Chapter 149

Hearing the commotion outside, Li Long quietly got up, slowly put on his clothes, and carrying the small-caliber rifle from beside the bed, he arrived at the doorway.

Listening to the movement, someone had climbed over the courtyard wall and dropped into the yard; their movements were quite light. Then, that person crouched in the yard for a while before creeping toward the side wing.

Li Long slowly opened a crack in the door—the door to this large house's bedroom was well-maintained and frequently oiled, so the door hinges turned without making any sound.

In the dark of night, he could see this was a man, thin and short, less than 1.7 meters tall, with agile movements. After lingering briefly in front of the several doors of the side wing, he turned toward the kitchen opposite.

Li Long roughly guessed what the other party was trying to do.

This thief must have come in to steal food.

However, Li Long did not lower his guard. He observed through the door crack while holding the small-caliber rifle. Seeing the other party enter the kitchen and fumble around inside for a while, when they came out, the person was carrying a small pot from the kitchen and then crept toward the entrance.

Li Long had originally guessed that this person was just hungry and stealing food, hesitating whether to let them go, but seeing that the person was even going to take his own pot, that was unbearable!

Seeing the person about to open the door bolt to leave, he immediately dashed out, leveled the small-caliber rifle, and shouted:

"Don't move! Move again and I'll kill you!"

The man was startled and quickened his movements, thinking of running out before Li Long could catch up. Li Long immediately added:

"Move again and I'll fire!"

This guy actually still moved, and what made Li Long furious was that he turned halfway and threw the pot at Li Long, then opened the door!

"Bang!"

Li Long fired a shot at the door, and the other party froze!

He truly hadn't expected Li Long to have a gun in his hand, and even less that Li Long would actually dare to fire!

The cast-iron pot smashed into several pieces on the blue brick floor, and the porridge and steamed buns inside spilled all over the ground.

Li Long was very angry; this bastard not only stole his things but also smashed his pot—this was unbearable!

He walked up with the gun leveled, pointed the muzzle at the man's head, and said:

"Where are you from? Why are you stealing things?"

The other party did not speak.

Li Long thought the other party was being stubborn, so he simply poked the man's shoulder with the muzzle and asked loudly again:

"Speak, where are you from? Why are you stealing things?"

"I came from the interior, I was too hungry..."

Being pointed at by a gun, the other party had no choice but to speak.

It was quite standard Mandarin; Li Long couldn't tell which dialect it carried.

At this moment, noisy footsteps came from outside the door, along with voices:

"The gunshot came from here, right?"

"In this day and age, firing a gun in the county at night, what are they trying to do?"

Li Long guessed it must be the police who had arrived. He pulled the muzzle back a bit, feeling a bit troubled because his gun had no paperwork.

A flash of panic crossed that person's face. Li Long noticed it, immediately poked the other party's shoulder with the gun, and said sternly:

"Don't move! This gun of mine is cocked and loaded; don't force me to have an accidental discharge!"

This person had a problem!

Li Long shouted loudly:

"Is that Comrade Police outside? I fired the shot; a thief broke into my house!"

The footsteps immediately gathered around, and a policeman asked:

"Where is Master Ma who lives here?"

"Master Ma returned to Shanghai and sold the house to me. Someone just broke in to steal things, and I discovered them. They tried to escape, so I fired a shot to catch them."

"What kind of gun? Is anyone hurt?" The police outside were very vigilant.

"Small-caliber, no one is hurt. Wait a moment, I'm opening the door." Li Long was no longer afraid of the person escaping; he put away the gun, engaged the safety, slung it behind his back, and turned sideways to open the door.

The man had just tried to get up when Li Long spotted him, kicked him, and sent him sprawling to the ground.

After the door opened, Li Long saw two people in police uniforms and one in plain clothes surrounding the outside, all holding guns and looking at Li Long with vigilance.

There was a moon at this time, so the light was decent. Li Long pointed at the person crouching on the ground and said:

"He said he's from the interior and was hungry, so he wanted to steal food, but I suspect this person isn't simple. My courtyard wall is so high, yet he was able to vault right in..."

"What do you do? Where did this gun come from?" one of the uniformed men asked Li Long.

Li Long had already thought of a way to respond, so he said:

"I am a farmer from Red Flag Township and a part-time procurement agent for the supply and marketing cooperative. This gun was given to me by Li Xiangqian, the procurement section chief of the cooperative, because I've been purchasing things in the mountains these past few days, and there are wolves and bears in the mountains—I can't do it without a gun."

