My Fish Pond Has One Very Loyal Customer novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: What the Village Saw
The old coach was the first to move.
He crossed the mud in his tracksuit jacket, holding the red biscuit tin against his chest.
He stopped in front of the tank.
He took out the cheap lined sheet and held it beside the brass plate.
"HD4-0771," he read, aloud, in a voice that carried to the back of the bank.
"Hydro-Dose 4. It is the dosing unit from the plant room of the Tang Aquatics Centre."
"I wrote that serial number down at the hospital, the night of the ninth of October."
He lifted his chin.
"The maintenance request for it was refused twice by management. I have the date."
He held up the paper.
"I signed a false report afterward. I am sorry for it. I am here to say so."
The deputy director took the sheet in both hands and read it.
He read the plate, and then he looked at the man in the camel coat.
"Mr. Tang," he said.
"This is a plant," said Tang Zhenhai.
His voice was steady, and a little too loud.
"Somebody has put it there. I haven't seen that tank in seven years. I don't know what it is."
"It's yours," said a voice.
The young man with the cane had come forward through the crowd, carefully, one step at a time.
"I was in the water that night," he said. "In lane four. I'm the boy you paid to say there was an alarm."
A murmur went through the bank.
"There wasn't an alarm," said the young man.
"I said there was because my father was in a lawyer's office, and I was eighteen, and you were being kind."
"I don't know this man," said Tang Zhenhai.
"You sent my mother a fruit basket every year," said the young man, quite gently. "She still has the card."
Someone near the front began to cry.
Lu Qing looked round for the person he most needed to look at, and found him.
Qian Lixin had put the village stamp down on the grass.
He had taken off his glasses.
"Fifty thousand," he said.
His voice was small, and everyone heard it.
"Aunt Fen," said Qian Lixin. "Everyone."
"In the autumn seven years ago, Old Lu came to me. He said there was a blue tank in the inlet, and the fish were dead."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of My Fish Pond Has One Very Loyal Customer are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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