Chapter 595: Grain

He Yuzhu lowered his voice and said to Man Yatou, who was still stunned, "Girl, get out of the car quickly and hide behind that rock! There are snipers ahead, coming for us; I'm going to take care of them."

Upon hearing this, Man Yatou's eyes sharpened. She pushed the car door open and lunged out, rolling upon landing and then crawling forward, moving behind the rock in a few swift, clean motions.

Having practiced martial arts with He Yuzhu during this time, her skills had indeed improved.

Seeing her safely hidden, He Yuzhu's figure flickered. Using the cover of mountain rocks and trees, he moved silently toward the snipers like a nimble civet cat.

The car had stopped suddenly, and someone had gotten out; the two snipers lying in ambush ahead were bewildered.

The younger one lowered his voice and asked, "Lao Peng, what do we do? Should we retreat?"

Lao Peng squinted at the foot of the mountain and shook his head: "We can't retreat; it's impossible for us to have been exposed..."

Before he could finish speaking, He Yuzhu had already appeared less than ten meters away from them.

He raised the Mosin-Nagant equipped with a Silencer, barely aiming—

"Puff! Puff!"

Two muffled sounds, blood sprayed from both heads simultaneously, and the men fell straight down.

He Yuzhu immediately used the system for Scanning the surroundings, confirming there were no other enemies within six hundred meters before stepping forward to search their bodies.

Aside from some cash, there were no identification documents on either of them.

He Yuzhu frowned: They were definitely secret agents, but why were there only two? Could there be an ambush further ahead?

With no time to overthink, he pushed the two corpses into a mountain ravine and turned back.

Man Yatou was still lying behind the rock, her eyes wide, scanning the surroundings vigilantly.

"It's taken care of, let's go."

Man Yatou was stunned, staring at him blankly, "Brother Zhuzi, you took care of it that fast?"

He Yuzhu nodded and said, "There were only two of them, but I still feel like there might be an ambush ahead."

Outskirts of the capital, Zhang Village.

The sixteen-millimeter film reel creaked as it turned, and the movie "Reconnaissance Across the Yangtze" was at a tense moment on the screen.

Xu Damao sat beside the projector, so thin his cheekbones protruded; he was yawning repeatedly while showing the film, his eyelids fighting to stay open.

There were quite a few people watching the movie, but every one of them had a sallow complexion.

Over the past half-year, the fine grain in the production brigade had long since run out, and the coarse grain was in short supply; now they were all relying on mixed flour, two-grain flour, and dried sweet potato flour to get by.

Xu Damao's previous business of hauling grain from the village to the city to trade for goods had also gone bust—the village itself had no grain left.

Team Leader Li begged him every day to bring back some grain from the black market, but the brigade was dirt poor; what could they use to buy it?

When Xu Damao occasionally brought back some cornmeal, it was only to trade for eggs or mountain goods with them... business was becoming harder and harder to do.

Grain was tight in the city too, and Xu Damao's own household was having a hard time as well.

In the entire Siheyuan, only the He Family could secretly eat fine grain, but they didn't dare to make it known.

Meat was bought from outside by Chen Xueru and added quietly.

It wasn't out of fear of anything else, but because eating too well in these times easily invited jealousy and brought trouble upon oneself.

After finishing the movie and returning to his room, Xu Damao's stomach growled like thunder.

He glanced at his watch; there was still an hour until twelve o'clock, and he muttered to himself, "When will these days ever end..."

When it reached twelve o'clock at night, he climbed out of the back window and knocked on Xie Guafu's door in the dark.

Xie Guafu opened the door a crack, and seeing it was him, quickly let him in.

As soon as Xu Damao entered the room, he spotted a bowl of wontons on the table, steaming hot, the fragrance drilling straight into his nose.

He sat down with a thud, ate a wonton, and his eyes immediately lit up: "Xie Xiaolan, where did you get the eggs?"

"It was given by Zhang Mao's family's San Yatou." Xie Guafu leaned in and lowered her voice, "That girl is amazing; she set up a small chicken farm deep in the mountains."

"What?" Xu Damao's chopsticks paused, "How is that possible?"

Xie Guafu said, "That girl found a big cave in the mountains with a spring inside. Ordinary people don't dare go deep into the mountains, but her brother has a gun and took her inside to raise dozens of chickens. Don't you dare tell Team Leader Li about this."

