Lu Keqing's prediction was correct; Wang Yalin broke down not long afterward!
She couldn't stand the Wang family spending her money and treating her like livestock, and she couldn't stand that disgusting man raping and abusing her.
After being beaten black and blue again, she pretended to be scared and cowered in a corner. When it got dark and everyone was asleep, she poured oil all over the floor, found all the flammable materials and piled them up in the house, locked every door, and set the house on fire!
"Burn! Burn you to death! I'll send you to hell!" Wang Yalin watched the raging fire with immense pleasure and laughed maniacally.
"Ah—fire! Fire!"
"Fire! Help! Help!"
"Open the door! Open the door quickly! Help!"
Terrified screams came from inside the house. Wang Yalin was so excited that her face turned red. She was holding a fork. When she saw someone breaking the window and trying to get out, she stabbed them in with the fork. She then grabbed a sickle from the ground and started hacking wildly at the window.
The screams grew louder, and the blood and flames reflected each other, creating the most striking red, which stimulated Wang Yalin's adrenaline to surge.
She shouted curses and hurled insults, her face contorted in a ferocious, almost manic manner.
The villagers rushed over and forcefully broke down the gate. The village chief hurriedly ordered people to subdue Wang Yalin and called on the villagers to put out the fire.
Everyone was fetching buckets and basins of water and pouring it onto the roofs, and some even called the fire department. But their village was far from the town, and the roads were in bad condition. By the time the fire trucks arrived, the houses would probably be burned down. The villagers had no choice but to desperately try to rescue the people.
Even as she was forced to lie face down on the ground, Wang Yalin continued to curse, "They deserve to die! They deserve to die! Don't save them, whoever saves them deserves to die! You're all accomplices, you bunch of criminals, you all deserve to die!"
A burly woman kicked her hard and spat, "Shut up! You committed arson and murder, we all saw it. You're the criminal. First you stole, now you've killed someone. You're no good at all, you'll be executed!"
"I'm not, I'm not a criminal! I'm the eldest daughter of the Xu family, the eldest daughter of one of the four great families! You'll all die if you offend me! I won't let you get away with this!" Wang Yalin's mind was in chaos. Her overly excited emotions had made her delirious, and she was just shouting incoherently.
The burly woman frowned, ran to the village chief and said these words, and asked doubtfully, "She has such a lot of resentment, could she really be a young lady? Village chief, do you think she might have been kidnapped by the Wang family? Otherwise, why would she have burned her own parents? Look how fiercely she was wielding the sickle just now, she was chopping down her own brother."
Someone who knew the inside story quickly chimed in, "No, no, the original daughter of the Wang family was the eldest daughter. They were switched at birth. This Wang Yalin is the Wang family's biological daughter. She's probably used to being a pampered young lady and refuses to acknowledge her real parents. She still thinks she's the eldest daughter. I've met the real heiress from Yanjing. She came here recently saying she wanted to help us build roads. I happened to see her. Her demeanor is far superior to this one's."
Putting out fires is one thing, but there always has to be a time when everyone takes a break and catches their breath, and that's how the word got around.
The village chief sighed, "What kind of mess is this? It's clearly a matter from the next village, but they've come to our village to make a scene. We'll hand them all over to the police at dawn. We don't need to worry about them. Putting out the fire is the priority. We can't let the houses next door burn down."
This fire is too difficult to put out. Wang Yalin has gathered a lot of flammable materials, and the fire is huge and fierce. How efficient can the villagers be by just splashing water? The cripple was drunk and no one called him. When he woke up from the pain of the fire, he was already surrounded by flames. People outside could only hear screams that grew louder and louder, but they could never see anyone.
The Wang family tried to rush out, but Wang Yalin's slashing motion slowed them down, and the falling furniture blocked the window.
Old Mrs. Wang was the last one to be hacked. As she fell, her clothes caught fire, and the others, too busy to help, could only watch helplessly as she burned to death. Wang Li continued to bleed, and with nothing to stop the bleeding, he grew weaker and weaker.
