Chapter 62: Catching a Turtle in a Jar, the Jia Family's Final Madness

A moonless and windless night is the time for murder and arson.

Of course, Mrs. Jia and Stickpin did not have the guts for that; they merely intended to take advantage of the darkness to make a fortune.

Two o'clock in the morning was the hour when people slept most soundly. The entire courtyard, and indeed the entire capital, was plunged into profound silence. Mrs. Jia shook Stickpin awake from his sound sleep, and the two of them, moving as stealthily as a pair of thieving rats, slipped out of their home.

"Grandma, I... I'm scared," Stickpin whispered, looking at the pitch-black courtyard with legs trembling slightly.

"What is there to be afraid of? Grandma is here with you!" Mrs. Jia bolstered her own courage as well as her grandson's. "Remember what Grandma told you. That fellow Chen Mo surely keeps his most precious belongings right in his bedroom. Once you get inside, don't be too greedy. Just grab whatever looks valuable—cash, a watch, or gold and silver—and run right back out! Grandma will keep watch for you outside!"

"Oh..." Stickpin nodded, only half-understanding.

The old woman and the young boy sneaked across the courtyard and crept beneath the engineers' residential building. The building was newly constructed with smooth walls, offering nothing to climb on. However, Mrs. Jia had scouted the location beforehand. She knew that Chen Mo lived on the second floor, and right outside the kitchen window on the second floor ran a thick drainage pipe.

"My good grandson, climb up from right here! You're small and light, so you'll have no trouble at all!" Mrs. Jia pointed at the pipe, lowering her voice, her tone full of enticement.

Stickpin looked at the pipe, which appeared rather menacing in the dark, and swallowed hard. Despite his fear, under the temptation of a "large roasted chicken leg" and his grandmother's urging, he gritted his teeth and grabbed hold of the pipe.

To give credit where it was due, Stickpin had practiced monkey-like agility ever since he was a child climbing roofs and stripping tiles. Using both hands and feet, he shinned up the pipe to the second-floor windowsill in no time at all.

The kitchen window was not locked; it was only pushed ajar. This was a "gate of life" intentionally left open for him by Chen Mo.

Stickpin gave it a gentle push, and the window creaked open a crack. Joy surged in his heart, and like an eel, he wriggled through the gap, landing softly on the kitchen floor.

He had succeeded!

A wave of wild elation washed over Stickpin. He looked around. Chen Mo's home was both clean and impressive. The polished, gleaming cement floor, the snow-white walls, and furniture and appliances he had never even laid eyes on left him staring in wide-eyed amazement.

He was going to get rich! This time he was really going to strike it rich!

Suppressing his racing heart, he followed his grandmother's instructions and tiptoed toward the bedroom.

However, the very instant his foot crossed the threshold of the kitchen door:

[Ding! Advanced security formation activated!]

[Intruders detected: 2. Targets: Mrs. Jia, Stickpin.]

[Negative buff package initiated: Full-body itching, world spinning, incessant diarrhea (delayed trigger)!]

Stickpin suddenly felt his legs turn to jelly as the world began to spin violently before his eyes. He felt as though he had chugged ten catties of fiery grain liquor, unable even to stand upright, and he pitched forward, crashing headlong onto the living room floor.

"Ouch!"

His cry of pain was neither loud nor soft, but in the silent night, it sounded exceptionally clear.

Mrs. Jia, keeping watch downstairs, heard it all too well, and her heart leaped straight into her throat with fright.

"My good grandson? Grandson, what's wrong?" She was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan, yet she dared not shout out loud.

At that moment, Stickpin felt as though countless ants were crawling all over his body. From his neck down to his heels, an unbearable, maddening itch erupted. He couldn't help stretching out his hands and scratching himself frantically all over.

"It itches! It's itching me to death! Grandma! It's so itchy!"

Scratching wildly, he rolled around on the floor, and angry red welts quickly appeared across his skin. The itchiness came on inexplicably—a deep, bone-piercing itch that no amount of scratching could alleviate; in fact, the more he scratched, the worse it became.

