Chapter 15: Probing the Deaf Old Lady

"That's right! Absolutely right!" Yan Bugui nodded repeatedly, deeply convinced.

"Got it! Uncle Yan, then... as for my matter of asking for leave... I'll have to rely on you to put in the effort! Sorry for the trouble!"

Yan Bugui patted his chest in assurance: "This matter, leave it to your Uncle Yan! You've suffered such a great ordeal, you should just stay at home and rest properly!"

He Yuzhu slipped home in a flash, lifted the curtain and entered the room, only to see his mother Shen Guizhi sitting on the edge of the kang, nursing little Yushui. She lowered her head, looking at the little person in her arms with a worried face.

Yushui exerted all her strength, her little mouth trembling as she latched onto the nipple, but she couldn't suck much out after a long time, and she started whimpering in frustration.

Shen Guizhi sighed helplessly, her voice filled with exhaustion and anxiety: "Sigh... I've eaten plenty of meat these past two days, and I've downed several big bowls of Xiaomi porridge, but this milk... it just won't come! Look at how hungry our Yushui is, her little face has even sunken in from the sucking..."

He Yuzhu didn't say a word, turned around, and ducked into the small kitchen.

With a slight movement of his mind, a small bag wrapped in rough yellow straw paper appeared silently in his palm.

He efficiently poured the milk powder into a large coarse porcelain bowl, picked up the kettle warming on the stove, and carefully mixed it.

"Mom! Quick!" He Yuzhu handed a steaming bowl of milk to Shen Guizhi, "It's mixed from milk powder, feed it to Yushui quickly!"

Shen Guizhi was stunned, looking at the bowl and then at her son, her face full of suspicion: "Where did you conjure this from! Didn't you say yesterday that everything was hidden away?"

He Yuzhu grinned, looking a bit smug: "Actually, it wasn't hidden far, it was all placed at No. 91 Courtyard! Isn't that place a 'ghost house'? It's empty, and no one dares to go there? So I stuffed everything into the kang tunnel! It's safe!"

Upon hearing this, Shen Guizhi's eyes widened, and she grabbed the broom handle from the edge of the kang, making a gesture to strike: "You little brat! A haunted house that others avoid like the plague, and you, on the other hand, treat it like your own warehouse?"

"Mom, I've gone in several times, I even dare to go in at night, it's really nothing! There are just a few patches of dried, blackened blood crusts on the kang, which look a bit creepy, but there's nothing else! I didn't even see a ghost shadow!"

Shen Guizhi felt the hair on her back stand up as she listened. She put down the broom, patted her chest, and warned him with a mix of anger and fear: "You reckless little bastard, is that place somewhere you should be going? When things calm down in a few days, hurry up and bring the stuff back! Stop running over there! A haunted house isn't just talk; there might really be something unclean that latches onto you!"

"Mom! I'm not afraid!" He Yuzhu stiffened his neck, his little face full of defiance, "If there really were ghosts, why wouldn't the people who were tormented to death by the Japanese devils back then go and demand their lives from the devils? In my opinion, to deal with these beasts and bastards, counting on ghosts is useless; you have to rely on the living! You have to be even more ruthless and vicious than them!" He said this with ironclad certainty, carrying a ferocity that didn't match his age.

When Shen Guizhi looked at He Yuzhu, she suddenly felt he was a bit like a stranger. She immediately grabbed the broom and threw it at He Yuzhu, "You little bastard, who did you learn these messy things from? Don't you dare say this in front of outsiders!"

Seeing that things were going south, He Yuzhu quickly covered his head: "Mom! Don't be angry! I heard it from the storytellers at the Qianmen Tea House when I was skipping school! Their insight and their logic are much better than the dead books read in school!" Before the words even faded, he had already darted out the door like a rabbit.

Inside the room, Shen Guizhi looked at her son's disappearing back, then at her daughter whimpering in her arms, and cried, "This child isn't cut out for studying, what will happen in the future! Relying on him to support the family, it's going to be hard..."

He Yuzhu ran in a flash to the Deaf Old Lady's room in the Houyuan, running in without knocking.

"You little brat, you don't even know how to knock!" At this moment, the old lady was sitting on the edge of the kang, groping to mend an old jacket by the faint daylight coming through the window.

He Yuzhu grinned and leaned in, pulling a small cloth bag from behind his back like a magic trick and placing it on the kang, "Old Lady! Here's something good for you!"

The Deaf Old Lady opened the bag and took a look, her eyes instantly lighting up; inside were plump, crystal-clear Northeast rice grains!