Xu Damao's eyes darted: "Raised dozens of chickens? Are the eggs for sale?"

Xie Guafu nodded and handed over a slip of paper: "Why were you able to eat eggs? It was because San Yatou asked me to ask you if you could trade for some things in the city."

"That's definitely possible!" Xu Damao put down his chopsticks and took the slip of paper to look closely.

Aside from small items like cloth, soap, and matches, it actually listed a request for an enamel basin.

Xu Damao frowned: "An enamel basin is too big and hard to carry. I can get the other small things. How many eggs can she provide?"

"Ten jin," Xie Guafu said.

"That's great!" A smile finally appeared on Xu Damao's face.

He wasn't short on money, but in this day and age, even with money, you couldn't buy decent eggs.

Ten jin of eggs—he definitely wouldn't sell them when he got back; he'd keep them to nourish himself.

Xie Guafu said, "Damao, come with me to the east end of the village later to grind some wheat."

Xu Damao nodded: "Grind a bit more tonight; my family's white flour has run out too."

"Alright. Damao, if you hadn't told me to store grain last year, this year would have been miserable." Xie Guafu still felt a lingering fear.

"Who do you think I am? If I were born in the Three Kingdoms era, even if I couldn't be Zhuge Liang, I'd at least be a Sima Yi." Xu Damao lifted his chin with pride.

Xie Guafu curled her lip: "Sima Yi was a treacherous official."

Xu Damao smiled and said nothing, stuffing the last wonton into his mouth and drinking the soup until it was clean.

"Let's go, let's go now!"

The two of them each carried twenty jin of wheat on their backs and walked toward the east end of the village.

Before they even reached the stone mill, they saw a woman with a half-grown child pushing the mill.

Xie Guafu quickly pulled Xu Damao back and hid in the shadows: "Someone is using it, don't go over yet!"

Xu Damao muttered in a low voice: "There are sharp people in the village too!"

Xie Guafu crept forward a few steps, hiding behind a tree to peek.

After watching for a while, she returned and whispered into Xu Damao's ear: "It's Zhang Zongwang's wife; her husband is in the Ministry, so she likely had someone buy the grain for her."

Over half an hour later, the mother and son swept the millstone clean, shouldered their bags, and slipped away quietly.

Only then did Xu Damao and his companion run over, hurriedly pouring the wheat onto the millstone and starting to push the mill.

The stone mill creaked as it turned, moonlight spilled onto the village path, and everything around was deathly quiet.

A wolf's howl occasionally drifted from afar, only to quickly return to silence.

Xu Damao had only been pushing for a short while before he was covered in sweat, panting like an ox.

Xie Guafu, however, was full of energy and teased: "Damao, it's not that I want to lecture you, but you really should train; your stamina isn't even as good as mine."

"I've been drained dry by you, haven't I?" Xu Damao panted heavily, reaching out to wrap his arms around Xie Guafu's waist to push forward.

"Don't be like this, it's not good if someone sees us." Xie Guafu twisted her body.

"What's there to fear? Who in this village doesn't know about us?" Xu Damao said, not caring at all.

"You might be fine, but I still have to live in this village!"

Over an hour later, the two bags of flour were finally milled.

Each of them shouldered a bag and walked back through the darkness.

Upon returning to Xie Guafu's house, she hung up the black curtains, turned up the oil lamp, and began to sift the flour with a fine sieve.

Under the dim yellow lamplight, Xie Guafu's curvaceous body swayed rhythmically with the motion of sifting, and the fine flour fell with a rustle, like a thin layer of snow.

Beads of sweat rolled down her neck, soaking her collar.

Xu Damao leaned against the doorframe watching, his Adam's apple bobbing; he walked over, wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, and reached out to help hold the sieve.

"Go away, it tickles!" Xie Guafu twisted her body and bumped him with her backside.

This bump sent a surge of desire straight through Xu Damao.

Not only did he not let go, he held her even tighter, leaning his lips to her ear and breathing hot air onto her neck: "Let's do it together, it'll be faster."

Xie Guafu turned her head and bit his ear.

"Damao, are you acting like a fool again?"

Xu Damao didn't answer, one hand already sliding down along her waist.

Xie Guafu struggled twice but couldn't break free, cursing under her breath: "You shameless wretch... the flour isn't even finished sifting yet..."

The flame of the oil lamp flickered, casting two intertwined shadows on the wall that swayed back and forth.