Chapter 327

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Chai Mi

Song Qiushui was still furious, cursing under her breath: "This isn't a matter of urgency, it's about not giving my father face. Our family has lived here for decades, and this is the first time something's been stolen. Great-uncle, I'm talking to you—ever since you came to our house, things have gone missing..."

Meng Tieshan felt his scalp tingle under Song Qiushui's glare, and he hurriedly waved his hands: "Girl! It really wasn't me! I swear! If I stole a chicken, may I be struck dead by lightning when I go out! May I be run over by a car!" The old man stomped his feet in anxiety.

"I'm not saying you stole it, you couldn't even carry it. I just mean ever since you came, I've had bad luck... really kills the mood." Song Qiushui seethed with indignation.

Meng Tieshan: "Uh..."

"If you weren't so damn bored you'd find me a boyfriend, I'd have been home last night. If I'd been home, would things have gone missing?" Song Qiushui rolled her eyes; the more she looked at this old codger Meng Tieshan, the more displeased she was.

Damn bored every day, running around stirring up trouble. If Meng Tieshan hadn't come last night, that chicken meat definitely wouldn't have been stolen.

If Meng Tieshan hadn't come, Song Qiushui would have been sleeping at home. By then they'd already finished dinner, and Song Qingshan and Meng Shi would have been asleep too. The family dog could have rested instead of staying awake all night.

If someone had come in the middle of the night, there would have been some noise.

"By the way, did you hear the dogs barking?"

Song Qingshan shook his head; he'd slept too soundly last night. Lately he'd been busy organizing the warehouse and this and that, and at his age he just couldn't take it anymore.

So Song Qingshan slept too soundly to hear any noise.

Meng Shi shook her head too. After all, her husband's uncle had come, she'd arranged dinner and kept him company talking, and by the time she went to sleep it was past midnight; she was exhausted and heard nothing either.

"Sigh, you two really..." Song Qiushui felt helpless.

Mom and Dad are usually reliable, so why are they so clumsy when they actually try to do something?

Isn't this just smearing their own faces for no reason?

These two...

Sigh...

Chai Xiu had wandered over at some point, her little head poking out from behind Chai Mi, blinking at the traces and footprints on the ground, then looking into the warehouse, though she said nothing.

"Saying this now is useless. The chickens were definitely stolen in the village. Twenty chickens plus a big basin—that's a big target; it couldn't have been carried out of the village overnight. The chicken thief either wanted to eat the meat himself, or... just didn't like us and deliberately caused trouble." Several names flashed through her mind: Chai Youde, Che Lianyun, Wang Huirong... even that scoundrel Chai Zhongming.

"Cause trouble?" Song Qiushui gritted her teeth. "I say they're just jealous! Jealous that our business is doing well! Damn it, if I find out who it is, I'll smash their pots no matter what!"

"What do we do now, Chai Mi?" Meng Shi was at her wits' end. Twenty chickens, and the cost wasn't low. The business had just started and this happened—such bad luck!

Chai Mi didn't answer directly. She walked to the back of the warehouse, where it leaned against the courtyard wall. The top of the wall wasn't high; she looked carefully and indeed found several fresh footholds on the inside of the wall top, and several clear footprints on the muddy ground outside. One footprint had a bit of dark red stuff stuck to its edge, same as the marks on the threshold.

"They climbed over the wall from the back courtyard." Chai Mi pointed at the wall top. "At least two people—one outside to receive, one inside to carry. The basin was passed over the wall."

"Climbed the wall?!" Song Qingshan jumped to his feet, his face twisted with rage. "Damn it! Truly audacious! Stealing right inside our home!"

Chai Xiu suddenly tugged at Chai Mi's sleeve and said softly: "Sister, say something valuable. You say that person definitely couldn't come in, open the door, and go out—those are iron doors, opening them would make noise, and the dog would hear. So they definitely came over the wall, but it doesn't have to be two people. This is actually easy to handle..."

Chai Mi frowned, staring at Chai Xiu, and asked: "You say, how was it stolen?"

"One person?" Song Qiushui gaped. "Twenty chickens with the basin! Over a hundred catties, and they still had to climb the wall. Who's that strong? Zhang Fei of the Three Kingdoms?"

"Who said it had to be one trip? Can't you do two or three trips?" Chai Xiu said confidently. "The chickens are already cured, no blood, cleaned up. Put them in a fertilizer bag, hoist it on your shoulder, and walk off. I figure it's like this: they already stole the meat, saw the basin left over, thought it was new, and just took it along. Carrying a bag of a hundred eighty catties—there are plenty of people in the village who can do that."

After Chai Xiu said this, everyone fell silent.