Wang Yalin's uncle and aunt's family cried and cursed, grabbing her parents to shield them from the fire. Several people even started fighting inside. In the chaos, Wang Li was pushed into the fire. Wang Yalin's cousins were burned on their faces, and the clothes of both couples caught fire. They could no longer care about their resentment and hurriedly tried to put out the fire.
Finally, after the villagers extinguished the fire in the doorway and corridor, they rescued the people, who were already unconscious and all seriously injured.
The fire reached the houses on both sides, but fortunately the impact was not significant and it did not spread further. The villagers managed to put out the fire.
Wang Yalin was crying and laughing at the same time, as if she had gone mad.
Police and firefighters from the town rushed over and were shocked by the horrific scene. Such a thing hadn't happened in their small town for decades, and it was a malicious murder, so the nature of the crime was too heinous. The police didn't dare to delay and quickly arrested Wang Yalin and sent the Wang family members to the hospital for emergency treatment.
Wang Yalin has been acting erratically, speaking incoherently and behaving abnormally. The police were unable to get any information out of her, and it is preliminarily suspected that she has become mentally unstable. Further investigation will require the doctor's examination report.
As for those who were burned, the cripple was charred, and Old Mrs. Wang and Wang Li were also burned to death. The others had large areas of burns, some of whom had their hands and feet crippled and their faces disfigured. Their condition was very serious, but none of them were in danger of dying.
The first thing they did after waking up was to sue Wang Yalin.
"Shoot her! Shoot her right now! She deliberately set the fire to burn us to death."
"Yes, yes, she even tried to attack us with a sickle, otherwise we wouldn't be burned like this."
"This is serious, officers! You absolutely must execute her!"
The police officer taking their statements said, "The villagers said that you forced Wang Yalin into marriage against her will. She is only eighteen years old, below the legal marriage age. Do you know that it is illegal for you to force her to have relations with someone like this?"
"We, we didn't. We just arranged their engagement. Yes, engagement. They didn't have sex."
The police officer glanced at them a few times, taking notes as he spoke: "Her body is covered in bruises. Villagers say she's frequently a victim of domestic violence? Is that true?"
"No, absolutely not. She was clumsy and bumped into something herself. Nobody hit her. Did anyone see it?"
After questioning them until the end, the police understood that these victims all deserved it. Even now, they were still trying to argue and make excuses, showing absolutely no remorse.
I wonder if Wang Yalin has been driven insane by them. The case is likely to end with Wang Yalin being admitted to a mental hospital, since the objective evidence is that the Wang family coerced her first, and Wang Yalin was forced to resist.
Upon learning of this news, Lu Keqing immediately hired a lawyer to represent the Wang family in court. They didn't want compensation; if they couldn't get it, they would sue Wang Yalin and send her to jail.
The lawyer from Yanjing met with Wang Yalin at the police station and immediately applied to the provincial capital for a professional medical and psychiatric evaluation, raising many questions.
After examination, the doctors from the provincial capital concluded that Wang Yalin's current mental instability was due to severe trauma. However, they maintained that she had premeditated the crime and acted with a clear mind. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for her to find so many flammable materials and set them on fire without disturbing her family, and to use farm tools outside to prevent them from escaping.
After a thorough investigation, the police found conclusive evidence of Wang Yalin's malicious murder. Due to its significant impact and heinous nature, she was sentenced to death.
Wang Yalin was furious when she learned the result! Her last resort was to feign madness and commit murder out of desperation, hoping to escape punishment by using mental illness. Why were people specifically targeting her? Why were they so determined to expose her? She could easily deal with those bastards in the Wang family, so why were there always people opposing her and helping the Wang family against her?
She was sentenced to death! She could never turn her life around! She schemed and plotted, desperately trying to live a good life, why couldn't she? Why did she have to die? She was only eighteen! She hadn't even had her coming-of-age ceremony!
