"Seal off this news immediately! Apart from us, no fifth person can ever know this drawing exists!"
Su Mingzhe reacted swiftly. He immediately folded the drawing again, carefully returned it to the tin box, then locked the box inside his briefcase.
A fine sheen of cold sweat seeped onto his forehead.
If his younger sister's death had not been an accident but a murder, then the matters involved were far too serious.
Project 713 was one of the nation's most important strategic resource development plans, tied to the nation's future energy security. This mineral vein sketch was the fruit of countless scientists' painstaking work. If it leaked, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Su Mingfeng's expression also turned exceptionally grim.
Looking at the uncomprehending Nuannuan in his arms, he felt a surge of lingering fear.
"Should we tell our eldest brother and Dad?" Su Mingfeng asked in a low voice.
"Not yet." Su Mingzhe shook his head, his gaze grave. "Until we have conclusive evidence, we can't alert the enemy. We'll investigate this in secret first."
The brothers exchanged a look, each seeing the same resolve in the other's eyes.
They would not only seek justice for Nuannuan, but also uncover the truth for their dead sister and brother-in-law!
Just then, the telephone downstairs rang urgently.
Soon, the nanny came upstairs and knocked on the door.
"Third Young Master, an urgent telegram has been forwarded from the switchboard room. It's for you."
Su Mingzhe took the telegram and quickly opened it.
The telegram had been sent back by the advance investigation team dispatched to Li Family Village.
After just one glance, Su Mingzhe's expression darkened further.
"What's wrong?" Su Mingfeng asked.
Su Mingzhe handed him the telegram.
The contents of the telegram made Su Mingfeng clench his fists once again.
The investigation team had encountered tremendous resistance in Li Family Village.
That woman named Liu Guifang was practically a fighter jet among shrews.
The moment the comrades from the investigation team entered the village, she plopped down on the ground, slapped her thighs, and wailed to high heaven, saying she had worked herself to the bone raising the child, only for officials from the city to snatch her away.
She also said Nuannuan was a relative's child whose parents had both died, and that the child had been entrusted to her care, with the entire village as witnesses.
She even turned the accusation back on them, saying the Su Family was abusing its power to bully her, coming to steal her child because her family was poor.
With this incitement, she actually managed to stir up the villagers who did not know the truth and resented "officials."
Carrying hoes and shoulder poles, they surrounded the investigation team inside the village committee office, refusing to let them leave or investigate.
The village Party secretary tried to say a few words to help, only to be shoved off balance by Liu Guifang's son, Li Goudan.
The whole of Li Family Village was now like an iron barrel, so tightly sealed that neither a needle nor a drop of water could get through.
"Damn it!" Su Mingfeng was so furious that he crumpled the telegram into a ball. "That vile shrew! She's utterly shameless!"
"She's stalling for time." Su Mingzhe's gaze was icy. "She must know she can't hide her abuse of Nuannuan, so she's trying to use this opportunity to destroy evidence or coordinate stories with others."
"I'll call the military subdistrict right now and have them send a company of troops! Let's see who dares stop them then!" Su Mingfeng said furiously.
"No." Su Mingzhe stopped him. "Deploying troops would have too great an impact and could easily give others ammunition against us. To deal with someone this brazenly shameless, we need decisive evidence that will leave her no chance even to make a scene."
Decisive evidence?
The injuries on Nuannuan's body were evidence of abuse. But Liu Guifang could argue that the child had fallen or bumped into things herself.
And with the villagers all stirred up by her, they certainly would not testify for Nuannuan.
The matter seemed to have reached a deadlock.
Both brothers wore worried frowns.
"Uncle..."
Nuannuan, who had been sitting quietly beside them, suddenly tugged at the hem of Su Mingfeng's clothes.
"What is it, Nuannuan?" Su Mingfeng forced a smile.
Nuannuan climbed down from Su Mingfeng's lap. She walked over to the tin box, opened it, and took out the diary with the kraft paper cover.
She could not read, but she remembered her mother's photograph, and she remembered this notebook too.
She opened the diary and pointed her little finger at a page containing some simple illustrations drawn by Su Mingyue.
She pointed at one of the drawings.
It depicted a pitch-black cellar. At the entrance stood a very fat, fierce-looking woman holding a stick.
"Uncle, this is the bad granny." Nuannuan pointed at the fat woman.
Su Mingfeng and Su Mingzhe leaned over to look.
The figure in the drawing really did resemble Liu Guifang's build.
Had their sister drawn this back when she was in Li Family Village? Had she known Liu Guifang too?
As they puzzled over it,
Nuannuan's little hand pointed again, this time at the pitch-black cellar in the drawing.
Her voice was soft and calm, yet the words she spoke sent chills down both her uncles' spines.
"At that bad granny's house."
"In the cellar."
"There are dead people's bones."
Su Mingfeng's and Su Mingzhe's heads rang with a buzz.
Dead people's bones?
"Nuannuan, how... how do you know?" Even Su Mingzhe's voice was trembling.
Nuannuan tilted her head and said as though it were perfectly natural:
"The mice told me."
"The mice living on the beams in her house said so. They said the things buried down there have been stinking for years."