Chapter 149: The Big Courtyard Isn't Safe Either

Hearing the movement outside, Li Long quietly got up, slowly put on his clothes, picked up the small-bore rifle by the bed, and went to the door.

Listening to the movement, someone had climbed over the courtyard wall. The movements were quite light. Then the person crouched in the courtyard for a while before sneaking toward the side rooms.

Li Long slowly opened the door a crack—the bedroom door of this big house was well-maintained and frequently oiled, so the door hinge didn't make any sound when it turned.

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

Li Long roughly guessed what the other party wanted to do.

This thief must have come in to steal food.

However, Li Long didn't let his guard down. He observed through the crack in the door with the small-bore rifle in hand. He saw the person enter the kitchen and fumble around inside for a while. When he came out, the man was carrying a small pot and sneaking toward the gate.

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

Seeing the person about to open the bolt to go out the door, he immediately rushed out, holding the small-bore rifle, and shouted:

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

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 really hadn't expected Li Long to have a gun, and even less expected Li Long to actually dare to fire!

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

Li Long was very angry. This damn guy not only stole his things but also smashed his pot; this was unbearable!

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

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

The other party didn't speak.

Li Long thought the other party was being stubborn, so he simply nudged the man's shoulder with the muzzle of the gun 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 the gun, the other party had to speak.

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

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

"The gunshot came from here, right?"

"What is someone trying to do, firing a gun in the county at night in this day and age?"

Li Long guessed it must be the police. He pulled the muzzle back a bit. He felt it was a bit troublesome because his gun didn't have the proper paperwork.

A flash of panic crossed the man's face. Li Long noticed it, immediately pressed the gun against the man's shoulder, and said sternly:

"Don't move! My gun is cocked and loaded, don't force me to have an accidental discharge!"

This person had issues!

Li Long shouted loudly:

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

The footsteps immediately gathered around. A policeman asked:

"Where is Old Master Ma who lives here?"

"Old Master Ma went back to Shanghai and sold the house to me. Someone just broke in to steal things, and I discovered him. He tried to escape, so I fired to catch him."

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

"Small-bore, no one is injured. Wait a moment, I'll open the door." Li Long wasn't afraid of the person escaping now. He put the gun away, engaged the safety, carried it on his back, and turned sideways to open the door.

The man just tried to get up, but Li Long noticed and kicked him, knocking him directly 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, and the sky was still bright enough. Li Long pointed at the person crouching on the ground and said:

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

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

Li Long had already thought of a way to deal with this, so he said:

"I am a farmer from Hongqi Township, working part-time as a purchasing agent for the supply and marketing cooperative. This gun was given to me by Li Xiangqian, the purchasing section chief of the cooperative, because I've been purchasing supplies in the mountains for the 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 on the certificate, nodded to the other two, who also relaxed, and then stepped forward to pull up the person who was crouching.

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

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. The thief was being interrogated over there, and 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, and Li Long went back to his room to sleep.

After the night's scare, Li Long felt that if this big courtyard wasn't lived in often, it really wasn't very safe.

Even being directly 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.

Early the next morning, Li Long was cooking when there was a knock 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 hint of excitement on his face.

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

The term "vagrant" used here was a bit different from the explanation in books. It specifically referred to those unemployed drifters 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 is truly trained. If it weren't for your gun, I'm afraid it wouldn't have been easy to take him down—"

"Then I really was lucky!" Li Long felt lingering fear as he listened. If he hadn't brought the gun, he might have been killed by the other party—such a person only stole food and not valuables, which was likely because he was afraid of the victim reporting it to the police.

After all, people usually didn't care about losing a little food, but if valuables were lost, they would definitely report it, and once things blew up, it would be hard to handle.

"This person even injured someone while stealing in Wucheng, and then drifted here," the officer continued. "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 be considered to have helped us solve a case that wasn't too small," the uniformed officer said with a smile. "We're neighbors, we'll pay more attention to this place."

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

"My surname is Guo, called Guo Tiebing. 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 the 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 every room. He found that guns were easy to hide; they could be tucked behind beams or cabinets in several rooms without being conspicuous, but the box of copper coins was hard to place.

Li Long thought for a while and decided to go back to the village today to figure it out; 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 the grain.

Pushing his bike 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.

He locked the door, got on his bike, and went to the morning market. He specifically took a detour to pass by the grain store, only to find that the grain store still had no discounted grain.

!.

A bit disappointed, Li Long pedaled faster and soon arrived at the market. The flow of people here was quite large. Li Long scanned it and smiled.

Today, not only was there grain for sale, but there were also piglets for sale!

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

Li Long pushed his bike over to ask for the price.

"Rice is 0.7 yuan, flour is 0.45 yuan, corn flour is 0.2 yuan." Grain that didn't require coupons wasn't hard 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 one hundred kilograms, all in half-bags.

"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. Li Long was pushing a bicycle, and hearing this tone, he couldn't help but feel a bit expectant.

It was good enough if they could sell one-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 yuan, flour 0.43 yuan, corn flour 0.15 yuan. How's that? I dropped the corn flour by five cents, that's good enough!"

This must be a middleman who often resells grain; he should have quite a bit of stock. Li Long asked:

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

"What? You 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 that he would investigate and report him; after all, there was still the crime of speculation in this era. Although the morning market had been tacitly allowed to open, that was to regulate the production and living materials of the people 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. He weighed the grain with the boss, paid, and asked the stall owner to help stuff the smaller rice bag into the corn flour bag, tie it up, and load it onto 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 didn't leave after getting the forty-plus yuan; 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 probably wouldn'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 bargain, the other party pointed to the four piglets in the basket and said:

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

These piglets were a bit larger than the ones he 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 hungry, and a bit scared, constantly squeaking, which attracted some people to come and watch.

"Alright, I'll take all four." Li Long saw there were three males and one female, which was fine. Thinking that his eldest brother had the ambition to be a professional pig farmer, he decided to buy them.

The stall owner 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 took hemp rope to help Li Long tie the pigs up, put them in a burlap sack, and laid them flat on the back seat of the bicycle.

With grain on both sides of the back of the bike and piglets on top, Li Long couldn't buy anything else, so he turned around and rode back to the big courtyard.

Back at 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 buy feed—relying solely on wild vegetables wouldn't fatten the pigs.

Some stalls at the morning market had been cleared away. Li Long's target was a stall owner at the very edge, selling wheat bran, chaff, 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. Moreover, if he took it back, his eldest brother and sister-in-law probably wouldn't use it for feed; they might eat it themselves, so forget it.

In this era, eating too much coarse grain was common, but it was better to eat fine grain.

He spent five yuan to buy two large bags of wheat bran and chaff. Li Long loaded them and returned to the big courtyard, then put the piglets away, put the copper coins into a bag and hung it on the handlebars of the bike, 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" on the side of the road.

Playing "gaga" should be a game familiar to those born in the 80s in the north—though the rules might differ depending on the 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 hitter would place the "gaga" on a "rack" made of two mud bricks, flick it up with the wooden board, and hit it while it was in the air. The defensive side had a designated area, and they couldn't let the "gaga" fall into 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" away, and rushed toward Li Long.

"Qiangqiang, why aren't you in 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."

"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 out a few Qianlong and Kangxi coins from the bag and handed them to him: "Here."

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

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

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 150 =====