She smiled until the walnut-like wrinkles on her face smoothed out, her withered, thin hands stroking the rice grains: "Oh my! My dear grandson! This top-quality non-glutinous rice... where did you scavenge this from? In this day and age, this is more expensive than gold!"

He Yuzhu waved his hand dismissively: "Hey! Didn't I pick up some 'windfall' a while ago? I just happened to see someone selling it with a carrying pole, so I quickly bought some for you to have a taste!"

His visit this time wasn't just to deliver rice, but to spread the word about Xu Fugui's rotten business. If he didn't completely strip off that traitor's skin, he would surely cause more big trouble in the future.

He Yuzhu was as clear as a mirror in his heart; in this Siheyuan, the worst and most poisonous people weren't in any other family, but the Xu Family!

Although Yi Zhonghai was a representative of a hypocrite, he at least cared about his reputation and talked about right and wrong. As for the Old Jia Family, while Lao Jia was still alive, they were still living cautiously and not provoking others. But this Xu Fugui was a true villain; he didn't have a single bottom line for being a human! He Yuzhu believed that a hypocrite was much better than a true villain.

"Old Lady," He Yuzhu leaned in closer, looking a bit embarrassed but also a bit cunning as he whispered, "Today... I... 'sold' you out once."

The Deaf Old Lady raised her cloudy old eyes and squinted at him: "Oh? How did you 'sell' me out? Tell this old woman and let me hear."

"I told Yan Bugui in the front yard that you personally told me that the old rascal Xu Fugui sold my father out to the Japanese devils! Actually, this was something I pried out of my father when he was dealing with that translator. But I was afraid Yan Bugui wouldn't believe me, so... so I said you heard it with your own ears!" After he finished speaking, he carefully watched the old lady's expression.

Upon hearing this, the Deaf Old Lady was so angry that she dropped the needlework in her hands, her withered fingers trembling as she pointed at He Yuzhu: "You little bastard! You're trying to frame people and you picked me? I'm a deaf person! My ears are so bad I can't even hear thunder! How could I hear what he was whispering next door? You're putting me on the fire to roast!"

"Hehe," He Yuzhu quickly offered a smile to help the old lady calm down, "Old Lady, don't be anxious! Actually, many people in the courtyard, like Xu Damao and Liu Guangqi, have long been whispering behind your back, saying that your deafness is fake! They also say you're mysterious, keeping your door closed all day long, like some... like some old 'secret agent' often sending telegrams at home."

"Who? Who said that?" The Deaf Old Lady's cloudy eyes suddenly opened wide, shooting out sharp light, and her voice rose a few notches.

"Your memory is really not that great. I already told you it was Xu Damao and Liu Guangqi, and you're still asking. I think that even when you were young, your memory wasn't any better; you definitely couldn't be a 'secret agent'!"

"You little bastard, are you making fun of me!"

"How could I dare!"

The Deaf Old Lady was silent for a moment, then said earnestly: "Zhuzi, remember one thing from this old woman: stay away from that little brat of the Xu Family! Like father, like son!"

After coming out of the old lady's room, He Yuzhu strolled to the Dian'anmen area to listen to storytelling at a tea house. His main purpose was still to inquire about the latest news regarding the robbery of the foreign firm, and, believe it or not, he really gained something.

That is, the news of the Japanese foreign firm being robbed had already spread, and it was very bizarre and strange, with all sorts of versions. The most outrageous claim was that even Huang Daxian couldn't stand it anymore and had confiscated the Japanese devils' belongings.

Besides that, portraits of the suspects in the robbery of the foreign firm were posted on many busy streets. He Yuzhu took a look, and they were actually a bit of an improvement, looking much better than the previous one.

After wandering around the streets enough, he went to a butcher shop and bought two jin of pork belly with a mix of fat and lean meat.

Returning home, he rolled up his sleeves and efficiently started the fire, sliced the meat, and prepared the seasoning.

Before long, a plate of Twice Cooked Pork with the fragrance of bean paste was out of the pan!

As Shen Guizhi ate the long-awaited white rice and Twice Cooked Pork served by her son, tears rolled down without warning and dripped into the bowl: "Although I haven't eaten yet, just smelling this aroma, I feel like you've learned six parts of your father's skills."

"My father hasn't cooked Twice Cooked Pork at home for many years. Do you think he's really poor, or did he spend all his money in the Badahutong?"

He Yuzhu said this to probe; he really didn't have any memory of He Daqing's vices, but from what he saw in the TV show, it was a fact that he ran off with Bai Guafu.