As he spoke, he took the certificate from his pocket and handed it over.

The uniformed officer shone a flashlight to finish reading the certificate, nodded to the other two, and the other two also relaxed, then stepped forward to pull up the person who was crouching.

"Let's go, go to the police station to explain the situation in detail."

Upon arriving at the police station, Li Long registered the details, and the uniformed officer in charge of registration took Li Long's certificate to copy the information. Over there, they were interrogating the thief; Li Long didn't continue to participate and was released.

Returning to the courtyard, he simply cleaned up the smashed pot and the things on the ground, then Li Long went back to his room to sleep.

After the night's fright, Li Long felt that if this large courtyard wasn't lived in frequently, it really wasn't very safe.

Even being diagonally across from the police station didn't help.

The things in the courtyard also needed to be properly stored away; either build a secret room or take them back to the village.

The next morning, Li Long was cooking when a knock came at the door.

He put out the fire and went to open the door, seeing it was one of the uniformed officers from yesterday.

"Comrade Li Long, I've come to tell you about that person's situation." The other party spoke very directly, but Li Long could see a trace of excitement on his face.

"Is that person a drifter?" Li Long asked proactively.

The "drifter" mentioned here was not quite the same as explained in books. It specifically refers to those unemployed wanderers who fled from the interior to the frontier. It was mainly because the frontier region was vast and sparsely populated, making it easier to get enough to eat and make a living than in the interior.

"No, he's a fugitive!" the uniformed officer said. "He fled here after hurting someone in the interior. He has no relatives or friends here, so he just steals food every day. This person has truly trained; if it weren't for you having a gun, I'm afraid you really might not have been able to take him down—"

"Then I really was lucky!" Li Long felt lingering fear; if he hadn't brought the gun, he might have been killed by the other party instead—such a person who only steals food and not valuables is likely afraid of the victim calling the police.

After all, people usually don't care about losing a little food, but if they lose valuables, they will definitely call the police, and once that blows up, it's hard to resolve.

"This person even injured someone while stealing things over in Wucheng, and then drifted here." The officer said again, "In short, you should still be careful during this time..." "Then I have to go into the mountains every few days..." Li Long looked troubled. "Here..."

"That's fine, you can also be considered to have helped us solve a case that's neither too big nor too small." The uniformed officer said with a smile: "We're neighbors, so we'll pay more attention to your place."

"Then thank you very much." Li Long smiled. "May I ask your name..."

"My surname is Guo, called Guo Tiebing. Little Comrade Li, I'm just here to tell you the situation. You go about your business; I have to go organize the materials."

"Thank you, Officer Guo." Li Long saw Guo Tiebing to the door. He always felt this name was a bit familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had heard it right now.

After breakfast, Li Long walked around the courtyard and searched in each room. He found that the gun was easy to hide—he could stuff it behind the beams or cabinets in the rooms where it wouldn't be conspicuous, but that box of copper coins was hard to place.

Li Long thought for a while and decided to return to the village today to deal with it; in any case, it was only a two-hour trip.

Of course, not right now; he still had to go to the morning market to check on grain.

Pushing his bicycle out the gate, looking at the flow of people on the street outside, it seemed not many families had noticed the incident here last night.

Locking the door, he rode his bike to the morning market. He even took a detour to pass by the grain store, finding that the grain store still had no discounted grain.

!.

Feeling somewhat disappointed, Li Long quickened his pedaling speed and soon arrived at the market. The flow of people here was quite large. Li Long scanned it and then smiled.

Today, there were not only people selling grain here, but also people selling piglets!

Li Long remembered Halimu saying that they weren't picky about grain; the things put in milk tea also included millet and cornmeal. Now, the grain sold in the market included rice, flour, and cornmeal.

Li Long pushed his bike over to ask the price.

"Rice is 0.70, flour is 0.45, cornmeal is 0.20." Grain that didn't require coupons was easy to sell now, so the stall owner's attitude was quite average.

"What if I want a lot?" Li Long looked at the stall; the three items combined totaled no more than 100 kilograms, all in half-bag quantities.

"Want a lot? How much can you want? Can you take it all? If you take it all, I'll give you a cheaper price." The stall owner sized Li Long up and said. Li Long was pushing a bicycle, and hearing this tone, he couldn't help but feel some anticipation.

It would be good if he could sell a third of this rice and flour in a day. If the other party could buy more, he could earn more.

"If I take it all, what price can you give?" Li Long asked.

"Rice... 0.68, flour 0.43, cornmeal 0.15. How about that? I've lowered the cornmeal by five cents for you, that's good enough!"