Because what Chai Xiu said made too much sense.

Although the basin and meat were both gone, that didn't mean someone carried the basin away.

If they put it in a bag and casually took the basin, this job wasn't a big deal for most young men or even young people.

And if they did it in two or three trips, it was even simpler.

Everyone looked around again; it seemed about the same as Chai Xiu's guess—probably just one person did it.

And by common sense, when it comes to stealing people, it's best to have no accomplices.

Because in this world, only a dead man's mouth is tight.

Everyone else is unreliable.

If two people stole someone together, and later someone got drunk and blabbed, that wouldn't be good at all.

However, although they'd basically guessed how it was stolen, they still didn't know who did it.

"Xiu'er, what you say isn't wrong. But my family's dogs—all four of them didn't bark. What's going on?" Song Qiushui asked, frowning.

You have to know Song Qiushui was idle and had raised four dogs.

"They barked but no one heard, or maybe someone fed them meat." Chai Mi answered for Chai Xiu: "Dogs aren't people; what do they understand?"

"About the same as what my sister said. It should also be someone familiar—your dogs know them. Maybe they barked a few times, someone threw them a few yuan, and they stopped biting." Chai Xiu said softly: "But there are too many familiar people, and your house always has visitors..."

Chai Xiu spread her small hand, indicating that investigating further was almost impossible.

This was different from losing something especially important and big, like a cow—then you could find footprints and such. How do you investigate footprints from someone wearing shoes?

Footprints are all over the street, and lately there have been many people working at Song Qingshan's house; there's simply no way to investigate this.

Besides, with stolen goods found on the person, a piece of chicken meat—you can't explain that clearly at all.

If it were something else, even if the chicken were alive, the White Feather Chicken is different from other people's chickens in the village; you could check and see whose family has a few more chickens, and maybe find out. But how do you investigate chicken meat?

Chicken meat is all about the same; even if there are size differences, it can't serve as evidence.

So Chai Xiu felt this matter should just be dropped, after all, there was no good way to find out.

"Sister, I think we should just let it go. Be more careful when sleeping from now on, or tie a dog to the warehouse door, and it'll be fine."

Song Qiushui looked at Chai Xiu with some difficulty, then at Chai Mi, and then said to Chai Mi: "This is embarrassing. It's not about the money—losing a few chickens isn't a big deal. The problem is my father's reputation isn't good. This damn thing is like someone's bullying us—at your house nothing happens, they come to my house to build a warehouse, and on the first day things go missing. This isn't treating me, Song Qiushui, like a person..."

Great-uncle Meng Tieshan also stammered: "The old saying goes, stealing a person is a small matter, losing one's virtue is a big matter..."

Song Qiushui glanced at Great-uncle: Just be illiterate, why don't you, and stop throwing around fancy words—I really want to give him two big slaps.

"Great-uncle, you're like this today, don't just say words randomly—those words can't be said randomly..."

"Qiu Shui, alright, alright. Then don't sell fried chicken today. We'll talk about this when we get back at noon. Let's go, or we won't make it in time." Chai Mi urged Song Qiushui, and the two then went to set up their stall.

Chai Mi pushed the Inverted Donkey just out the courtyard gate when she ran head-on into a dejected-looking Chai Youqing. Chai Youqing had evidently heard the noise, standing at the wall root rubbing his hands: "Th-that chicken... it's really gone?"

"Gone is gone, the sky won't fall." Chai Mi stepped onto the cart, her tone revealing no ripple, "Dad, the storehouse is getting its walls whitewashed this morning. You go to Uncle Song's and help pass a lime bucket. Keep an eye on things."

Chai Youqing let out an "Ai," watching his daughter and Song Qiushui walk away, their backs disappearing at the dirt road corner. He stood for a while, didn't go to the Song family, but instead ran to the street behind Song Qingshan's house, eyes sweeping back and forth across the ground.

The chicken thief must have gone out by climbing over the back wall, so Chai Youqing decided to take a look.

But this era still had dirt roads; footprints overlapped footprints, impossible to tell whose was whose.

Chai Youqing squatted outside the Song family back courtyard wall root, narrowing his eyes at those few fresh scuff marks on the wall top. On the muddy ground outside the wall there were indeed a few vague shoe prints; next to one of them stuck a bit of dark red residue, like dried marinade. He stretched his neck, nostrils flaring, trying to sniff out something, but only inhaled a noseful of earthy stench.

"Uncle Chai? Researching tunnel warfare here?" Liu Zhijing drove up on a tractor, the bucket holding several bags of lime, "The storehouse is waiting to be whitewashed! Uncle Song sent me to haul lime. What are you doing running over here?"

