Chapter 602: Chapter 602: The Abnormal Shepherd_1
"Young man, are you here to visit relatives?"
The shepherd, smoking under the tree, glanced at the bread in Li Qing’s hand and asked.
Li Qing chuckled and replied casually, "Indeed, here to visit relatives. Just tired and taking a break."
He knew nothing about the village and didn’t want to chat with him too much, lest he give himself away.
Unexpectedly, the shepherd, who looked to be in his thirties, was quite talkative, "Crossing mountains and ridges really isn’t easy. Which family’s relatives are you in the village?"
"I have a distant uncle here in this village," Li Qing said vaguely. "Well, with the wedding coming up, even a distant uncle has to be invited, right?"
"That’s true, not inviting an uncle for a wedding would definitely earn you some scolding," the shepherd said with a laugh. "Traversing these mountains is tough. Which family are you going to? I’ll show you a shortcut to get there more quickly."
Li Qing suddenly felt a bit troubled.
He tried every means to dodge the question, yet this guy was like a plaster that just wouldn’t come off and insisted on getting an answer.
"I know a shortcut; just follow down that ditch and it leads right there," Li Qing gestured nonchalantly to a path nearby, "Though I’ve only been here once as a kid, I’ve always been good at remembering routes. I have a vague recollection of it."
The shepherd glanced in that direction, "Ah, going down there leads to the Li family and the Wang family. Which one of them is your uncle’s family?"
Li Qing’s mouth twitched fiercely; damn it, do you really have to pry until the end?
Does this person have some kind of problem?
"Ah... It’s..." Li Qing was about to make something up when he suddenly noticed the shepherd’s wrist inadvertently revealed.
It was very clean, with a gold watch on it.
"Nice watch you’ve got there; must be worth a lot of money, right?" He immediately diverted the topic. Are shepherds so well-off nowadays?
The shepherd’s expression became a bit unnatural, he let out a dry chuckle, pulled his sleeve down and said, "Worth what money?"
"What expensive thing could a mere shepherd wear? My kid bought me this watch. I don’t know how much it cost exactly, but at most it was just a few tens to a hundred yuan."
"That watch of yours can’t be bought for just a few tens to a hundred yuan," Li Qing thought to himself with some doubt.
Although he had only glanced at it for a moment, the craftsmanship of the watch was clearly not cheap.
Moreover, he noticed that the cigarette the guy was smoking wasn’t ordinary – it was a Huazi brand.
A shepherd smoking Huazi and wearing a gold watch... Can he even be considered a shepherd?!
True, some families in the village were doing well and had nicer things nowadays, but few would splurge on Huazi cigarettes.
"Young man, that’s because you don’t know. I once bought a piece of clothing online for a few tens of yuan, and it looks quite decent when you wear it," the shepherd chuckled, and then suddenly spoke in a hoarse whisper, "You young people these days usually travel by car, how did you end up crossing the mountain by foot?"
"No choice, poor!" Li Qing gave a simple and straightforward answer.
"I’d love to save my legs the trouble too, but what can you do if you can’t afford a car? Brother, you seem to make decent money from shepherding. How much do you earn?"
"Earn money my ass, just scraping by for food and clothing, not starving to death," the shepherd shook his head.
"But isn’t the price of sheep pretty strong this year?" Li Qing inquired.
He had finally managed to divert the conversation and gained some initiative.
Moreover, as he observed the shepherd, the more he watched, the stronger his feeling that something was amiss.
Although the man’s face was covered in dust, one could tell that his skin was naturally good, only that his complexion was a bit darker.
Li Qing knew very well what a true shepherd’s skin was like, and it was definitely not good.
Skin that wasn’t cracked or weather-beaten due to constant exposure to the wind and sun was quite remarkable as it was.
Furthermore, the skin below this fellow’s neck was quite fair,
his face and neck were completely different in color.
That is to say, only his face was tanned while his body was neatly maintained.
In Sanhe Village, whether it was an old or a young shepherd, because they always ran about in the mountains, there wasn’t a single place on their bodies that was fair.
Even though they would wash themselves every now and then, what was dark remained dark.
While Li Qing was considering these doubts about the shepherd, the man laughed and said, "Sheep prices are crap. I can’t even buy a toilet in the city with the price of one sheep. I’m not well-educated and can’t do anything else, so I must make do with this job to scrape together a living."
"I think you’re being modest, brother. Managing to scrape together a living and still smoke Hua Zi, I smoke often too, but I cringe at anything over ten yuan," Li Qing said casually, laughing, the more he watched, the more he felt that this guy wasn’t normal, not at all like a shepherd.
"Ah, that? It was given to me by someone else. I couldn’t afford it otherwise!" the shepherd said.
Li Qing frowned, that did seem like a rationale...
Like Tang Jianmin, who was always running around at construction sites, yet smoked Furong King, which were basically always gifted by Li Qing.
"Brother, your sheep are running away!" Li Qing suddenly noticed the commotion among the sheep and quickly pointed it out.
The man glanced over and immediately waved his hand and said, "I can’t chat with you guys, I have to round up the sheep."
With that, he took off down the slope at a run.
Li Qing watched as he charged into the gully after the sheep that had run farthest, his expression suddenly darkened, "Brother Gong, this kid isn’t a shepherd. I’m a bit suspicious now. Let’s catch him first when we have the chance; there might be an unexpected discovery."
"Qingzi, he’s just a shepherd. Are you being too suspicious?" Brother Gong said softly.
Li Qing gestured toward the bottom of the hill, "Damn it, with the sheep right here, why did he run all the way down there to chase after them? He’s obviously never herded sheep before. When the lead sheep move, the rest, no matter how far, will follow neatly."
"It’s true that a large herd could lose a few stragglers, but they would catch up after a couple of calls over such a short distance."
"Moreover, this guy kept asking us whose place we were visiting, flaunting a gold watch while smoking. Don’t you find that suspicious?"
Brother Gong let out a soft hiss, then after a moment scratched his head, "These things could really have been gifts from others."
Lin Qing was left momentarily speechless, "I just feel something’s not right with this guy, never mind all that, let’s catch him first. If there’s nothing amiss, even better, we’ll just compensate him and settle it; if there’s something, I feel we could soon find a clue regarding Lü Zong."
Although all these doubts could indeed be reasonably explained,
Li Qing was more inclined to trust his own intuition.
As Sheriff Cao would say, it’s better to err on the side of action; with enough money, one can always take a chance.