He tried to stand up, but his head spun viciously, the entire room whirling before his eyes so that he completely lost all sense of direction. This was the disorienting effect of the spell, ensuring he could never find the right way out.

"Help! Grandma! There are ghosts!" Stickpin completely broke down, crying and shrieking inside the room.

His outburst nearly scared the wits out of Mrs. Jia downstairs. She forgot all about keeping watch and turned to run.

The moment she turned, however, a tumultuous, cataclysmic pain erupted in her abdomen. A surging, irresistible urge to defecate rushed straight toward her sphincter!

"Oh! Oh, my stomach!" Mrs. Jia clutched her belly, squeezing her thighs together, her face turning the color of a pig's liver. She wanted to run, but before she had taken two steps, she felt herself losing control completely.

It was over! She was going to soil her trousers!

At that very critical juncture:

"Crash—!"

A dozen glaring flashlight beams erupted once more from all directions, descending like divine soldiers from above!

This time, not only were Factory Director Yang Weiguo and Section Chief Zhao Tiehu of the security department present, but also two solemn police officers in uniform!

Behind them trailed a crowd of neighborhood gossips who loved nothing more than a good spectacle. At the forefront were Yan Fugui, rubbing his sleepy yet excited eyes, and Pillar, wearing an icy expression and wielding a rolling pin!

Chen Mo had given them advance notice. He had told Pillar that there would be a good show tonight and asked him to round up all the busybodies in the courtyard.

This formation was ten times grander than the time they had caught Qin Huairu.

Caught in the sudden, blinding glare of the light, Mrs. Jia's mind went blank with a loud buzzing sound. Immediately afterward, the primordial force in her lower abdomen could no longer be contained.

"Pfft—splash and gurgle..."

An earth-shattering, indescribable sound, accompanied by an intensely rich stench rivaling a biological weapon, instantly filled the air.

Everyone present, including the two experienced police officers, instinctively took a step back and covered their noses.

"Ugh..." The fainthearted had already started vomiting on the spot.

Mrs. Jia, the arrogant and overbearing old hag who usually lorded over the courtyard, had actually soiled her trousers right in front of the entire courtyard, the factory leadership, and the police officers!

Social death was no longer adequate to describe her current plight.

This was nothing short of a social nuclear annihilation!

"Open the door! Police! Everyone inside, listen up, you are surrounded! Open the door immediately and give up resistance!" The authoritative voice of a police officer rang out from upstairs.

Soon, the door was unlocked from within.

The crowd saw Chen Mo standing calmly and composedly in the doorway. Behind him, Stickpin lay on the floor, rolling around while tearing at his clothes, babbling incessantly about how itchy he was and how there were ghosts.

Caught red-handed! The evidence was as solid as a mountain!

The two police officers rushed inside and subdued the flailing and rolling Stickpin in a few swift moves.

"Comrades officers, this child climbed into my house through the window in the middle of the night—heaven knows what he intended to do. I just got back and walked right into this scene." Chen Mo's tone was calm, tinged with a precisely measured trace of lingering shock.

"Rest assured, Doctor Chen! We will thoroughly investigate this!" one of the police officers said solemnly.

On the other side, Mrs. Jia had already been hauled up by two security guards like a dead chicken. Her mind was utterly gone, her eyes hollow, and she muttered repeatedly, "It's over... everything is over..."

Factory Director Yang Weiguo looked at the absurd scene before him, trembling with rage.

"Good! A fine Jia family indeed! Stealing has reached the point of preying upon a hero of our factory! Simply lawless and heinous to the extreme!" He pointed at Mrs. Jia and roared, "Take her away! Take them all down to the police station! I demand strict handling! No leniency whatsoever!"

Standing in the crowd, Pillar watched Mrs. Jia's utterly pathetic state, then looked at Stickpin being escorted downstairs by the police while still scratching himself frantically. The very last shred of pity he had harbored—born from watching Stickpin grow up—completely vanished into thin air.

Rotten. Everything was rotten. This family was rotten to the very core.

He turned his head and glanced at Chen Mo standing in the doorway. Chen Mo looked back and nodded slightly at him.

Pillar understood.

This was Chen Mo helping him, and also helping this courtyard undergo one final, radical scraping away of the poison.