Chai Youqing was startled, hurriedly stood up, patting the dust off his trouser legs: "N-nothing. Just... just looking." He pointed at the wall top, "They said... the thief went over from here. I just thought I'd take a look, but doesn't seem like I can tell anything, just confirmed the thief really did go out this way."

Liu Zhijing jumped off the tractor, leaned in to examine the marks on the wall: "Ho, nimble hands and feet. Twenty chickens plus a large basin, at least a hundred-odd catties, carried over the wall? Not many in the village with that kind of arm strength." His gaze swept over Chai Youqing's build, hehe'd with a laugh, "Anyway, Uncle, you definitely can't do it."

Chai Youqing's face heated, he hung his head without a sound, and followed the tractor toward the Song home. In the courtyard, Meng Shi was still wiping tears; Song Qingshan's face was iron-dark as he mixed lime, too much water added, the thin slurry running down.

"Here? Lend a hand, mix the lime!" Song Qingshan shoved the iron hoe into Chai Youqing's hand in a bad temper, "Damn it, this thief picked the moment the storehouse was just finished and no door installed yet! Bullying right up to my head!"

Chai Xiu hugged the third child squatting on the storehouse door sill, little finger poking at an especially deep footprint hollow on the ground: "Look at this print, right here at the forefoot, isn't a piece missing? Like the sole wore bald."

Song Qingshan leaned over, narrowed his eyes for a look: "Huh? It really does! Da Zhi, lift your foot, let me see!"

Liu Zhijing lifted his mud-caked sole; a look showed it was also worn bald with no tread left.

Song Qingshan frowned, lifted his own foot to look, much the same.

Song Qingshan sighed; starting from this clue, there was simply no useful lead to be found.

Could only continue working.

The other side.

Chai Mi put away the fried chicken chunks sign, looking at Song Qiushui who was still cursing away, and said calmly: "Save your strength; cursing won't bring the meat back. Today we only sell dumplings."

"Just let it go like this?" Song Qiushui stared wide-eyed.

"Who said that?" Chai Mi ladled dumplings into the pot, "Stolen once and not caught, they've tasted the sweetness; nine out of ten there'll be a next time. Tonight cure another batch, put it back in the storehouse in the original spot."

"Still put it there? Waiting for it to be stolen again?" Song Qiushui didn't understand.

"Right, put it there." Chai Mi stirred the dumplings, "At the storehouse back wall root, tonight scatter more crushed glass shards and wood ash. Rig the door latch with a thin string connected to a bell. Have your dad not sleep tonight, bring a stick, and squat behind the firewood pile opposite the storehouse."

Song Qiushui's eyes lit up: "Fishing? This works! Catch him red-handed! I'll bring my dad's mountain-splitting axe!"

"Don't cause a loss of life," Chai Mi reminded, "A stick is enough. Make the commotion big, let the whole village hear."

"Right, then set a few more rabbit snares. You pen the dog inside the house beforehand, don't let the dog make noise. We'll just wait for him to come."

Hearing Chai Mi put it this way, Song Qiushui finally felt a bit happier.

……

Actually, the matter of the Old Song family losing things last night hadn't been long before many people knew.

Although Song Qingshan and the others didn't go out and tell, the commotion they made in the morning was a bit big, so quite a few people knew.

And Song Qingshan is the village Accountant, very well-known; his family losing things, with this uproar, basically a lot of people understood.

The big fellows all discussed animatedly.

"Aiyo, heard? That Old Song family lost things. A whole basin of chickens, twenty-odd, all gone."

"Hiss... that's got to be several hundred. That's no small sum. What did Song Qingshan say?"

"Don't know. I saw them still at home whitewashing walls, didn't see them say anything."

Everyone for a moment didn't know what to do, but anyway it wasn't their own family's business; watching the excitement was enough.

By noon, Liu Zhanggui also came.

In the morning Liu Zhanggui went to a meeting; said Sanjiacun's village cadres are too few now, plus the original Women's Director reaches retirement age next month, need to elect a new one.

After that, each village's Village Group Leaders, and barefoot doctors and such, all have to be filled in.

As for Salary, the village will think of a way.

Also to encourage common people to reclaim barren mountains and hills, support common people in doing business and such. Anyway, all more open orientations.

Meeting over, returned home, Liu Zhanggui only then learned Song Qingshan's family had a bit of an incident.

He came hurrying over.

When he arrived, Song Qingshan was inside the house plastering walls with Chai Youqing.

"Come on, Old Song. That... you really can hold your temper. Family loses things, and you're still like nothing happened? At least you should search, see who did it. You do nothing, just start working. You really have a heart."