This must be a middleman who frequently resells grain; he should have quite a bit of stock on hand, so Li Long asked:

"I'll take it all. Do you have more?"

"What? You still want more?" Li Long's words didn't make the other party happy; instead, he became vigilant. He shook his head and said, "I can't say for sure, it depends on the situation."

Li Long knew the other party was worried about him investigating and reporting him; after all, there was still the crime of speculation in this day and age. Although the morning market was tacitly allowed to open, that was to regulate people's production and living materials and enrich the dining table. If one were to engage in large-scale reselling, that would be a crime.

Li Long didn't say much. Together with the boss, he weighed the grain, paid the money, and asked the stall owner to help stuff the smaller rice bag into the cornmeal bag, tie it up, and place it on the back seat along with the flour bag, then went to look at the piglets.

The boss sold the bags to Li Long along with the grain, and then, holding the 40-plus yuan he had just received, he didn't leave; instead, he was observing Li Long.

Seeing Li Long go to look at the piglets, he relaxed—this person must have a large family, which is why he bought so much grain. Someone who could buy piglets shouldn't be someone specifically investigating him.

"How much for the piglets?"

"Twelve!" The stall owner's voice was loud and sounded very firm. When Li Long wanted to haggle, the other party pointed to the four piglets in the basket and said:

"I brought eight over, and less than half an hour later, half are left. No haggling! If you're late, there won't be any left!"

These piglets were larger than the ones bought last time; they must have been born earlier. Li Long squatted down and poked the piglets, and they immediately squeaked.

They were quite lively; perhaps they were hungry and also a bit scared, so they kept squeaking, which actually attracted some people to come and watch.

"Fine, I'll take all four." Li Long saw there were three males and one female, and there was no problem. Thinking that his eldest brother had the ambition to be a professional pig farmer, he decided to buy them.

The stall owner had originally thought Li Long wanted one or two, but didn't expect him to take them all. After being stunned for a moment, he immediately used hemp rope to help Li Long tie the pigs up, put them in a sack, and placed them flat on the back seat of the bicycle.

With grain on both sides of the back of the bicycle and piglets on top, Li Long had no way to buy other things, so he turned around and rode back to the large courtyard.

After returning to the courtyard, Li Long unloaded the grain and put it in the kitchen first, then took the piglets down, found a large basket in the courtyard to put them in, untied them to let them move around, and then tied them up again.

With piglets, he still had to go buy feed—relying solely on those wild vegetables wouldn't fatten the pigs.

Some stalls in the morning market had been cleared away. Li Long's target was a stall owner at the very edge, selling wheat bran, rice bran, and corn.

Although Li Long had the intention to buy corn, he thought that if he used this to feed pigs, he would likely be scolded to death by the villagers. And if he took it back, his eldest brother and sister-in-law were unlikely to use it for feed; they might just eat it themselves, so forget it.

In this day and age, eating too much coarse grain was not as good as eating fine grain.

He spent five yuan to buy two large bags of wheat bran and rice bran. Li Long carried them back to the large courtyard, put the piglets away, hung the bag of copper coins on the front handlebars of the bicycle, locked the door, and rode back to the village.

When he arrived at the village, Li Long saw Li Qiang and a group of children playing "gaga" by the roadside.

Playing "gaga" should be a game familiar to those born in the 80s in the north—though the rules might differ by region. The tool for hitting was a board, and the "gaga" was just as the name implied: a half-foot-long wooden stick sharpened at both ends. There were offensive and defensive sides; the person hitting would place the "gaga" on a "rack" made of two mud bricks, use the wooden board to flick it up, and hit it while it was in the air. The defensive side also had a designated area, and they couldn't let the "gaga" land in that area, and then they had to throw it back...

Seeing Li Long coming, Li Qiang, who had just picked up the "gaga," cheered, threw the "gaga" aside, and rushed toward Li Long.

"Qiangqiang, why aren't you at school today?"

"Today is Sunday, it's a holiday." Li Qiang explained, "Little Uncle, what's that piled on the back?"

"Piglets, and wheat bran."

"And what about the front?" Li Qiang looked curiously at the bag in front.

"Copper coins? Do you want to play with them?" Li Long took a few Qianlong and Kangxi coins from inside and handed them to him: "Here."

"Yes, yes, I'm going to find my sister to make a shuttlecock!" Li Qiang grabbed the coins and ran off.

Li Qiang rode his bicycle back into the courtyard. Just as he unloaded the piglets and untied them, someone came to look for him.

(End of chapter)