Sex: Female]

[Place of Origin: Haidong Province…]

His gaze moved bit by bit, finally locking onto a single line.

[Date of Birth: December 28, 1983.]

December ’83…

Then, the interval between that date and the date of the crime, November 17, 2002, was…

227 months.

Not 16 years old. She was over 18 years and 11 months old!

“Assistant Lin?”

“Yes.”

“When is the second hearing?”

Lin Yue thought for a moment. “Soon. It’s on the 28th. That’s six days from now. And if we drive back, the evidence submission period will be over… we definitely won’t have time to submit it.”

Only six days left…

In a daze, Xu De looked down at the red booklet in his hand, let out a long breath, and a relieved smile spread across his face.

Liu Jingqi’s attitude was arrogant…

‘Arrogance is good. Defiance is good. Disregarding human life is even better…’

“So, we…”

“We’ll give the court a surprise.”

“Huh? Elaborate.”

Lin Yue asked, “What do you mean by surprise?”

“A surprise is when, six days from now, during the second hearing at the Intermediate People’s Court, we pull out this damn household registration book in front of everyone and overturn Liu Jingqi’s even more damnable age right there in the courtroom!”

“We’ll smash her only ‘get out of death row free’ card to pieces, right in front of her face!” Xu De said fiercely.

Lin Yue’s eyes widened slightly, and she drew in a sharp breath.

“So that’s the surprise?”

“That’s right!”

Xu De slammed his right hand down on the red household registration book—the one showing a 1983 birth year.

SLAP.

“This is the surprise!!!”

…

…

ps: No dragging it out, this plotline is continuous, so I’m releasing the whole segment at once.

Today, on top of the daily 12,000 characters, I’ve added an extra 3,000.

A 15,000-character update in total! Please support me with your monthly tickets!