Witty Wife, Better Life-Chapter 832 - 822 Funeral

Li Hongjun, upon hearing the entire sequence of events, felt his head buzzing.

He took a deep breath and said, "Big brother, right now it’s just the two of us here at home, we must stay composed. Here’s what we’ll do: Dad can’t be left alone, we don’t know when the surgery will end, so you and sister-in-law should stay here and look after Dad. I’ll go with Officer Zhang to see what has happened to Mom, and when I return, we’ll discuss further." For now, that was all they could do.

Li Hongxing and his wife didn’t have any ideas of their own and could only follow what the second brother said.

So, Li Hongxing and his wife stayed at the hospital, while Li Hongjun followed Officer Zhang to the detention center in the police car. Qiu Shuping’s body was still kept there.

At that time, no one who died in a detention center was entitled to compensation; death meant simply that—death. Li Hongjun’s purpose was to find out whether his mother had truly died suddenly or if she had been murdered. If it was the latter, he was determined to demand justice.

The final outcome confirmed that Qiu Shuping had died from sudden death, then the police helped arrange a vehicle to transport the body back to Taoshu Village. In many places, cremation had not yet been implemented, so the dead needed to be kept at home, where the family could hold a vigil and perform rituals before burial.

Due to the urgency of the situation, Li Hongjun couldn’t handle everything alone. While at the detention center, he called his eldest sister, Li Xianglian, asking her to come help prepare their mother’s body and to see if her husband could find a coffin they could borrow. It was difficult to source one on short notice, so they planned to borrow one prepared for an elder and later pay or repay the favor.

Li Xianglian almost fainted when she heard the terrible news. Regardless, it was her mother who had given birth to her and raised her, and to lose her so unexpectedly was unbearable for anyone.

When Li Xianglian staggered into Taoshu Village, Qiu Shuping’s body had already been placed in the main room of the old house.

The Zheng family mother and daughter were so frightened that they dared not leave their home.

In the afternoon, Wang Dan also returned from the hospital. The news she brought was not good—Old Li had suffered a second stroke, which was much more severe than the first. Not only was half of his body paralyzed, but he now also had a crooked mouth and squinty eyes, and he spoke unclearly.

He definitely couldn’t be discharged from the hospital anytime soon. The doctor said he needed to stay in the hospital for at least half a month.

Li Hongjun sighed after hearing this, "It’s probably for the best. By the time Dad returns, Mom’s funeral will have been handled. Let’s spare him from seeing that, it might worsen his condition."

"Shouldn’t we have our children come back? Now that Mom is gone, it wouldn’t be right not to have any of them by our side," said Li Xianglian as tears fell again.

"Yes, I’ll call Yunfang in a moment and have her bring back the children, and also ask Xianghe and his wife to come," replied Li Hongjun.

Thus, Shen Yunfang, who was at work on the farm, received this unexpected and devastating news.

She was stunned for quite a while, unable to comprehend it—it was truly unexpected; she hadn’t anticipated that the old lady would just be gone like that.

Shen Yunfang didn’t know quite how to feel; she wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t very saddened either.

"Sister-in-law, sister-in-law, that was Brother Li’s call just now, wasn’t it? Is there some trouble?" asked Zhang Chunwang, who had just been in her office reporting on work.

"There’s no trouble, just that my mother-in-law has passed away. Your Brother Li is currently at the old home, and he just called to have me take the children back with me," she said, with a sigh.

It may seem disrespectful to say this about the deceased, but Shen Yunfang really wanted to express that the old lady had always been the same in life and even in death, she had to cause some trouble for her children before she could close her eyes.

Zhang Chunwang hadn’t expected it to be such a big deal, "Sister-in-law, do you need help? I can bring a few people over to give Brother Li a hand."

"No need, no need, they are all back in their hometown, and there are many relatives over there to help out." Shen Yunfang herself didn’t want to go back, and obviously, she couldn’t make a big show of bringing people with her to mourn, "I’ll go home to prepare in a bit. If I can get a ticket, I will take the kids back tonight, and I’ll have to trouble you to keep an eye on things here," she instructed.

"Don’t worry, sister-in-law, you don’t need to worry about things here," Zhang Chunwang quickly assured her.

Shen Yunfang had nothing to worry about. After arranging things at the farm, she went to find Goudan. Goudan was her grandson, and it was mandatory for him to attend his grandmother’s funeral.

Goudan was somewhat taken aback by the news. Although his family and his grandmother’s had grown distant over the years, he had grown up near his grandmother as a child and thus still had some feelings for her.

Hearing that his grandmother had passed away, the young man just stared blankly at first; it wasn’t until they were in the car that he seemed to recover, and tears began to fall.

In the rearview mirror, Shen Yunfang saw this but didn’t know how to comfort him, so she just silently drove into the military compound.

She first let Goudan go home by himself, then she went directly to the military compound to speak with the leadership, informing them of her mother-in-law’s passing. The military officials were very understanding, offered their condolences to Shen Yunfang, and then sent someone to find a few children.

Then it was Shen Yunfang taking the children home, cooking and eating, packing up some simple luggage, and then a large group took the Dongfeng truck to the city.

Fortunately, they were lucky to get train tickets, although it was crowded, and they couldn’t get sleeper tickets, so all eleven of them bought hard seats.

On the train, taking advantage of the downtime, Shen Yunfang briefly explained to the children the details regarding returning to their hometown for their grandmother’s funeral.

It was easier with the older children, but her own two were at that awkward age, neither big nor small, just not fully understanding things. Shen Yunfang was worried they might say something inappropriate at the funeral due to lack of connection with the old lady.

They rattled on the train for a whole day and finally arrived in the city nearest to their hometown the next evening. By then, there were no buses left, and in her urgency, Shen Yunfang could do nothing but find a hotel next to the long-distance bus station to stay at and wait to take the first bus home the next day.

The next afternoon, the group tiredly made it to the county. After leaving Juanzi and Huzi with Dashuan, who had come to pick them up, and without time for small talk, Shen Yunfang and several children from the Li family hitched a ride on the donkey cart Li Hongxing had hurried over with and headed back to their hometown.

Everything there was already prepared. If not for waiting for these grandchildren to return, it really wasn’t appropriate to have delayed the mourning for such a long duration in such hot weather.

Fortunately, once Shen Yunfang and the others arrived home quickly, everyone, adults and children alike, changed into mourning clothes, and then wails started echoing through the Li family’s old home.

It took three whole days of busy preparations before the old lady’s ashes could be buried.

Only then did Shen Yunfang have a moment to sit down and inquire about what exactly had happened. Wasn’t she supposed to be arrested? How come suddenly she was gone?

Wang Dan simply relayed the events to her sister-in-law. Upon hearing it, Shen Yunfang felt a pang in her heart; originally, her mother-in-law had been sentenced for extortion, affecting Li Hongjun’s career negatively for several years by forcing him to sit on the bench. Now, with her mother-in-law sentenced to death, did that mean her husband’s career prospects were also doomed?