Among the vicious-looking crowd, the fat man leading them steeled himself and stepped forward:
"Your Honor."
"What is your name? Where do you live? Tell me everything you know again."
"Yes."
Song Yaoyao warned him:
"I hope everything you say next is the truth. I assume you know the consequences of lying to an officer."
"Yes, I understand."
Of course he knew the consequences. He was only an errand runner; there was no reason to ruin the rest of his life by lying to an officer:
"My name is Sun Liucai. I just run errands.
"When someone borrows money and doesn't repay it, we go to their door to collect the debt.
"This is what happened.
"A month ago, Yao Qi came to us to borrow fifty taels of silver... The next day, Yao Qi brought Chen Yanniang along to borrow more..."
Sun Liucai recounted how Yao Qi and Chen Yanniang had borrowed money a month earlier. His account was much the same as what Song Yaoyao and the others had heard when they entered.
Sun Liucai continued:
"We agreed beforehand that they would repay the principal and interest after a month, but when the repayment date came, neither of them showed up.
"We had no choice but to come to their door to collect.
"When we reached the Yao residence, we didn't see Yao Qi. We only saw Chen Yanniang.
"We explained why we'd come, but she insisted she'd never borrowed any money. She even threatened us with suicide.
"We've never met anyone so brazen."
Chen Yanniang said agitatedly:
"Your Honor, I never borrowed any money! He's talking nonsense."
At a loss for words, Sun Liucai said:
"Your Honor, you see? This is exactly how Chen Yanniang has been acting."
"Your Honor, I truly didn't."
Song Yaoyao raised a