When the truth came out, Old Jia Number Four knew that it would be hard to retract, so he sat down dejectedly and asked, "Can I smoke a cigarette?"

"Go ahead." Chen Shi said.

Lin Dongxue went to open the window. Old Jia Number Four lit a cigarette and his fingers kept shaking the whole time. He said, "The signal in our village isn’t good and it cuts out intermittently. Little Jia wanted to borrow my phone that day because I had installed the internet at home and was given a landline..."

Chen Shi raised his eyebrows. Although confused, he didn’t interrupt his narration.

"I told them to start eating first. When I went to the kitchen (my kitchen faces the street), the rice collector surnamed Chu told me through the window that I needed to keep the two policemen here. He gave me a bag of powder......