"Wang, what do you mean by that?"
Wang Yong's face darkened. "What could I mean? My guess is, Old Wu reported us."
Someone said hesitantly, "Surely not. Old Wu doesn't seem like that kind of person."
Someone else sneered. "Maybe Old Wu isn't, but what about that wife of his?"
"You mean Zhang Amei? But what would she gain?"
"Who knows? Yesterday, the Zhuang family got reported. Today, we got reported too. Yet Old Wu's family was the only one left completely unscathed, and now none of them have even shown their faces..."
"I did hear something. Zhang Amei works at the Tire Factory, and running back and forth every day is inconvenient. She's been looking for connections for a while, hoping to transfer either to our factory or to the subdistrict office. Do you think this might have something to do with it?"
Silence hung over the alley for a long while.
At last, someone muttered, "Hard to say. It really is hard to say."
Chapter 33: A Disagreement over Care
Everyone in the alley knew that Zhang Amei wanted to transfer to the subdistrict office.
She had put a great deal of thought and effort into changing jobs.
More than half of what little spare time Wu Jianguo had outside his overtime shifts had gone into making that "Thirty-six Legs" furniture set, which she had used to cultivate connections.
With one neighbor after another in the alley being reported, many instinctively concluded that Zhang Amei had used them as stepping stones to advance herself.
Of course, logically speaking, this was still something of a stretch. If they were really discussing suspects, the Zhuang family was not beyond suspicion either.
But human nature was what it was: the subdistrict office had come knocking on everyone's doors, yet your family