Wang Yalin had no choice but to "regain" her senses and appeal, but her regaining her senses itself proved she was not mentally ill, and the court directly rejected her appeal. She had no money, couldn't afford a lawyer, and had no one to help her; she could only wait to die.
Wang Yalin, having gone this far, went all the way and directly accused the Wang family of being bribed by her to kill the cripple. She said if they didn't believe her, they could check the Wang family's money, which had been transferred from her before the wedding. She claimed that when she attacked them and prevented them from escaping, it was only a momentary lapse of judgment; in reality, she was in cahoots with them.
She suddenly testified that the Wang family's money had indeed come from her, and that they had all suddenly moved to the cripple's house, seemingly watching him every day. Although the Wang family vehemently denied it, they couldn't reconcile many of the events leading up to this. Even according to their own confession, they were guilty of forcing Wang Yalin into marriage and seizing her property.
Mr. and Mrs. Wang were each sentenced to five years in prison, while Mr. and Mrs. Wang's uncle and aunt were each sentenced to one year. Their children were innocent, but all of Wang's property was confiscated and confiscated. Their two children were disfigured, penniless, and homeless. It might be better for them to be in prison than to be outside.
Wang Yalin's days in prison awaiting execution were like those of a walking corpse. She could no longer struggle. She was truly unwilling to accept it. Every time she thought she was about to turn the tables, she would be thrown back into the abyss, as if a hidden force was always watching her.
But she couldn't understand, who would have such a deep grudge against her? The Xu family? She hadn't done anything to Xu Mengyao, and Feng Xiangjun's disability was due to her own carelessness, what did it have to do with her? Why did she end up like this?
"Wang Yalin, someone has come to see you."
Wang Yalin was startled and looked up in disbelief. "Someone's watching me? Who?"
"Stop talking nonsense and come out! We'll meet in twenty minutes."
Wang Yalin's bad character had already spread, especially her act of feigning madness, which was extremely despicable. No one treated her kindly. Wang Yalin didn't care to ask any more questions and hurried off to see people. For a moment, a glimmer of hope rose in her heart: Had someone come to rescue her? Was it Qi Xiangheng?
When she saw who it was, she was stunned. "W-who are you?"
Lu Keqing tossed her hair and gave a standard, service-like smile. "Miss Lin, don't you remember me?"
Wang Yalin looked at her carefully for a while before she remembered, "You are... Xu Mengyao's maid?" She looked around and, not seeing anyone else, stood up. "What are you doing here? Did Xu Mengyao send you to mock me?"
"Sit down!" the prison guard snapped, his eyes fixed sharply on Wang Yalin.
Wang Yalin hurriedly sat back down, then suddenly cried out, "Please, save me, save me! I was forced into this. If I didn't fight back, they would torture me to death. I acted in self-defense. Please tell my mother that I was wrong, I really know I was wrong. Please ask her to save me. I didn't do anything wrong..."
"Really?" Lu Keqing took out a photo, smiled, and handed it to her. "Wang Yalin, do you remember this person?"
Wang Yalin's pupils constricted as she looked at the photo, and she reflexively looked up at Lu Keqing, only then realizing that Lu Keqing bore a resemblance to the man in the photo.
She stared at Lu Keqing in shock, "Who exactly are you?"
Lu Keqing carefully put the photo away, and said with satisfaction, "It seems you haven't forgotten my brother. Then you should also understand that you've never been without..."
"You've been guilty for a while now. Your hands have been stained with blood since you were 14. Enjoy your last two days; this time, you truly have no hope."
Wang Yalin was trembling all over, overwhelmed by fear. Her voice trembled so much that she could barely speak, "You came to the Xu family... to get revenge on me... You've been getting revenge on me for the past few years..."
Lu Keqing took out the jade gourd pendant and showed it to her. "If it weren't for investigating my brother's affairs, I wouldn't have found Yaoyao. Tell me, aren't you just reaping what you sowed?"