Changxing Village, Sitong Township.
Liu Defu squatted outside his front door, silently smoking his pipe.
Changxing Coal Mine had been shut down, and neither he nor his son had gone down into the mine for over a month. Fortunately, the city leaders had kept their word and paid them compensation.
"Dad, I... I want to help Tong Xuan escape..." Liu Xin came over to his father and hesitated for a long while before finally working up the courage to speak.
"If you want the two of us buried under that crooked tree on the back hillside too, then go ahead." Liu Defu took a drag from his pipe and spoke slowly.
"Dad, Ma Wenwu and Ma Zhiyong are both behind bars now..." Liu Xin reminded him, unwilling to give up.
"So what? Isn't it still the Ma family calling the shots in Changxing Village? Last time you called the police about the accident at the mine, Ma Changxi already started suspecting us. If you help that college student escape this time and get caught, do you think either of us will make it out alive?"
Liu Defu took a hard drag, looked at his son with eyes that had seen all the hardships of the world, and sighed. "Besides, even if you help her escape, what do you get out of it? She's a college student from the city, and she's so good-looking. Would she ever take a fancy to a dirt-poor country bumpkin like you?"
Liu Xin lowered his head, his expression dimming.
The college girl named Tong Xuan had been trafficked here two months earlier. Plenty of villagers had wanted to buy her, and he had wanted his father to put up the money too. In the end, however, the village chief, Ma Changxi, had paid the traffickers