Chapter 27: Chapter 27: Colluding to Conduct a Search
Her younger brother was practically Zhao Nuanyue’s pillar of support; she absolutely could not let anything happen to him.
"Where did you go?" Zhao Nuanyue asked frantically. "Didn’t I tell you not to wander too far from me? Why didn’t you listen?"
Zhao Nuanyang grew flustered by his sister’s fierce tone. He timidly pulled two duck eggs from his pocket, held them up to his sister, and said, "Eggy! Yummy!"
"Ah?" Zhao Nuanyue was taken aback. "These look like duck eggs. Where did you get them?"
Seeing that his sister wasn’t angry anymore, Zhao Nuanyang pointed behind him and said, "There are so many!"
It was the first time Zhao Nuanyang had ever spoken a four-word sentence. He looked at his sister expectantly, waiting for her praise.
"Then take me to see," Zhao Nuanyue said. Following behind Zhao Nuanyang, she discovered that there were actually a lot of duck eggs here, and wild ducks as well.
’We can finally have a good meal.’ She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten any kind of egg.
Zhao Nuanyue called over Yang Guanghui, Wang Yuan, and Li Qiong. Together, they gathered a lot of duck eggs and even caught a few wild ducks.
Of course, they did all this in secret.
The rules these days were a bit strange. Even though the items were technically ownerless, you couldn’t take them for yourself; they had to be turned over to the village.
That evening, they all stared at the basin on the floor, which held one hundred seventy or eighty duck eggs, and at the few wild ducks. They didn’t know if they should turn everything in or hide it and eat it themselves in secret.
No one dared to make a decision on their own.
"What should we do?" Yang Guanghui swallowed. "If we turn it all in, all we’ll get to do is drool."
"But if we don’t, and someone finds out later, we’ll be dragged out for re-education." Wang Yuan was timid. She had seen people in the village get caught for petty theft, and after what she had been through, she knew there were bad people in the village, which made her even more scared.
Zhao Nuanyang looked at the duck eggs, not understanding why everyone was unhappy. They had all been so happy just a moment ago. ’Eggy yummy.’
"Why don’t we keep some of the duck eggs? After all, cooking eggs doesn’t create much of a smell, so no one will notice. But roasting a duck? The aroma is too strong; we’d be easily discovered," Li Qiong suggested. She didn’t dare to keep everything either.
"Nuanyue, what do you think?" Yang Guanghui looked at Zhao Nuanyue. After all, she and her brother had been the first to find them, so they should hear her thoughts.
Zhao Nuanyue thought for a moment and said, "Nuanyang and I are young. We’ll listen to you all."
Yang Guanghui finally made the decision. They would keep one hundred duck eggs, twenty for each of them, and secretly bury them. The rest would be turned over to the village. That way, no one could find fault with them.
"Nuanyang, if anyone asks if you have any eggs at home, you say no, that we turned them all over to the village," Zhao Nuanyue instructed. Though her brother didn’t talk much, that didn’t mean he couldn’t talk. If someone managed to trick the truth out of him, they would all be in trouble!
However, when the group brought the wild ducks and eggs to the village office, they happened to find Wang Dadan in one of the two earthen houses there. Li Siming was with him. The two were partners in crime, and whenever they were together, they were definitely up to no good.
Because Wang Dadan hadn’t been allowed to "get his fill" to his satisfaction, he’d been dragging his feet on the matter of the job recruitment quotas. Li Siming had no choice but to bribe Wang Dadan with his family’s savings.
And Wang Dadan was quite blatant about it, taking everything offered without a shred of courtesy.
Just as it looked like Wang Dadan was about to agree, these people suddenly showed up, making Li Siming fume with frustration. ’They always ruin everything.’
Since only Li Siming was there and knew Wang Dadan’s true nature, Wang Dadan’s gaze was incredibly insolent as he looked the three female volunteers up and down. But the light in the room was dim, so the others couldn’t see clearly.
Yang Guanghui put on a placating smile and said, "Uncle Li, we were out gathering reed catkins to make shoes today and found duck eggs and wild ducks at the bottom of a dry riverbed. We collected them to turn over to the village."
’Well now, what a find!’
Li Siming’s mind was already scheming, and over on the side, Wang Dadan was practically drooling. Even with his illicit income, he couldn’t afford to eat meat and eggs every single day!
"Everything belongs to the state. It is correct to turn in what you find to the village commune," Li Siming said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. His gaze drifted unconsciously to the items, already wondering how he could claim them for himself.
"Is this all of it?" Wang Dadan asked deliberately. "You didn’t hide any for yourselves, did you? Let me tell you, hoarding is wrong, and it’s illegal. If I find out you’ve hidden anything, I will punish you."
Yang Guanghui was fuming inside but couldn’t show it here. He forced another smile. "Of course, we know that. We turned everything in. We didn’t hide anything!"
"Whether you’ve hidden anything isn’t for you to say. It has to be checked," Wang Dadan said with a chuckle. Now he had a perfectly legitimate excuse to go poke around the Dragon King Temple.
’Oh my, if I could just happen to swipe a couple of pieces of fragrant women’s underwear, that would be even better.’
Yang Guanghui and the others were furious. ’Did we do something wrong by turning things in?’ These men were clearly trying to make trouble for them!
Zhao Nuanyue, who had stayed outside, hadn’t gone in. Hearing their conversation, she knew that not only would they get no praise for turning in the items, but they would also be intimidated. Fuming with indignation, she took Zhao Nuanyang and ran as fast as she could toward the village chief Miao’s house.
As it happened, Li Guihua was also at Uncle Miao’s house. Zhao Nuanyue ran up, panting, and said, "Uncle Miao, Aunt Li, you have to help us! We went to the ditch to gather some reed catkins for shoes and found duck eggs and wild ducks. We brought them to the office, but those two insisted we hid some and now they want to search our living quarters..."
When Miao Dahai heard this, he cursed inwardly. ’Wang Dadan must be up to no good again!’
"Don’t you worry, we’ll go over and have a look right now," Uncle Miao quickly replied. He followed Zhao Nuanyue and Zhao Nuanyang to the end of the village. He couldn’t let anything bad happen.
As they approached, they could hear Li Siming’s sarcastic voice from inside the office. "You won’t let us search, which obviously means you have a guilty conscience. If you didn’t hide anything, why would you be so nervous?"
"That’s right," Wang Dadan added, gloating. "If you want to prove your innocence, then let me take some people to have a look. After a search, we’ll know whether you’ve hidden anything or not."
Hearing this, Miao Dahai grew even angrier.
’Even if they did hide a little, it’s only human nature. No one else in the village turns in everything they find. A token contribution is enough, and everyone knows it. Did Wang Dadan and Li Siming really have to take things this far?’
"Yang Guanghui, all of you have done a fine job. You deserve praise," Uncle Miao’s voice came from outside, quelling some of Yang Guanghui’s anger. "Director Li, count how many duck eggs and wild ducks are here. Make a proper record of it. At the end of the year, they can receive money for this."
’Wang Dadan and Li Siming, a pair of criminals, bullying a few young people who are far from home! If this is how things are, how am I supposed to manage these youths from the city? How am I supposed to manage the village!’
