When I arrived at the scene, the fire had already been extinguished, and the villagers outside the police line were gathered together discussing animatedly.

The fire brigade carried out three charred bodies from the blackened ruins.

Several bodies emitted a burnt smell, their faces already blurred and barely discernible based on their body size.

The strongest one in the middle was my younger brother, Li Fuyou. The smaller one with a hunched back on the left was my mother, Sun Xiuying, and the one on the right was my father, Li Xiangnong.

I circled around the house a few more times, and from the traces, it could be seen that there was a pile of fire-prone firewood behind the Li family's house.

There were no surveillance cameras in the village, and the road had only recently been completed, so there were no electronic eyes for the time being.

I also remembered the woman who confessed. If it weren't for her confession, we probably wouldn't have found out anything.

With that in mind, I found the neighbor who first noticed the fire and conducted an inquiry.

The conclusion I obtained was: Li Zhiyue had been going out to work since he was young, supporting himself. Later, when he earned money, he kept sending money back home and was quite sensible.

At this point, I had not yet made public the fact that Li Zhiyue had confessed. "How long ago was Li Zhiyue's last visit home?"

The neighbor scratched his head and said, "Zhiyue? Oh... it was probably in the summer, about half a year ago."

"How often does she usually come home?" I continued to ask.

"She rarely comes back. After all, she has gone to the city. Why would she want to come back to the countryside? The last time she came back was when Fuyou planned to get married. She came back in a hurry and left." The gossipy neighbor's interest grew, "Comrade, you don't suspect... Zhi... yue is the murderer, do you?"

I paused without answering and continued to inquire, "Did Li Zhiyue come to the village today?"

"Ah... I don't think so... let me think... she probably didn't."

Did she not? Strange...

"During the day and before 10 o'clock at night, did any suspicious individuals appear in the village, or did anyone's behavior seem suspicious?"

The neighbor scratched his head again, furrowing his brows in a "川" shape. "I can't remember, it seems like there weren't any, everything was normal."

I asked several more villagers and got the same results.

Li Zhiyue had a good impression among the villagers. She had left the mountain village, become self-reliant, and constantly supported her family. On the day of the incident, there was nothing unusual in the village.

However, from the villagers' words, I learned that the reputation of Li Xiangnong and the other two in the village was not very good.

Li Xiangnong was lazy and lecherous; Sun Xiuying was greedy and liked to cause trouble; Li Fuyou was lazy and gluttonous.

In such a dysfunctional family, Li Zhiyue indeed had a difficult time.

But from the villagers' descriptions, she had already distanced herself from her family. So why did she specifically come back to kill her close relatives?

She even said, "As long as they are alive, I cannot live."