...

Police station, interrogation room.

Mrs. Jia and Stickpin were detained and interrogated separately.

Stickpin was, after all, just a child; frightened by the police officers, he confessed to everything. He spilled out every single detail of how his grandmother, Mrs. Jia, had instigated him and told him to climb through the window for burglary.

Mrs. Jia, however, continued to put up a stubborn resistance.

"I didn't! I don't know anything! I was just passing by! I don't know where my grandson went! You're framing an innocent person!" Sitting in the interrogation chair, she threw a tantrum, rolling around and making a scene, pulling out all the shameless tricks she had spent decades practicing in the courtyard.

The interrogating police officer was driven half-mad by her clamor.

At that moment, the door of the interrogation room opened. Chen Mo and Factory Director Yang Weiguo walked in together.

"Comrades officers, you've worked hard." Chen Mo nodded to the interrogator. "For someone so obstinate and unrepentant, I happen to have a method."

He walked up to Mrs. Jia and took a small medical kit from inside his tunic.

"Mrs. Jia, I see your forehead is dark and your complexion is poor. No doubt you suffered a fright earlier, causing your vital energy and blood to surge into disorder. As a doctor, I cannot stand by and do nothing." A compassionate expression hung on Chen Mo's face. "I have a silver needle here. Let me give you a prick, and I guarantee it will clear your mind and smooth out your circulation."

With that, he drew out a silver needle glinting with a cold light from his kit. Clinging to the tip of the needle was a single transparent, unnoticeable droplet of liquid.

It was, precisely, a truth serum.

"You... don't come closer! I'm not sick!" Seeing Chen Mo like a mouse seeing a cat, Mrs. Jia shrank back in terror.

"Don't be afraid, it doesn't hurt. Just a second." Chen Mo's smile appeared far more terrifying than a devil's to Mrs. Jia.

Giving her no chance to resist, he stepped forward, grabbed her arm, and with lightning speed, lightly pricked a pressure point with the needle in his hand.

"Done." Chen Mo withdrew the needle and stepped back to one side.

Mrs. Jia felt a slight numbness where she had been pricked, and immediately, a strange sensation rushed straight from her tailbone to the crown of her head. Her gaze began to grow hazy and unfocused.

Seizing the opportune moment, the interrogator began to question her.

"Name?"

"Mrs. Jia..." Her voice became stiff and mechanical.

"Tonight, why did you take your grandson to the engineers' building?"

"To steal things..."

"Whose things to steal?"

"Chen Mo..."

"Why go steal his things?"

"He ruined our family! He stole Pillar away! Pillar's money is our family's money! He stole my money! I was going to take it back! And I was going to take his television and watch too! Sell them for money! To buy meat for my good grandson!"

Pouring out words like beans from a bamboo tube, Mrs. Jia spilled out the truest, dirtiest, and greediest thoughts hidden deep within her heart.

Not only did she confess to tonight's theft, but under the potent influence of the truth serum, she began to reminisce about her "glory" days in the past.

"...The chicken at Xu Damao's house was stolen by Stickpin! I told him to go! That chicken soup smelled so good..."

"...The salted fish that Auntie Li in the courtyard was drying before—we took that too..."

"...I scold that little wretch Hua Hua every single day just because I can't stand the sight of her; she doesn't look like our Jia family..."

"...I've already planned it out: once Pillar marries Qin Huairu, I'm going to make him hand over his payroll card! If he dares not hand it over, I'll go make a scene at his workplace every single day! Make him lose face!"

Earth-shattering statements tumbled out of Mrs. Jia's mouth without the slightest reservation.

The entire interrogation room fell into a dead silence.

The pens of the interrogator and the recorder were practically flying fast enough to throw off sparks. Factory Director Yang Weiguo listened in utter astonishment, his complexion shifting from green to purple, and from purple to black. He could never have imagined that right inside his factory compound, such a rare specimen of a woman—combining greed, malice, and stupidity—had been hiding all along!

Standing to one side, Chen Mo watched Mrs. Jia's "personal confession show," his expression as calm as still water.

It was over.

The Jia family, in this era, had come to a complete end.